Chuck’s Commentary - MAGA Influencers Go To War With Each Other + Epstein Gets The Headlines… The Destruction At HHS SHOULD - The Chuck ToddCast

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
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that code. Hello there, I'm Chuck Todd. Welcome to another

(01:52):
episode of the Chuck Podcast. Let's just say, in my
personal sports fandom, I experienced the old wide world of sports,
full of victory, agne, agony of defeat, all in the
same day. The thrill of Miami's victory. I will tell
you more at the U during my college football update

(02:13):
and get into the details. My picks, my my nit picks.
I have plenty of them, particularly in the Miami offense.
But there are some observations on that game that if
you weren't there, you don't fully appreciate the game, and
you're probably are stupidly believing Ohio State's gonna blow Miami

(02:35):
out because that ain't gonna happen that, I will guarantee you,
but I will explain when I get to that. But
of course the agony of defeat was the most bizarre.
If you know, when you do all these, you know,
the dumbest thing that has been added to televised sports
is the so and so and so team as a

(02:56):
ninety seven percent chance to win. Well, I mean, you know,
to quote Hans Solo, don't ever give me the odds,
you know, type of thing, because that is not why
any of us watch sports. All right. Yes, there's a
handful of gamblers that may watch sports just to make
sure they have bet the odds correctly, but most of

(03:16):
the time we watch sports for the improbable, not the probable,
and so those stats are sort of weirdly annoying. All
that set the fact that the Bears were down ten
at the two minute warning, had to make a field
goal and swirling win recovering on sidekick, and then they
stupidly don't go for two on the time on the

(03:37):
touchdown and play for overtime. It worked out for them,
but it was one of the more shocking decisions because
it kept the Packers back into that game. But it's
just at some point that except I am reminded of
myself that regular season NFL, no matter how important that
game is, pales in comparison to college football. You have

(04:00):
this kind of when you care this much about a
college football team, and anybody who's a college football fanatic,
remember fanas short for fanatic, You probably know what I mean.
But I will save the college football as I always promise.
For the end of the podcast, let me give you
the full rundown of what we got here and what
we got all week. This is a holiday week. Instead

(04:20):
of three downloads this week, there will be two, although
there'll actually be a third download, but it'll be sort
of a flashback, if you will. An interview I did
six a few months ago that we think is especially
relevant now. That will come later this week, but I
will have two new episodes this week. I also have
my podcast time Machine, and we're going to We're not

(04:46):
going to go that far back. We're going to go
back to the very early nineties. And I'll just give
you one word clue. It's pretty easy one if you're
of a certain age, peristroke, and we'll leave it at that.
I'll do a little Q and A. Let me get
into a few things here, obviously. Look, the most dominant

(05:07):
story of the weekend is for sort of one set
of political junkies. And I say one set because I
don't count my I believe I'm a political junkie. I
don't count myself consumed with the Epstein store. I feel
like I know the broad strokes of the Epstein story.
There's no doubt there might be details that embarrass individuals,

(05:30):
but I think we know the broad strokes. What are
the broad strokes? Rich guy gets access because he's rich
and has a plane. And too many famous people who
want free rides, too many politicians who want free plane
rides and big donor checks. Look the other way at
shitty character people. Okay, bottom line we've seen this is

(05:51):
this is, this goes back forever. If you've got enough money,
you can essentially bribe your way out of bad character traits.
That's really what we have here. Here's a rich guy
who used his wealth to pretend he had powerful friends
and famous celebrity people. And why did these celebrities and

(06:11):
powerful people get suckered into Epstein's world Because they're consumed
with their own celebrity and they enjoyed sort of the
trappings of wealth, the trappings of exclusivity. And I'll keep
going back free private plane rides. So it is not

(06:31):
to me, it is not. I'm not here to excuse
anybody that is connected to Jeffrey Epstein. Actually just the opposite.
To me, it's sort of like, great, it's an MRI.
I'm going to find out who's high character, who's low character.
And for me, your explanation. You know, at the end

(06:52):
of the day, you wanted to hang out with the
rich people, you wanted to be in the celebrity. Anybody
can be suckered into it. It is a lot of
fun been to some of these exclusive VIP opportunities at
big events and supporting events. Don't get me wrong, it's
pretty cool and all of us I think, whenever we've
had that brief moment of access behind the velvet rope,

(07:12):
it's really cool to be behind the velvet rope. And
then sometimes you get behind the velvet rope and you think,
why is there a velvet rope here? Should there even
be one at all? But anyway, I am digressing, But
what are we learning from the Epstein files. Well, if
you run the government, you get to you know, and
you decide you're going to follow the law. And it
looks like the the Justice Department is, you know, going

(07:35):
to follow the law on their own pace. They didn't
nothing in the laws said what order they had to
release the files, and they're taking advantage of this. Am
I surprised? I don't think any of us should be
surprised that the first tranch of files would be which
was going to get the most attention, would have the
least amount of Trump in it and the most amount

(07:55):
of Bill Clinton in it. Right this is you know,
it's like being shocked that there's game going on. And
if you need to know what that reference is, just
go watch the movie Costablanca. And by the way, I
don't care how old you are, go watch the movie Costablanca.
First of all, it'll help you understand half the references
of your parents and grandparents if you've never seen the movie.
But second, it's a really good movie. It's still a

(08:17):
really good movie. It holds up pretty well. Yes, I'm
not going to get into the parts about personal relationships,
but the sort of the larger concept of the film,
it holds up pretty well. So go watch it so
you can understand some of these references. But the point
is is that I don't think we should be surprised

(08:39):
that the Trump Justice Department is if they feel as
if they will eventually release all the stuff that includes Trump,
it will be probably in as low of a profile
day as you can possibly have, And so I suspect
will continue to see the as whatever early stuff they

(09:01):
can that they will frontload anything that embarrasses Democrats and
backload anything that embarrasses Trump or any allies of Donald Trump.
I say allies of Donald Trump, because remember they'll be
Republicans early on in this but if they're not allies
of Trump, they'll have no problem trying to embarrass those folks.
And of course you do have the Democrats on the

(09:23):
House Oversight Committee who've been doing their own version of
trickling out sort of information that is, you know, emphasizes
stuff that makes Trump or people that Democrats don't like
look bad, like we saw with the David Brooks situation.
David Brooks gave an explanation saying it was the only
time he'd ever attended event with Epstein at it didn't

(09:44):
quite know. I think it's a plausible explanation. I think
people you look at a track record over time, right,
being in a room once with Jeffrey Epstein shouldn't be
an indidable defense. It's when you've consistently done it, when
you knew that there were questions about him, when you
knew sort of as Donald to use the words of

(10:07):
Donald Trump, he kind of likes them young. Yeah, it's
not as if this was a hidden secret. But again,
people look the other way because he was rich and
he was offering them free playing rides. So I'm not
surprised that what we're seeing. You shouldn't be surprised. And
this is one of those stories that if you really
care about it, you're going to find something in this

(10:29):
release that reinforces your view of all of it. And
if you've noticed I didn't say, which that's the point.
It will simply reinforce your view of all of it.
The question is what are the facts. There will be
individual people whose character I think correctly gets essentially demoted
in polite society by what we see and what we hear.

(10:50):
I am sorry, Here's what I hope the real fallout
is from this. Can we make character matter again? Do
we now see that character is destiny? That character does count?
Because you know here we are obsessing over the Epstein
story sort of collectively is sort of in the in

(11:11):
the more populist media world. And I say populous, I
mean that the influencer culture and this or that, and
certainly mainstream media and the and the fight for clicks
and the in the gaming of algorithmic media. Epstein is
this sort of you know, sticky story that people want
to get to trust. How do I know it's I
always know it? How do I know it's sticky? When
I'm with family and people who are who I don't

(11:33):
consider huge political junkies ask me about certain stories. This
is one that they're asking me about. By the way,
speaking of that, I had a friend of mine the
other day during the during the earlier part of the week,
ask me, this is an old old friend of mine.
Did Trump really pave over the rose garden? And he

(11:57):
is not, And this is my friend is not a
huge political junkie. I mean, he's got a great life,
runs it he's been sort of runs a car dealership
and just lives a different life, doesn't is it consumed
by politics? Right? But is smart and follows current events
and sort of pays attention, don't get me wrong, but

(12:18):
doesn't sit here and pay attention to some of these things.
And you know, it's like the rose garden thing. You know,
some of you that are probably listening to this podcast,
Oh I knew he paved over the rose guard. Yes,
because you're kind of into it, right, you've chosen to
subscribe to my podcast. You're kind of into politics. But
it was a reminder of how much of this sort
of ridiculous stuff Trump has done that people haven't noticed

(12:42):
or perhaps didn't really believe. Right, you think, no way,
he paved over the rose garden. Oh, yes, he paved
over the rose garden. He turned he turned out the
area outside the Oval office into some sort of nineteen
fifties era Florida patio. I think the only thing missing
is a tarazzo and uh and the umbrellas. But other

(13:03):
than that, that's what he's done. You know. Look, I've
grown up in Florida, spending a lot of time in Texas.
I love me a good patio bar, don't get me wrong,
But I don't think anybody wanted the White House turned
into a patio bar, which is kind of what he
turned the Rose Garden into. But it was such an
incredible reminder about what doesn't penetrate, what doesn't break through.
So Epstein breaks through. You know what didn't break through

