Chuck’s Commentary - The Shutdown Has Become A Choice + Trump’s Showdown In Chicago - The Chuck ToddCast

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Okay, campers, rise and shine and don't forget your booties
because it's cool out there today. Yes, I cliched it up.
I'm starting with a groundhog Day reference. I don't yet
have the finances to pay for I've got you, babe
or that, of course, so just have that in the
back of your head as you hear that. But we

(00:23):
are on groundhog Day with the shutdown. I certainly have
other topics I want to get to, but here we
are with the shutdown, and look, I will fall on
my nostrodama sword. I really did think we were going
to be done after a week. I think we should
be done with this by now. I think the Democrats
have accomplished what they wanted to accomplish out of it politically.

Speaker 2 (00:45):
Now.

Speaker 1 (00:45):
They don't have an agreement yet to extend these subsidies
for the Affordable Care Act or Obamacare, whatever you want
to refer to it as. But it's pretty clear that
they've gotten the issue more front and center. They've got
more Republicans talking about it, They've got the President of
the United States concerned about it, they got the Vice president.
It is if they want. As I've said in previous episodes,

(01:07):
this week. If they want to declare victory, they could
and say they got what they wanted to get out
of this. And if the Republicans back off their agreement
to try to hammer out a deal on Obamacare, well
this continuing resolution is only for another six weeks, so
they have another leverage point. And I would say this,
I mean, look, there's no evidence that this is going

(01:29):
to end this weekend. I you know, so I was
wrong about that, but we're we're going to be missing
a paycheck. The first paycheck missing happens at the beginning
of next week. We've got already impacts on the traveling
public right now. You know, I didn't have any problems

(01:51):
going from lax to Washington Dulles after visiting USC. But
I promise you, if you're traveling, whether it's Nashville, Indianapolis,
Des Moines, Albuquerque, any slightly smaller market than some of
the large ones, you know, it doesn't take too many

(02:12):
air traffic controllers in that region to suddenly call in
sick to where you're grounding all flights.

Speaker 2 (02:19):
Right.

Speaker 1 (02:19):
It had a huge impact in Nashville a couple of
days ago. This is in the LA area. Burbank essentially
had to go to a ground stop for a few
hours the other day. So this is only going to grow,
This is only going to get worse. And this is
where the more the public is personally impacted by these things,
the more they're going to be upset at all parties involved,

(02:43):
and they may no longer be as focused on the
issue that I do think Democrats have successfully gotten into
the pushed into the into the zeitgeist here a little bit. Look,
it's hard for any issue to break through in the
Trump era for any given period of time, but this
issue of health care certainly has the attention of the

(03:05):
Republicans on this. So now it's a game of chicken
and the longer, frankly, if I look on the Democratic side,
the longer they hold out what I say yesterday, then
this really isn't about health care. This is about something else.
And frankly, it is about something else, right. It is
about the fact that Donald Trump is not respecting the Constitution,

(03:26):
he's not respecting the appropriations process, he's not respecting the
legislative branch. But the Democrats have a problem. They're not
in charge of the legislative branch right now. It's the
Republicans who are allowing the executive branch to steamroll them
because they're the ones in charge, and it's an issue
that's hard to get the public to rally around. They're

(03:46):
going to rally around things and impact their lives. Yes,
what's happening with the misuse of appropriations and the sort
of the aggressive nature of what O and B has
tried to do is impactful on people's lives, but it's
much harder for them to see it. You know, it's
it's healthcare hits their bottom line. That this is premiums

(04:07):
doubling that that is, that is the cost to live issue,
which of course has arguably been what's been hanging over
our politics since we got out of the COVID shutdown.
And I think in some ways, the healthcare the rising
healthcare premiums would only feed into the cost of to
live issues that the tariffs and some of the other

(04:32):
policies that President Trump has pursued has done. I mean,
we are, as I said before, we have this. We
have this weird economy that will statistically look good for
those that have money, but it is completely impossible to
catch up or get ahead, or if you don't already

(04:53):
have a little bit of savings earning, you know, getting
taking advantage of the supercharged markets that we have right now,
fueled by all of this artificial intelligence investment. So we
are in a situation where either party can end the
shutdown right now. Democrats could declare victory, provide the eight votes,

(05:14):
open the government up, and have six weeks to hold
them accountable again if they don't come to the table.
And of course Republicans could open the government right now themselves.
They don't need a single Democratic vote. They'd have to
get rid of the filibuster, but they could do it
on a party line vote anytime they wanted to. So
we are in the This is a choice aspect of

(05:34):
the shutdown. This is truly a choice. And I just
would warn Democrats on this one. You've had some success
here getting this issue more front and center in the
public's mind, but by the way, your negatives are rising
as a political party over the polling that matriculated out

(05:55):
this past week one on two in that risks potentially
at some point, the more Americans have their lives disrupted,
the more they're likely to then sour on everybody and
then whatever slight even issue advantage of just getting the
healthcare issue into the ether disappears, and then it becomes, well,

(06:16):
what did you gain for all that adjuta with the shutdown?
So you know, there's a point of diminishing returns here.
At what point does Team Blue see that? We shall
find out. But again, before I get to a few
other issues I want to get to, Republicans could just
do it on their own if they chose to. They're
also apparently don't mind, and that that gets sort of

(06:38):
what I said yesterday my groundhog Day response here, which
is I think the base of both parties think they're winning,
and so when you think you're winning, you don't want
to stop.

