Chuck’s Commentary - The End Of The Government Shutdown? + Is Trump Entering His Lame Duck Era? - The Chuck ToddCast

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
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Speaker 1 (01:38):
Hello there, Happy Monday morning, and welcome to another episode
of the Chuck Podcast. I'm full disclosure when I'm taping.
It is Sunday evening. We are likely. It feels as
if there is real momentum to get a deal to
open the government. It seems like we're very close here

(01:59):
actually working a weekend.

Speaker 2 (02:01):
The fact that the.

Speaker 1 (02:02):
House of course hasn't been been around in weeks, but
the Senate actually, instead of going home for the weekend,
stayed in and perhaps it did some good because it
does appear we're close.

Speaker 2 (02:17):
What is close? Is it going to be.

Speaker 1 (02:20):
Later on Monday?

Speaker 2 (02:21):
Is it on.

Speaker 1 (02:22):
Tuesday clearly, I think the air travel threats however you
want to whatever you want to look at him. Those
Some Democrats say that Sean Duffy at the Transportation department's
playing politics. Sean Duffy says he's just taking He's just
taking his advice from the FAA. We hear at the

(02:43):
Check podcast, like Leland Viidder's idea from News Nation or
Leland suggested, why are we cutting any commercial flights?

Speaker 2 (02:50):
First?

Speaker 1 (02:50):
Cut off private air travel first. Let the rich people
have to fly commercial. They'll get angry at the members
of Congress that some of them think that they own,
and maybe it'll.

Speaker 2 (03:01):
Get resolution even faster. That was a good idea.

Speaker 1 (03:04):
I don't know why there hasn't been, especially both parties
claim to be populous these days, right, so act like
it right, actually behave like a populist. But in all seriousness,
I think we're close, and there's a variety of reasons
neither party can afford for this to drag on. You know,
I think, you know, Chris Murphy probably wishes he didn't

(03:24):
say the following Right after the big night that Democrats
had last week in the elections, he goes, well, you know,
now it's to our advantage to keep the government closed.

Speaker 2 (03:32):
You know, it is.

Speaker 1 (03:35):
There's no doubt there's a lot of progressives that are
putting pressure. Don't want Democrats to quote unquote give in
yet don't do this. This is you know, and you know,
I I've look, I'm not I have been wrong about this.
Democrats have had a stiffer spine than I expected. Part
of it is the more center centrist wing of the

(03:58):
Democratic Party is just a small group of people, right
it is. There are a couple of senators that normally
would have been in the middle of this who are
no longer in the United States Senate as Democrats anymore.
And that's Kirsten Cinema in Joe Mansion. So that's two
less senators there that might have cut that deal. So
it is, But obviously Republicans know this is hurting them.

(04:22):
Why the President is trying to play hardball with snap
benefits is a real head scratcher to me. The fact
that the administration over the weekend ordered states who are
trying to pay the benefits in full doing essentially abiding
by one court ruling, We're suddenly being told not to
fulfill that by the Feds. That's a head scratcher. It

(04:45):
goes back to I think the administration and this is
the weird coalition that Trump put together. Right, Trump's winning
coalition includes quite a few voters that are on snap benefits,
quite a few voters that are on Medicaid, quite a
few voters that do you need government assistance to live?

(05:05):
And you still have people sort of that come from
the maybe you call it the Heritage Foundation wing of
the party or from some other the the Hey government,
you know, the super inn ran libertarian wing of the
party that says government shouldn't be doing this, and that
most government there's you know, the stereotype that somehow people

(05:29):
on government assistants are somehow lazy or somehow you know,
not deserving of this need or not not in a situation.
So it is I think this is a case where, boy,
this was is just a bad politics for the Trump
administration what they're doing here and those that are trying

(05:50):
to guide this and trying to weaponize government benefits as
some stereotype from the eighties and the welfare queen and
all that nonsense that took place back in the eighties
and nineties when people were trying to stereotype those on
government benefits, particularly those activists on the right.

Speaker 2 (06:06):
You know what has.

Speaker 1 (06:08):
Made you know, what got Trump into power was him
sort of stopping that kind of class warfare from the right,
you know, stopping attacking Social Security or attacking those on
Medicare and pronouncing that he wasn't going to touch those things.
Now the Republican Party has and I think they're paying
a price for it, but then then to actively not again,

(06:30):
this is just a head scratch politically, and it gets
it something that I think, you know where you can
feel the growing coverage of, which is what's going on
with the president. You know, he pronounced himself all last
week was saying that somehow the affordability issues that Democrats

(06:50):
successfully ran on in all of these particularly in New Jersey,
New York City, and Virginia, that somehow it was a
con job that some of this wasn't true. And he
comes out there and claims essentially claiming the economy is
better than it is. I mean, it is as if
there's Biden advisor suddenly advising Donald Trump, when all the
Biden economic advisors would would say, hey, pay no attention

(07:11):
to cost the living issues. This is just the right
wing spinning it. This economy is great and there's so
many people with jobs, the unemployment rate is low, and
they came across extraordinarily out of touch. Well guess what
Donald Trump now looks extraordinarily out of touch, and the
way he's speaking about it, it's so out of touch
that you have to say, hey, what's going on here?

(07:31):
Is he not fully briefed? Is he not getting a
full picture? Is he got an information bubble now that
does not give him any sort of reality anymore?

Speaker 2 (07:44):
Is the filter?

Speaker 1 (07:45):
So I mean to think that he was more focused
today on going on Sunday going to a commander's game
in order to lobby the Washington commanders to name the
new stadium after him rather and oh, by the way,
in the same weekend that he says, don't even let
them eat crumbs of a cake. We're going to pull
all attempts by states to fund snap benefits.

Speaker 2 (08:08):
This is just really stupid politics. It just it hands.

Speaker 1 (08:15):
And this goes back that this is a Republican party
that's still not comfortable being Trump's party at times, not
understanding who its voters actually are, that the voters that
they think they're representing, and the voters that they're actually representing,
that they present essentially two different messages there to them.

(08:38):
So it's been a it is. I think this is
weirdly the out of touchness of the Trump administration on
the shutdown is I think motivating a bunch of Republicans
to say, hey, healthcare is going to kick our ass
in the midterms if we're not careful here anyway, let's
at least deal with the Obamacare premiums. Here, Democrats are

(09:02):
offering Republicans a political lifeline here to extend them a
year and see what happens. Basically get through the election year.
I mean, the political picture is bad enough that's being
painted right now going into the midterms when you look
at what happened in fact, you know, the further away
we get from those Tuesday elections, the more you realize
just how much energy is on the left and how

(09:26):
little energy is on the right. I still can't get over.
And I think this is where, you know, there's a
lot of people distracted by Mamdani. Okay, and there's unfortunately
a lot of the political conversation is just completely distracted
by Mamdani. What happens in New York City is a
new York.

Speaker 2 (09:45):
City thing it is.

Speaker 1 (09:47):
I know there's gonna be a lot of people trying
to extract what's happening in New York City and apply
it nationally. And anybody that tells you that was the
most important election, by the way, not the other two,
but that what happens about New York City is more
important than anything else. They have their own agenda, they
want it, they're trying to will it to be. I
saw Barry Weisse put out her weekly email from the

(10:08):
Free Press that's now I guess owned by the Allisons.
I'm not sure if it's an independent organization anymore. But
she came out and said the single most important, you know,
the biggest, the most important election was newer I mean,
it is such a New York centric thing. It's clear
this is a person that doesn't really live in the
rest of the country, doesn't live in the you know,

(10:30):
this is not the most important election. I know there
are folks that want it to be. They want this
to be the conversation, they want this to be the debate.
There are progressives that want Mom Donnie to be seen
as sort of the shining star of the left, and
there are folks on the cultural right that want the
same thing. And so when you see people trying to

(10:51):
make the Mom Donnie election somehow more important than anything else,
it usually tells you more about their own politics than
the reality of the situation. The reality of the situation
and the single most important result, I would argue was
in the state of New Jersey because of the following
issue that happened, the Republican candidate for governor got more

(11:15):
raw vote. Jack Chittarelli got more rav vot about one
hundred thousand more then he got four years earlier when
running against Phil Murphy. That was a good Republican a year,
by the way, But this time he got one hundred
thousand more votes. Four years ago he lost by three
percentage points. This year he lost by thirteen percentage points.

