Chuck’s Commentary - Marjorie Taylor-Greene Is An “America First” True Believer…Trump Isn’t + Trump’s Russia First Peace Plan - The Chuck ToddCast

Episode Transcript
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percent off. Hello, They're happy Monday, Happy Thanksgiving week. Welcome

(01:25):
to another episode of the Chuck Podcast. Look, it is
a holiday week, but this feed is not going to
be light this week. It's just going to be our
normal feed monthy. We're probably going to do Monday, Wednesday,
Friday in dropping stuff, not going to bother to drop
something on Thursday morning. Assuming you will need more time
to you can catch up on the Monday and Wednesday
drops right on that front. But so as you might imagine,

(01:49):
Thanksgiving plays a role in my toodcast time Machine segment
this week. Other than that little hint, I will make
you wait until after the right Thompson Inner to find
all that out. But before we get started, obviously, there's
been a couple of major pieces of news since I
last checked in the biggest being the resignation from Congress

(02:12):
of Marjorie Taylor Green after a very high profile split
with President Trump. Almost clearly this was her response to
whatever threats Trump made to her politically about primary challengers
and all of that, and she made the decision that
I'm out, And I think a lot of people are

(02:34):
making a lot of assumptions in different ways. She's already
responded to one of the rumors that she's pulling back
now because she's thinking about running for president. She tried
to shut that down as best as she could on that,
and then of course there's those that have jumped on
the ah, Look, she's resigning just in time to get
her pension. Yes that is a fact. Yes that is true.

(02:55):
But do look at the numbers. This is the minimum
amount that she'll get, because five years is when it
is the minimum time served before you're eligible for a pension,
for a congressional pension. Certainly because there's so few pensions
in the private sector these days, any pension sounds like
a good thing. But this isn't like she's going to

(03:16):
be collecting the max of her congressional salary or anything
like that. When you hit the minimum. So certainly, yes,
she did make sure she dated her resignation to make
sure she made it to that five year anniversary. It
is given the amount of money she's likely to make
giving speeches and some other things, to say she did

(03:40):
this just for her pension, I think so reach and
it's and it's looking for a story. So that's certainly.
I don't see a lot of evidence that says that.
Only if you really want to make that an issue,
if you want to. It's one of those if you
want to, if you want to squit really hard and
think you're you've you've got a gotcha here, and go
for it. This one doesn't feel like it passes that

(04:04):
smell test to me. What this is about is what
I've been chronicling, and I think, arguably not to pull
a muscle trying to pat my own self on the back,
but I believe I've been telling you that this crack
up is coming. I wrote about it about a month ago.
You could start to see all the signs, and there
were just various trigger points, whether it was Epstein, whether
it was the tariffs, whether it was souring economy. Then

(04:25):
I wrote all this before what happened in twenty twenty
five for the election. So this is obviously something that
if you've been a listener to this podcast, I've been
you're sort of been on top of and we're watching it,
and I said, you know, you were going to see it.
In some cases it would be big deals, in some
cases they would be small cracks. And just in the
last if you look at the last seventy two hours

(04:45):
or ninety six hours you've had her resignation, you've got
a huge divide inside the Republican party over this Ukraine
peace deal that the President is trying to shove down
Ukraine's throat. It is not a good deal, nowhere close
to being a good deal, and it does feel it.
And there's some confusion driven by a Republican senator named

(05:06):
Mike Grounds who said Rubio told him this was a
Russian author document and then but you really have to
parse the words there, and we're I want to get
into that, but I'm going to start with Marjorie Taylor
Green because I do think that the she fits the
definition of true believer, and she is a I think
in America. First, I think going back, you know we've

(05:29):
talked about I've spent some time talking about the history
of the Republican Party on this podcast and how you
know we've they're actually are ebbs and flows to the
party if you look at it over the last one
hundred years. Right one hundred years ago, this party was
very isolationist. This is in the nineteen twenties. It was
pro tariff at the time, it was considered about protecting

(05:49):
American industry. It's what the business community actually was pro tariff,
so and they were in bed with that with that administration,
the Harding administration, and then later became the Coolidge administration,
So you had sort of that similarity there. This was
a party that was for immigration quotas. You know, we
don't call them quotas now, but you're seeing, you know,

(06:10):
whether it's Trump pulling the temporary protected status, whether it's
for Venezuelans or Somali's that he just triggered over the weekend.
So the fact is this, there is this wing of
the party that Trump essentially is trying resurrect it. Right,
Trump himself isn't as America First, or is his isolationist
or is his maga as the rest of his coalition

(06:32):
actually is. And you can take a look at somebody
like Marjorie Taylor Green, who I think in some ways
is more Maga than Trump, and certainly more you know,
if I go back in history, more of the it was.
You know, in nineteen fifty two, it was considered the
Taft Eisenhower split inside the party, right, the Eisenhower wing,
which became the predominant wing of the Republican Party for

(06:56):
basically about seventy years, essentially from Eisenhower to Romney. And
you had the Taft Republicans who were the remnants in
fifty two of the protectionists of the twenties and thirties,
of the isolationist movement of the twenties and thirties. And
this is what Pat Buchanan brought back in nineteen ninety
two and what Donald Trump basically cobbled together. Right. I

(07:18):
think we all know this about Trump. Trump's no political scientists,
he's no political theorist. He just sort of is a
gut politician. He found a constituency, he found a way
to differentiate himself within the Republican Party that actually stumbled
into a coherent ideology of sorts. And this is what
it is. It's why. But when I say stumble, I

(07:40):
use that word for a reason, because this is why
he's had real a ton of trouble governing. Right, He's
really not successfully governed at all, not in his first term,
not in his second term. Right, that tax cut was
more of the of the Republican Party that is not
represented by Marjorie Taylor Green back in the first term.
All of what he is adventures, right, what he's doing

(08:01):
in Venezuela, that's a that's a that's an eye. That
is absolutely more of an Eisenhower wing of the party
type of move what he's been doing in the Middle East.
So it is this is not a presidency that has
actually been governing by the ideological coalition he built. And
I think in many ways, even though Epstein is clearly

(08:24):
the breaking point here between Marjorie Taylor Green and Trump,
when you start to look at what she's and this
is what I want to spend a few minutes doing.
I want to read her entire statement. I'm not going
to read the whole thing, but I want to read
certain parts of this statement because I do think if

(08:44):
she does want to run for president representing this wing
of the party, she may be more of a you know,
she is going to be this. She could be the
stalking horse for the Bannon for Steve Bann. Right, there's
always been some jokes that Steve Bannon himself may run.
Steve Bannon will. The things he espouses and what MTG

(09:04):
espouses are very very similar. Bannon is not going to
be a vanced guy. Bannon, I think, is going to
be the guy that does everything he can to stop Vance,
at least in the primaries, right, and he certainly isn't
going to be a Rubio guy. He is absolutely going
to want to stop Peter Tiel though, and the entire
big tech community, at least the Steve Bannon that I've

(09:27):
dealt with over the years and that I've been dealing
with a bit this year. I think in this sense,
this is where there is a Venn diagram here, And
if she is running for president, I think we got
a hint at what her messaging might look like. So look,
let me start with her opening statement here. I've always
represented the common American man and woman as a member
of the House of Representatives, which is why I've always
been despised in Washington, DC and never fit in. Americans

(09:49):
are used by our Americans are used by the political
industrial complex of both political parties election cycle after election
cycle in order to elect whichever side can convince Americans
to hate the other side more, and the insults are
always the same. Think about that statement there a minute, right,
This is why I want to annotate the statement A bit.
Political industrial complex is a fascinating phrase. She's not wrong, right,

(10:11):
some people use unit party. I think that there is
a certainly the way K Street works, Certainly how the
big tech community has worked, how the crypto world has worked.
They have basically bought off pieces of both parties. That
is when I hear political industrial complex. That's what first
place I go, Yes, the way your major industries buy

(10:35):
off pieces of both parties because the whole goal, which
is frankly smart as far as business is concerned, but
very I think demoralizing. If you're a true believer in
either party, right on where you are, depending on where
you are in some of these issues is how easily
you do have And it almost always is every time

(10:57):
you see somebody being the minority in their party, but
be supportive of some issue. Maybe it's a trade issue,
maybe it's a terrif issue, maybe it's a new helping
a new sector. It's always followed by and they've just
had a shit ton of money raised for them in
a superpack, or a ton of money raised for them here,
or their former chief of staff is now working for

(11:20):
this lobbying firm. Right it is. So the point is
is that she's identified a correct issue that I've been
talking about before, and that is politic There is truth
to what is the political industrial complex. Just like the
right likes to think there's a media industrial complex, some