Speaker 2 (06:48):
The problem is is how big?

Speaker 1 (06:52):
You know, first of all, your feedback loop is unfortunately
very small. You know, where's everybody else? How big is
the every everybody else pile there? And I think that's, uh,
that's an open question. But look, the the other issue
that's sort of front and center for a lot of
people is what's happening in Chicago. Uh, and this sort

(07:14):
of showdown between the Trump administration and the governor of
Illinois and the mayor of Chicago. This is you know
this it it is a few updates. Obviously you had
the President escalating his war of words with the mayor
and the governor, calling on the Democratic leaders to be impeached,

(07:36):
actually be imprisoned for failing to protect ice officers. Trump
wrote on his truth social post, Chicago mayor should be
in jail for failing to protect ice officers. Governor Pritzker also,
I don't think anybody's saying that they're not protecting ice
officers here. But of course this is this sort of
the the the the pretext that it appears the Trump

(08:01):
administration's trying to create in order to force this situation.
I have to say, the most bizarre aspect of all
this is the is what the state of Texas agreed
to do? You know, It's one thing, Look, the President
has the authority to federalize the National Guard in Illinois,
so he did it, but to use Texas troops to

(08:22):
essentially invade Illinois, right, And I don't you know, I know,
it can come across that everybody's getting very dramatic here
about some of these things, but nobody seems to remember
the golden rule in life or in politics. Right, do
unto others as you want done unto you.

Speaker 2 (08:41):
And I asked the governor of Texas.

Speaker 1 (08:45):
How would you feel if a Democratic president decided to
send a governor of Illinois decided to offer up National
Guard troops to occupy a city in Texas, right without
the governor's essentially acquiescence. I think I know where Texans

(09:11):
would stand on this. And that's the point here. Nobody
seems to be thinking about, Oh is you know what
happens if the roles are reversed? Right, And this has
certainly been a virus. It's in our politics these days
where nobody thinks of the of the reactionary consequence to anything.

(09:32):
We don't treat people the way we want to be treated.
In some ways, we're treating people the way we we
think how poorly we're being treated.

Speaker 2 (09:39):
Right.

Speaker 1 (09:40):
Part of that is internet brain, right. I think there's
way too many people right now in high level leadership
positions on the left and the right who are live
online and don't live in the real world. And so
I do think this is why there's a disconnect between
those that are extraordinarily alarmed by what's happening and the
those that are like, here we go again with things now,

(10:05):
I would say, you know, the courts are are playing
a role here and are providing. You know, the Constitution
hasn't been shredded yet, okay, and I think that should
be seen as a positive and not something that is
that is it is me being naive on this front.

(10:29):
We had a federal judge in Chicago on Wednesday extending
a nationwide consent decree that requires ice to better document
and report probable cause for their immigration arrests, and they
have found this judge found that the agency repeatedly has
violated the twenty twenty two agreement by making warrantless arrests,

(10:50):
both before and during what they called Operation Midway Blitz.
The judge also took particular issue with the practice by
ice A here, according to the Chicago Tribune, of carrying
blank warrant forms known as I two hundred's with them
on missions and essentially filling them out at the scene. Right,

(11:13):
they cannot prove that where they're going that there was
a there was a criminal intent by the person that
they believe is in this country illegally, so they're basically,
you know, getting there and then coming up filling out
the form to try to to try to sort of
come up with a legal pretext after the fact. And

(11:35):
the judges rightfully, I think, lecture them about this and
I can't imagine this one that this part of the
ruling somehow gets over overturned or overruled by.

Speaker 2 (11:48):
A higher court.

Speaker 1 (11:49):
We'll see on that front. But I think more importantly
it's what is the public see and what are they thinking?

Speaker 2 (11:55):
Right?

Speaker 1 (11:55):
If you live online, right, if you live only in
the blue sphere, this is the beginning of the end
of the republic.

Speaker 2 (12:02):
If you only live in the red.

Speaker 1 (12:03):
Sphere, it's about time that the federal government did something
that the mayors and the governor refused to do in
protecting Americans.

Speaker 2 (12:14):
Right.