(11:36):
You know why because Mikey Cheraw got four hundred thousand
more votes than Phil Murphy did. More than four hundred
thousand more votes. That is an ass whoop in number
one and number two. That is a turnout. So when
you see the president's political director, James Blair go out
there and say, oh, there was nothing in the exit
pole that indicated that this somehow is a referendum on
Donald Trump. You're like, Okay, there was nothing in the

(11:59):
exit pole that said it is a referendum on Donald Trump.
You know what was proof that there was a referendum
on Donald Trump the raw vote totals in all of
these elections. That's proof that this was a referendum on
Donald Trump. You have a Republican Party and independent voters
who are not interested in voting as much as independents
that want to check Trump, and Democratic voters, the surge

(12:21):
in Democratic participation in Virginia, in New Jersey. In the
fact that you also have the non the other tests
that we got, which is the state of Georgia, where
neither party spent any money on a couple of statewide
races for public service commissioner, and the Democrats won both
races in a route against two appointed incumbents. They're incumbents,

(12:42):
but they were appointed. They hadn't faced the voters before.
But you put all that together, this is a referendum
on Donald Trump. So you know, that's whistling past the
graveyard again. All of this, I think is also pushing
congressional Republicans to hurry up and get a deal. Now
do Democrats how quickly do they want this deal. You

(13:04):
know this is I do think you've had the center
and center left Democrats have been a little antsy about this.
The poll numbers have been narrowly favoring sort of Democrats
on this shutdown issue. They're winning the issue by a
lot healthcare specifically, so that's a net positive for them.
But with so many with you know, past forty days,

(13:25):
with what's happening, whether it's it's the FAA issuing safety
regulations or the Trump administration playing hardball with air traffic,
it doesn't matter. We're too close to Thanksgiving.

Speaker 2 (13:37):
Take the win.

Speaker 1 (13:38):
I've been saying it for three or four weeks, Right,
take the win. You got what you wanted out of
these elections, out of the these off off your elections.
You've got what you need out of this. You've got
the ability to recruit more candidates. You get mired here
and you start impacting more and more everyday people, then
it looks like you really just want the issue rather

(13:59):
than the solution. And if you've got a half measure
here that guarantees these Obama Care subsidies for another year,
you're going to get full snap benefits paid immediately. You're
going to get these folks paid for. You take the deal.
You take the deal. You've got the win, you take
the deal. So it does appear as if things are

(14:24):
getting close. But I'll tell you the other thing that
I'm watching for now, and as the pivot out of
this is is this, you know, and to me it
was going to be the this is the big test
out of these off off your elections. Is this the
beginning of Donald Trump's lame duck period in his presidency?

(14:46):
And for it to begin, Republicans have to bail on him. Right,
So we've already seen, you know, he tried to say, Nope, Nicks,
the Philipbuster, don't give into the Democrats. Just reopen the
government on its own and we'll have this debate about
Obam mccarelay, and Senate Republicans said no, they felt comfortable

(15:08):
enough on that issue, and they had enough votes there.
I mean, look, you had a few the people who
are the most sensitive to not ever disagree with Donald
Trump or folks, it turns out to be Jim Banks,
Josh Holly, right, Rick Scott. You sort of see and
we know who that wing is. In many cases, it's

(15:28):
the senators that voted for Rick Scott instead of John Thune. Right,
those that voted for John Thune wanted him to protect
as much of the institution of the Senate as was
possible in the Trump era. What that really means is
just simply protect the fellowbuster. And that's about all Thune
is done.

Speaker 2 (15:47):
Right.

Speaker 1 (15:47):
He did not protect his members from making bad votes
on Pete Hegseth and making bad votes on Tulsa Gabbart,
or making bad votes on RFK Junior. These are things
Mitch McConnell would actually never allowed his Republican senators, I think,
to vote on those guys. I think he would have
found a way to kill him sooner. Fune wasn't going
to do that. That's his way of trying to appease
the Trump White House. But he is going to hold

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Speaker 2 (17:12):
Unless they win.

Speaker 1 (17:17):
So is at the beginning of Republicans showing an ability
to want a distance and telm from Trump. I'm not
sure I'm there yet, but I do think this is
where we are headed, and it is you know, the
way they've hand away the Trump Administration's handled the shutdown
has been terrible politics for the Republicans right the aggressiveness

(17:39):
on snap going basically pushing back on federal judges who
are just telling them, hey, just feed those in need,
that's what this program is supposed to be for, and
then pulling it back again. This is many of their
own voters. There are more poor white people in this
country than there are poor people of color. Just just

(18:00):
remember that. And many of those poor white people were
voters of Donald Trump. So the inability for them to
see that does put them in where the affordability message
suddenly becomes even easier for the Democrats to adopt. I mean,
that's what's so funny about politics sometimes is how often,

(18:26):
how often parties don't learn the lesson from the other party.
I mean, on one hand, Democrats got the memo after
the twenty twenty four election, hey, stop talking about any
other issue other than affordability, and by god, whether it
was progressive zo On Mamdani or milk toast moderates like
Mikey Cheryl and Abigail Spamberger, they all got the memo

(18:50):
and it worked, and worked big time. When you look
at independent voters, you can see it there. When you
look at a fact that in the EGSIT poll, one
in four voters who are proved of the job Republican
Governor Glenn Younkin was doing in Virginia voted for Spamberger.
That tells you that the affordability message was something that
penetrated the culture war. Stuff that Winson Sears ran on

(19:14):
and that some in the Maga world beliefs still can
help them didn't didn't work at all. So it is
the fact that the Trump White House, who got back
to the White House on affordability issues, on painting Kamala Harris,
is more worried about they them than your issues at
the grocery store. Now it's Donald Trump that's more worried

(19:37):
about his name on the Commander Stadium, his own crypto
businesses trying to get a peace prize. By the way,
it's interesting to me that FIFA, and I don't know
if you caught this, but FIFA that the organization that
runs World Soccer, essentially the entity in charge of the
World Cup. The United States, along with Mexico and Canada

(19:59):
is joined going to be hosting the World Cup next year.
It's going to be an extraordinarily extraordinary event and one
that's turning more precarious.

Speaker 2 (20:07):
Right, what are what.

Speaker 1 (20:08):
Are what's Ice going to do? You know, are they
going to use World Cup events to try to aggressively
deport people that they think don't belong here. So we've
got a mess potentially building with the World Cup. But
there's also a lot of excitement here. Well you know, FIFA.
FIFA is known as perhaps the most corrupt international sports

(20:33):
body there is. You know, maybe the IOC after Salt
Lake had the had the had the belt of being
the most corrupt international sports institution. But it looks like
since I mean when you look at where the World
Cup has been, right when it's been in Russia and
it's been in Cutter two places that arguably should never

(20:53):
have been hosts, but they were bribed. I mean, it
is you know, everybody knows FIFA's for sale.

Speaker 2 (21:00):
Well what's FIFA doing.