(11:40):
of us have broken free and don't buy that as much,
but there certainly is one, and there's now one developing
in some ways. That's the Ellisons in the Murdochs. I
would argue that what's been created on the right that
is something that has concentrated power among two families who
have a political agenda that are going to own something
like seventy to eighty You throw in this next Artegna business,

(12:03):
and this wing of the party is going to control
seventy or eighty percent of sort of legacy media over
the next couple of years. I think that in itself
is also going to make people a bit upset. Let
me keep going here and note the various things she says.
So then she adds, no matter which way the political
pendulum swings, Republican or Democrat, nothing ever gets better for

(12:24):
the common American man or woman. The debt goes higher,
corporate and global interests remained. Washington, sweethearts, Well, let me
put a pause in there. We've been voting against right.
She's not wrong about this in her what she's identified now,
I'm not raising her up as some political hero. I
think her rhetoric, I think her conspiracy theories have made
her a sort of a very questionable player at times

(12:47):
in the political space. I think she got, if I'm
going to take this statement at face value, then early
on she got caught up in the wrong part of politics,
thinking the theater was the point. Hopefully, maybe she's really
gotten religion here and realizes theater is actually a distraction
and theater is how you avoid accountability. But the fact is,

(13:14):
why do we had voters that are going back and forth?
We have been literally like a windshield wiper of the
political electorate going back to twenty to twenty oh six. Right,
you know, we had a pretty stable election in twenty
oh four. Every big thing got reelected. Right then at
twenty oh six, both the House and Senate flip twenty
oh eight. The White House flips twenty ten, The House

(13:35):
flips twenty twelve, our last non flipping election, okay, where
status quo is reelected twenty fourteen. The Senate flips twenty sixteen.
The White House flips twenty eighteen, The House flips twenty twenty.
The White House flips twenty twenty two. The House flips
twenty twenty four. The White House flips. Oh, and the
Senate flips too. Sorry, the White House and the Senate

(13:57):
and twenty twenty six it looks like the House got
to flip. And if it is, if current trends hold,
the Senate's going to flip too. I am getting more
bullish on the Senate for the Democrats simply because of
how poorly Trump is managing his current coalition one two,
how poorly he's managing this economy, and frankly, because this

(14:18):
economy is not good. So she is right the way
I think working class swing voters feel. They keep voting against,
they're not voting for right. They know what they don't want,
and they keep expressing those views. Then she gets into
the issue that I think is going to become a
very salient issue in twenty twenty eight jobs. She goes this,

(14:39):
American jobs continue to be replaced, whether it's by illegal labor,
legal labor, by visas, or just shipped overseas. Small businesses
continue to be swallowed by big corporations. I could easily
see her adding an issue of big tech and AI
and that job displacement as well. Job displacement. Fear of
job displacement is going to be singing early the most,

(15:01):
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likely you'll start to see a lot of it in
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(16:11):
Then she goes right into our America First focus. Here,
America's harder and tax dollars always fund foreign wards, foreign aid,
and foreign interest. The spending power of the dollar continues
to decline. The average American family can no longer survive
on a single breadwinners income, as both parents must work
in order to simply survive. So this is where I
look at a sentence like this and say, she's a
shunned true believer. She really believed in this conservative America

(16:34):
First movement. She believed in this idea. Hey, we're doing
too much overseas. We need to focus at home. You
need to focus at home, so you can give people
the opportunity to raise a family with only a single income. Right,
this is culturally where many on the right would also
like to be as well. So this is where I
read this statement, and this was the first time I'm like,

(16:56):
she's a spurned She basically she believed the talking points,
she believed the bullshit that Trump has been saying, and
she's really and it's like, I think, in some ways
it's possible her anger and reaction is she's mad at
herself for buying into it, mad at herself for buying
into Trump and realizing because I think a lot of people,

(17:20):
I mean, I think this is the big danger here,
especially when you're in your tenth year as sort of
leading the creating the political weather that Trump's been doing.
In general, his Jedi mind tricks don't have the same
impact anymore. You know. It's sort of like, or to
put it in football terms, you know, he's still running
the same offense that works seven years ago, and he's

(17:41):
not making enough adjustments, and everybody else has made adjustments,
and he still hasn't made any adjustments. Trump still tries
the same stick, still tries the you know, fake news
media's lying business still tries the intimidation tactics still, and
it's just right. You do something over and over again

(18:02):
and you realize that, you know, maybe he doesn't have
and you know, look at his track record in Georgia.
Whenever he's targeted a Georgia Republican, that Georgia Republican hasn't
just survived. In some ways, they've thrived. Right, Brian Kemp
is a frankly I think he's somebody that is not
the most charismatically, not the most charismatic guy. I don't

(18:23):
immediately see presidential candidate in his future, but in some
ways the ability to beat Trump back has made him
more interesting to a lot of donors who don't like
who would like a small government conservative, maybe even somebody
that is a bit I think Kemp really is a
little bit more of the Paul Ryan Ron DeSantis side

(18:45):
of conservatism, less Trumps side, less populist than all of that.
But his ability to withstand threats from Trump and beat
Trump I think have made him made him a stronger
political figure. It's given his political machine a lot more

(19:05):
halfed in the state of Georgia. Just in general, right,
Trump has not been able to successfully work his will
in punishing any Republicans that have gone sideways with him.
And I think in who's at a front row seat
to this, Marjorie Taylor Green. So let me read this

(19:26):
next two statements here. I ran for We're going back
to Marjorie Taylor g I ran for Congress in twenty twenty,
and I f fought every single day believing that make
America great again meant America. First, going back to my
belief here that the whole point that she is a
quote unquote true believer and essentially a shunned You know
that she feels that she feels essentially let down. Right,

(19:52):
let me continue. I have one of the most conservative
voting records in Congress, defending the First Amendment, Second Amendment
on more than babies because I believe God creates life
at conception, strong safe borders. I fought against COVID tyrannical
insanity and mandated mask vaccines, and I have never voted
to fund foreign wars. And then she keeps going. However,

(20:12):
with almost one year into our majority, the legislature has
been mostly sidelined. We endured an eight week shutdown, wrongly
resulting in the House not working for the entire time,
and we are entering campaign season, which means all courage
leaves and only save campaign reelection mode is turned on.
I have to tie. Yet, whatever you think of her,
she's got Congress figured out. She understands how Congress works,

(20:36):
and she's not wrong about what the next year is
going to be, which is avoid any tough votes. During
the longest shutdown in our nation's history, I raged against
my own speaker and my own party for refusing to
proactively work diligently to pass a plan to save American
health care and protect Americans from outrageous, over priced, unaffordable
health insurance policies. The House should have been in session

(20:56):
working every day to fix this disaster, but instead America
was force fed to discusting political drama once again from
both sides of the aisle. She is absolutely wanting to
send the message that I'm the true believer. I'm real
America First. All of these others are a bunch of
pretenders and in many ways, including the President of the

(21:18):
United States. I think this is interesting. Many common Americans
are no longer easily convinced by paid political propaganda spokespersons
and consultants on TV and paid shills on social media,
obediently serving with cult like conviction to force others to
swallow the political party talking points. If there is a machine,

(21:40):
it is more on the right these days when it
comes to propaganda and sort of how Trump runs that
social media machine, right, and everybody's supposed to get in line.
Somebody doesn't like getting in line on this one. Let
me keep going here. Here's a good one. I have

(22:03):
fought harder than almost any other elected Republican to elect
Donald Trump and Republicans to power. She argues, traveling the
country for years, spending millions of my own money, missing
precious time with my family that I can never get back,
and showing up in places like outside the New York
Courthouse and collect Pond Park against a raging leftist mob
as Trump faced democrat law fair. Meanwhile, most of the

(22:23):
establishment Republicans who secretly hate him, who stabbed him in
the back and never defended him against anything, have all
been welcomed in after the election. Interesting way that she
words that, and I understood, you know, she looks at
a Marco Rubio and thinks that's what I was fighting against. Right.
She looks at some of these folks. That's what I

(22:43):
was fighting against, Scott Besson. You know the folks that
have been they're not maga people, but they're there in
some ways, you know, to reassure the business community. Well,
she's somebody that's clearly was trying to wanted to see
this blow up the system. And of course, Trump, while
he's blown up norms, he's certainly blown up the system

(23:04):
within the Republican Party, and he's certainly turned the Republican
Party into a kleptocracy, he has not actually blown up
the system in the way that he promised some of
his true believers. And again I go back, this is
a statement of somebody who's a true believer. In fact,
let me read these next two statements and you will
see how why she feels so personally just personally aggrieved