Speaker 1 (12:16):
But the question is that we live we you know,
most of the rest of us live in this gray area.
And what's interesting about the polling here is that there's
comfort in the poll numbers for both sides, and there's
warnings in the poll numbers for both sides. So there's
a new Reuter's zipso's poll that shows fifty eight percent
of Americans, including seventy percent of Democrats and fifty percent

(12:40):
of Republicans, they feel the president should only deploy armed
troops to face quote external threats. Now, part of that
may explain why the president Stephen Miller in particular, keep
using overheated rhetoric to describe what they say ICE agents
are dealing with and what they say the threat is
from some of these undocumented immigrants. But it is there's

(13:07):
clearly a line here where the more militarized this looks,
the more uncomfortable the public gets, including plenty of Republicans.
Now that said, and what's interesting here is that there
is not a majority that believe that the president has
some sort of huge authority to do this. Thirty seven

(13:30):
percent agree that the presidents of either party should have
the power to deploy troops into states even when state
governors object, but forty eight percent disagree with that, and
in fact, eighty three percent overall in this poll agreed
that the military quote should remain politically neutral and not
take a side in a domestic policy debate. Now, there's

(13:53):
another poll that was out in the New York Times
Siena Poll, and it's part of the same poll that
came out last week that I was telling you about.
But they released their immigration questions on Wednesday, and essentially
it's showing you the same thing that I've been telling
you for a while, which is a majority agree with
the goal of what Trump is doing, but a majority

(14:15):
don't like how he's trying to do it. Let me
put some numbers around that. Fifty four percent of registered
voters broadly favored deporting immigrants living in the country illegally. Okay,
that's ninety percent among Republicans, fifty two percent among independents,
and about twenty percent of Democrats think this. Now, you'll
see on that issue of mass deportation, Independence much closer

(14:38):
to Republicans than they are Democrats. Right, it's a majority
of Independence. That to me a little warning sign there
for Democrats on their stance on immigration. Now, that said,
fifty three percent of voters feel the process of deporting
people has not been fair, and forty four percent said
it was mostly fair. So that tells you. And fifty

(15:01):
two percent of those surveyed also disapprove of Trump's handling
of immigration. The point is this, a majority of people
in this country do think that too many people were
let in illegally and many of them should be returned.
But there is a discomfort in the aggressive tactics that
are being used, and the more that is front and center,

(15:24):
the more Americans may sour on the policy.

Speaker 2 (15:26):
Itself.

Speaker 1 (15:27):
But this is to me the warning sign here a
little bit. What's interesting is fifty one percent said they
thought the government was deporting mostly people who quote should
be deported. Forty two percents of the government was deporting
the wrong people. But there's a narrow majority there. So
the point is is that Democrats have to find realize

(15:50):
that a majority in this country want the law followed.
At the same time, a majority of the country's more
open to immigration than perhaps the Trump administration is behaving.
So like everything in our politics, there's more nuanced in
gray area than the two parties are presenting each other.
But it is where we are at this moment. I

(16:13):
do think the Trump White House believes that Pritzker and
Mayor Johnson are good foils for them politically. I think
they're personalizing this on purpose, and Pritzker and Johnson are
playing right into it because I think they think it's
good politics to get personal right back, It is worth

(16:34):
noting that Trump put out that truth social statement on
Wednesday after Pritzker on Tuesday night opened wondered aloud whether
Trump has dementia. So it is certainly getting personal, and
in that sense that's also a bit of a you know,
it goes back to my whole who's going to be

(16:55):
the adult in the room. And when you start to
go name calling against Trump, you have to remember the
rule of the pig, which is careful getting to a
mud fight with a pig, because you'll both get dirty
and the pig will enjoy it.

Speaker 2 (17:09):
This is a classic case.

Speaker 1 (17:10):
You want to get into a name calling fight with
Donald Trump. He's always willing to go lower. He's always
going to be more outlandish, go to places you'll never
be comfortable going, and you'll look and then all of
a sudden, you'll look feckless for some reason. So it's
a warning there, and it's obvious what the political motivation

(17:32):
is there. Clearly is an attempt by the Trump administration.
Perhaps this is the Stephen Miller plan to create a confrontation,
to create a pretext to then do more of this
and get more aggressive of these tactics. But the political
warning signed to Miller and the Trump White House is
the more aggressive they get, the more Americans are going
to turn on them on this, and even among Republicans,

(17:56):
so as much as it looks as if they're completely
ignoring sort of the reality of the situation, and they're
frankly lying about the threat. The level of threat that
folks in Chicago are dealing with. There's real political risk
in how they're handling this, just as much as there's
real risk for Democrats not looking like they're not in

(18:17):
favor of the rule of law either. So I wanted
to deal I will say this, I'm not. The reason
I'm not my hair's not on fire on this is that.