Speaker 1 (21:02):
They're creating a peace Prize And apparently there's going to
be an event at the Kennedy Center sometime this year
so they can give Donald Trump the FIFA.

Speaker 2 (21:12):
Peace Prize again.

Speaker 1 (21:15):
Donald Trump more worried about a grand ballroom, more worried
about putting gold LeMay all over the White House, more
worried about putting new gold lettering identifying which door belongs
to what we've got, the new titling of the Oval Office,
more worried about to see if he can get international acclaimed,
to see if he can get his name on a

(21:36):
building just before he passes away, his name in a
football stadium. All of that are things that he's focused
on that doesn't have to do with your electric bill
or your grocery bill, or your rent or your mortgage,

(21:56):
or your ability to find a mortgage that's affordable. And
so as the Trump White House continues to sort of
be more obsessed with image, culture, his celebrity, all of that,
his retribution campaign, You've got a bunch of elected Republicans
on Capitol Hill that realize they've got a break from him.

(22:18):
It's not easy, right because you know, in some ways
we saw it even an election day last week. If
mag if Trump can't get Trump voters to the polls,
Republicans get killed. If he goes out of his way
not to support you, like he did to win some
earl series that costs you three or four points. Now,

(22:39):
even if he had done a bunch of stuff for her,
maybe Spamberger wins by twelve instead of fifteen, because maybe
turnout in the rural areas is a little bit better.
And you know that if you do break with him
too publicly, he'll go to war trying to stop you.
But the fact of the matter or is it's going

(23:00):
to be better politics to break from him on something
And what does that look like. Well, let me give
you one example. Down in Georgia. Brian Kemp's got a
super pac the governor outgoing governor there. He's got a
candidate that he believes can win that Senate seat and
knock off John Ossoff, the Democratic incumbent. His candidate is

(23:20):
Derek Dooley. Derek Dooley is the son of legendary Georgia
football coach Vince Dooley. Derek Dooley tried a little head
coaching himself. Didn't go as well as his dad's stints did.
He was at tennesseeat It's the most prominent spot that
he went. But what was interesting is that the Kemp
super pac didn't add boosting Derek Dooley for Senate and
the ad blamed both Congressional Democrats and Congressions and Republicans

(23:45):
for the shutdown because there are two members of Congress
Republican members of Congress in the primary field against Derek Dooley.
And of course there's an incumbent senator, Democratic Senator in
John Ossa. So here's Dooley wanting to put all of
the Washington crowd, Democrat and Republican and kept into one bucket. Well,
the congressional Republicans are quote unquote furious about this, right,

(24:07):
Buddy Carter and Mike Collins are upset about this, almost
called him by his dad's name. Mac and Mike Collins
are upset about this, the two Republican candidates running in
that primary in Georgia. But I'll tell you, I think
it's smart politics on Duley's part, Right, I think being
associated with Washington, particularly being associated with Washington Republicans right now,

(24:29):
when the economy is upside down, when right track wrong
tracks upside down, when the president's job rating is upside down,
why do you want to be associated with Congressional Republicans,
especially House Republicans right now, who have just completely abandoned
their duties. I think Mike Johnson has made an incredible
fatal air here in how he's conducted himself during the shutdown.

(24:50):
Obviously he's you know, we've said this He's a spino
Speaker in name only, and in some ways the only
Spiney has is Trump's right arm, because Trump appears to
be a puppeteer to Mike Johnson. He doesn't ever question
anything out of the White House. He doesn't ever question
any strategy. Essentially, they didn't he didn't want to be

(25:12):
here if it was all about squeezing Senate Democrats and
making this about Chuck Schumer. He went ahead and agreed
with the White House policy. Now, look, he wouldn't be
speaker without Donald Trump. So in some ways he understands
where his political bread is buttered, but he has put
he has made life so much harder for congressional Republicans
that are running for reelection or running for higher office.

(25:34):
And so this entire sort of three weeks, and I'd
say the last three weeks, right about the last week
before the elections, the elections themselves, we sort of saw
the test and then the bizarre reaction of Donald Trump,
where he you know, clearly is doesn't have he either

(25:55):
doesn't have grasp on reality or is trying to alter reality. Right,
And unfortunately, given the president's age, none of us know
for sure what the situation is other than you know,
these little anecdotes. I mean, the same thing the right
used to beat up Joe Biden and show him forgetting words, mispronouncing,

(26:17):
calling things other things. Like Donald Trump last week went
to Miami to talk about South America and kept talking
about South Africa and he kept saying it over and
over again. Well imagine that Joe Biden thought, oh wait,
we did have moments where Joe Biden did this, and
it became a huge thing on the right. And now
you've got people on the right going, oh my god,
they're overdoing it. They're trying to make a big deal.
I saw somebody from the world of real color politics say,

(26:40):
you know, all of a sudden, mainstream media cares about this,
they didn't care about Joe Biden, of which I would say, well,
first of all, do two wrongs make a right? You know,
if you believe there should have been intense coverage of
Joe Biden's mental declines while he's president, then of course
you should believe that another eighty year old president should
have get tough coverage that you were calling for before.

(27:03):
Unless you're a partisan, right, this is how you find
out who in the media is actually a partisan, right,
Why when they call for one thing when one side
is president, but then they complain when it's being done
to the other president. So you know, be careful letting
your bias show there. It's I would say, it's not

(27:23):
very clear which side, or maybe I would say you're
being really clear about which side of the aisle you're
trying to report from.

Speaker 2 (27:33):
And I just come on, come on.

Speaker 1 (27:36):
Now, we know a president falling asleep in the middle
of meetings is not a small thing.

Speaker 2 (27:42):
It's kind of a.

Speaker 1 (27:43):
Big deal, especially a president that we know has been
mister energizer Bunny. So if suddenly he's not mister energizer Bunny,
then maybe we all are be concerned that something is
wrong here. So bottom line, I do think we are
in the very early stages of the Trump lane duck presidency.
It's not there yet. You know, he's he does have

(28:08):
too much executive power in too many ways, and he's
still good at being able to hijack a media, you know,
a media news cycle and all of those things. But
you have a lot of elected Republicans who are trying
to find a way out. How do they distance themselves
without full alienation of the magabase you're you're you're seeing

(28:31):
the tiptoes. And look, there's some other things that are
dividing MAGA right now to including the bizarre, the bizarre
Tucker Carlson. Like I, I sort of follow this. It's
funny to me that a whole bunch of conservatives are
just discovering now that that there's a Tucker, an anti
Semitic Tucker Carlson wing of the party. Guys, some of
us experienced that anti semitism from that wing of the

(28:53):
party ten years ago.

Speaker 2 (28:55):
Okay, but I have Look, I get it.

Speaker 1 (28:59):
Everybody's got their own information bubble, and maybe maybe they
compartmentalized the anti semitism on the right and only was
focused on the anti semitism on the left. As I've
said repeatedly, anytime you hear anytime you see the rise
of a populism, left wing or right wing populism, I
promise you the anti Semites, the left wing anti Semites

(29:20):
or the right wing anti Semites come out from under
their rock and embrace that populism and go and target
the Jews. It's been happening on the right, and it's
been happening.

Speaker 2 (29:29):
On the left.

Speaker 1 (29:30):
Those that think it's only the other side literally have
blinders on. So sadly, I've experienced it from both sides
of those eyes. Having good life insurance is incredibly important.
I know from personal experience. I was sixteen when my

(29:50):
father passed away. We didn't have any money. He didn't
leave us in the best shape. My mother single mother,
now widow, myself sixteen trying to figure out how going
to pay for college and lo and behold, my dad
had one life insurance policy that we found wasn't a lot,
but it was important at the time, and it's why
I was able to go to college. Little did he

(30:13):
know how important that would be in that moment.