(23:29):
by what the President did to her. And I will
never forget the day I had to leave my mother's
side as my father had brain surgery to remove cancer's tumors,
in order to fly to Washington, DC to defend President
Trump and vote no against the Democrat's second impeachment in
twenty twenty one. My poor father, my poor mother, It
was way too much. Through it all. I never changed
or went back on my campaign promises, and only disagreed
in a few areas, like my stance against H one

(23:51):
b's replacing American jobs, AI state moratoriums, debt for life,
fifty year mortgage scams, standing strongly against all involvement in
foreign wars, manning the release of the Epstein files. Other
than that, my voting record has been solidly with my
party and the President. She's making a She is correct
on this. Yes, she is split with him on a

(24:13):
few things, but in many ways she's split with her
because she's a true believer and President Trump is not.
He doesn't believe his own ideology, of which of which
he pitches and of which he convinces a person like
Marjorie Taylor Green to be. Again, I am not sitting
here trying to lionize her. I'm just trying to explain
I don't like her anti Semitic thoughts. I don't like

(24:34):
some of this conspiratorial mindset. When going down QAnon, the
you know, she sort of you know, created a lot
of the you know, sort of participated in this hate
mongering that took place, the demonizing, of the unfair demonizing
of some members of the press. So I'm not going
to sit here and and but I do want to

(24:54):
explain this split because she does I really believe spe
for those that actually thought Trump believed this stuff. But
is in all those of us that have covered Trump
for thirty years and knew he's a bullshitter. He's always
been a bullshitter, and once again he's being exposed as

(25:15):
who he is. He is always bullshitting you, always, He
is always, always bullshitting. Rarely does he tell the truth,
and now more of his people are starting to figure
this out. Then, she continues, loyalty should be a two
way street, and we should be able to vote our
conscience and represent our district's interests because our job title

(25:37):
is literally representative. America first should mean America first and
only Americans first, with no other foreign country ever being
attached to America first in our halls of government. Standing
up for American women who were raped at fourteen, trafficked
and used by rich, powerful men should not result in
me being called a traitor and threatened by the President
of the United States, whom I fought for. However, while

(25:57):
yes hurtful, my heart remains filled with joy. My life
is filled with how happiness and my true convictions remain unchanged
because my self worth is not defined by a man,
but is said by God, who created everything in existence.
So then she explains why she decided not to do it,
not to face off with a Trump funded Republican primary opponent.
My only goal and desire has been has ever been

(26:19):
to hold the Republican Party accountable for the promises it
makes to the American people and put America first. And
I have fought against Democrats damaging policies like the Green
New Deal, or wide open, deadly unsafe border policies, and
the Transagenda on children and against women. With that has
come years of NonStop, never ending personal attacks, death threats,
law fair, ridiculous slander and lies about me that most
people could never withstand even for a day. It has

(26:41):
been unfair and wrong, not only to me and especially
my family, but to my district as well. I have
too much self respect and dignity, loved my family way
too much and do not want my sweet district to
have to endure a hurtful and hateful primary against me
by the president we all fought for only to fight
and win my election. While Republicans will likely lose the
mid terms and in turn be expected to defend the

(27:02):
president against impeachment after he hatefully dumped tens of millions
of dollars against me and tried to destroy me. So
this is now at the heart of why she resigned.
She's sitting and she's not wrong on this, right he
is desperate to prove that he has political power, and
right now it's not clear that Trump has the power

(27:24):
he thinks he has. Thomas Massey looks like he's gonna
win reelection. He's afraid of putting his finger on the
scale for anybody in Texas for fear of picking the
wrong guy, which tells me he has no comfort level
of whether he has the ability to persuade the way
he used to. He was clearly a negative to anybody
that touched him during during the twenty twenty five elections.

(27:47):
And she's right if she wins now. I don't think
the Democratic leadership that is stupid enough to try another impeachment,
and I yes, stupid, Like why I politicize this move
on from Trump? Trump is leaving the stage. It is
clear his own party at times wants them to leave
the stage. Don't do something that might actually galvanize the

(28:11):
party against them, right. It was always the head scratcher
of when Republicans, even after they got the impeachment effort
in ninety eight, didn't was essentially the voters told Republicans,
don't do it, and essentially gave a collective bird to
the Republicans that did it out of bitterness. They did
it anyway, and of course, you know, politically, you know,

(28:36):
pissed away whatever moral or ethical high ground that they
thought they were kidding. But she is right. She could win,
be in the minority and then be expected to defend
the president and his policies, which in some cases she
might instinctively defend because she believes in the policies. But
she's thinking, I'm going to be there a bulwark on

(28:56):
your behalf after you've beaten the crap out of me
and launched your political goons, and to go after her.
So it is understandable. I get why she's walking because
the upside again, there is no worse job in elective
politics than being in the minority in the House of Representatives.

(29:20):
The political wins are clearly blowing against Donald Trump right now.
And you know, again I go back, this is why
you know the phrase six year itch, which I believe
was coined by a longtime political scientist named Kevin Phillips.
I think he gets credit for that phrase, which is
sort of after you know, in the sixth year, after

(29:41):
parties had a lung it really you know, you really
see a hunger to flip. And we generally see that, right,
eight years of one party in a governor's mansion usually
means the out party is slightly favored or was certainly
going to overperform what they normally do. And I think,
you know, this is no ordinary second for Trump. This
is the end of a ten year run for him.

(30:03):
You know, he had a gap in some ways, it's
sort of like he did get a third term. Even
though he lost in twenty he was still sort of
the leading political figure in America still for that period
that Biden was president. So this is now the essentially
a mid term for Trump's third term, right, you know,

(30:25):
the FDR was wearing his welcome out. He was struggling
to hold his coalition together. But for World War Two,
maybe he doesn't run. But but for World War two
he certainly doesn't. I don't think wins that third term
as easily and you know, third term wasn't wasn't. I've
probably read three or four different books on the nineteen
forty presidential election. I've always been fascinated by that election,

(30:47):
and I encourage you. I've read him from different points
of view, one, you know, you from a more anti fdrview,
one from a more pro FDR view, but which I
highly encourage. By the way, when you when you read
about historical figures, try to find try to find a
you know, a negative critic and a positive critic, you know,

(31:09):
and if and try to consume both. I know that
is extra homework, but you know, it is what it is.
So I think she's right about this. I think her
explanation is perfectly rational. And you know, there's many political
reporters or trying to interpret this the way we all

(31:29):
do sometimes, which is all right, what's her real angle here?
Maybe what is she really setting up? Maybe she's doing this.
I think if she had she really was was interested
in sort of more of a to be more of
a political agitator, she'd jump in that center race. I'll
tell you this far john asstuff. I'd be petrified if

(31:50):
she jumped in the center race, because I think she'd
win this primary. I think this type of candidacy could
win a republic particularly a four way crowded Republican primary,
but it would turn it into some sort of weird
sort of anti It might create frenzy. But my point
is is that if she did harbor the ambition that

(32:12):
I think many are assuming she does, and I think
sometimes we all have to be careful sometimes of these
new figures that come in. You know, how many of
them suddenly get into the club and think, oh, now
I want to be president of the club, versus how
many even get in there because they actually really wanted
to do something. And she is expressed in this statement

(32:32):
that she's sort of turned off by Congress because she
hasn't because Congress on work. She's not the first person
to figure this out, and there's been quite a few
that bail after five or six years that that you know,
on their own, who could stick around but don't see
the value in another two years, especially if you're going
to be in the political minority. So anyway, it's I'm

(32:56):
fascinated by her statement. I would encourage you to read
the whole thing. I've obviously read quite a few clips
of it, because I think this is yours. This fracturing
is real. Humpty dumpty, and I guess Humpty Trumpy I
should call him, right, is not going to be able
to get this put this back together. I think that

(33:18):
we're sort of because it's in the late stages of
this movement. For in the early stages of this movement,
maybe that would be another story. But we're in the
late stages of this movement. We have a weakening economy,
and then you have a president right now who is
so he's clearly irritated by his political standing getting so sour.
So he doesn't ever sit idly by, and in some

(33:39):
ways he's making things worse, and he could continue to
do this. I thought it was fascinating that he quickly
said she just needed a time out. She's going to
be great when she comes back. That's some acknowledgment that
he knows she could be a potent political force that

(34:00):
on a movement for a movement he helped create, but
that he may lose control over. And that's going to
be something that I think it's worth is Thomas Massey
in some ways was Trump before Trump in the same way,
and he's going after Massy in extraordinarily hard ways, and
Massy in some ways is a more pure American first,
or more pure isolationists. And he's also not very pro Israel.