Speaker 2 (18:29):
I do think.

Speaker 1 (18:32):
The system is working more than it isn't right. The
courts are having their say. There's a lot of loud
rhetoric from Stephen Miller, irresponsible rhetoric, but they're abiding by.

Speaker 2 (18:45):
The court rulings.

Speaker 1 (18:46):
So I'm not saying this isn't something we shouldn't be
concerned about. We should be on high alert about nation,
but we got to continue to use the system itself
to enact the guardrail rather than trying to take matters
into anybody's own plans. There's a reason results matter more

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they win. The DNC is starting to circulate its after

(20:15):
action report on the twenty twenty four election. Politico has
gotten a few sources to talk about the sword of
top lines that are being circulated to certain Democratic leaders,
and here's sort of the early take on this according
to the political report, DNC officials argued Democrats. This is

(20:37):
I'm reading directly from the political article. DNC officials argued
Democrats didn't spend early or consistently enough to engage and
persuade voters, one of several problems the party face in.

Speaker 2 (20:46):
Twenty twenty four.

Speaker 1 (20:47):
According to the committee, swapping Joe Biden with Kamala Harris
the top of the ticket intensify those systemic long term
problems for the party, the official said. And this is
according to two people that were brief by the DNC
this week and granted anonymity to discuss the comments for
what it's worth. So far, in these early briefings of
this after action report, the so called autopsy of twenty
twenty four by the DNC, Biden's age has not come

(21:10):
up now.

Speaker 2 (21:11):
The DNC officials also.

Speaker 1 (21:13):
Said the party's failure to respond to voters's top issues
led to losses across once core constituencies, including working class voters.
That is one of those duh, Right, When you don't
talk about the issue that's most concerned to the voters,
you're going to likely be on the losing end.

Speaker 2 (21:29):
Of an election.

Speaker 1 (21:30):
I'm glad it's taken them eight months to write an
autopsy to come to that conclusion. On that front, Another
person briefed on the report said that they understood the
assessment to mean that Democrats quote didn't talk enough about
bread and butter issues, and instead we talked about social issues,
social anxieties. Now here's the thing. This idea that the

(21:51):
Democrats didn't spend early enough actually doesn't fit the facts
the job. Back when Biden was still actively running for president,
their campaign actually bought twenty five million dollars worth of
ads in September of twenty twenty three. It was earlier
than either Barack Obama or Donald Trump aired ads during

(22:13):
their first reelections. They also spent another thirty million dollars
on ads in March of twenty twenty four, and they
were arguing. Biden's team at the time was arguing, according
to Political that this early investment for activate key voters.
So I'm confused here. The DNC is claiming it was
too late of investments and money in this idea when
actually Democrats had the advantage early with money. Look, it

(22:37):
sounds like this autopsy is going to end up if
this is what it is. If this is what they concluded.
Then they've it is just a a whole bunch of
words to not say what the real problem was, which
is Joe Biden shouldn't have run. Joe Biden didn't have
the capacity to articulate the message that they needed to do.

(22:59):
But more importantly, the Biden white House totally disagreed with
the public on what the top issue was. Remember you
had the Biden white House putting out surrogates constantly saying,
the economy is recovering, the economy is great, look at
all the job creation. And they kept arguing making the
job creation argument, saying, this economy, you know, pay no

(23:22):
attention to what the rest of the country essentially we don't,
you know, pay no attention to what you think the
problem is with the economy, i e.

Speaker 2 (23:31):
Costs.

Speaker 1 (23:32):
You should listen to us and we'll tell you that
the economy is okay. I mean, it is so this
initial if this is really the autopsy, it tells me
that they're just trying to I don't know, are they
protecting people's personal feelings or is it just I mean,
do you need an autopsy to find out you had
a candidate that wasn't capable of running for president. That

(23:53):
was the issue. He couldn't sell his agenda, and then
more importantly, whoever was surrounding him totally misread the did
have any clue at what the country was upset about,
which was the cost to live. I don't know what
more the autopsy should say other than that, and you know,

(24:13):
other than you know, do they want to try to
light on fire certain consulting groups or people. Obviously a
whole bunch of people made a whole bunch of money
based on bad strategy. Okay, that's a fair point. But
on the other hand, considering how poorly all of this
was handled, the fact that they came essentially about one

(24:36):
hundred thousand voters away from winning the electoral college is
still pretty remarkable. Again, if Kamala Harris simply flips Michigan, Wisconsin,
and Pennsylvania, she's at two hundred and seventy electoral votes.
So they're going to release the whole thing. Apparently they're
going to release the whole thing after this November's elections,

(24:56):
but it is if this is what the early word is,
I don't know if anything's going to be learned from this.

Speaker 2 (25:05):
To me.