Speaker 2 (30:16):
Well guess what. That's why I am here.

Speaker 1 (30:18):
To tell you about Etho's life. They can provide you
with peace of mind knowing your family is protected even
if the worst comes to pass. Ethos is an online
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(30:39):
There's no medical exam require you just answer a few
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(31:02):
insurance provider. So protect your family with life insurance from Ethos.
Get your free quoted ethos dot com slash chuck. So again,
that's Ethos dot com slash chuck. Application times may vary
and the rates themselves may vary as well, but trust me,
life insurance is something you should really think about, especially

(31:22):
if you've got a growing family. It's Podcast time Machine Day.
We're just that good here at podcast World Headquarters. So
it is time for the toodcast time machine.

Speaker 2 (31:42):
And look we're going.

Speaker 1 (31:44):
To go back and leaning in to November eleventh, right,
the eleventh hour, the eleventh day, eleventh month, every November.
You know, this was the real I want to talk
about the real end of World War One. And those
of you that know me very well know what pet
peeve I am I'm about to go off on. But
this is the perfect time. This is essentially a plea

(32:07):
to teach World War one act more accurately than how
all of US Americans get taught World War One in school.

Speaker 2 (32:16):
So here we go.

Speaker 1 (32:17):
Every November, we pause for this familiar ritual. The eleventh
hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, the
guns fell silent. The Great War was over, or so
the story goes. We call it Armistice Day, we renamed
it Veterans Day. But here's the thing. That famous moment
on the Western Front wasn't the true end of the war.

(32:38):
It was the biggest headline, but it wasn't the closing chapter.
Because twelve days before Germany surrender aboard a British warship
anchored in the Agency, another armistice was signed, the Armistice
of Mudros. And that one, that's the one that really
changed the world, and that's the one that still leaves
World War One unresolved to day. It marked the surrender

(33:01):
of the Ottoman Empire. It was the empire that had
ruled the Middle East for six centuries, six hundred years
of ruling, governed Jerusalem, Damascus, Bagdad, Mecca, and Istanbul. And
it collapsed almost overnight. When we commemorate November eleventh. We're
not just honoring the end of a war. We're marking

(33:24):
the moment when an entire world order vanished and left
a geopolitical mess that we still haven't cleaned up. So
let's talk about that forgotten surrender, the one before the
one we talk about and made a national holiday. On
October thirtieth, nineteen eighteen, Automan officials met British admirals Somerset,
go Calthorpe aboard the HMS Agamemnon in the harbor of

(33:48):
the Greek island of Lemnos. They signed away an empire.
The terms were extraordinarily harsh. Allied forces could occupy forts,
control the Bosphorus and the Dardnellis, and moved troops anywhere
they deemed necessary. Within days, British and French soldiers were
marching into Istanbul Arab. Lands that had been Ottoman provinces

(34:10):
were carved up on European maps by November eleventh. Today
the world remembers the Ottoman state already existed in name only.
It was less a peace than a liquidation sale. The
Syke's picket lines drawn a few years earlier, those straight
colonial borders that paid no attention to tribes, sects, or

(34:31):
languages suddenly became real. France got Syria and Lebanon, Britain
took a rock Transjordan and Palestine. The seeds of modern
conflict were being planted even as the victory parades began
in Paris. So welcome to the unfinished war. We like
to think World War One ended, folks, It never did.

Speaker 2 (34:54):
It metastasized.

Speaker 1 (34:56):
The collapse of the Ottoman Empire created a power vacuum
that has never truly been filled. I argue that to
this day, World War One is an unresolved conflict, no
less unresolved than the Korean War. Every crisis you can
name in the modern Middle East, from Israel and Palestine
to the Sunni Shia divide in Iraq, from the Syrian

(35:16):
Civil War to Turkey's uneasy relationship with its Kurtis population,
all of it traces back to those few months between
October nineteen eighteen and the early nineteen twenties. Europe may
have stopped fighting, but the Middle East never got its
peace conference. It got foreign administrators, new flags, and a
ton of broken promises. The British had pledged independence to

(35:38):
Arab leaders who fought alongside Lawrence of Arabia. They had
also promised a Jewish homeland in Palestine through the Balfour Declaration.

Speaker 2 (35:46):
Well guess what.

Speaker 1 (35:47):
Those two commitments could not coexist and were still living
with this contradiction today. The French, for their part, wanted
to secure influence from the Mediterranean to the Euphrates, and
the Turks, stripped of an empire, turned inward, rallying behind
a young general named Mustafa Kamal ad Turk who would
fight to reclaim sovereignty and reinvent Turkey as a secular

(36:08):
republic by nineteen twenty three. It's fascinating to go to
be in Ankara. I've been there a couple of times
for work back in the day, and how important out
of Turk is. He sort of treated like the George
Washington now of Turkey there.

Speaker 2 (36:26):
But it is as strange.

Speaker 1 (36:29):
It's almost as if Turk, you know, Turkey became this
sort of modern country then. But it's weird to have
so little about the Ottoman Empire itself when you're there.
But the Caliphate, the symbolic headship of the Muslim world,
was gone, and the vacuum of spiritual authority has haunted
the Islamic world ever since as well. Here in the

(36:52):
United States, we teach World War One mostly as a prequel,
the war that made the next war possible. Right, I
promise you, all of you go back and think about
how you were taught World War One, and I promise
you you likely taught it like this. We talk about
German reparations, the Treaty of Versailles, the rise of Hitler,
all through the prism of Europe. We barely mention the

(37:14):
Ottoman empires collapse, even though it's arguably the most consequential
outcome of the entire conflict. We treat the Great War
as if it ended in the mud in France, not
in the deserts of Arabia or the streets of Istanbul.
Because guess what, it's not a clean history if you
have to go in there, because it's a complicated history.
Let's talk about there's no clean narrative. There's not a

(37:37):
it's hard to find good guy, bad guy back and
forth here, black hat, white hat type of stuff. It's
simply competing betrayals in a century of falloup. But if
we're serious about understanding why the modern Middle East looks
the way it does, why its borders don't fit its peoples,
Why faith and nationalism remained so intertwined, Why outside powers

(37:58):
keep being pulled back in. We have to start with
the Armistice of Mudros, not the one at Campaignang. One
hundred plus years later, the ghosts of nineteen eighteen are
still arguing. Turkey is once again projecting power into its
old Ottoman neighborhoods, Northern Syria, the Caucasis, and the Balkans.
What President Erdowan openly calls a neo Ottoman vision, Arab

(38:22):
nationalism born in the ashes of the Empire that's faded
into sectarianism, and Israel and Palestine remained the unfinished ledger.

Speaker 2 (38:29):
Of those post war promises.

Speaker 1 (38:31):
The irony of Armistice Day is that it celebrates the
idea of finality, the notion that a world war could
end cleanly with signatures and silence.

Speaker 2 (38:38):
We're so proud of ourselves about.

Speaker 1 (38:40):
It, But the Middle East proves the opposite, that some
wars don't end, they just simply changed shape. The Ottoman
Empire fell, but the conflicts it managed among ethnicities, religions
and empires survived that fall. So this week, as we
mark Armistice Day, listen for the echo under that bugle call.