(34:25):
Neither's Marjorie Taylor Green and it's under for the same
supposed reason. They're also not in favor of sending any
money over to the Ukraine, right all sort of you could say,
you could disagree with that, but it is consistent with
the ideologies she's preaching, and I imagine that they're not
going to be very favorable towards Venezuela either. Before I

(34:46):
go and sneak in a break here, I do want
a quick little update on what we're seeing with this
Ukraine peace deal. There was a bit of a dust
up over the last forty eight hours where you had
Republican senators that are at the Halifi Security Conference. This
is a security conference always held in Halifax, Canada. It
is a you've heard of the Munich Security Conference. This

(35:08):
is essentially one that's about North America. And there's always
bipartisan groups of senators up there, and you have the
sort of the hawkish bipartisan Senate brigade that's up there
that's a little less America first Mike Grounds, he's been
pretty anti Russia, pro Ukraine, sort of the old Marco
Rubio wing of the party, even though Rubio is now

(35:28):
in the Trump administration. It's interesting that Mike Rounds and
Angus King both went public saying that Secretary of Rubio
told them the Russians authored this peace plan, that this
was the Russian peace plan. Now, when Rubio said, well,
that story is not true. This was a US author document.

(35:50):
I want to read this. Read these words carefully here
one more time, and the exact way that he worded this,
because I do believe, I do believe he left he
left open the possibility that what he told what he
was what has been reported that he said privately is indeed,

(36:14):
both things can be true. So here's what he said.
He says, the peace proposal was authored by the US.
Let's parse that. Okay, the peace proposal, all right, the
actual piece of paper is that what he's referring to.
So Steve Whitcoff took dictation from the Russians, That's possible

(36:35):
the Russians this was their suggestions, and we took all
of their suggestions and put it on a piece of paper.
But the US authored it. Right. Then he says it
has offered a strong framework for ongoing negotiations. This is
no final offer, right, This is an offer, not a
final offer. And then third, it is based on input

(36:57):
from the Russian side, but it is also based on
a no ongoing input from Ukraine. So this was Rubio's
response to the feeding frenzy that got started when Mike
Rounds and Angus King both went public saying, hey, this
peace deal isn't true. So Rubio kind of tries to
say no, no, no, But he doesn't say Rounds is wrong,

(37:20):
and he doesn't say Angus King was wrong, right. He
just puts up it extraordinarily. Remember, Marco Rubio did go
to law school, went to the years of Miami law school.
We went to went to Gainesville for undergrad So he's
one of these weirdos that claims to be both a
Gator fan and Hurricane fan. Sorry, Secretary Rubio, it is
not allowed at the nursery of Miami. There's no such thing.
You can have a divided household about Florida State. You're

(37:41):
not allowed to have one about the armpit of Florida.
I love my Gator friends, as you can tell. I
only love them almost as much as I love my
domer friends. But I'll get to them in a minute.
But the point of this is so Rubio is is
clearly uncomfortable with what to me he is signaling. Look,

(38:02):
this isn't my deal. This is one of these crazy
ass wit cough deals who got essentially once again, you know,
taken in by the Russians and he just plays stenographer
for whatever the Russians want. He's done this multiple times,
which is how he ended up with that ridiculous summit
where Trump got nothing out of it and it allowed
Putin to sort of try to reteach history. I should

(38:25):
read another Rubio tweet from a couple of days ago,
when this peace deal was circulating and he was trying
to show that he was supportive of the idea if
even if he wasn't supportive of the deal, He writes this,
ending a complex and deadly war such as the one
in Ukraine requires an extensive exchange of serious and realistic ideas,
and achieving a durable piece will require both sides to

(38:48):
agree to difficult but necessary concessions. That is why we
are and will continue to develop a list of potential
ideas for ending this war based on input from both
sides of this conflict. Again, Rubio is very careful here.
He is not trying to go up against the President,
but he's clearly trying to rain him in on this.
He is clearly want trying to get make it clear

(39:10):
this is a deal that the US did not author
It was actually the US may have taken dictation from
a Russian in order to put this on paper, but
that this was not necessarily based on any contributions, certainly
from the Secretary of State or the National Security Advisor. Wait,

(39:31):
it is the same person, it is. I do think
the fact that it looks like, you know, Trump put
this Thanksgiving deadline on here. I think if you're Zelensky,
you realize you still have a majority of Congress that
supports you over what Trump is trying to shove down
your throat. I think he feels I think he's managed

(39:53):
this smartly, which is he's not in the greatest position
these days because of this corruption scandal that he's been
dealing with, but he knows it's better to work with
Trump than to try to work against him publicly. He
may work against them buying the scenes, but he can't
work against him publicly. But as you can see, I
think I think we're going to see two more weeks, right,
We're going to get you know how, Donald Trump's got

(40:14):
a habit of when he wants to punch something, he's
going to buy himself two more weeks, which could mean
two days or two months, but it doesn't. But it
never means it's two more weeks. But you could see
something going here. Finally, before we get to write Thompson,
I just want to flag something for you. I'm going
to talk more about it in my next episode, but
I did an interview with Mike Turner for Newsphere. Please

(40:36):
go check it out, I promise you. This is from
my episode of Sunday Night with Chuck Todd on Newsphere.
Mike Turner, former House Intel Committee. We talk extensively about
this deal. Look, he is somebody that is he's a
former mayor. He was a former mayor of Dayton, Ohio.
So we actually talk a little bit about sort of
how do we depolarize why are mayors less partisan figures

(40:58):
than any other political figure in America. We get into
that conversation a little bit, but I want to I
do want to highlight the interaction we have over Venezuela
and whether Congress has been informed or not, and what's missing,
and whether whether there is whether the president whether what

(41:18):
he's doing is legal. Look, if you read the transcript,
Mike Turner didn't say anything counter to the president. Sometimes
you have to watch an interview. You got to absorb
an interview. You've got to see the pauses, the awkward pauses,
you've got to hear the responses to certain follow ups

(41:39):
that I have to try to try to understand where
he's going. Put it this way, it is painfully obvious
to me that this administration has not made the case
to Congress that what they're doing in Venezuela off the coast,
is legal, that what is happening here is quite dangerous,
that it may be counterproductive. I'm not saying I'm not

(42:00):
putting words in Mike Turner's mouth. I don't want that
to come across here. I want you to watch it
on your own. I'm just telling you what I took
away from it. I can match that with my own
reporting from different members of Congress who have certainly said
similar things to me. And we've seen much in the
public about this. But he's done a But the president
that has not made the case to the American public

(42:21):
at all. You saw some CBS polling indicating just as
much these extra judicial killings. To me, the great misstep
in this is the risk and this is what I'm
really concerned about, the risk of somehow galvanizing Venezuelan's behind
Maduro and if this ridiculously laid out policy that has

(42:45):
just not been well thought out leads to that talk
about counterproductive, setting us back in this region fifty years.
If we end up with an outcome like that, which
is certainly the way we are operating is that is
not a zero percent chance of a possibility, and it's
not even in the single digits. The way we're operating

(43:08):
here could galvanize pieces of the Latin American, of Latin America,
of South American countries against us in ways that we
will regret, and frankly, in ways that we have mismanaged
the hemisphere pretty much since the since arguably even before

(43:29):
the Spanish American War. But we never get this region right.
We always play colonists in some sort or imperialist in
some ways, and every time we do it, it backfires.
But I do think you've got to understand, Mike Turner
is no softy, he's no Trump hater. He may not
ideologically align with him on foreign policy, but you can

(43:53):
just see the lack of I mean, there's been total
disregard for the role of Congress in whatever the hell
is happening down on the coast, off the coast of Venezuela.
But it's pretty clear not a lot of people think
what's happening is legal, and this is something that Congress
ought to ought to be a bit more united on.