(13:27):
this week was uh, was a story about public health.
So I had, as you know, a few months ago,
I was very focused almost week to week about all
the damage that I believed Robert F. Kennedy Junior was

(13:48):
doing to the nation's health, putting our children in harm's way.
And now we have sort of, we do have a
pretty good report that puts it to it. And Peter Odez,
who is one of the world's leading epandemiologists, he is
somebody that was a frequent expert I used during our
COVID coverage back in the NBC days. Just he's a

(14:10):
scientist first Okay, Now he's an outspoken scientist. He really
bothers him when you have people not using science in
order to persuade or gas like or mislead the public.
And one of his tweets caught my eye where he
talked about so the HHETS put out a put out

(14:32):
a tweet if you will, that said, let me quote
it accurately. So HHS puts out a tweet that says
you are biggest Maha wins this year. And Peter Otez said,
biggest Maha wins. Hey measles returned after twenty five years,
whooping cough is back. The National Pandemic Preparedness canceled along

(14:53):
with mRNA technology. America's children are now at risk for
chronic appatitis and liver cancer, a swing and a miss
on autism, and the CDC is in tatters. Now, if
you're a proponent of Bobby Kennedy here Junior on this stuff,
if you are a vaccine skeptic, you may think Peter
Opez is the devil, and you may think, oh, he
is spinning and he is this or that. But the

(15:15):
fact of the matter is what he said is backed
up by facts, and what HHS has done is not.
So let's start with the extraordinarily alarming numbers. And this
to me is nine thousand times more important than the
Epstein files. And I'm not trying to belittle the victims here,

(15:37):
but at the end of the day, what this administration
is doing to our children in the area of public
health should alarm folks. So we have now two thousand
confirmed cases of measles in the United States. Okay, we're
on the verge of losing our measles free status that
we've held since two thousand and it's not just whooping call,

(16:00):
which is a brutal respiratory infection, and those of us
at a certain age we never thought we were going
to get whooping cough. Why because we had a vaccine
for it. We have a vaccine for it, Okay, and
it is back with a vengeance. Now, HHS will say, well,
this is the reason that measles and whooping cough are
back is because the public doesn't trust public health or

(16:22):
the CDC. Yes, because of what you've done to public
health in the CDC. Bobby Kennedy Judy said, well, the
public doesn't trust it. Yeah, because somebody who's completely uninformed,
who speaking of character is destiny pretty much the lowest
character person you could put in office. Given his personal mean,
just think about the uncomfortable, gross and disgusting back and

(16:45):
force between him and his digital paramour, Olivia Newsy and
that whole. Look. I did not want to get into
the Liz of Newsy business, but Kennedy sort of roll
in it. This is, you know, a creepy seventy year
old guy who had his own really disturbing, disturbing relationship

(17:07):
with one of his wives that ended in her suicide.
This is a such a low character individual and he's
doing all of this. Look, the point is is that
this stuff it is. I bring it up because it
is a reminder why we should We should care about
the character of people that are in public offices, and
character should matter a lot. So, yes, there's a crisis

(17:31):
of trust when it comes to public health, all due
to one man and his crusader crazy and vengeance on
the public health entity. And it is Robert Kennedy Junior.
The fact that all of this is a whooping coffin
measles and we didn't have this at all. This is

(17:53):
made Look, there is one thing that collectively, both the
scientific community and those in the MAHA are giving them
a little bit of credit. And that is on the
issue of food dies. Okay. Doctor Otes and other mainstream
medical people agree that the US has been a bit
of a wild West when it comes to allowing certain

(18:14):
food dies in our foods compared to Europe. Europe much more,
much stricter on this stuff, much more careful on this stuff.
By the way, I just noticed, I'm obsessed with Cheerios.
They have a healthier version of fruit loops, essentially gluten
free fruit loops, if you will. And you could see

(18:34):
in the summer they had food dyed. Now they don't.
It's paler. They quote fruity. It doesn't pop out of
the bowl. But that's okay, tastes great. I like it.
It's one of my guilty pleasures at night. It's a
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(18:56):
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(20:26):
and the rates themselves may vary as well, but trust me,
life insurance is something you should really think about it,
especially if you've got a growing family. But while you
can give them credit for that, the fact that they
have not used take the issue of autism. Saying that
the science doesn't prove that vaccines don't cause autism. Okay,

(20:50):
but what science proves that it could be. There's been
no study that is said vaccines trigger autism. So because
you've yet to find a study that does it and doesn't,
it doesn't mean that it isn't scientifically proven yet that it.
You see, this is how gaslighting works, right, They sort

(21:10):
of makes your mind go, wait what, wait what the
fact of matters? No scientific study backs up the idea
that vaccines cause autism, and so then they change it.
But no scientific study backs up the idea that there's
an open question about it. There's only an open question
about it from people who just refuse to look at
the science. The scientific answers have said one thing and

(21:33):
then getting rid of mRNA technology. And this goes back
to what was poor messaging on the COVID vaccine. In fact,
I just did a media hit the other day for
a for a smaller news organization that was asking me, well,
didn't the media contribute to the public's mistru distrust of
public health? You know, I don't think the person is wrong.

(21:56):
There was a there were too many people who touted
the vaccine as a cure for COVID, out to the
vaccine as a shield for COVID. What the vaccine was,
and what, for instance, what I always emphasized at my
coverage of it, what every expert I would be very
careful in particular about asking the following question, Does this

(22:16):
prevent you from getting COVID? No? But it does is
it increases the likelihood that it is you get over
COVID faster, you're less likely to be hospitalized, which means
you're less likely to pass it on. It never said
it was a zero, And so what happened was a
few people sort of in characterizing it, well, do you
know this is going to go away? This is the

(22:37):
way to shield yourself. Look, it was a protection, right,
It's a ninety eight point six percent type of protection, right,
But it wasn't one hundred percent. It wasn't going to
prevent you from getting COVID. It was going to prevent
you from having COVID kill you. There is a huge difference.
It's more like the flu vaccine and how it was,

(22:58):
how it was communicated, how it was communicated between experts,
those of us in the media, back to you interpret it.
And so what happened is you had people who exploited
the and say, Aha, you said there'd be no more
COVID cases and I still got COVID. This vaccine doesn't work,

(23:19):
and that stuff went like wildfire. And this is what
is really sort of given mRNA vaccine's a bad name
when it is a technological marvel. And if we cut
why would we cut funding? Why would you cut funding
on a cutting edge technology. I understand if you want

(23:41):
to increase scrutiny of the research that comes out of this,
but why would you cut the funding and allow other
countries were the United States of America. We're the first
country in first world? Why would we intentionally put ourselves
behind on science intentionally? Put again, nobody is saying you

(24:01):
just take it as you go. If you want to
increase scrutiny of mRNA vaccines, be my guest. Okay, that
is helpful to everybody, but you just cut funding is
cutting off your nose's spece. It's almost like you don't
want to hear of the great breakthroughs that mRNA vaccines
might be able to create. So it is it is

(24:24):
when you see stories like what we see, we're really
one of the most devastating parts of the Trump administration
this year, all right, has been in the area of
public health. And yet this is sort of like it's
always kind of a sidebar conversation. It is never and
I think part of it is you've got plenty of

(24:44):
people who are uncomfortable with the technical aspects of the
debate don't want to get caught. Trust me, I'm always
constantly trying to make sure I'm saying these things correctly.
So I think people hesitate to jump into this debate
too much because of the technical aspect of it. They
don't want to say something that makes them look stupid.

(25:06):
But the fact is, let's just look at the results.
And ever since Bobby Kennedy Junior essentially became the face
of public health, fewer people are getting the visils vaccine.
We're now going to have fewer people getting a hepatitis
B vaccine. Fewer people are getting a whooping cop vaccine.
He is mainstreaming fringe ideas, fringe beliefs, fringe thoughts about

(25:30):
science that are just not backed up by actual facts
and figures, and it is putting kids in harm's way.
And ultimately, I still believe this is a suburban nightmare.
I think this is an underrated political issue, and I
think it's one. I think it's one that Republicans, particularly

(25:52):
in Capitol Hill, ought to be a bit more mindful
of speaking of things that I think are a weird moment.
And I wanted to talk about this a minute because
speaking like the Epstein Files, there's another story that I
just don't quite care about or get my arms about,
but I feel like I have to care about it

(26:13):
because I cover politics, and that is this dust up
within the world of Magan between Candace Owens, Ben Shapiro,
Barry Wise, Megan Kelly, all of this. You know, if
you know, you know, but if you don't, you don't.
And I consider myself somebody who really doesn't know. But

(26:36):
I have to know, so I do my best to
follow it pretty closely to try to understand it. But
what you're really seeing. And I think the best is
sort of what we're watching because a lot of elected
Republicans care a lot about what Tucker Carlson is saying,
what Candace Owens is saying, or what Megan Kelly is saying,

(26:56):
or some folks that are really kind of fringe people
to sort of normal Americans, right, the folks that are
not obsessed with politics every day. In fact, these are
people that have no name. ID was sort of the
broad swath of normal voters, right. Maybe they've heard of
Tucker Carlson, but Candace Owens, who's that? Right? They may

(27:17):
remember Megan Kelly from mainstream media days, Ben Shapiro, Oh,
they've seen some things about him, you know, maybe Barry
Wise now, But it's sort of these aren't sort of
well known figures to sort of a broad swath of
the middle. I know this because unlike the story like Epstein,
which did penetrate, you know, this story really hasn't penetrated.