(39:00):
That's not just the sound of the guns going silent.
It is the sound of an empire collapsing, of maps
being redrawn, of the modern Middle East being born in chaos.
When we teach history in this country, we spend too
much time teaching about the Western Front. Maybe it's time
we also teach the Eastern aftermath, because the world that

(39:21):
ended in nineteen eighteen is the same one we're still
trying to manage today. And by the way, I believe
that the shocking amount of young people that don't understand
the history of the Middle East and think it all
began with a partition in nineteen forty eight by the
new United Nations. This is among the reason they're so

(39:42):
ignorant of that era because of how poorly we collectively
taught our own society about World War One. So, as
a Jewish American, I do get really upset and worked up.
And I've been a huge advocate and really believe we've
got to improve how we teach World War One larger

(40:04):
in middle school, in high school, not just waiting for
college to learn about the Ottoman Empire. It would have
a better understanding of the Muslim religion. We'd have a
better understanding of the Middle East. And yes, people would
have a better understanding of the history of the Jews
in Jerusalem. The Great War never truly ended. It simply

(40:26):
left us a lot of homework. There you go, there's
your Toodcast time Machine history lesson of the week. I
know we don't know the names as well. Doesn't seem
like that history is as fun as watching a Netflix
documentary about Hitler and his goons. But trust me, you'll

(40:48):
understand the Middle East of today a lot better if
you spend some time learning more about the fall of
the Ottoman Empire. All right, with that, let's take a
few questions ask Chuck as just This one comes from

(41:09):
Betsy w longtime follow here from your time covering elections
on NBC to Meet the Press to the Check podcast.
Can you please explain the rules of voting in the Senate,
specifically with regard to whine when a simple majority is
needed to pass something such as HR one versus the
Clean Resolution, which needs a sixty vote majority, and then
this is considered the filibuster. Thank you for including a
snapshot of sports on each show. Helps me keeping the

(41:29):
loop for some upcoming games. Take care so you know, look,
you have most of the time you need sixty votes
in order to avoid a filibuster. And once you avoid
what it technically is, it's not the legislation itself that
is subject to sixty votes. It is the rule, you know,

(41:50):
sort of the rule to finish the debate, you know,
to either start debate or end debate, that is subject
to the sixty votes unless and here are the exceptions. Now,
the exceptions have to do with budget reconciliation. If you
quote unquote do a reconciliation, so anything that impacts the budget,

(42:11):
you can make it a fifty vote threshold. And you
see Biden used that for his.

Speaker 2 (42:20):
Agenda.

Speaker 1 (42:20):
Trump used it in his first term for his tax cut.
Trump just used it with the Big Beautiful Bill. Ironically,
that is not how Barack Obama passed Obamacare. He had
to do it with sixty votes. He got sixty in
the Senate. Then they lost a vote in the Scott
Brown special election that got Scott Brown elected for the
Ted Kennedy after Ted Kennedy died in that seat, and

(42:42):
then he went down to fifty nine. And then that's
why all the action ended up in the House, and
the House had to basically adopt the Senate bill as
is when it was sixty votes. Now the other exceptions
to sixty votes now are judicial are all the judges right,
and now presidential cabinet appointee confirmations, all of this stuff
now has been they've essentially made it exempt from the

(43:04):
sixty vote debate threshold.

Speaker 2 (43:06):
I hope that.

Speaker 1 (43:07):
So anything that isn't part of a budget reconciliation process,
which again you have to declare that it's part of reconciliation.
So in theory, if you wanted HR one, the big
sort of campaign finance, if you can make a case
that it's part of a budget issue, you could in theory,
you know, tie some of it to budgetary And again

(43:29):
it's subject of the of the Senate parliamentarian determining whether
an issue is part you know, would be part of
impact the federal budget or not. And some of those
things in HR one clearly are not technically budgetary impactful
on the.

Speaker 2 (43:47):
Budgetary side of things.

Speaker 1 (43:48):
So I hope that cleared things up that essentially, anything
that isn't part of a reconciliation process or a confirmation
for an appointee, either to the president's cabinet or the
federal bench. Everything else is subject to sixty votes, and
the larger budget itself, you know, is subject to sixty votes.

(44:11):
It's only if you declare a reconciliation. Which it's sort
of an invented idea that started during the Robert when
Robert Byrd, an old timey Democrat from West Virginia who
was majority leader forever. He sort of created this process
when they thought things were you know, every time we
created these exemptions from the filibusters because perhaps the filibuster

(44:33):
was being was too effective. It was sort of grinding
things almost to a halt. And so whoever the Senate
leader is at the time, they look for a carve out.
The first carve out was the invention of this reconciliation process.
Then that's where you hear the bird is something called
a bird rule every now and then. If you've wondered that, well,
it sort of has its origin when Robert Byrd helped
sort of create the idea of a budget reconciliation that

(44:57):
could be exempt from the filibuster. And you have you know,
Harry Reid, and he did it for lower court, for
the lower courts, and then Mitch mcconnald did it for
the Supreme Court. So it is always wherever there has
been whenever a Senate leader feels as if they've gotten
to a point where it's clogged up their sides agenda

(45:20):
in one form or another, so we keep doing all
these I will just tell you, I'm somebody who thinks
it should be seventy five votes all for the federal bench.
And I it would you know, when we hold our
mythical constitutional Convention in the next couple of years, which
I hope is not mythical and actual real thing, that
would be an amendment that I would say, all, maybe

(45:40):
at least Supreme Court justices, maybe you start with that
are subject to seventy to three quarters votes in the
US Senate, and I promise you you would get more neutral,
truly neutral umpire referee style judges if we made it
seventy five votes in the Senate or three quarters whatever,

(46:01):
seventy five percent whatever, whatever. We probably have to do
a percentage, because you never know, if we had a
couple of states, right, you guys just learned both Puerto
Rico and DC, I think within my lifetime. So I'd
like to think I'm gonna last on this, on this
marble that we call Earth at least another three decades.

Speaker 2 (46:18):
So I think in the next three decades we had
a state, all right.

Speaker 1 (46:22):
I hope that helped, Betsy. And if you need more clarification,
shoot us another email and I'll clean that up for it.
Next question comes from Bryant. While the US Virgin Islands
may not meet today's population standards for statehood, they actually
have more people now than Nevada did when it joined
in the eighteen hundreds. To say, if combined with other
English speaking Caribbean territories like the British Virgin Islands, Antigua,
or Barbados, there could be enough population for a Caribbean

(46:44):
West Indies state. It could have strategic and economic benefits
for both the United States and those islands. Do you
think an idea like that has any merit even politically, Bryan?
It's interesting your idea putting them all together, and I
do buy that you if somehow they all did sort
of banded together and said, hey, we wanted to be
a country, you know, we wanted to be a or
we wanted to be a US state, I think the

(47:07):
United States would get more out of it, for sure. Strategically,
influenced in the Caribbean. But everything you just described, you
could also say maybe they become their own country independent
of either the United States or the Brits or anybody
else in Europe. Right, So that's another angle that can
go in. I just you know, I'm just sensitive, as

(47:30):
somebody who has been a resident of DC a couple
of times in my lifetime, I'm very sensitive to taxation
without representation, and I think when we just sort of
decide that status quo should be there for a long
period of time, like we've done to Puerto Ricans and
people that live on the US Virgin Islands or people

(47:50):
that live in the District of Columbia, that we ought
to be making a better effort to figure out how
to get them fairer representation. Next question comes from Brad.

Speaker 2 (47:58):
No question.