(44:14):
There should be a bipartisan anger about this, and unfortunately
has only been a blip because we've got so many
other things that we have to do in our crazy
political theater of the day. All Right, that was a
longer intro than I planned, I will admit that, but
we did hit. Like I said, I think this Marjorie
Taylor Green thing is a big deal because I do

(44:34):
think we haven't heard the last of her. She has
put herself in a position to be potentially the real
heir to the America First, non Trump aligned America First movement.
Different from what Tucker Carlson is doing. I think he's
kind of clown. He's a clown. He's not a serious guy,
and he gets exposed to being an unseerious guy all

(44:55):
the time. Weirdly enough, a person like Marjorie Tayl Green
has a lot more credibility to that movement than the
clown that is tougher Carlson. And with that, let me
sneak at a break and when we come back, a
terrific conversation with Right Thompson. This episode of the Chuck
Podcast is brought to you by Wild Grain. Wild Grain

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at check out. Always use the code get the discount.
I'm telling you it's excellent, excellent bread. Let's go back
in time. It's time for the history lesson of the week.
We're going to go into the toodcast time machine. Let's
see where we're going. You know, I always I always

(47:08):
think that somehow I'm there's squiggly lines, right that that's
what I'm That's that's a move I'm trying to go
for here. So we're gonna go all the way back
to nineteen thirty nine. It's Thanksgiving Week and I thought
I've not done it for the toodcast time machine. I've
made references to it before. But for a few years
we had two Thanksgivings. And how did we end up

(47:30):
with two Thanksgivings? Well, it was the year FDR chose
to move Thanksgiving and guess what, it nearly tore America
in half. Let me tell you the story. So we
are it's it is Thanksgiving week, and by the way,
it's kind of a late version of Thanksgiving, right, Thanksgiving
is gonna be the twenty eighth this year, closer, you know,

(47:52):
and that what does that really mean? If you're a
Christmas retailer, it means, oh, there's not you get one
essentially one less week to sell Christmas presents. Right. You
can kind of tell that retailer's a bit a little
bit nervous about the shortened Thanksgiving to Christmas window this year.

(48:12):
Because I don't know about you, but I guess we've
all agreed. Black Friday now starts the Friday before Thanksgiving
because it was Black Friday week. We are already discussed
last time that now college has sent all their students
home the Friday before Thanksgiving. There's nobres short week at all.
No more Tuesday and Wednesday being the crappy time at
the airport. Trust me, both my wife and I could

(48:35):
tell you Friday night we will each went there once
and it was a madhouse at National. So clearly now
the Friday before the Thanksgiving is the new Wednesday before Thanksgiving.
And we now have decided to make Black Friday a week.
It is no longer a day, it is a week.
Perhaps it's a state of mind, right. So part of that,

(48:59):
I think is because this year Thanksgiving does come a
bit later, so when the shopping window shrinks, you know,
retailers want to stretch, including Amazon, want to stretch the
whole calendar backward. But of course, this isn't the first
time that America has faced a late Thanksgiving and retail anxiety.

(49:20):
And there was one year when a president tried to
solve it himself. That's right, a president tried to move
Thanksgiving and Americans reacted as if he'd committed a crime
against Turkey and tradition. So today we're going to get
back into the time machine and we're going to revisit
nineteen thirty nine. It's the year Franklin Roosevelt changed the
date of Thanksgiving and accidentally triggered a culture war. But
to understand why it blew up, we should understand a

(49:41):
little something about what most Americans have forgotten, and that
is that Thanksgiving wasn't always on a fixed date or
even a fixed week. In fact, presidents used to move
it all the time. Thanksgiving before FDR, for most of
you as history, Thanksgiving was not a settled holiday. Before Lincoln,
we had thirteen states, thirteen different dates. Each governor used

(50:02):
to pick their own day of Thanksgiving, usually somewhere between
October and early December, and it would move constantly. There
was no national standard. Then, in eighteen sixty three, in
the middle of the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln proclaimed a
single national Thanksgiving on the last Thursday in November, hoping
it would unify the country during, of course, what was

(50:23):
unimaginable division. But here's the part that people forget. From
nineteen sixty three through nineteen thirty eight, every president issued
a new Proclamation each year declaring the specific date of Thanksgiving.
We didn't do it. We didn't have a standard method.
Each year a president essentially would decide, So Thanksgiving wasn't

(50:46):
always a statutory holiday. It existed entirely at the whim
of the White House when the president wanted to have
the holiday, and presidents tweaked it. Ulysses S. Grant, he
moved it twice eighteen seventy one. In November twenty third,
he moved it for harvest and travel reasons. The eighteen
seventy harvest was late and early snowstorms hit the Northern

(51:08):
States hard, so governors and clergy petitioned Grant, saying that
a late November date made travel dangerous and excluded rural families.
Grant decided to move Thanksgiving up a week to help
travelers and farmers. Then in eighteen seventy five he moved
it back. Newspapers, especially in New England, complained that Grant
had disrupted tradition and commerce, So four years later Grant

(51:30):
restored it to the last Thursday of November, which is
of course the original Lincoln Proclamation. Two moves to do
different reasons, both of more more logistical than cultural right.
Then came Grover Cleveland. He adjusted again. In eighteen eighty five,
Cleveland shifted Thanksgiving slightly earlier for two reasons, their economic jitters.
After the Panic of eighteen eighty four, merchants wanted a

(51:51):
steadier December, so in a symbolic reset, Cleveland wanted a
recast Thanksgiving as more secular, forward looking national holiday, not
as a war remembrance. So again he changed it slightly
more to create a little bit more unity, but again
it had to do with commerce. Then, in eighteen ninety nine,
William McKinley tweaks it. The Spanish American War just ended.

(52:14):
Troops were slowly returning from Cuba, and the Philippines Veterans
Group asked the White House to push Thanksgiving later so
that more soldiers could actually get home in time. So
McKinley obliged, and he actually picked a date that gave
returning servicemen a chance to join their families. He moved
it later. Across all these shifts, one theme would stand out.

(52:35):
Presidents had moved Thanksgiving before, but always for weather, harvest, travel,
or wartime logistics. It was never specifically for economic intervention.
It was never specifically for retail sales, and it was
never specifically for the shopping season. That's what made FDR's
decision in nineteen thirty nine different and politically a bit explosive.

(52:58):
So in nineteen thirty nine, and we had a retail
panic over a short shopping season, why that year, Thanksgiving
was scheduled for November thirtieth, right, as basically as late
as it can go. Right, when the fourth Thursday can
be that late, it's possible. Right, it's as late as
it can go. Here we were in nineteen thirty nine.

(53:18):
The US is still trying to clocks weight out of
the Great Depression. Unemployment is still high, retailers are anxious.
So retailers won the White House at a very short
shopping season will tank Christmas sales and tank the economy overall.
So Roosevelt, ever, the economic stinker. Right in many ways,
this is exactly something Trump would do. Don't let's not
pretend he wouldn't even the believer that government could nudge

(53:41):
consumer behavior. Hint, he decides to help. So he moves
Thanksgiving up one week to November twenty third, And just
like that, there was no consultation or snow Congressional vote,
just simply a presidential proclamation. Well, guess what happened. FDR's
opponents dubbed it Frank's Giving, right, get it, Franklin Dell
and a Rosa Franksgiving, So we have Franksgiving. The reaction

(54:03):
became immediate, so families complained that school calendars didn't line up,
Churches complained that the holiday schedules were thrown off. College
football coaches even came out against it because rivalry games
were being messed up for years were based on the
last Thursday. So you had small business complaints. Governors complained,
radio commentators were mocking the president for Franksgiving. Republicans accused

(54:26):
Roosevelt of behaving like a monarch hint hint. Alf Landon,
in the GOP nominee just three years earlier, declares, this
is another illustration of the confusion which has characterized this administration.
All of this is nineteen thirty nine. People are calling
Roosevelt authoritarian over this Thanksgiving proclamation, and then the states
get involved. We end up with two Americas and two Thanksgivings.

(54:49):
States were not required to follow the president's proclamation, so
guess what many did not In nineteen thirty nine, the
country ended up with twenty three states celebrating FDR Early
Thanksgiving or show we call it Franksgiving, twenty two states
refusing and sticking with November thirtieth at three states decided
to have two Thanksgivings. God love those three states. The

(55:12):
three states in case you're wondering, Colorado and Texas, and
I say potentially Mississippi because it is unclear whether they
put out a second proclamation or not. Definitely, it's clear
that Texas and Colorado were two states that decided to
have the two Thanksgivings, but Mississippi is the other one
that didn't seem to also have proclamations for either. So

(55:35):
either way, imagine having two Thanksgivings. You know, in some ways,
if you have two giant families and the in laws
don't get along. You know, I'm somebody who I remember
as a kid, my parents didn't want to say no
to either one of their sets of parents. So I
think I had Thanksgiving lunch with my father's side of
the family and Thanksgiving dinner with my mother's side of

(55:56):
the family. We were early, right, you know, And that
happens when you're on there, when you have kids early
and you're in you're in your twenties, still you don't
You're you feared disappointing your parents, so you end up
trying to make everybody happy. By the way, this didn't
last one year nineteen thirty nine. This ended up lasting
in nineteen forty and we became a nation divided over Turkey.