(27:37):
But I've had a few people try to like, what
is this mess? Can you explain this? Candace owns and
all this stuff. And I think the best way to
think about it is that the MAGA influencer in fighting
that we're seeing right now is actually very similar to
sort of the relationship between the Democratic Party, say twenty
fourteen to twenty twenty two, to the groups, where it

(28:02):
felt like the party was more captured by the groups.
So if you look at sort of twenty fourteen to
twenty twenty two Democrats went through, you might call it
a great awokening. Right, the woke movement started to take off,
and it appears to be a mirror image of what
we're seeing in maga world right now, and especially in Republicans. Right,

(28:25):
they're very striking when you compare the groups on the
left to the influencers on the right and how they've
hijacked the conversation away from the average voter and sort
of the same thing that helped Republicans paint Democrats as
sort of, man, they're consumed with the groups, they don't
really care about you. Well, we're now seeing Republicans are
consumed with their influencers. Are they really care about you? Right? So,

(28:48):
from in twenty fourteen to twenty twenty two, the Power
Center and the Democratic Party were these groups, right, They
were the non profits or the activists, NGOs, the academic departments,
you know, always coming up, you know, with a new
way to described, to describe a group of people as
as victims of something. Well, in the right, that power

(29:10):
center is independent podcasters, it's X personalities, Twitter personalities, alternative
media mobiles, right, like Megan calit And what were these
groups trying to do. On the left, Well, they were
creating purity tests. Right, if you didn't use the latest terminology, right,
Latin X right, that was a creation of the groups,
didn't come from the actual Latino community. But if you

(29:32):
didn't use it, well you weren't you weren't awoke, you
were problematic. Well, on the right, it's sort of more
the loyalty test is if you don't believe the latest
conspiracy theory. You know, candae Owe's has wanted something to
do with Egyptian airplanes stalking the Kirks in some form
or another. I mean the point is the more I articulated,

(29:52):
the crazier it sounds. And you're like, these people have influence, Yeah,
they have influence. If you're not at least buying or
just asking questions on the latest conspiracy theory, then you're
part of the controlled opposition. You're bought and paid for. Right,
could be by the Jews, right, you're bought and paid
for by the pharmaceutical companies. You're bought and paid for

(30:13):
by the deep state. But that's sort of how that's
in the same way. You know, these groups sort of
shamed Democrats and what they were doing. Oh you're you know,
you're you're you're not woke, you don't really care. It's
a similar type of shaming. So what happened, Well, for
about ten years, Democratic politicians were petrified of their own

(30:36):
activist base. They were petrified of pissing off the groups
so that they would back off certain policy solutions because well,
the groups won't like that one, even if it was
going to be more popular or actually have a better
chance of passing. Well, now what you have with these
crazy maga influencers. Republican politicians are terrified of their influencer base,

(30:58):
and it leads them to entertain some fringe theories that
they shouldn't be entertaining and what normal voters find bizarre. So,
you know, it's interesting the right is currently late to
the party, I guess you could say in terms of
institutional capture, right, because for a long time, the Republican

(31:19):
Party was a top down organization, the RNC, Fox News,
maybe Heritage Foundation A. The structures completely change, right, there's
no more referee on the right anymore. In the Obama era,
the democratic referees were the activists, some of them were
in the media, some of them weren't. On the right.
Fox News was basically the referee. Now, if Fox says

(31:42):
something that the base doesn't like, the base just switches
to crazy right Tucker Carlson's network, Candice owns YouTube, you know,
maybe oan or something like that, And there's sort of
an incentive for like to find new weird ways to
capture the imaginations right. So democratic groups were incentivized to

(32:03):
find new forms of systemic oppression to stay relevant. Well,
right wing influencers are incentivized to find new conspiracies or
hidden truth to keep their subscribers paying. If you just
talk about marginal tax rates, you're not going to get
five million views. But if you talk about assassination plots
and Egyptian airplanes following mega influencers around, hey, guess what

(32:24):
you might be able to get five million people. And
then try to explain this though to the normal voters
right who haven't woke on the left or red pilled
on the right. So it did seem as if for
a decade, way too many Democratic politicians essentially subcontracted their brain,
if you will, to activist groups. Instead of talking to

(32:47):
a plumber in Ohio, right, they talked to the head
of a racial justice NGO in DC to find out
quote what voters wanted. Well, on the right, Republican politicians
are subcontracting their brain to influencers, and instead of talking
to a small business owner in Florida, they look at
what Charlie Kirker Nick Funte's is. You know, what's something

(33:08):
that about Charlie Kirk or Erica Kirk or Nick Fluntes
is on X to decide what their base may care about.
They've convinced themselves that the act somehow, their actual political
base cares about what some of these fringe figures think.
You know, and there may be a handful of grasstops,
but this gets to the feedback loop, right, And the

(33:29):
fact is the activists know how to make the politicians
seem as if they're hearing from the public when they're
really not. They're hearing from organized campaigns, either algorithms or
paid or or some sort of paid campaign of sorts,
And I have to be honest, there's a whole vacuum

(33:50):
here now. And I think in the same way that
I think that, I think the democratic attachment to the
groups is breaking. It's not broken yet, but I think
they're getting they're sobering up here, and you're seeing more
Democrats behave a lot more independently, think a little more independently.
I don't know if we see that right right now.
On the right, they seemed to still be a bit consumed.

(34:13):
What does Trump think a bit consumed? What do these
influencers think first rather than actually just talking to their
voters first on that side, And in that sense, it's
a form of audience capture, right And it's pretty clear
I think Democrats for about a decade were captured by
this wolk left. You saw it in the governance of

(34:33):
the first half of the Biden four years, particularly with
how they handled the border that was done by groups,
that was done so they didn't offend the groups rather
than just solving the problem and moving on. They eventually
figured out that the groups were wrong about this, but
they didn't start that process on the border until about

(34:55):
the last year eighteen months of the Biden presidency At
this point, I think the rights captured by this crazy right.
They're sort of so consumed, they've sort of forgotten the plot,
and that's the only reason to pay any attention to
what appears to be some sort of circle circular firing

(35:17):
squad here. I don't even know who's who stands where
anymore between your Candae Sowans, your Tucker Carlsons Berry wise
as you're making Kelly, you know, the shots across the bars.
There's accusations of anti Semitism here. I think there's some
real issues there, don't get me wrong, But it's a

(35:39):
It's what it really is. It's just a battle for attention.
It's a battle for clicks. So to me, the main
players that I'm all talking about here, I don't think
any of them are very honest. I think they just
simply care about their grift. They care about exploiting the
moment for maximum financial gain that they're part of an

(36:00):
independent podcasting network that they've developed because they're refugees from
what was a more mainstream version of media that they
were a part of. Think Tucker Carlson, Megan Kelly or
they just want this relevance and they don't like it
that Megan Kelly and Tucker Carlson from mainstream media are
taken there and they're going, oh yeah, well we can
go crazier than candae oms. So it's a I do

(36:25):
think it's it's the only reason to pay attention to
it is that it is I think, really putting Republicans,
you know, sort of the average elected Republican. They they
are they're way too consumed with what they're input. This
is exactly like what happened on the left. The left

(36:48):
got so consumed about the group's think they stopped worrying
about what voters think. Well, we now have elected Republicans
so consumed about what their influencers think that they've actually
forgotten about the voters. And I think that this is
something that could, you know, could end up becoming a yet,

(37:10):
especially when when the economy is not good, especially when
there's job displacement with the I. Instead of focusing on
those problems, they've been obsessed with this, right you can
it's it goes back to the infamous ad that worked
against Kamala Harris. She's for they them, he's for you. Well,
in this case, these republic elected Republicans seem to care

(37:31):
more about they them on their influencer side than the
rest of us in the actual voting electric. All right,
with that, I will sneak in a break. As you see,
I didn't even get to the whole Kennedy Center business.
And I'll tell you why, because you know, this is
this is Trump's brilliance with his buffoonery, which is you know,

(37:54):
if you if you sort of over index and complain
too much, how you put his name on a building
and it's on an arts building or it's on the
institute a piece, is this really a big deal? You know,
don't take your eye off the ball with the voters.
Look you. But at the same time, the guy's more
obsessed with manufacturing a legacy that is going to get
a erased the second he dies, rather than worrying about

(38:17):
lowering the cost of groceries for you. So look, I
happen to think all this, everything that's been done, all
of that, none of it is good politics, ran and
all of it is just going to accumulate. It is
it is one of those things. This is incremental and
I'm going to just go beat up the same metaphor
I use quite a bit. It is is this is

(38:40):
happening slowly until it ends up happening quickly. And we're
seeing this slow build of a movement that is about
to come is going. When it crashes, it's going to
crash hard, and it's going to seem like it happened quickly.
But we're in the middle of seeing a lot of it.
Whether it's the influencers becoming their own version of a
woke right and basically making elected Republicans way out of

(39:03):
touch with the average person. Right, that's happening. You've got
Trump so consumed with his own ego that he has
stopped worrying of being a populist for the people that
he said were the forgotten men and women of America.
He apparently has forgotten them when he thinks about life
at the Kennedy Center. All of this is accumulating, and

(39:24):
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promo code Toodcast for thirty percent off. All right, let's