Speaker 1 (25:05):
If the autopsy doesn't say Hey, the DNC has done
a terrible job over the last fifteen years in registering voters.
Then to me, the entire autopsy is worthless because that
has sort of been one of the major problems. The
party has had a complete and utter dismissiveness of the
fact that they were losing voters, basically leaking voters for

(25:26):
the last decade. And now, of course you sort of
see the accumulation of lost party registrations and it is
it is shocking what the numbers are. It is almost
a ten to one. Look, Republicans have lost registered voters
over the last few years, and so of Democrats. Literally
it's a ten to one ratio. Democrats are losing ten

(25:46):
voters for every one voter the Republicans are losing. That
is an unsustainable path on that front. A few updates
on Virginia. It does appear that everybody is going to
rally around for now. Rally around on the Democratic side,

(26:07):
Jay Jones, I want to read you a few statements
that a few state Democrats are they're rationales for sticking by,
for sticking by Jones, the Attorney General nominee, who of
course had those text messages that were sort of fantasizing
about the death of a former Assembly speaker's kids. Virginia

(26:32):
State Senator Lamont Bagbee, who chairs the state's Democratic Party,
asked the following question in an interview and asked whether
Jones should resign, and his response was Republicans that are
asking him to resign? Where were they when Trump and
other Republicans have made their comments? Ah, the old what
aboutism defense? And another I want to read you one

(26:53):
more west blamea well connected progressive activist who teaches at
Virginia State University, said the following. People I'm the feel
as if they have to be the perfect, highest moral
individuals in the world. Normal everyday people stay stupid things
and text messages online all the time. If that is
the thing that means the Democratic ticket doesn't win the election,
then they've got bigger issues. Look, I don't think this

(27:15):
is going to take down the entire Democratic ticket. It
probably is only going to take down his own candidacy.
Could make the LG race a lot closer, and maybe
Spanburger wins by single digits and it costs them some
opportunities and down the ballot and state legislative races and
things like that. But this public defense. This is exactly

(27:37):
what I've been sort of ranting about now for a
few months, that the rationales that many Republicans would use
to overlook hateful and violent rhetoric from Donald Trump and
some of his supporters, and the sort of oh, can't
you take a joke and nobody it's not that serious

(27:58):
that the democratic defense of when somebody on their side
sort of behaves similarly as well, is now going to
go to the same thing. Is that really the answer?
I go back to the whole golden rule. Right, you
do unto others as you want done under you.

Speaker 2 (28:13):
Right.

Speaker 1 (28:13):
And the Texas governor has decided he is going to
trounce on the Tenth Amendment when it comes to the
state of Illinois. But he has no apparently he is
not worried about Texas's rights being trampled upon if the
roles were reversed. Okay, ditto here, right, you know, if
we are trying to tone the rhetoric down, then somebody's

(28:35):
got to take the high ground here. Somebody's got to
want to have some moral authority here, and these defenses,
and look, in fairness, not many well known Democrats are
willing to stick by and make the defense like that.
But that mindset, and I know it's there in the
base of the party.

Speaker 2 (28:54):
I get it.

Speaker 1 (28:54):
They look at what the Republic, what Trump and his
minions get away with and think, jeez it, it doesn't
hurt them, So why do we care so much about it?

Speaker 2 (29:03):
And I'm like, there's.

Speaker 1 (29:05):
Still a vast chunk in the middle, who do care
about ethics, who do care a little bit about character,
who do want somebody to try to pretend to be
a role model for doing this the right way instead
of the wrong way.

Speaker 2 (29:21):
So you know, I'm.

Speaker 1 (29:23):
Sort of shaking my head, but I will I would
be a little leery Democrats of giving up the adult
in the room voter, who I do believe they've had
an inside track on essentially during most of the Trump era.
But if it's a if you can't beat them, join
a mindset, I don't know what happens. Then you don't

(29:47):
know where this goes. Does a go third party, does
it go splintering. There's a lot of ways that this
could go. A few campaign notes, I think we have
another Democrat to add to the presidential list. So we
told you any be been in New Hampshire. He was
just there this week. I told you there was already
a pro Palestinian group running an attack ad on Bisher.
Sort of an early warning shot I think to all

(30:09):
presidential candidates that there are going to be some activist
groups that are going to want to make Israel and
arming Israel e litmus test. Well, we've got additional Democrats
on the schedule in New Hampshire, Chris Murphy. I think
many people already knew the Connecticut Democratic senator was sort
of at least toying with a national campaign in twenty

(30:29):
twenty eight. He's going to do a town hall in
New Hampshire November twelve. But Alyssa Slockton, the first term
senator from Michigan, is going to headline a fundraiser for
the Manchester Democratic Dinner on October fifteenth. As my friend
Chris Eliza likes to say, you know, nobody shows up
to ior in New Hampshire by accident without at least

(30:50):
you know they're kicking the tires on something. And what's
interesting about Slockton is this is she's doing this within
about two weeks of Gretchen Whitmer, the term limited governor
of Michigan, sort of indicating that she's probably not going
to run for president in twenty twenty eight, that she's
let that she hopes to be participating in what's next,

(31:12):
but that she probably wouldn't be at the top of
the ticket herself. Is this coincidence? Is this related? Let's
just say inquiring minds want to know, and a few
other California notes. I was just out in California. First
of all, it does look like the redistricting effort it is.