Speaker 1 (47:58):
Just want to say I loved your election coverage. Thanks
as a politics nerd. I love the depth you guys
went into. Also loved all the guests. Great job all around.
Hope you three and others do it again for the midterms. Hey, Brad,
I appreciate it. We're pretty proud of what we did.
Very little marketing, as you noticed, right, I marketed it
on the podcast Chris Marketed on his stuff Decision Desk
HQ did theirs. We believe we peaked with some like

(48:22):
nearly three hundred and fifty thousand at one time. We're
pretty convinced we probably had over half a million uniques collectively.
You know, if you put it all together throughout the evening,
I'll tell you the future is now. To quote quote
an old Washington football coach named George Allen, this was

(48:47):
this was basically a proof of concept, and I think
we proved the concept. And let me just say this,
I'll see a Texas primary night, that's the first primary night.
I think we're going to do special coverage like that again.
So thank you, Brad. Next question comes from Colonel Steven
m Us, Air Force retired. Hey, big fan of yours
and curious if you can shed light on any reason

(49:07):
why the twenty twenty six federal appropriations haven't approved as
of today. I can't think of any and hope you
will share with us your thoughts. Well, why do I
feel like you're sort of tweaking here right like, why
can't they get any appropriations done? Why is it so
difficult to get the basics done with Congress. I can't
tell you how weak Congress is, right, it is so

(49:32):
weak on this front, and the fact that they've allowed
the executive branch to take over spending issues, you know,
taxing authority when it comes to the tariffs. So it
is you know, they've they do. I think they got
the National Defense Appropriation A bill done.

Speaker 2 (49:54):
I believe they got that.

Speaker 1 (49:55):
You know, they do pass some you know, these appropriations
bills do get it passed chunks at a time, so
you'll get like, you know, dhs done, although I think
that one's gonna be a little tougher given given what
ICE is done, you'll get like specifics done. Usually defense
is the easiest one to get done. That's usually where
there's the most bipartisan you know, there's a reason the

(50:16):
military industrial complex is so successful. There are so many
congressional districts that have that have some impact on their
economy when it comes to defense that you see, that
is usually the one appropriations bill that gets approved and implemented,
but so many other ones sometimes never get implemented. They're

(50:36):
basically you keep the same levels of funding as the
year before and it keeps going through. So look, I
just think we've got Congress.

Speaker 2 (50:46):
You know that we've had a.

Speaker 1 (50:48):
Succession of weak speakers who maybe they're politically strong, like
Nancy Pelosi was politically strong with inside the Democratic Party,
but all of these speakers were two week when their
party had the White House, and we're too willing to
give up certain things, you know, due to pressure from

(51:10):
their political allies in the executive branch. And you know,
you chip away, you chip away, you chip away, chip away,
and then you have a Then you suddenly are facing
the constitutional crisis that arguably we're in the middle of
right now, and that is very frustrating. Hey, colonel first,
just thank you for your service. And this trigger is
something else I wanted to share with you guys before

(51:32):
I get into.

Speaker 2 (51:32):
My football my football nuggets.

Speaker 1 (51:36):
Here for the weekend, I spend Friday evening at a
terrific event. Was a fundraiser called Vet's in Tech. It
was founded and run by this woman named Catherine Webster.
I met her at a fundraiser for the Medal of
Honor Museum a few months ago that was taking place
here in DC.

Speaker 2 (51:53):
I don't do a.

Speaker 1 (51:53):
Lot of socializing in d C very much, just as
a journalist is always and everything has gotten so partisan
that I only like to try to go to things
where I think you'll be sort of above politics. Medal
of Honor fundraiser is one of them. In the Medal
of Honor Museum.

Speaker 2 (52:11):
By the way, just.

Speaker 1 (52:15):
You know, I as a sports fan, love to give
a lot of grief to Jerry Jones, right, He is
fun to give grief about. He's not been the smartest
of owners where he might be. No, actually I disagree.
He's been a great business owner of the Cowboys. He's
not the best general manager when it comes to the
on the field product, but everything he does off the

(52:36):
field is actually quite savvy, quite smart. He and his
daughter Charlotte Jones, have been big supporters. They essentially the
money that was raised for the Medal of Honor Museum.
It is essentially on the campus of AT and T
Stadium there in Arlington, Texas. I think it's a terrific
idea to take something of historical importance like a museum

(52:57):
that honors our Medal of Honor recipients, which every story
if you've ever read just one, you know, if you
want to if you're ever feeling really shitty about yourself
or really shitty about the country. Go just read any
citation for a Medal of Honor winner. I mean you

(53:18):
could literally pick one at random and you'll see like,
oh my god, how selfless they were, Oh my god,
they saved how many lives? Oh my god they did?
What you know, if you're into Marvel superheroes, these people
are real superheroes in the Medal of Honor Museum. So anyway,
I say all that, it's just to give you a

(53:38):
little bit of backstory of how I got involved, and
Katherin Webster asked me to come out and say a
few words. Now, I'll be honest, I didn't. I didn't
feel qualified. I haven't served. But I am somebody who
believes that we need more veterans and more walks of life. Now,
this was a fundraiser that was for, you know, encouraging

(54:03):
the tech community to recruit and hire veterans. But really
what I decided to use my time to do is
basically making a case that we need veterans in a
in a in a bunch of walks of life. And
you guys have heard me talk about it before, but
it's you know, we've got a trust deficit in this country.

Speaker 2 (54:23):
We've got to trust deficit in my.

Speaker 1 (54:24):
Industry, in the media, and I'm you know, I believe
that in order to restore trust, we have to start locally, right.
It's ground up, Frankly, it's everybody has to. When you're
rebuilding trusts, you start from the bottom, right, So we
and media have to start local. In politics, you've got
to start at the city council level, right, you know,
et cetera, et cetera. But we do have one entity,

(54:45):
and hopefully it doesn't get messed up by the current
leadership right now. But the one institution in America that
still has an enormous level of trust is the military,
particularly military veterans.

Speaker 2 (54:58):
You know.

Speaker 1 (54:59):
It's it's I I think been one of the great
things that have changed about our society that we have
We as a society collectively have compartmentalized the decisions civilians
make in misusing our military, say the Vietnam or the
Iraq War, from those who are following orders and who

(55:22):
are you know who who you know, they didn't make
these political decisions, but they had to execute a decision.

Speaker 2 (55:29):
Under under our constitution.

Speaker 1 (55:32):
And we have figured out how not to punish veteran
you know, we weren't look as I say, my father's generation,
my mother's generation, they were you know, that is not
how Vietnam soldiers retreated. They were sometimes held seen as
to be held as accountable as the civilian leaders who
led us into that horrible conflict. I think we've now matured,

(55:56):
frankly as a society and see it that way. But
the reason that I want to see more and the
way I called it, the reason I want to see
more veterans, and I think we could. You know, the
one candidate for president that I thought could have broken
through both the Democrats and Republicans, could have broken through
as an independent was Bill McRaven. He was the of

(56:16):
course he was. He's retired admiral, but he was. He's
the architect of the Bin Laden raid, sort of oversaw
what Seal Team six accomplished. He when he left the military,
became the chancellor of the UT system, and he also
gave one of the great commencement addresses of all time,
the Make your Bed Speech. He turned it into a book,

(56:38):
but I promise you, if you want to go look
at it on YouTube, you'd be one of twenty million
people who have who have watched his make your Bed Speech.
But the reason I thought we needed him is because
I do think we need a lesson that we don't.
We need what I call pastors for patriotism. And that

(56:59):
was my you know, we need veterans in the classroom
who can be you know, I'm not a religious person,
but so that's why when I say, you know, in
some ways I worship our constitution, right, I do. I
think it's a marvel and I think that it gives
us all the tools for self governance that there is,
and I think we could make some improvements to it.

(57:20):
And you know, I think we should have a constitutional convention.
It's time to update the constitution for the twenty first century.
I think there's bipartisan agreement that there's plenty of things
we can do in there. Let's contemplate age limits, let's
contemplate term limits, let's contemplate campaign finance reform. Let's contemplate
a violence budget amendment. There's a lot of things here
that I think we should we should be thinking about.

(57:45):
But it seems to me that we keep trying our
two political parties keep trying to paint the other side
is unpatriotic. Let me just tell you what patriotism is
patriotism is waiving the flag, and patriotism is burning the flag.
Patriotism is flipping off the president, and patriotism is.