(40:58):
go into the podcast time Machine for our little history
lesson of the week, and we are going back to
December twenty sixth, nineteen ninety one. For a reminder. How
do I pick my historical deep dives for the toodcast

(41:20):
time Machine. I just look at the week we are
in and look back in history for essentially this week
in history, but instead of calling it this week in history,
you do the podcast time Machine. So we're going back
to December twenty sixth, nineteen ninety one. It's pretty momentous
day in world history. It was the day that the
Soviet Union formally dissolved, officially ending the Cold War. On

(41:43):
December twenty seventh, Mikhail Gorbachev resigned as leader of said
Soviet Union, and so we thought the end of history.
But it's actually a pretty good reminder, and it's actually
go dovetails pretty well with the time machine episode. We

(42:03):
did a couple of weeks ago on the fall of
the Ottoman Empire, and how you know, some things are
still not resolved. Okay, And in the fall of the
Ottoman Empire and World War One, we haven't resolved War
War one. We resolved World War two more than we've
resolved World War One. Well, the collapse of the Soviet Union,
I would argue, is still unresolved. Right it is? It

(42:25):
is too I could it is too soon to declare
whether it was an historical positive or an historical negative.
Why do I say that, Well, let me let's go
back down. Let's go into the rabbit hole that is
the collapse of the Soviet Union. So it's late ninety
and the Soviet flag comes down over the Kremlin. The
Cold War ended, not with a bang, not with a war,

(42:49):
but simply with a resignation, right for Mikhail Gorbachev, and
we all exhaled because for the first time in nearly
half a century, Americans, we're going to go into a
new year without a superpower rival staring us down. No
nuclear brinksmanship, no ideological stand up, no Berlin Wall. I
mean I had, by the way, I had matchbox cars

(43:12):
that were made in West Germany. Okay, So for me,
my fifty three years on this planet, this is still
a monumental and unbelievable event, especially when you're raised one
way and all of a sudden everything is new. But
all of this felt final, right, It felt resolved. It

(43:34):
felt like history chose a winner. Francis Fukuyama famously even
called it the end of history. We'll get into that
actually in my time machine segment here. But as it
turns out, we were not witnessing the end of anything.
It was essentially the end of the first act. It
was arguably the be the end of the beginning, as
they say, and I don't know if we're now at

(43:56):
the beginning of the end. So when the Subby Union
formally dissolved on December twenty sixth, nineteen ninety one, the
dominant emotion in the West wasn't fear. It was confidence.
Communism had failed, market capitalism had won. Small l small
d liberal democracy stood alone. The liberal Democrats won, and

(44:17):
that confidence found its most famous intellectual expression in the
work of Francis Fuguiyama, whose argument popularized by the headline
that was the end of history. Sometimes headlines can warp
a perception of very detailed analysis, but it did capture
the mood of the moment right there. Is no more
historical fight over authoritarianism or democracy. Democracy was the winner,

(44:41):
And that is what he was arguing in that sense,
is that there wasn't He was essentially saying, wasn't going
to be the end of history, maybe even the end
of authoritarianism, but there was no more legitimate ideological rival
to liberal democracy. But I did a lot of people
here instead. Hey, the hard part is over. The direction

(45:04):
of history is settled, and what comes next is just implementation.
You know, once we introduce democracy fully in Russia, piece
of cake. Unfortunately, when you think that way, you stop
asking certain questions, right, And one of the biggest mistakes
I think that we made in the early nineteen nineties
was treating the Soviet Union like it was simply a

(45:25):
failed state, one country. It wasn't. This was a collapsed empire,
allah the fall of the Ottoman Empire. Empire collapses don't
behave like regime changes. They actually behave like massive earthquakes. Right,
there's all sorts of aftershocks. Borders will move faster than
identities do. Institutions disappear faster than replacements can be built

(45:49):
because of this large structure. That's what we saw at
the fall of the Ottoman Empire in the Middle East.
That's what we saw the fall of the Soviet Union,
and the humiliation often outweighs the liberation. It's not like
people the humiliation of the Soviet Union or the former
Soviet Union, particularly Russia, didn't necessarily lead to euphoria there.

(46:10):
And so that's why I think the better. You know,
we sort of treated the fall of the Soviet Union
like the post war Germany or post war Japan, when
it really should have been treated like the Ottoman Empire.
Then again, we didn't do that one right either, right,
so we had new nations with weak institutions of former
Soviet republics. There was deep resentment in the former Imperial

(46:32):
Corps because they'd lost their status. So, you know, Russians
weren't all enthusiastic about this, as we know, as Vladimir
Putin did this day professes, and we've had decades of
instability before anything that's resembled small de democratic normalcy which
has emerged. It's happened in a few places, but it's
still fledgling, right. You know, it's better in your Estonias

(46:55):
and in your Polands, it's less so even in your
Ukraine's not good and hungry certainly terrible in Russia. On
the Ottoman Empire, the best you know post fall story
is Turkey, and that's not exactly a great story. And
in fact, it had its ups and downs. Even after
the fall of the empire. It took us, there was

(47:16):
a coup, there was another collapse. So it was this
we should have realized this was not going to be
a straight line and so, but it doesn't introduce the
question why is democracy not taken in Russia? Right? And

(47:37):
there's always been this sense of well, if if a
society doesn't have a history of it, it's not going
to work that they You're going to have a few
sort of false starts, right, But the question is that
the people or was it structural? And I think there's
a good argument here on structure. Look, there wasn't any

(47:57):
democratic muscle memory, right, that was a big problem. Okay,
not easy. I think Poland had a better shot because
you had an opposition, right Lequalessa was the opposition, but
it was an opposition in some ways, it was like
a government in exile. So there was you could sort
of see how a democracy would work. There'd be a

(48:18):
debate and such. But you know, that's may explain why
Poland worked in Russia didn't. The other part is there
was no tradition of independent courts in a lot of
these places, There was no free media, and they hadn't
had a history of peaceful transfers of power. You also

(48:39):
had an economic collapse that was taking place even as
they were trying. The West was trying to help with
so called reform. But what happened was the quick privatization
of the Soviet sort of public markets to the private
markets essentially created oligarchs, not a middle class. Right, Wealthy
people were just sort of created out of thin air,

(49:01):
very similar to what we saw in the fall of
the Ottoman Empire. Right, you get a king kingdom, you
get a kingdom, you don't get a king. This tribe here,
this tribe there, Yes, this tribe here, this tribe here,
and no. Right, you run the oil company, will make
you wealthy and rich and will privatize it's all yours.
You do this. Sorry, No, So what happened. You created

(49:21):
super wealthy people, but you never created a middle class.
It didn't you know, actual free market capitalism. You know,
you sort of go from zero to wealthy and you
sort of earn your way up there. When you just
sort of get handed it, there's no appreciation, there's there's
just no you know, then you end up running it
the way the only way you knew how it was

(49:44):
run when you were in charge as an apparatchic of
right the Communist Party. And so what happened the average Russian?
They thought, this is democracy a bunch of oligarchs. So
instead of one dictator threatening gulag, we now have all
the these rich people who are just basically ripping off
the government. So it's no wonder that they didn't fully

(50:07):
buy into democracy as much as say we did here
in the United States, which of course, oh by the way,
took quite a bit of time before we became a
full democracy. Arguably it took us all the way. Our
founding was in seventeen seventy six. We didn't become a
full multi ethnic democracy until nineteen sixty five. It's an
important fact that we sometimes forget when we criticize the

(50:32):
inability of other countries to hurry up and have democracy
ten years after an authoritarian regime falls. So I think
you had millions of Russians who didn't believe that boy,
these first few years of democracy don't look like we
don't look any good to them. They're just creating rich dictators.

(50:55):
And then the third sort of issue was the imperial
identity didn't disappear, right, it just sort of and how
do we know this? See Vladimir Putin. And you also
had some weirdness because of the way the Soviet Union
Russians went and moved to other places. So you had
this sort of a lot of ethnic Russians who woke

(51:18):
up suddenly outside of Russia's borders, right, former client states
suddenly became sovereign neighbors, and it just it just became
it sapped the identity. And I think we we didn't
fully appreciate that a dictator or somebody with some charisma

(51:41):
could quickly exploit that loss of identity, right, And we've
seen when you feel like you lose identity, you're more
likely to you know, not be a fan of democracy
and instead follow a follow a charismatic leader who will
who will bring this back to you. So there were

(52:03):
a few mistakes I think in hindsight that we didn't
fully understand. Right. So the first choice that still defined
some of the debates that we're having today with the
fall of the Soviet Union. Was the expansion of NATO
in the nineties. It was Eastern European nations that wanted
it on NATO because they feared Russia essentially reformulating into

(52:24):
an empire again. So you had Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic,
you know, their long history is of a very hostile
Russia as a neighbor, and they wanted some security, so
they wanted in on NATO. And you know, there was
a lot of people on the pro NATO side had thought, okay,
bringing NATO, bringing these countries into NATO will lock in

(52:47):
democratic reforms in these countries, which for the most part
it actually did. Prevents a security vacuum, which in those
and many of the countries it did, and reassure nations
that had been invaded before. But there were some warnings.
George can Right, who was famous to be the architect
of the Cold War containment strategy, he'd argued that NATO