(31:36):
I think Gavin Newsom is going to win this prop
It looks like they've successfully turned this into a referendum
on Trump, which was the way to win this. And
it also looks like money is drying up on the
no side of things. Kevin McCarthy, according to punch Bull News,
who had pledged to raise and spend one hundred million

(31:56):
dollars to try to defeat the proposition in the November elections,
has so far only been able to spend seven millions.
So it does seem as if that it's possible some
money is drying up. So if you're you're if you're
keeping track of the redistricting wars, so if California is
gonna happen and Texas is going to happen. They've canceled
each other out, so now it becomes this sort of

(32:19):
night fight one by one. So we're gonna have Missouri,
you might have Indiana. Then there's the Utah redraw. There
could be now a Maryland redraw. Does Florida get into
the game, right, there is another potential seat or two
they could attempt in Broward County. If you remember my

(32:39):
interview with Jared Moskowitz, even w Wasserman Schultz's district, they
think maybe they could they sort of stretch it across
Alligator ally and essentially try to create districts that would
have nothing in common. I mean, trust me, growing up
in South Florida, you know the Fort Myers and and
Fort Lauderdale have nothing in common that much other than

(33:01):
one's on water and the others on water. But one's
on an ocean and one's in a golf right.

Speaker 2 (33:05):
It is, but it is too far away to.

Speaker 1 (33:08):
Call it a community of interest. But that doesn't mean
that isn't how they might attempt to draw the map
and make a couple of Democrats in the Broward County
area a little more a little more vulnerable. But if
we do have sort of this stand off between California
and Texas. Then it probably means at best Republicans are

(33:32):
going to net maybe three or four I think max
out of this redistricting effort now in an extraordinarily close
midterm election, that could be the difference. And if it
is that close, and to me, Democrats already have lost,
right if they can't make this where they're sort of
winning the national argument, you know, in the generic ballot

(33:55):
five six, seven points, well then you know we're going
to be looking at you know, two or three seats
on either side. And speaking of California, I think what's
notable if you're listening to this podcast, my guess is
you've already seen the Katie Porter clip. The former member

(34:15):
of Congress who lost a Senate campaign against Adam Schiff,
has been the nominal front runner for governor ever since
Kulanacas got out of the race and Kamala Harris announced
she wasn't going to run. So Katie Bore has kind
of been the front runner. I've never really thought of
her as the front runner because I think Rick Caruso,
the guy who lost the mayor's race to Karen vass
in LA when he jumps in, he was likely going

(34:38):
to be the new front runner when he gets in.
My guess is he gets in after the November elections.
But for now, Porter had been the one. She had
the most name id from her previous campaign for Senate,
so she'd been ahead, but she was like in the twenties,
you know in some of these polls. Well, anyway, that
the viral interview, I'm not going to sort of just

(35:00):
describe it in detail because it's been everywhere. I think
what's notable is how much both Republicans and Democrats piled
on this. Plenty of us who have covered Katie Porter,
covered Congress, covered the California delegation have known that she's
not very popular among Democrats. You know, she may be
popular among MSNBC viewers and among many progressive activists, but

(35:23):
among the sort of insider crowd, she wasn't very popular,
and not because of her stances, but sort of because
of her attitude and sort of how she went about it.
You know, she's in some ways what's good outsider politics
is not always good insider camaraderie. And frankly, if you're
going to be governor, you gotta work with other people

(35:45):
I think her inability to handle what wasn't tough questions.
These weren't hard questions. It makes me wonder has she
spent too much time in a blue safe space when
she interacts with maybe blue leaning me that don't challenge her,
and these were lightly challenging questions. I mean, no, I'm

(36:07):
not disrespecting the reporter at all. I think the reporter
it's clear what she was doing. She was doing a
larger package and talking to all the candidates, you know.
I think she made that, made that pretty clear. But
you want to be governor of the world's fifth largest
economy and you can't handle a tiny bit of a

(36:29):
tiny bit of a follow up question about Trump voters
and you sort of lose it really quickly. I mean,
you're not gonna be able to control every setting in politics,
no matter where you go. So but the most notable
thing about this is not the incident itself. To me,
it's how much everybody else piled on.

Speaker 2 (36:47):
She does not.