Speaker 2 (58:02):
Saluting the president. Right.

Speaker 1 (58:03):
That's what made makes our country different, Right, It's we
were an idea and we were wanted to have essentially
free will and self governance and self determination. And that's
the beauty of our system at its best. And I
think it is members of the military who are sometimes
forced to be in a platoon with people that don't

(58:27):
look like them, that don't worship the same God, that
don't live in the same you know, urban America or
rural America. They're all US soldiers, and the experience over
time of figuring out how to work with the diverse
set of fellow Americans only makes you.

Speaker 2 (58:50):
The potential.

Speaker 1 (58:51):
I think that's why our American veterans, and on this
Veteran's Day, our American veterans can be the pastors for
patriotism that we need to essentially not allow a political
party to hijack patriotism, not allow a political party to
hijack the flag, and instead sort of teach what this
constitution is about. But I think that you know, you

(59:12):
bring a veteran into your workforce, whether it's a teacher,
whether it's at a tech company, whether it's in a
media company, and you're going to automatically diversify the experience
of your workforce. And if you're looking for somebody that

(59:33):
is going to be able to be handle high pressure
situations or uncomfortable situations, a veteran is more.

Speaker 2 (59:40):
Likely to be able to do that better than anybody else.

Speaker 1 (59:42):
But I also think that a veteran has the ability
to culturally help us all appreciate what the idea of
America is in its best form. So it's yes, it's
a fundraiser. You can say I'm being a little sappy here,

(01:00:04):
but I mean it here. I think that there's something
about going through and it's why I think national service
could be such a help. We could take mandatory national
service and go beyond just the military with where you
would serve Serve in classrooms, serve in river cleanups, serve

(01:00:26):
in community hospitals, serve in community centers that help people
find work.

Speaker 2 (01:00:33):
Things like that.

Speaker 1 (01:00:35):
Having rural twenty one year olds and urban twenty one
year olds working for a common good and for the
same goal, I think it would help us all appreciate
just the ideal and the idea of America.

Speaker 2 (01:00:49):
So there's my there's my Veterans State pitch for you.

Speaker 1 (01:01:00):
All right with that, let's have a little lightness here
and let's talk a little football. First of all, I
was down. I just saw my beloved Miami Hurricanes again,
back to back weeks. They won after another sluggish first
half with terrible play calling. Now I was not there
for the terrible play calling in the first half. I

(01:01:20):
was there to see my daughter get honored during one
of the commercial breaks in the first quarter. She's part
of the homecoming committee.

Speaker 2 (01:01:27):
She put on.

Speaker 1 (01:01:28):
This was the U one hundredth. It's the hundredth anniversary
of the University of Miami. This was the one hundredth homecoming,
so it was pretty special that my daughter, being a senior,
got to essentially help organize it. She her fingerprints were
all over the campus. It was kind of cool to
see that. So I'm pretty proud of her. It was

(01:01:51):
neat to see her get honored on the field. Her
old man's never been honored at a University of Miami game,
so it's she She was beyond ecstatic, and so was I.

Speaker 2 (01:02:03):
I'm glad we won.

Speaker 1 (01:02:05):
She was not happy when Miami lost SMU last week,
worried that somehow fewer people show up. And it's possible fewer.
I think the stands were a little less filled than
they would have been had Miami only had one loss
versus two, and the perception that we're out of the
college football playoff.

Speaker 2 (01:02:19):
And I'm going to get to that in a minute.
By the way, I should.

Speaker 1 (01:02:22):
Note Central and Western New York football teams ought to
ought to not come down to Miami in November. Syracuse
got a butt weapon by the University of Miami, and
then the Buffalo Bills come down and get their butts
handed to them by the Devon A Chainers, and and

(01:02:44):
what's left of the Dolphins, even after they traded away
their best pass rushers. So just a tough time for
the Central and Western New Yorkers there when it comes
to the football field. But look, a few things happened
that might that at least made it.

Speaker 2 (01:03:05):
You know.

Speaker 1 (01:03:06):
I've said Miami's chances of getting into the a SEC
title game, which is really the probably the only shot
they have of getting into the playoff, given how the
committee decided to treat Miami in the first week. They've
set it up so that Miami that Notre Dame despite
losing to Miami. If Miami and Notre Dame have identical records,

(01:03:26):
they're going to take Notre Dame.

Speaker 2 (01:03:27):
Right.

Speaker 1 (01:03:28):
They've started them. It's almost like they under ranked Miami
on purpose. They had no business being ranked as low
as they were. I am curious to see if there's
a real correction made. And they're in the thirteen fourteen,
fifteen range, which which I think is the minimum they
should be. You know, I think that when you look
at and this gets at to the great debate of

(01:03:48):
committees in general. Right, when you decide these things, what
matters more your wins or your losses?

Speaker 2 (01:03:57):
Right?

Speaker 1 (01:03:57):
Is it better to have a good win or is
it better I have a good loss? And you know
how it works, if you want to get your team
into the mix, you talk about the thing that you
think is the best thing.

Speaker 2 (01:04:09):
Right.

Speaker 1 (01:04:09):
So Notre Dame doesn't have any good wins, but they
have two great losses, right, four total points to Miami
in Texas A and m Miami doesn't have two. You know,
they don't have bad losses. They're confident to me, when
you lose a conference game, to a winning program. Those
aren't bad losses because conference games are just harder. I know,
the SEC thinks it's the only football conference that exists.

(01:04:32):
Every football conference, all conference games are hard, and all
conference games ought to be treated sort of similarly, as
you know, Greg sink in Mississippi State. And if you
think that's a tough conference game, well, okay, I'll accept
the premise. So's playing at wake Forest.

Speaker 2 (01:04:49):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (01:04:49):
And just because you don't respect wake Forest doesn't mean
when you have to play them every year.

Speaker 2 (01:04:54):
They don't bite you in the ass.

Speaker 1 (01:04:56):
You know, conference matchups are hard, hard stop and Miami basically,
you know, had like nine turnovers in those two games,
and that's why they lost, right, And they were still
both games that they could have won on the last possession.
So are those good losses bad losses? Right? You see
where I'm going here. I make no apologies. I think

(01:05:20):
this coaching staff let this team down. I think this
I think our offensive game plan sucks. I think the
only reason why Miami scored a bunch of points in
the second half of that game is sort of the
the floodgates open thanks to the defense. They got to
pick six and then then suddenly they used essentially every
trick play that that Shannon Dawson has come up with.

Speaker 2 (01:05:41):
They used. They had a.

Speaker 1 (01:05:43):
Malachai Tony threw a pass to Carson Beck, Carson Beck
to would tackle eligible play to to Francis Mayonoa, who's
going to be a first round draft choice next year
as an offensive lineman. So that's uh, you know, those
were fun to see, but they were kind of you know,
they were still you know, the regular game plane didn't

(01:06:07):
really work.

Speaker 2 (01:06:07):
They did have to do a bunch of these.

Speaker 1 (01:06:09):
Sort of trick plays to sort of open the offense up.
I appreciate that some efforts were made in the second
half to do that, but there's still the basic formations
and the basic offense is. It's just pretty predictable, and
the more it's on film, the more teams seem to
be prepared for it. And Syracuse in the first half

(01:06:31):
was extraordinarily prepared for the normal Miami offense. And then
by the second half, when they got worn down a
little bit and Miami started doing a few trick plays,
then things started to work. Now I'm a little frustrated
that they made a real effort to get the ball
to Malachai Tony in any way they could possibly get
to him in this game? Where was that in the
Louisville game? Where's that been in the last six weeks?