(53:07):
expansion would be a tragic mistake and he believed it
would humiliate Russia at its weakest moment, that that was
a mistake, it would strengthen nationalistic forces. Well we've seen
that that has been true, and it would redefine Russia
as a permanent outsider. Now, there were those pro NATO
expansionists who thought someday Russia might be a part of NATO,
and a small, d democratic Russia would indeed be a

(53:29):
part of NATO. Hey, guess what, we're thirty years in.
Anything can happen, Okay, It's not as if any of
us thought that the former Yugoslavia would just disappear off
the face of the earth. Right, so these things happen.
The other decision that came in the wake of the
fall of the Soviet Union was the decision by Ukraine
to give up its news which now I wonder how

(53:50):
many Ukrainians think this was a mistake. Ukraine possessed at
one time the world's third largest nuclear arsenal, but under
the Buddhapest member and Amid agreed that if they got
rid of essentially got rid of their nukes, they would
receive security assurances. But they didn't get binding guarantees. That
would be a problem, right, you want the guarantee on

(54:11):
the box, as my friend and Tommy Boy once said. So, look,
we were all in favor of non proliferation. The fall
of the Soviet Union made everybody feel as if nuclear
confrontation was going away anyway. So the fear was loose nukes,
and so the fear was, hey, consolidate, get his try

(54:32):
to get these weapons out of these sort of smaller
former Russian Soviet republics, because you didn't want this stuff
ending up in the black market, ending up in the
hands of non state actors, etc. And it seemed to
make sense on arguably now and till Ukraine was invaded

(54:56):
by Russia. Right that suddenly now seems like how it
was done Now, part of it was looks like Ukraine
didn't ask for enough in return. You give up nukes,
NATO membership, hard stop Right, That ultimately, in hindsight, should
have been what the deal was. So what did the
end of history really cost us? Well, the biggest mistake

(55:18):
wasn't NATO expansion, It wasn't Ukraine's nuclear decision, It wasn't
even the economic shock. The mistake was assuming that direction
was destiny. We confused the absence of our ideological rival
with the presence of stability. We treated legitimacy as an inevitability,
and we underestimated how long it takes societies not systems,

(55:40):
but societies to change. Even Fukuyama himself acknowledged that nationalism, identity,
and power politics never disappeared. They just simply went dormant.
And that's what we've seen, right, We're seeing a rise
of nationalism that looks like we're repeating the nineteen twenties
and thirties here in this country and in Europe and
frankly around the world. A reminder this stuff is dormant.

(56:01):
It never goes away. So it's a reminder that history
as a way, histories don't necessarily end, right, It's that
we just sort of stopped chronicling on him sometimes. And
this is where I want to leave you in that
this story isn't finished. We are very bad at recognizing

(56:22):
where we are in the story while we're living in it.
Take France, they failed at democracy repeatedly before succeeding. Right,
France was an empire at one point Napoleon et cetera.
Germany's first democratic experiment collapsed catastrophically. The weim are republic right,
even the United States, we required a civil war, reconstruction,

(56:43):
multiple interventions, a constitutional Memen to give women the right
to vote. Right, we had all sorts of things we
had to do before we could succeed as a democracy.
So we're now thirty years, right, a little more than
thirty years after the collapse of the so Union. And
when you could look at it one way you said, boy,

(57:03):
that was a failure. You could look at them another way.
It's more successful than a failure. Or you could just
say to yourself, do you judge history on a single generation?
Because what if the following happens? What if in another
thirty years this period looks like a painful but necessary transition.
If in another thirty years Russia is a stable democracy

(57:27):
just like Germany. I mean, imagine asking Americans in nineteen
forty four and telling them that Germany would be this robust, small,
de democratic leader of Europe in partnership with France in
the UK right. It would have seemed unbelievable to Americans

(57:51):
in nineteen forty four, let alone Europeans right, and essentially
within two generations that is what happened, and were only
one generation removed the fall of the Soviet Union. So
it's likely we're in the middle of this and I'd
like to I hope to see the end of this story,
but I don't think we've seen the end of this story.
It's likely that my son and daughter will see the

(58:13):
end of this story. It's also possible we see a
re emergence of another empire before we have another another
shot at a democracy. Look, Germany went through this multiple times,
France went through this multiple times, and again so did we.
So it's thirty plus years. The fall of the Soviet

(58:36):
Union wasn't the end of history. It was literally a pivot.
It was another It was a fork in the road,
and we went down the democracy fork pretty strongly. We're
drifting right now. There is an authoritarian movement lurking out there,
but we're also only thirty years removed. And if things

(58:58):
turn out to be in a more small, d democratic
place around the world in the next thirty to fifty years,
than this period that we're all living in the moment
that feels very unstable will simply be seen as oh,
just a couple of bumps in the road on the
way to what was the ultimate destiny. So there you go.

(59:23):
Here's your history lesson and the Toddcast time machine for
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(01:00:31):
So that let's get a few questions as Chuck. First
question comes from Randall from across the Atlantic. Any rights,
Hey check. I'm a butcher and barbecue enthusiast from Europe
and your podcast is part of my weekly routine. Working
with food and people reminds me how much community, trust
and shared traditions matter, especially around Christmas. So my question is,

(01:00:52):
what do you think is historically made the bond between
the US and Europe so strong? And why does it
feel like such a loss that we're letting that connection
fade at a time when the world needs more shared
values and good will. Greetings from Leiden in the Netherlands
from what may be your most loyal barbecue loving butcher
across the Atlantic. I love that, and I'd love to
be trying some Nordic barbecue. Go to northern Europe for barbecue.

(01:01:13):
I love this. Who's to say you can't cook over
a hot flame with some good sauces anywhere around this globe.
It's interesting. Look, I think it's obvious why we have
why we should feel as if we have more shared values?
Right it was we were are. The first rounds of
immigrants into this country came from Europe, right all over Europe.

(01:01:36):
First Western Europe, then we sort of moved to Central Europe.
Then it became Eastern Europe, et cetera. Right, And in
some ways, this whole thing has always moved around the globe.
America's been at first a magnet for Europe. Then it
became a magnet, you know, all of the Americas were
a magnet for Europe, by the way, right, South America
magnet from from Western Europe as well. And then you know,

(01:02:01):
it's sort of kept moving around the globe. And you
know in some ways that I think that's that's the
shortest answer. And there's some shared religious traditions, right, shared
you know, shared traditions in general. I just take the
Christmas season in some ways, the Santa Claus, I believe

(01:02:23):
essentially was a Northern European phenomenon that migrated its way
around the globe and for all of us, and certainly
became another shared symbol, if you will, between Europe and America.
But you know, I think that's you know, I think
that's why we have such a historical bond. I think

(01:02:45):
for those of us of a certain age, our parents
and grandparents, you know, the two big wars of the
twentieth century are still are still sort of in our
recent memory. And by the way, and again there's sort
of dovetails with the history lesson, which is sometimes we
forget where we are, and that we sometimes forget that

(01:03:07):
the moment we're living in we may be just in
the middle of an historical epoch, if you will, right,
we're in the middle of something that if we stuck
around another hundred years, it would be more understandable. I've
always said I can't wait to see what political scientists
and social scientists say about the era that I'm living
in now. Fifty years from now. Maybe I'll be coherent

(01:03:29):
and alive at one hundred and three, and it'll be
really interesting to read some of these political science journals
or have them embedded in a brain chip in my brain,
whatever ai version of learning is that we use. Then,
So I don't want to cop out, if you will,
I don't want to use that as a cop out,
but it is. It is a little bit I think

(01:03:50):
we I wonder the further away I mean, we're seeing
it now, right, the further away. World War two is
the further away. The Old War is the further away.
These moments that did bound us, you know, where we
had to stick together to fight for our values, not

(01:04:13):
just for something, not just for something tangible like land
or resources. We're really fighting for our values, particularly with
World War Two. The further that gets away, the more
the more detached we get from it, and I think
actually the less likely we'll see, well, we'll see some
of those bonds you know, you see it now, right

(01:04:34):
Once you get to third or fourth generation away from something,
you know, you lose the bond to that and you
sort of your identity becomes more formed by the present
or by the very very recent path. So and I
wish I could felt like I fear I'm not giving
you the intellectually the substance of an argument that you

(01:05:03):
may been looking for to give you a deeper answer
in that. But that's I hope you see where I
was going there. I appreciate the question right now. Next
question comes from Brad. He said this, after FDR died,
Congress took action to limit future presidents to do terms.
Do you think that after the Trump era, Congress may
limit the pardon power president since it was abused by
Biden and Trump? And if so, what should the limits be? Specifically? Also,

(01:05:25):
what was the reason the Founders allowed presidents to pardon
anyone without any checks? Did they not think of would
ever be abused like this? Brad Well. Brad I asked
this question in a podcast interview I did with a
historian for the woman who runs the George Washington Presidential Library.
She's a founding Father's historian, written a bunch of books, terrific,

(01:05:47):
terrific historian, Lindsay Shervinsky, doctor Lindsay Shervinsky, And I asked
her this very question. I said, I said, you know,
putting the pardon power to the executive in the Constitution,
how did a whole group of men who were essentially
trying to resist a monarchy allow a power that a

(01:06:07):
monarch had to be given to the executive, which the
whole point was not to allow him to become a king,
But she gave him one king like power. And she
didn't have a good explanation other than you know her.
She joked, there's probably somebody at the Constitutional Convention that
wanted to pardon and wanted to make sure that that
possibility existed. I completely agree with you, Rad. I think