(56:19):
So by nineteen forty one, Congress finally decides to step in,
so we had the war looming. Of course, Congress decided
that Thanksgiving chaos needed to end, and they passed the
resolution that we live with today, Thanksgiving as the fourth
Thursday of November. It's not the last Thursday of November.
That was a you know, it is the fourth Thursday
of November. Roosevelt signs it into law December twenty sixth,

(56:40):
nineteen forty one, and that is why Thanksgiving floats the
way it does today. But wow, how about that? Huh?
That the fact that we had these two Thanksgivings it
split us on political lines. Look at how familiar that feels.
And I also bring it up because this was also
so sort of This was late in the second term

(57:04):
of Roosevelt, right he's getting ready to looks like run
for a third term. That exhaustion was in anyway, the
point being is that there's so many similarities to the
times we're in now and where we are right especially
with this year's Thanksgiving. It's late, the shopping windows tight.
By the way, consumer sentiment sucks right now, We're a
decade low in consumer sentiment. Retailers are very nervous, just

(57:28):
like they weren't thirty nine. So that may explain why
they've taken matters in their own hands. And now we
have Black Friday month, or Black Friday Week or Black Friday,
which may begin I think with I think it begins
sometime on the fourth of July, you know, maybe just
after the fireworks, that that's the official kickoff for Black

(57:49):
for the Black Friday season. Kind of half kidding, but
you see where this is going. Anyway, It's an interesting story.
It's a reminder sort of how some you know, wait
all I tell you the story of Red Santa Claus.
That's that, and how sometimes when you find out some

(58:10):
of the sources of where it's a little it's a
little bit of a bummer that it wasn't just this collective. No,
we rose above partisanship in some ways because I think
Thanksgiving is our best holiday. It's the one time that
Americans try to be their best versions of themselves, more
so than in any other holiday. I think, more so
than the than the religious holidays in the winter. I'm

(58:33):
not saying people don't get holiday spirit and all that stuff,
but there's Thanksgiving is because it's not because it's secular.
It feels as if it's the most inclusive of all
the holidays. I think first gen Americans dig it just
as much as as fifth and sixth generation Americans. It
is it is a very American thing to do so,

(58:57):
but like everything that we that we may think of
as traditional now, at some point it was a political controversy,
all right. So with that, let me dig into a
couple of questions before I get in my college football
stick for the week, ask Chuck ah. These are some
well timed questions. Thank you very much producer Lisa for

(59:20):
making sure I answered this question because it's something I
didn't discuss in the open. First question comes from Mel
and asks, Hey, can we please get your hot take
on Trump falling head over heels in love with New
York City mayor Mom, Donnie, this is one hundred and
eighty degree change. What magic does Mom Donnie have Trump
was spint and why, well, a few things. I think. Look,
Trump wants to be associated with winners. That's number one. Two.

(59:46):
When somebody it gets good press for being Trump like,
he wants to find a way to to say nice things.
Look what he does with Bernie Sanders, right, he knows
many of sanders voters ended up with him. He My
guess is, Mom Donnie came armed with letting him know, hey,
some of my voter, some of your voters voted for
me in twenty five, who voted for you in twenty four?

(01:00:09):
And you know Trump is you know, last person that
whispers something in his ears is what he ends up
spewing out. So you know, look, everybody we already learned.
Mom Donnie called other governors and mayors who have dealt
with Trump, including Mayor Bowser, I think Governor Wes Moore,
who confirmed with me he had that conversation with Mom Donnie.

(01:00:31):
Apparently Shapiro and Whitmer as well. How do you manage Trump?
What's you know what some advice at dealing with them?
And uh, it wasn't in either one of their interests
personally to get into a feud, especially in this moment,
Trump's in a bad place, right. He can't get on
the wrong side of somebody that just won on the economy.
So I think I think that that was a motivator.

(01:00:52):
But you know, anybody that is compared to him favorably,
he is going to find a way. I mean, for
the same reason he can't help himself with Putin right,
Whenever Putin says nice things, he loves it. Why these
dictators will say nice things and he and he melts. So,
you know, Mam Donnie's no different than anybody else that
works Trump from overseas as well. So I thought it

(01:01:18):
was fascinating that he said out words are words Trump.
You know, I know where I spent a lot of
time saying off in Trump Bullshit's the American public. He does.
One place where he's telling the truth is it is
where he's telling the truth is when he says, oh,
that's just campaign talk right right when he was helping
Mam donnie, Oh, don't answer that question. They just you know,

(01:01:38):
about whether he's a fascist or a despot or a communist. Right,
Trump views all of that, He had views it all's
fair during the campaign, and then he wants if you're
willing to put aside things and just say, oh, we're
just falling around. Then he is. Look, I can just
tell you my own interactions with him when he's when
he's come after, when he came after me in some
really harsh ways. You know. I'd say, you know, mister president,

(01:02:02):
you know when you called me a son of a bitch.
My daughter saw it first. She's fifteen. I'm not crazy
about that. He goes, well, you can tell her I
don't really mean it, you know, I don't say these
things about reporters. I don't like I say things about
the reporters that matter to me, you know, And that
you know, he sort of he thinks it's all part
of the game, and that I'm playing a role and

(01:02:24):
he's playing a role. And I think he's always playing
a role. I think there's there's and he wants us
all to play the role a certain role too. And
I think that that's where some of this sister, where
he views the theater as the theater. And then he's
also somebody that says he'll talk with anybody, and if
you're wanting to talk with anybody overseas, then you should

(01:02:45):
be able to want him to talk with anybody that
you politically disagree with. It is strange, though, that he
seems to have a warmer relationship already with Mom Donnie
than he has with either Schumberg Jeffres and he's made
a choice not to have a relationship with Schumer jeffres or. Moreover,
it's possible that his own staff as kept Schumer and
Jeffreys away from Trump for fear he may cut deals

(01:03:06):
with them, which is not which is not an uh,
which is not a which is not something that those
who don't want to see deal scott with them. And
it's there's a reasonable likelihood of that anyway. So I
at first was I surprised by it? I was was

(01:03:29):
I shocked by it? I wasn't by the way he
really let imagine you're at least stephonic, right, you came
up as a fast rising star of Paul Ryan's and
Mett Romney's Republican Party. You decide I'm gonna go a
maggots to sort of replace Liz Cheney in the leadership. Right,
I'm gonna take advantage of this moment and and and
just suck up to Trump sort of be something I'm

(01:03:51):
not And pretend I'm this, and so she does and
becomes this sort of maga transforms and like kind of
like we see Lindsey Graham and his sort of pathetic
heel turn that he's done and now he's all, you know,
mister magnet, because he felt like it was the only
way he could stay relevant and that's all he cares

(01:04:13):
about is relevancy. But it's kind of for those of
us that thought there was something more to him than
just staying relevant, you know, And it's always amusing to me.
People need to remember that the reason that Steele Dosi
I got credibility is because of Lindsey Graham. Lindsay Graham
is literally the person that handed the steal dos out
to about half the reporters that ended up taking a
look at it. So never nobody should ever forget that fact.

(01:04:37):
And he has been running away from that fact ever
since he did that flip. But you're at least dephonic.
You did. You sold your own your ideology out, you
sold your own soul out, all to quickly move up
thinking it was going to work. And what has it gotten.
You got the leadership position for a period of time,
so you got to replace Liz Cheney. Let's see, did

(01:04:59):
you end up ambassador you in Nope, that got yanked
from you. How's that governor campaign? Gonna know? You're trying
to literally use mom Donnie to to hang uh and
use Mom Donnie to defeat Hokal? And what does Trump
do literally pulls the rhetorical rugout from under you on
this because now anything she says about Mom Donnie, you say,

(01:05:21):
but President Trump, she tried to clean it up. She
tried she put out it. You know, I I don't
know what he sees. I still see this and he's
a communist and he's this, this and this, and it's like, oh, well,
but one thing Donald Trump did do is it really
did expose at least Stephonic and she just is you
know again, this is why if you're a Republican and

(01:05:44):
you're and you're trying to figure out how to navigate Trump,
when you when you when you flip your who you are,
when you completely try to change your identity, just know
when you get exposed, you'll have no clothes on. Right.
It is the literally she is politically naked now, and
it is you know, it is likely an unfixable situation

(01:06:06):
for her at this point. Next question comes from Austin.
From Austin, It's just you gotta love that, right, Austin
from Austin, I'm hoping for a question from Orlando. From Orlando,
that would be nice. We could get that, that would
be That would be fantastic. He goes. I know you're
a journalists not a politician. You've made clear you want
to contribute from your current platform. But given your name recognition,

(01:06:27):
trust with the public, and ability to communicate across the
out without ego or spin, I can't help, but wonder
is it totally out of the question for you to
run for office some day? You check a lot of boxes.
People say they want a leader, deep knowledge of policy,
respect for institutions, genuine desire for unity, Even if it's
a long shot, I think the question's worth asking, Austin.
I appreciate the question. I have gotten a few inquiries