Speaker 1 (36:48):
Have a reservoir of goodwill inside the Democratic Party, it seems,
and I think the way she behaved after losing, after
not making it into the top two with Adam Shift
in the Senate race, and you know, she just she didn't,
you know, she was angry that Adam Schiff played to win. Right,
So Adam Shift spent money promoting Steve Garvey during that

(37:13):
primary process so that Garvy would be seen as the
chief Republican opposition to Shift, and so that way the
top two face off would be Shift versus Garvey. D
versus are very easy campaign for Shift to win, rather
than Shift versus Porter, which would have been D versus
D might have been very awkward and a much closer race,

(37:38):
much more competitive, and we don't know which way it
would go. Obviously, Porter was still very bitter about it,
and sort of the way she went about it, you know,
it was sort of like sour grapes that Adam Shift
did something, you know, did a campaign tactic that is
not new, not that controversial anymore. It's sort of how,

(37:58):
you you know, he had the resources to do it,
and because she didn't have the same resources in him,
she was frustrated that he got to have more impact
on who he got to run against than she could.
And so I do think that how she how she

(38:20):
carried herself in losing that primary didn't exactly win her
a lot of friends outside of her core base of supporters.
So this was a red flag and probably probably the
type of thing that will be hard for her to
shake off, especially since how easily everybody seemed to pile

(38:44):
onto her on that fashion Cure. A long time political consultant,
he ran Bernie Sanders' camp campaign for president in twenty twenty.
He's right now aligned with the video the Progressive Lean
video Have More Perfect Union.

Speaker 2 (39:01):
They do some really good work.

Speaker 1 (39:03):
Yes, it's sort of advocacy journalism. But what's interesting is
he was very critical of what he thought Democrats were
doing when it came to short form video. You know,
he was saying that that while people like Gavin Newsom
and you've seen Akim Jeffreys and Chuck Schumer all doing
more videos themselves trying to talk to voters sort of

(39:25):
explaining different policies, that he thinks it's not worked, and
he thinks that if you want more effective viral videos,
you've got to talk to people who's actually impacted by
the situation. And he noted the he said, the raw,
emotionally jarring clips of human suffering in Gaza and the

(39:47):
outrages videos of ice agents separating families, that those videos
go more viral than when a politician is telling you
what they think, and as he said, those clips have
done more to change public opinion on those issues than
anything else. His point is, real people are who you
should be featuring when you're trying to make a point

(40:09):
on the cost to live, on the impact of healthcare
subsidies going away, or the impact of no childcare tax credit,
things like that. And this goes back to some politics never.

Speaker 2 (40:22):
Change, right.

Speaker 1 (40:24):
If you make your campaign about the people you're trying
to convince to vote for you, they're more likely to listen.
If you make the campaign essentially about your own ideology
or your own views and you're trying to persuade others
to come to your side, you're more likely to be losing.
And so I just thought that deserved a highlight. I

(40:46):
caught what he had to say, and I thought it
was something worth pointing out. Anyway, let's do a few
Q and as ask Chuck. This one comes from John

(41:11):
A from New Orleans. Hey, Chuck really loved the cast.
As Mayor Koch would say, you are a voice of reason.

Speaker 2 (41:16):
I appreciate that.

Speaker 1 (41:17):
Here's an idea that I would like your feedback on.
We use the tax code to influence behavior all the time, Yes,
we do. Why not do it to encourage a true
democratic good? Give people a seventy five dollars tax credit
every time they vote in a national election. More voters
would significantly change voting dynamics. It would give third parties
a real shot in the arm. The effect would be profound,
and we wouldn't need a constitutional convention to make the change.

(41:39):
Thoughts interesting, So we're paying people to vote? I guess
that's you know, it's not like Australia. What is I
think it's Australia that has sort of mandatory voting.

Speaker 2 (41:58):
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (41:58):
I'm I hear what you're saying. There's a part of me.
There's a lyric from an old Rush song. If you
choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.
It's their song free will. So are we going to
financially penalize people who decide they want to sit out

(42:19):
a national election? You see where I'm going here? So
I hear where you're going. I you know, we had
that back and.

Speaker 2 (42:26):
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (42:27):
I'm not going to guess what your age is. But
there was a time where you used to be able
to check off on your tax returns. You know, yes,
I want, you know, a dollar, one dollar of my
tax return to go to the presidential presidential campaign fund.
This was back when presidential candidates would get matching funds.
We had a period of time where we were hoping

(42:48):
to at least partially public fund elections to keep you know,
to sort of keep the influence of money down. Well, eventually,
you know, I think George W. Bush was the first
one to be able to raise enough money not having
to worry about the federal system. And then all of
a sudden, everybody got out of it, and so it's
it's sort of lost its relevance. But I do agree

(43:09):
with you generally that the tax code is a good
that financial incentives. In some ways, it goes back to
the incentive issue. Right, if you want if you want
better outcomes, then create better incentives.