(01:06:32):
that Allah. I think the FDR president is the perfect precedent, right,
just like the Kennedy assassination gave us the twenty fifth Amendment.
We're like, whoa, what would have happened if he had
survived but not been but not but had been incapacitated?
And so look, there's nothing wrong with our constitution being

(01:06:55):
reactive to the moment. It's like, frankly, it's like how
the college football playoff. Oh well, maybe we should have
a different scenario in how we decide tiebreakers at the
acc right, you know, you sometimes have to see something
happen to go, oh, we missed that loophole. Let's close
that loophole. So you had the two term issue with FDR,

(01:07:19):
you had the incapacitation issue after the Kennedy assassination that
gave us twenty fifth Amendment. And I absolutely believe we'll
have something here. Look, I think a lot of states
have pardon boards where there is where, you know, where
the governor has is sort of has has influenced, but

(01:07:40):
he's just a vote, He's not the vote. I think
you could argue that you could create a presidential pardon
board made up of you know, the chief Justice of
the Supreme Court, you know, you know, and the two
most senior justices including you know, not including the Chief Justice,

(01:08:00):
maybe the the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee and
the House Judiciary committees chairmen and ranking members. You know,
you just create an eight eight person pardon board, six
person pardon board of some sort and not have one
person be able to do these things. There's no doubt

(01:08:21):
this has been among and I think it's certainly it's
just been abused egregiously by Trump. Right, there's no and
I think and I think you're right. It is easy
to both sides. This to me a good way in
order to try to get bipartisan support for you simply,

(01:08:42):
let's just not let another president have this type of
you know, the bottom line is norms or nothing. Right.
It's like we've had norms with this naming business, right,
Trump putting his name on Kennedy Center. It turns out
there's no law, right, there's just been norms. Right, you know,
we kind of thought as a society, boy, it's unseemly
to elect current elected officials have stuff named after him.

(01:09:05):
By the way, the state of Florida actually doesn't allow
living doesn't allow anything in the state to be named
after a living person. But if a locality wants to
do it, or if a university wants to do it,
There are some exceptions, but that's it's the state of Florida,
and it all depends on how much influence the state has. So,

(01:09:25):
for instance, there's some movement to rename the Palm Beach
Airport after Donald Trump. I got to think, Look, if
you've got to name something after him, sure make it
the Palm Beach Airport. Make him the you know, in
some ways he is emblematic of that Palm Beach crowd,
the good, the bad, the ugly, all of it together.

(01:09:46):
I actually find it kind of appropriate if that were
the airport that was named after him. Right, he doesn't
belong on Miami's airport. He has no association with Miami
whatsoever in my opinion. But Palm Beach. Sure, He's always
wanted to be the king of Palm Beach after since
he couldn't be the King of Manhattan. So absolutely right,
it's one of those in a weird way, it's perfectly fitting.

(01:10:09):
But it turns out those were all norms, right, and
there's really it's really hard, you know. Yes, Congress is
the only one that can officially name the Kennedy Center.
Congress is the only one that can officially decide what
these names are but you know, this is Trump sort
of pushing, basically daring Congress to use its authority if

(01:10:29):
it wants to, and things like this. But the bottom
line is, I think if the trump eras taught us
anything that if there's a norm that we think there's
eighty percent agreement on, make it the letter of the law.
Either make it a constitutional amendment or just simply pass
along Congress. But you can't just assume anything anymore because

(01:10:50):
of the temptation to exploit and the fact that we
have an American public that will not punish shamelessness the
way I think we all thought, right, the greatest power
Donald Trumpe has is his power not to feel shame,
which is why we have to have certain laws on
the books and certain amendments in our constitution. All right,

(01:11:15):
next question comes from It's a simple one, Christopher to
Carla Long Island, New York. What do you think the
GOP looks like if it loses in twenty twenty eight.
I think it's going to be a little bit like
the Democrats Serica nineteen ninety. I think you will have
a huge fight between multiple wings. You will have the

(01:11:39):
sort of more call it the traditional wing of the party,
but you will have sort of I think you will
have a more open warfare between sort of the what
will feel like the aging mega populists, what is the
the financial and business wing of the party, what I

(01:12:01):
refer to sometimes as the Chamber of Commerce wing. I
think a loss by Vance or somebody else sufficiently considered
MAGA will embolden I think the business wing of the
party to try to to try to reclaim some status,
and you might see, you might even you might see

(01:12:22):
a resurgent sort of libertarian wing. Right. I'm curious to
see Rand Paul's presidential campaign and how much traction it
can get. How big is that faction inside the Republican Party,
and could he tear pieces of the quote mega coalition
away into something that's that's that. So, you know, it

(01:12:47):
may look a little bit like Democrats and nine he
may also look a little bit like what happened to
Democrats after sixty eight, right, and when in Vietnam and
it was you know, you had this, you know, suddenly
govern ends up the nominee and you had sort of
the southern conservative Democrats starting to totally splinter away. So

(01:13:11):
I think it's a combination of sort of the chaos
that the Democrats had going into the seventy two presidential campaign,
so from seventy to seventy two, and the chaos the
Democrats had after the eighty eight Ducacus debacle in sort
of nine that was represented by sort of the fight

(01:13:32):
between Bill proxy arguments and fights between Bill Clinton and
Jesse Jackson, something akin to that. I think it will
look less like the fight in fifty two between sort
of the Eisenhower wing and the Taft wing of the party.

(01:13:53):
I think. I think in some ways that was the
previous debate that in this time the Taft wing won
the fight, which got represented by Trump. I think this
one it will be a fight to even just what
is conservative right. It'll be a I hope it's an
I hope it's an intellectual debate rather than a personality

(01:14:13):
or influencer debate. I think it could be. I think,
what kind of debate does it end up being right?
Is it one defined by cult of personality or one
defined by actual ideological disagreement? And that that to me
is what I wouldn't I don't. That's an unknown here,

(01:14:34):
and until we knew that part of it, that will
shape what the debate itself looks like all right. Last
question comes from David S. Fort Worth, Texas. Hey, Chuck,
big fan of the podcast. I was surprised and delighted
discover your meet the Press era Tops trading cards while
searching for merch. Oh yes, Alan and Ginter twenty fourteen.
My friend anyway, because I picked up a Chuck Todd
relic cart on eBay. That's cool, I thought, my I

(01:14:57):
have a friend from high school who swores hespot. All
of them that almost put together. I gave them a
tie tops a tie to cut up. And so there's
a couple of like very rare items. You can get
a relic of my a red tie, So don't trust me.
I did you know there's nothing lamer than getting a
relic card that's just like a piece of white or

(01:15:18):
gray jersey. I made sure to give a red tie
form my relic card. And then there's some you know,
number to ten I think autographed cards still that are
out there. They can get a little premium on that anyway.
He says this as a fellow sports card collector, I'd
love to hear about your experience working with TOPS. Also
curious how you see the hobby today, does it still
feel like collecting or has it crossed into regulated gambling. Man,

(01:15:42):
we're gamifying. We're gamblifying everything, aren't We were gamblifying politics.
We're gambled. We're taking sports to a whole new level. Yes,
there's some In fact, I fully, I fully confess to
viewing some of my sports card speculating. I don't call

(01:16:02):
this part collecting. I collect, but then I have a
fun time speculating. But I view it as instead of
buying a long term future. I'll give you an example,
instead of buying a long term future at the beginning
of the season on the Denver Broncos winning the Super Bowl,
where if they don't win the Super Bowl, your ticket

(01:16:23):
is worthless. You instead buy bonus, you know, a high
end Bonix rookie card, because your ticket won't be worth
zero if they fail. But you can also you will
benefit if they actually do go on that Super Bowl
run and you have an opportunity to cash out multiple
times before. So I I confess that I have I

(01:16:46):
have taken one part of my sports card fandom because
I look at it this way. I'm trying to minimize
how much money I spend on my sports card collecting
and I use I I basically side hustle my way
to try to cut the costs of what this is.
So I do submit cards for grading and sell them

(01:17:08):
on the side, and you can you know, I'm not
going to tell you I don't. I really have been careful.
I don't want to combine my side hustle on sports
card with the podcast. I just haven't done that. As
for TOPS, look, I I'll tell you my experience. All
of everything you've ever read on the back of a
card is true. A TOPS representative, I remember that came

(01:17:31):
to Rockefeller Center, New York. That was in New York Day.
They brought all the cards. They stayed in my office
while I signed every card I promised to sign, did
all that. They witnessed the whole time. Then he takes it,
he puts it, and he takes it away. It wasn't
like he left it with me, wasn't shipped and said, hey,

(01:17:51):
can you sign this and send it back. He really
did witness me doing everything on that front. So I
viewed it as a great experience. Look, I'm a I'm
an institutionalist, which means I love me some TOPS. And
you know, TOPS is a reliable brand. I'm always, though,

(01:18:13):
worried about market consolidation because market consolidation usually panealizes people
like you and me, right, and everything has gotten more
expensive since things have gotten consolidated. I do think the
I have a feeling that if there ever is I

(01:18:34):
think that Fanatics, who is now the parent company of Tops,
is going to get scrutiny at some point from a
more robust government agency. They're not nobody's getting that kind
of scrutiny now because it's pay to play. Were living
in a pay to play. But if we ever get

(01:18:54):
back to a more traditional way of trying to question
consolidated power, trying to regulate these things, I think Fanatics
could could you know whether they you know the fact
that they have the exclusive license and only they can
produce these products, so they can set the market. They can,

(01:19:19):
they can sort of really they they decide supply and demand,
right I have, it doesn't feel like it does feel
like they're building a monopoly. And I'll I think Pannini
hasn't been very good at articulating its case or taking
its They've yet to find they've how they've gone about it.