(01:06:49):
from a variety of places. I just I really think
it would. I care about the institution of the media enough,
you know. I go back to something when Jay Carney
made the decision to become go from being bureau chief

(01:07:13):
of Time magazine a spokesperson for Vice President Biden, I
understood the decision he had to make, and he was
making for his family. Time was he said, you know, look,
this was he was sort of the beer chief for
when time had relevancy and it was quickly fading away.
I mean, you know, his he had to look, he
decided he had to pivot careers. And I understand it,
and I understand it from his point of view, but

(01:07:35):
his decision hurt all of us. It hurt the entire
political media community because there are those of us who
just you know, aren't political actors. And he just called
making the decision he made called, you know, only reinforced
this belief those in the right that all mainstream media is,
you know, if given a choice, is always going to

(01:07:56):
pick one side of the aisle. And of course it
called into question the reporting itself for a period of time.
It's why, that's why so many journalists are just outraged
by this Olivia News. I cannot believe Vanity Fair is
employing anybody that trades sex for scoops. If that's what
this is, certainly what it looks like, right, It's it's

(01:08:16):
wrong on any number of levels, But your credibility as
a journalist should matter. You know, if I ever did run,
I would never run with either of the two parties.
It would be some sort of you know, nonpartisan or independent.
But I just the only the only office that would
intrigue me would be would be some sort of mayor position.

(01:08:38):
If I ever did it. To be fully, you know,
I'm not going to be here and be one of these,
I'd never do it. I'm pretty sure i'd never do it.
But if I thought I could help my community where
I lived in as a as some sort of county
or you know, or mayor in a way that might
you know, to help solve problems. If I thought I

(01:08:59):
could do that, I would not go and be in
the legislature of any kind, not under these circums. I
just not the way these legislatures are working these days,
there would be no chance on something like that. So
it is seriously unlikely at all. And like I said,
the thing that the only elected officials I've come across

(01:09:21):
who have gotten satisfaction out of the job are mayors
and governors and obviously presidents. I'm not even remotely putting
myself in that category. But that's why it's sort of
Mayor feels like the most credible place that someone like
me can end up all right. One last question and
then I want to do my college football. This comes

(01:09:44):
from Greg from Peoria. I always love to find out
how it's playing in Peoria. You mentioned we're now more
of a You're now more of a policy want than
a political one. What led to that shift? I think
I've always been both for what it's worth and how
do you track evolving policies across administrations, especially when some
change constantly or barely exist out. My son and I
are both Notre Dame fans. He's die hard, I'm fair weather.
He got fired up when you defended Miami and down

(01:10:05):
played Notre Dame wins. He swears teams are never one
hundred percent, so please don't tempt him into researching resting starters.
It'll tank his GPA. Greg for purious is ps, love
the election coverage, Watch the whole night. Thank you well man.
It turns out our numbers were even bigger than I thought.
I've now heard some estimates that we might have even
crossed over a million combined when you count our X

(01:10:26):
and our various youtubes. I'm still trying to figure out
the references on that. It's I guess the argument I
would make is I've always been I think that, and
this is true of most people that cover politics I
think for a long period of time, is that there's
always an issuer too that you're very passionate about that

(01:10:48):
sort of gets you interested in getting involved or reading
about politics. And then, yes, political reporting can be very much,
very campaign focused, and certainly the first fifteen years of
my career were much about the business of getting people elected.
That's what I did for a living. I ran the
trade publication that just focused on that, so that's what
I had to be an expert on. The great thing

(01:11:10):
about shifting over to NBC is that is that it
was like I had one foot in both camps and
I got to finally showcase a little bit more of
the policy chops. And that's what made why I Meet
the Press was sort of the perfect job, you know,
perfect job in reporting, you know, and for the night
and it's it just was and it was great, and
I'm glad I had my nine year run. I don't

(01:11:33):
think i'd want to go back, and I you know,
I want to just create the stuff I liked the
best about it and try to build a better version
of it here. So the longer conversations and the ability
to do both policy and politics. So it's not really
that it's one over the other. It's just my career
was focused on the business of campaigns and elections for

(01:11:53):
fifteen years. That was my job. That was the profit
motivator of the publication. Even you know, there would be
policy stuff that I'd read about, but we didn't have
a place to cover it. That's obviously was different than
the last twenty years of my career here where I've
been in that mode. And now that's the beauty of
this podcast that essentially I get to do a little

(01:12:13):
bit of both. All right, I'm gonna put a button
in that for this week we will do. I will
do a lot more questions later this week, I promise,
But let me give you what you know. Look, I'm
gonna be honest. I don't think this was this weekend

(01:12:36):
could have gone better for Miami's chances in the college
football playoff. I was my producer, who's listening right now,
one of my producers who's listening right now, Lauren Gardner.
It's a big Utah youth fan. Let's just say I
was a big Kansas State fan. This weekend and how
the hell did you tah end up winning that game.

(01:12:56):
I'm still trying to figure out Kansas State had that
game in the bag. I was hoping at least one
team that was unfairly ranked above Miami. I don't accept
the premise of Miami should be ranked as low as
they were, but I wanted at least one team ranked
ahead of them to lose, and that didn't happen. I
I'm not gonna you know, at this point, it's a

(01:13:17):
moot question. My son and I disagreed on whether we
needed whether USC win over Oregon would be good for
Miami or bad for Miami. He thought it would be
bad for Miami because that USC would then leapfrog Miami. Maybe,
but then I think Oregon. I kind of think both
Oregon and USC are gonna lose next week. Oregon's gonna
lose to Washington. I'm just convinced of it. That game's

(01:13:38):
in Washington, it's in Seattle. It's going to be weird
that weird weather. Yes, I know, Organs, you said weird weather.
But that's a real rivalry game. And Washington's not a
bad team, and Jed Fish a great coach, and so
and or I'm not convinced Oregans to certainly they don't.
I don't not convince their top five team. I get
that they're right, you are what your record says you are,

(01:14:00):
as the great Bill Parcels said, But I just don't
buy that they're a top five team. They just they
just I smell an upset there. And if you told
me you UCLABTSC, that wouldn't shock anybody. Right. In Factuy,
I'll never forget one of my favorite Miami games of
all times, a game where Miami actually was part of

(01:14:21):
one of their worst years they ever had. It was
in nineteen ninety eight, I believe, and it was Miami
had Miami played UCLA in the last game of the Sea.
It was sort of like in the in the first December,
and it was a game that was actually supposed to
be the first week of the season. It got postponed
because of a hurricane, so ended up getting moved to

(01:14:42):
the last game of the season. Well, UCLA, Kansas State,
and Tennessee all entered that weekend rank number one. Kansas
State I think lost. This was a stranger. I think
Kansas State lost in the Big twelve title game. I
think they lost to Texas. Florida ends up losing I
think in the SEC game title game. I think, if
I'm not mistaken, but they were ranked number one and

(01:15:03):
UCLA was number one and some boards, and they lost
in one of the craziest games where Edgerrin James, who
would go on to be an NFL I think he's gotten.
I think he's in the Hall of Fame. If he's not,
he will be. But he was sort of the you know,
one of the big three for the initial run of
Peyton Mannings Colts right Edgrid James ran for over three
hundred yards against UCLA. Okay, ran for over three hundred yards.