Speaker 2 (01:06:53):
Right?

Speaker 1 (01:06:53):
Not enough of that? That's number one. And then to
really rub salt in the wound the last play of
the game, Miami's winn thirty eight to ten. Miami had
the ball and the last play of the game, they
didn't take a knee. They ran the ball. They didn't
need to do that. They were up twenty eight points.

(01:07:15):
But you take a knee when the game is tied
and you have twenty five seconds and one timeout. I
am never going to forgive that Miami coaching staff and
coach Crystal Ball for taking a knee and the explanations.
I'm sorry local media has not been tough enough on
this question. Coach Crystal Ball's response on this has been terrible.
When he said, it's well, we just determined that anytime

(01:07:37):
you're in the twenty five yard line or closer to
the gold line, only bad things can happen. Well, if
that's what you claim, and that's why you took a
knee in the SMU game, which I think, again the
single worst decision that's been made all year long by
the coaching staff taking a knee with twenty five seconds,
game tied and a timeout, and all you need is
forty yards. All you need is forty yards to get

(01:08:01):
the to attempt the game winning field goal, and you
don't do it when college rules where the clock stops
after every ten, after every first down, and you don't
do that. What you really message, you're really sending is
you don't trust this quarterback. Well, then what do you
spend the money on. If you don't trust, let him
succeed or fail on his own. This trying to sort

(01:08:23):
of manage risk, manage your way around a quarterback that
I guess you guys don't trust, is no way to
win a championship. It's no way to get yourself in
the playoff. Now, as much as I'm going to give
this coaching staff grief on what I think is under
performance by them holding back a team that is arguably

(01:08:45):
the most talented in the country, I'm also going to
argue that you can't have a media company deciding who
gets to be in the college football playoff, because if
they do take ten and two Notre Dame over ten
in to Miami only doing it because of TV ratings
in their heads, right, and it's just the bigger program.

(01:09:06):
Because I promise you if it were ten and to
anybody else and ten and to Miami, they probably would
take Miami. But they can't do that to a Notre Dame.
They're not going to do it to an Alabama. They're
probably not going to do it to Georgia, certainly won't
do it to an Ohio State. It's worth noting that
Miami is the highest rated ACC team when it comes

(01:09:26):
to TV ratings.

Speaker 2 (01:09:28):
How do we know this?

Speaker 1 (01:09:29):
Miami is getting the biggest bonus because ACC has is
giving bonuses to the teams that get the best ratings
to sort of quote unquote have extra value on their
football program. So but if Miami wants to get to
the ACC title game, they did get a few breaks

(01:09:49):
Uva losing. They need all of these teams that lost
this weekend. They all have to lose again. I mean,
that's what makes it difficult. But hey, at least they
got a couple of losses in now. I certainly would
have liked to have seen Penn State finish up Indiana,
and I really wanted to see iowall beat Oregon to

(01:10:10):
potentially limit the Big Ten to two, you know, to
open up the door to maybe they only get two.
I think they're only going to get three at the
end of the day, but we'll see. But that both
of those games I think needed to go the other
way to to sort of open the door up a
bit more for them to where the committee has no

(01:10:31):
choice but to take Miami. But look, whatever they do
with this football playoff going forward, the NFL doesn't have
a committee to decide who's in the playoffs because if
they did, Dallas would be in the playoffs every year, right,
regardless of their record, because they're the TV They're the
ratings juggernaut. The Jacksonville Jaguars would never make it to
the playoffs, right. The Houston Texans would never make it
to the playoffs. So whatever it is, I would just

(01:10:56):
like it to be decided on the field. If you
win X number of games you get to you know,
you can qualify. And if you do finish this place
in your conference, you can qualify. And if you want
to say each year before the season starts and say, okay,
this year, based on last year's record, this year, this
conference is only going to get three slots into the
playoff instead of four, you know, is a form of

(01:11:19):
quote releg you know, this year due to their past records,
conference A gets five slots instead of four, or three
slots instead of two, or something like that. Whatever it is.

Speaker 2 (01:11:30):
There should just.

Speaker 1 (01:11:33):
You should be able to you either play yourself in
or play yourself out. It shouldn't be subject to lobbying
campaign by Greg Sanke, the chairman of the SEC. And
that's or a media company who's in business and cares
more about the profitability of one conference over the profitability
of another business partner that they don't value as much. Anyway,

(01:12:00):
it was kind of a you know, I think we
all were hoping for. I will say this that catch
in Indiana. We watched that just before the kickoff to
the Miami game. That kid made an amazing catch.

Speaker 2 (01:12:11):
And then I.

Speaker 1 (01:12:12):
Watched the end of the Iowa organ game where the
i was trying to go for two point conversion. And
I mean, if you want to talk about the quote
unquote game of inches, just take those two highlights. Indiana's
successful touchdown and the toe tap Iowa's unsuccessful two point
conversion which ultimately cost them the game. Since Oregon was
able to kick a field goal to win the game

(01:12:33):
rather than to just tie. Was missed by essentially two inches.
So another reminder to just how fun, crazy and cool
college football can be. Look, I don't know about you, guys.
I didn't learn anything new about everybody other than I

(01:12:57):
thought we'd get a better effort out of I LSU
and Garrett us My. We didn't get that better effort.
I think we did expect a good effort out of
Penn State. By the way, imagine if the interim coach
had knocked off a top five team, but James Franklin
could never be a top five team. In some ways,
there's probably relief in the James Franklin camp that Penn
State came up just short on that game. BYU was exposed.

(01:13:20):
That's going to be the interesting thing on the college
football players. So BYU got its first loss, and this
is one of those Look, they only have one loss.
Are they going to be ranked behind Miami or above Miami?
You know, if you're going to be the subjective game
and if you're holding Miami accountable in the ways that
they're being held, which I think is sort of every

(01:13:41):
standard is different based on the team they're looking at, right,
That's what's my frustration. There's no it's so subjective that
there's not a consistent measurement of how one team is
assessed versus another.

Speaker 2 (01:13:52):
Team is assessed.

Speaker 1 (01:13:53):
And yes, BYU seems to have gotten lucky, just like UVA.
Luck finally ran out right. They didn't lose any fumbles
all of a sudden, they lost three fumbles in that game.
I'm very curious to see if AYU is below Miami
or above Miami and the college football rankings. That will
tell me how realistic it is that Miami has a
shot at somehow sneaking in or not. And does Vanderbilt

(01:14:18):
at all move up or down based on it surviving
that game with Auburn. Obviously a loss would have knocked
them out completely. That was another game that frankly, it
was kind of hopeful just to you know, at this point,
I got to get anybody who's going to share a
record with Miami out of the way from an SEC
or a Big ten school if I'm going to have
any hopes of that committee having to be stuck to

(01:14:42):
have to invite Miami when all is said and done, so,
all in all, a successful trip because my daughter was
honored on the field. I don't care what the score
was beyond that she did a great job. It was
a bang up homecoming and in fact, she convinced the
school to minimize the use of fireworks and instead use

(01:15:06):
drone do a drone light show and the biggest hit
of homecoming weekend was the drone light show.

Speaker 2 (01:15:13):
It was amazing.

Speaker 1 (01:15:14):
Go find all things having to do with the universe.
Remind me homecoming and the drone light show on Instagram,
and trust me, you will be impressed, and you will
realize why are any of us bothering with fireworks anymore?
The coolest ways to do displays in the sky are
are these drone light shows? All Right, I've rambled on
long enough. I hope you enjoyed your weekend. Let's hope

(01:15:37):
by the next time we talk in the next forty
eight hours, the government is open and air travel is smooth.
And with that, I'll see you when we upload again.

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