(01:19:42):
I think it's been very poor but at some point
I think you'll have some better lawyer louring there and
you'll get a judge that's a bit more empathetic and
a little skeptical of the consolidation that Fanatics has successfully
pulled off here in the sports card market, especially as
there's more money involved. Right I say that, I'm I

(01:20:05):
like that Fanatics has taken sports card collecting and made
it more mainstream. Right, So that's a good thing that
they have done with the hobby that they have made it.
They have sort of cleaned things up a little bit.
I think quality control has gotten better, but there is
a it does feel like there's a haves and have

(01:20:28):
not aspect to card collecting. Now, if you've got some money,
you can get access to really cool cards. If you
don't have a lot of money, you can't. You know
that In the way I grew up with them, right,
we all sort of had the same access. Certainly, you know,
maybe one family could afford to buy more packs of cards,
but we were all buying the same packs of cards.
But literally, there are now packs of cards simply for

(01:20:51):
the super wealthy, and then there are packs of cards
for everybody else. You know, Right now, we call them
plaster boxes, and then you have hobby boxes and stuff
like that. But it's it's that is a you know,
is there is there a point where there's too many
velvet ropes around card collecting, you know, And that's I

(01:21:15):
think there's there's still got to be a lottery ticket
aspect to it. You know, there's and you've probably seen
the news of a a Tani card that got sold
for a certain amount of money, but just it took
a lot of money to have even access to getting
that card. And uh, I'm not as anti breaking as

(01:21:37):
some are. I don't participate in breaks or anything like that.
That's not how I want to spend my time. Uh.
And if you're wondering what the hell breaking is, go
look it up. I'm not gonna. But essentially, it's instead
of it's another way of you know, it's sort of
another It's that's the way the influencer world works. Like
by a case of cards and say hey, I will

(01:22:01):
I will give you all the Dodgers in this case.
And I'm gonna sell the Dodgers for you know, one
hundred and fifty dollars and you may get that'll be awesome.
I'll also give you all the white Sox cards. In
this case, you may sell that for sixty dollars and
you'll get all the white socks. You may get a
lot of Frank Thomas autographs, and you may get a
lot of show Hey O Tommy right. Or but if

(01:22:23):
but if Shoa Tony's in an Angel's uniform, the person
who bought the Angels slot will get the card, not
the person who bought the Dodger slot. So it's an
interesting way to sell. I think that's you know, To me,
that's just you know, interesting retail capitalism and the market
behaving the way a market should, coming up with unique
ways to slice and dice the cards. So I'm not

(01:22:46):
as anti gambling as others are. I do think it's
very It adds to the speculation. It is, in theory,
a cheaper way to get a bigger card. But you
your odds are still pretty the odds are still not
very much in your favor, and in some cases could
be even worse. So because you don't, you don't get

(01:23:07):
you're better off buying the whole case yourself. Because even
if it's a card for a team you didn't like,
at least do you have a chance to get your
money back selling it's somebody else when they want it.
I got a little rambling there, because I do enjoy it,
I do care about it. I do. I do a
little bit of of it as a side hustle, but
primarily just to support my collecting. And I have some

(01:23:30):
fun things that I love. I collect. I collect certain players.
I collect a lot of Max Sures or collect each Hero.
I collect Greg Maddox, and I collect Sandy Kofax and
Roy Campano. But then I love like super old Basketball.
You know, I'm always I'm always on the hunt for

(01:23:53):
interesting George Mike and cards. You know. I just sort
of like, you know, little little nuggets like that. One
of my favorite sets that I built was the nineteen
fifty five College Football card set All American Set. Wizard
White is in that set, former Supreme Court justice. So anyway,
as you he just he just touched the nerd button

(01:24:15):
on me, obviously, So yes, I've just given you a
little bit more. But please, I do not I do
not want to mix too much of the card world
into the political world, because I I don't like it.
Anytime I've heard you know, for the most part, any
most of the stuff I consume in the card world.
By the way I collect every I try to get

(01:24:36):
PSA tens of every president that has appeared in a
sports card set, and that's a lot of fun as well.
So you know, that's my you know figure that you know,
that's appropriate for me, the political junkie, to have that.
So you know, there was, believe it or not, a
lot of older sets in the early twentieth century that

(01:24:57):
had some that didn't hold presidential presidential cards. In fact,
one of my favorite recent sets that I wish top
Tops would bring back was the two thousand and nine
American History set, which did things like have subsets of
Medal of honor folks, so it was like a history
we were just great history online. So I collected it,
built the set with my kids as a way to

(01:25:18):
teach American history. It was, it was, It was fabulous,
and I wish Tops would bring you up back all right,
since we got the sports cards, it's a perfect transition
to get to college football and my experience at Kyle Field.

(01:25:42):
I will start very will I will start with this.
It's my fourth Miami road game in a stadium that's
seats more than one hundred thousand people. I was at
Penn State in two thousand and one for a Miami
Penn State game Miami one. That game, I was in
Tennessee two thousand and three, I think it was for

(01:26:03):
a Miami Tennessee game Miami one. I've been to the
Rose Bowl. I believe they seed one hundred thousand so
and that was for the lone Rose Bowl that Miami
appeared in and they won. So I think I have
that going for me, which is I've never seen Miami
lose win in a hundred thousand seed stadium. They've lost
a one hundred thousand seat staums, but not when I've

(01:26:23):
been in attendance. They lost a game at Michigan once,
and I think they lost a game at Ohio State once,
so both of which, of course seed over one hundred
thousand and one. Thing you will learn is it wasn't
bad getting into a stadium that seats one hundred thousand. Boy,
when everybody stays to the end, it is really hard
to get out of a stadium that seats one hundred thousand.

(01:26:44):
That was quite the ordeal. And all that Texa and
m fans were great. You know, I have a lot
of UT fans in my life, who don't have many
nice things to say about the Aggies, So I had
I perhaps came in with super low expectations and a
little leariness. I'm sorry I did. I thought everything was great,
even in losing. I have this memory of this one

(01:27:06):
A and M fan cowboy hat. He looks at me
and he just opens his arms. He says, can you
give me a hug? I was like, okay. He had
a few. His family I think was wondering what's he
about to do? But it was actually a very nice interaction.
All of it was very nice interactions. Look, let's talk
about the game itself. If you weren't at the game,

(01:27:30):
you probably and you're only watching on TV, you thought, boy,
these offenses are futrid? What's going on here? The wind
was a serious factor. In fact, every time there was
a time out, Carson Beck was throwing was was throwing
the football, So either one or two things. Either he
had something going on with his arm that he was
trying to deal with, which I don't think it was,

(01:27:51):
or he was trying to figure out how to throw
better in this swirling wind. He was constantly trying to
warm up. And I mean every time out he'd be
out in the field trying to do this. I saw
a similar situation with all of the Texas A and
M side. They were doing their long snaps a lot
more practicing sort of in between during timeouts, during work stoppages.

(01:28:15):
This wasn't just stuff you saw pre or just on
the sideline. They'd literally move out into the field when
they had it. This would be during the commercial break.
So the wind was really throwing everybody off, and I
think it really threw Back off. I don't think he
ever felt comfortable throwing the football at all. I think
it showed, you know, is it an arm strength issue?

(01:28:37):
Was it just the wind? Was that swirly that day?
It was a real factor, and it absolutely contributed to
the bizarre kicking game problems, which mine really didn't have
an issue with all yr I know TEXTA, A and
M had their share, not a few other observations. Very
frustrated as always with the play calling. I will say

(01:28:58):
this a win. I am grateful and satisfied that Miami
got this win. But this is one of those games
where and I'm sure Texas A and M fans look
at that game and go, we had so many chances
to win that game. That's true, and a Miami fan
looks at that game and go, we had so many
chances to have blown them out, which is also true.
It was it was a game where nobody took advantage

(01:29:20):
of the mistakes the other team was making or not
nearly enough, and then there was a few sort of
questionable decision making. The fake punt to me, was a
questionable decision Biolko at the time, especially in that way.
Your your own quarterbacks having a hard time throwing the
ball in the wind, so now you expect your punter
to be able to throw in the in the crazy

(01:29:42):
swirly win seemed like a you you know. And look
to Miami's credit and kudos to the special teams coaching.
They were they were ready, and everybody stayed at home,
and uh they were able to make sure that that
didn't pay off. But I think that was a questionable
to say, and it sort of gave Miami a break

(01:30:02):
at a time when when they could use one. I
didn't want him having to start start start their drive
inside their twenty again. But my issue with the play
calling is saying it's my observation about all year. I
feel like the offensive coordinator is always trying to figure
out like which plays work with his offense rather than

(01:30:27):
game planning towards the team he's playing. And it isn't
till sometime in the second half that he finally pivots
the play calling to what's actually happening on the field
and with the opponent. Were actually facing the fact that
Mark Fletcher, who had a tremendous game the running back,

(01:30:47):
the best most of yardists he had ever had as
a Miami running back, didn't touch the ball once. When
Miami had a first and goal at the ten early
on in the game. It was one of those drives
with the ded up with a missfield goal every time
until the fourth quarter, every time Mark Fletcher got a
run that succeeded, say six yards or more, it seemed

(01:31:12):
like they waited three or four plays before they ever
went back to it. Finally in the fourth core they realized, well,
what's working this A and M defense? As their pass
rush was getting through and was making back uncomfortable. And
I think it was the wind that made the pass
rush more effective than anything else. But we could run
on these guys and yet you know, they were just

(01:31:35):
they kept so it felt as if it was almost
like he was, Hey, let me see if this play
how this play? You know, And there's sort of these
their trick plays, but they're kind of high schoolish, one
dimensional trick plays. Oh, let's line up Tony in the wildcat,
let's do this, let's you know it. They're weirdly predictable.