(01:15:25):
It was one of these crazy games that just went
back and forth and buy me somehow hung on totally
ruined UCLA season, cost them a shot at the national title.
But that day everybody lost, and I think Florida and
Florida State ended up playing a rematch for the national title.
One of the worst outcomes, but it's what the computers
came up with somehow. I think everybody loses. Florida State
had already lost. I think to to I think it

(01:15:48):
was Florida or I know what it was. That's the
and then Florida State, Tennessee. That's what it was. Tennessee
ends up in the national title game and this is
t Martin's Tennessee volunteers who ended up facing I think
a third or a four strength Florida State quarterback due
to injuries, and we had it. But what I remember
is that that last weekend was crazy. You had because

(01:16:10):
of the crazy BCS rankings. There were three different number
one teams depending on which poll computer you were looking at.
Tennis floor, I think it was probably was Tennessee, Tennessee,
Kansas State, and UCLA. They all three lose, but then
somehow it's Tennessee and Florida State in the matchup. So
point being, I'm expecting real chaos next week, but that

(01:16:30):
preview is coming, I do an undo. So let's talk
about Miami's went in Virginia Tech. It was a bit
frustrating that Miami didn't have more points because they dominated
the game. Game was never in doubt, just like the
Miami Notre Dame game. People are really forgetting how actually
that game played out, and it's driving me crazy. Notre
Dame lost by three points in the scoreboard, but that
was not the game. Miami controlled the game throughout, had

(01:16:53):
a double digit lead throughout, and it was just you know,
a late, sort of cheap touchdown because Mario Crystal does
what he does and sort of playing prevent rather than
just sort of smothering a team, which of course he
slightly learned the lesson differently and actually went ahead and
scored a cheap late touchdown pat Miami's lead here in

(01:17:16):
this Virginia Tech game. But we were playing a team
that cared, right, It's clear, you know, this is now
third week in a row where Notre Dame has not
played a team that really cared about the game. You
had pitted. Clearly, now we know the difference between pitt
caring about a game they beat Georgia Tech save players
didn't play against. Again, Notre Dame should not get much
credit for that game, for that pit win, nor should

(01:17:38):
they get much credit for the Navy win. And I,
you know, sorry to my friends in Peoria, but that
should matter. You and I both know if Miami ended
up in a situation like that, they sure as hell
hold that against Miami. But I'm not gonna sit here
and say, hey, seventy points is seventy points, right, And
obviously they had all those pick sixes from the lacrosse
player who didn't know how to throw football. God love them all. Right,

(01:18:01):
Miami could also put up seventy against a lacrosse player.
I don't think we faced the lacrosse player for what
it's worth. But I digress. I'm not going to sit
here downplay their win. It was a great win. Good
for them for putting seventy points on the board. Trust me,
if we had put seventy points on the board, I'd
be going, hey, we put seventy points on the board.
But I will say this, I do not only does
Miami need to be pitt next week on Saturday, a

(01:18:24):
game that I my daughter is pushing me really hard
to do as a day trip. It's only a four
hour drive. So let's just say we're contemplating here at
the Todd household, certainly would like to see Miami win
by more than twenty one points, which I believe is
the I believe Notre Dame one thirty five seventeen in

(01:18:44):
that game. I want to say it is I think
that's what they want by or was it thirty seven
to fifteen something like that. Either way, if Miami can
be pitt by more than Notre Dame. That may matter.
There is a chance, right the path to Miami getting
the SEC title game is simpler now, meaning if Miami
beats Pitt, Virginias is a Virginia Tech I think, and

(01:19:06):
SMU wins. I think it's Miami and SMU in the
for essentially a rematch for the AC title, which is
probably would be the matchup of the two of the
two currently best teams in the ACC, and frankly, they
may be the best teams in the ACC, or Miami
in SMU, which arguably were the two best teams in
the ACC last year when SMU got the invite, but

(01:19:27):
but Miami did not because frankly, Mimmy screwed up that
last game against Syracuse. So it's not an unrealistic path.
Will Virginia Tech get up for the Virginia game. It
is an in state rivalry game, I hope, so James
Franklin being I wish James Franklin being introduced as coach
next week, not this past week. I think it gave
him a little extra juice, which is why we got

(01:19:47):
a pretty good effort out of them. But I think
if you watch the game, you realized Miami's one of
the ten best teams in the country. They have easily
one of the two or three best defenses in the country.
It is if Miami's ten and two, I don't know
how you leave them out if you want the if
you're trying to find the ten best teams plus you know,
the app plus those that have to get put in,

(01:20:08):
I don't know how you don't include Miami. I'm i am.
I accept the premise that Miami will get in with
Notre Dame. Miami isn't going to get in instead of
Notre Dame. Should they? Of course, if the idea that
you don't use head to head and more and more
of the college football media world realizes how ridiculous that
sounds that somebody that literally a head to head isn't

(01:20:29):
going to matter, which is just asinine and makes college
football look like the WWE. Okay, this is what wrestling does.
It just decides who they want. It is not a
real sport, and why college football wants to be more
like the WWE. But of course ESPN, now in bed
with the WWE, now wants to manufacture competition, fake competition,

(01:20:50):
like they're doing with the ESPN Invitational I've watched Oklahoma
play football. I know they may be ten and two.
This is not a top ten football team, folks. This
is not a team that is gonna I don't know.
They took all those turnovers by Alabama for them to
lose for Oklahoma to win. They have a good defense,

(01:21:10):
but man, that offense is futrid. I watched every I
had it on my multi box at Missouri Oklahoma game
because obviously I wanted to just get Oklahoma out of
the way. I can't believe they're ranked ahead, if the
teams are ranked ahead of at all, I just don't
get it. So LSU do something, you know, take let's
put Oklahoma out out of its misery, because that's a

(01:21:32):
team that's going nowhere in the playoff anyway. Sorry to
my Sooner fans, but not this team. It is just it.
I don't see it. I don't get it. I don't
see it. I'm going to stop chirping about BYU. All
they do is show up and win football games. This
they went on the road and did it again. You know,

(01:21:52):
I think they're in and I think the Big twelve.
I think if they lose to Texas Tech a second time,
they probably won't get invited losing to the same team twice.
But if BYU wins and and lose it and Texas
Tech loses, I think you have a case of two
teams from the Big twelve going and only one from
the ACC. So I am I am not going to

(01:22:13):
sit here and be upset. If at eleven and two
bo Yu gets in over at ten into Miami, just
like an eleven and two SMU got in over at
ten into Miami, I think that is fair. Utah should
not be ranked ahead of Miami. Sorry, Lauren, I don't
see it. I don't get it. And you know, if
there's a chance Vanderbilt, I saw that one of the
polls Vanderbilts behind Miami and the College Football Playoff poll,

(01:22:35):
I think they've now been ranked ahead of Miami on that. Yeah,
if you just want an SEC Invitational, you would take
more of these, you know, SEC teams that may or
may not be probably not as good as Miami. But
I you know the headquarters of the SECS in Nashville.
Don't think I'm not nervous about that one. And look,

(01:22:58):
if Michigan be to Ohio State, I know, I know
Miami a ten and two Michigan that beats Ohio State's
getting in ahead of ahead of a ten and two Miami.
So a I am not naive on that one. So
let's just say I have to be a big Ohio
State fan because we don't need any more ten and

(01:23:19):
two teams, nine and three Michigans. No nine and three
teams getting in without a conference title, not with this
many ten and two teams floating around. So I don't
think it was the best week for Miami's at large
big chances. I do see that the college football press
is now on Miami side. I think people realize ignoring

(01:23:40):
a head to head is a dangerous precedent to set.
I think the ACC it's pretty pretty fair that this
specific committee, this ESPN run committee has gone out of
their way to screw the ACC three straight years legitimately
so but really badly with the Florida State year, and
they're setting this one up here. But ultimately I think

(01:24:05):
this they are. My guess is they are hoping against
hope that Miami gets into that ACC title game so
that there is no question about it. And if Miami
loses in that title game, they not getting an invite
and they can just chalk it up to a third loss,
and if Miami wins, they're automatically in and maybe we'll
get to do a rematch with Notre Dame and once
again defeat Notre Dame and make it clear that they

(01:24:28):
don't belong. By the way, if you want to sit
here and talk about the teams that are ahead of
Miami in this college football rankings, you know there is
a I would argue they have a real problem in
how they've done this with these rankings because you've got

(01:24:48):
Alabama ranked out of Miami, and if you compare them
one to one, Miami defeated the team that defeated Alabama.
For those that were entertaining the idea of Texas being
ahead of Miami, Florida, b Texas Miami be Florida. So
that's a tough one to overcome on that one. And
of course, the head to head with Notre Dame. So

(01:25:10):
never mind that Ole miss struggled with a Florida team
that we beat the crap out of Does that matter? Right?
And now they're they're a one loss team, right they
I think they probably survive a loss to the Mississippi State,
But I do think this Lane Kiff and drama. You know,
doesn't don't we don't isn't this all like? Isn't the

(01:25:32):
correct narrative going to be? Lane Kiff and Lee's old
miss costs them, you know, teams distracted, they lose the
egg Bowl and he goes to LSU. Is that the
Is that the turn of events that we see this weekend?
If that is, does Ole Miss not even get an
invite to the playoff? If that's what happens anyway, I

(01:25:53):
just have a feeling we're we're heading for some chaos.
But bottom line, not a great I thought Miami played
well on thee I wish we had more points to
show for it, but they played really well on the field.
I think reminding people that they are one of the
ten best teams in the country, and you want to
it's not a complete playoff bracket if you're not including
Miami this year. If you're not gonna include the best

(01:26:15):
team in the ACC, you're not. You don't have a
complete playoff bracket. But hey, on this one, I'm quite biased,
all right with that. I'm going to take a break
for forty eight hours, but I will see you on Wednesday.
Thanks for listening.

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