(01:31:56):
And it was almost as all right, I'm gonna try
to get the ball into Tony's hands without actually thinking
about the defense that they're facing. By the fourth quarter
they realized, well, when they really have to get some yards,
they should just run the ball. And suddenly Fletcher and
they pounded the rock. For us older Miami fans, it
reminded me of one of the worst play calling decisions ever,

(01:32:19):
which was infamous, an infamous game back in the eighties
between Miami and Penn State, one of the best Miami
teams of all time, and they didn't win a national title.
They lost. They lost it to Joe Paterno's Penn State
squad in the in the eighty six season eighty seven
Fiesta Bowl, where they had first they were inside the ten,
basically going in for the winning touchdown, and they decided

(01:32:41):
to throw the ball and not hand the ball to
Lonzo Heismith, who was just not going to be denied
that day. And that's how I felt about Mark Fletcher.
You're like, this dude has a nose for the end zone.
He always runs north south. He is not going to
get denied. Some guys just have it. You feed the ball,
you give him the ball, and you go and you
wear that out. Then you worry about other things. So

(01:33:04):
I just I don't love the way this goes about.
He doesn't. I don't feel like it's a game plan.
I feel like it's a set of offensive schemes that
he's doing on a whiteboard that he's not thinking about
the opponent that they're facing. I gotta think that's going
to change for Ohio State. But we'll say. The other

(01:33:27):
thing I take away is I think Miami's defense I
think it's absurd. You know, sometimes perception in college football,
perception is always way ahead of the reality, and I
think right now, I see it in the early lines
of Miami, Ohia State or a state's a nine and
a half point favorite. Please, that's great. Look, I know
I'm a homer, but that's insane. Okay, no Miami team,

(01:33:50):
I'm trying to think. I don't think Miami's lost by
more than nine points in over two years. It's just
I will Especially the way Mario Christophale coaches, He's a
very risk averse coach. It drives me crazy, but it
keeps him in every game. This guy is not going
to not be in this game. He is not going

(01:34:11):
to let the team sort of be put in a
position like that. And Ohio State, isn't it I, you know,
against the Miami defense, I just don't see it. And
this is where it's a reminder that the reason that
the expression defense wins championships is that, you know, Miami
had a very uneven orderline, bad offensive day, and we're

(01:34:33):
able to win because the defense was able to prevent
the other offense from doing anything. If you have a
bad day on offense and your defense's mediocre, you had
the situation that Miami had to do with last year,
when we had this great offense that would have a
couple of clunker quarters that suddenly the defense would allow
up twenty one points to the other side, and then
suddenly you were in a hole. You dug yourself a
hole or something. So I know we won and we're

(01:34:57):
not supposed to pick at nits, but it's a big
one to pay, because Miami's not going to win another
game if they don't perform slightly better on offense. They
have all the talent in the world. I just think
this offensive scheme just doesn't take advantage of the talent
that they have. It's like wide receiver screen, wide receiver screen,
Malachi Tony trick play, throw the ball deep. They don't

(01:35:20):
use the middle of the field enough. I'd like to
see more of it. And I'll say something I've said
in earlier roundups about this Miami team. The coaches seem
to always be worried about putting too much in Carson
Beck's hands. What are you waiting for? It's do or die.

(01:35:41):
It's ride or die with him. Unlet's ride or die.
Open it up a little bit. You have the talent,
open up the middle of the field a little bit.
It's if you're not going to win more big games
if you don't trust your quarterback. And I do get

(01:36:01):
the sense that this coaching staff doesn't quite trust him completely.
And you can say he's not earned the trust. Well,
at this point it doesn't matter. But look, I had
said before my expectation was we were going to win
this game. I look at it now, I think we
should have won by more. I don't think this means

(01:36:24):
that techs A and m you know, didn't belong there.
And by the way, I love these Notre Dame fans
that look at the Miami tex same game. They were
better than both teams. You lost to both teams like that, they,
you know, be mad about the group of five situations.
And I do think it is amazing how often the
college to the leaders of college football don't think about
things as don't sort of have the ability to see

(01:36:48):
the potential scenarios that could get created. Look, the reason
a group of five has access is they don't want
an anti trust lawsuit. They don't want to deal with that.
So they've got to at least give the illusion that
all of Division I college football has access to the playoff.

(01:37:09):
But you know, they forgot the whole top fifteen part, right.
You know, if you have a twelve team playoff, I
think it's reasonable to say, as a conference champion, you
only get to qualify if you're ranked in the top fifteen.
If it's a sixteen playoff, sixteen team playoff, you can
put that to the top twenty. But that way at
least guarantee because neither Tulane or James Madison were in

(01:37:31):
the top fifteen. Boise State last year was. But the
other problem for the poor group of five is anil
on the portal. Three or four years ago, you could
have you always had a handful of group of five
teams that basically just found more diamonds in the rough,
and we're able to build successful programs around those diamonds

(01:37:54):
in the rough. And in fact, some of these programs
were so good they became Power Conference power players Utah. Right, Formally,
a group of five ends up in the Power for
all right, and they're they're a They're a mainstream power
for conference right right, They're not like fledgling right. SMU
is another one that was able to move up. But

(01:38:16):
I think now with so many big time programs with
their own scouting departments, these group these group of five
programs just can't keep these players. The minute they find
a diamond in the rough, they're gone. Ditto on the fcs.
So the gap between the haves and the have nots
is only going to grow in college football. So you

(01:38:37):
had this, I mean both group of both group of
five programs were just it was so clear they didn't
belong on the same field due to size and speed.
They may have the as good of coaches, they may
have as good schemes, but they just simply didn't have
enough size and they didn't have enough speed. And they're
never going to have enough size and they're never going

(01:38:57):
to have enough speed under these under this current scenario.
But it's clear they got to put in some sort
of you know, I think I think we all believe,
you know, I look at sports in the same way
look at you know, I think there should be a meritocra.
I think you should have. You know, if somebody, you know,
if a Northern Illinois alum is suddenly the next big

(01:39:21):
tech financier makes billions and billions of dollars and wants
to turn Northern Illinois into a power there should be
It's just you know that pay that's the way the
market works at the moment. Uh. And if they acquire
enough talent and they're ranked in the top fifteen and
they you know, more power to them. So, but you

(01:39:45):
can come up with some sort of safety net in
your rules in the playoffs so that you don't get
embarrassing mismatches. Because here you had of the four playoff games,
two tremendous playoff games between one Alabama and Oklahoma, and
one that was a defensive battle between techs A and
M and Miami, and two just real duds. Wouldn't have
been better to see BYU and note BYU playing Ole

(01:40:08):
Miss and say Oregon playing Notre Dame. Right, Look, we're
gonna have four tremendous games coming up. Texas, Tech Oregon,
two programs that want to be haves, but they don't
have the pedigree yet. They have the money, but they
don't have the pedigree. I think Miami Ohise State. That's

(01:40:29):
a battle of I think combined they have over a
dozen national titles between them. You have Indiana, Alabama, New Money,
Old Money, Right, that's a fun one. And then we
have Georgia Ole Miss, where we're gonna probably you know,
I'm I'm I'm pretty pessimistic on I think I think

(01:40:50):
Old Miss rallies around hating Lyn Kiffin once, can you
do it a second time? I think that's especially in
a game that takes place one day before the portal
officially opens and we know there is going to be
an explosion of ole miss players that will be raising
their hands for contracts from Lane Kiffin's LSU program, So

(01:41:13):
we shall see. Look, I'm excited. I'm like I told
you before, I love Miami's path because there's all these
sort of revenge moments. It's now been Listen. It's not
lost on me that Miami has won eleven games and
this is the that the last time they did that,

(01:41:34):
I had no kids. My daughter is twenty one years old,
is a senior in college, and it's the first time
in her lifetime that Miami's won eleven or more games.
So it's a reminder write history. It all depends your perspective.
For me, Miami's heyday is recent history. For my daughter,
it's ancient history. I think that probably serves as a

(01:41:58):
good way to say goodbye to college football segment because
in some ways it dovetails with everything we've been talking
about today. If there is a through line of any
of it, all right with that, I'll sign off. I
will have, like I said, one more episode later this week.
Plus we're going to drop, like I said, a best

(01:42:20):
of It's an interview that I did a few months
ago that will be super relevant for a campaign that's
taking place in the spring of twenty six. So with that,
i'll sign off and i'll see in forty eight hours.

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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 - MAGA Influencers Go To War With Each Other + Epstein Gets The Headlines… The Destruction At HHS SHOULD