Speaker 2 (43:22):
Right.

Speaker 1 (43:23):
If you think more people need to participate, then that
is one idea to to certainly incentivize people to do it.
I still think that the bigger issue is we need
equal access to the ballot, and you need equal access
to vote for everybody, right, And I do think primaries,

(43:43):
particularly state run, state funded primaries do violate equal protection.
You know, the fact is, if I'm not a registered
voter of that party, I can't participate in that taxpayer
funded election.

Speaker 2 (43:56):
That feels like a penalty.

Speaker 1 (43:59):
And so and I do think that if you're looking
at one thing, one single thing that we could do
differently that might actually have massive impact on our politics
is if we got rid of partisan primaries altogether and
had essentially everybody, you know, like the mayor's races, all

(44:21):
party primaries. So I'm with you on using the tax
code as a way to incentivize better behavior. I struggle
with the idea of using it as.

Speaker 2 (44:34):
A reward for voting.

Speaker 1 (44:37):
You know, it's sort of there's it that I in
a weird way that feels, you know, one step away
from buying a vote, right, So there's a there's I
just I'll admit I'm slightly uncomfortable with that larger concept,
but I am quite comfortable with using the tax code

(44:57):
to incentive I mean, look, home ownership in some ways
is promoted because of the tech. We promote ownership through
the tax code with mortgage deduction. So there's always I
think good ways to use the tax code help to
help people. If you will, but interesting thought and certainly

(45:20):
worth chewing on. Thanks for the question, John all right.
Next question comes from Carry and saying Lewis, Hey, Chuck,
You've mentioned the logistical challenge of third parties, But with
Democrats wandering in the wilderness and Republicans without a platform,
what about an American unity platform that anyone running could
pledge to support. Focus on making government more responsive to
the needs of citizens, working to get big money out
of politics, constitutional convention ending, germ mandering, maybe even required

(45:44):
civic service for young people. Yes, I'm huge national service person.

Speaker 2 (45:48):
Could that work? What would you include in this platform? Thanks?
And I love the history highlights. Oh great, best wishes.

Speaker 1 (45:53):
Look, I love this and in many ways what you're
describing is what my late mentor Doug Bailey, when he
Unity eight is what he called it back in two
thousand and eight. In the run up to that election,
he was trying to create a process that could help
nominate a bipartisan ticket. Well, then the two parties nominated

(46:15):
the two most bipartisan people that were running. Right, Literally,
the most popular Democrat among Republicans was Barack Obama and
the most popular Republican among Democrats was John McCain. They
both did well among independence and they both won their nomination,
So it made Unity eight kind of a pointless exercise.
He was anticipating that it would be Hillary Clinton and

(46:36):
Rudy Giuliani right, a more polarizing, divisive matchup that would
then leave room for a more unifying bipartisan ticket. But
it is, you know, and in fact, what is the
today's Forward Party has some of the remnants of what
Doug began. Some of the folks that have been working

(46:59):
on the Open Primaries movement to try to sort of
get rid of partisan primaries, the gentleman that's been working
on trying to get rank choice voting to be considered
in other states. All of it is derivative of what
Doug began with.

Speaker 2 (47:19):
Unity O eight.

Speaker 1 (47:21):
And I will tell you this. You are to me
on the right path of what kind of to me
that look in an ideal word, would be a four
party system. I think that's I'm not gonna I'm trying
to be realistic here. The most the most likely way
that a third party could have an impact is sort

(47:43):
of helping to reform the two major parties by sort
of running a race that did this. And I think
you don't you want to plan And this gets it
to a debate that I know some folks that are
involved with the Forward Party, Andrew Yang, Christie Whitman Party,
the sort of the third party movement where there's a

(48:04):
debate are they a movement to try to get the
two parties to become more rational or do they want
to be their own standalone party that essentially replaces one
of the two major parties and why? And if you're
going to be one thing, then you're going to have
more issues you might take a stand on. And the
more issues you take a stand on, the more opportunity

(48:26):
you have of potentially pushing some people, you know away.
If you're trying to be this sort of moderate party
that sort of shoots you know, that sort of shoots
the gap in between the two parties, then I do
think you want a platform like the one you describe,
where hey, look, we need to we need to make
some massive reforms in how the democracy works. And this

(48:50):
isn't going to be about whether we should have more
immigrants or less immigrants. This is about whether we're going
to have a system that is easily understandable and how
immigration works. Right, it is almost like a technocratic campaign
that you would run. Now, the problem with that is,
I think you need an incredibly charismatic individual to be
the leader of that movement. Ross Perot had his own charisma,

(49:12):
Teddy Roosevelt had his own charisma. Shoot, even George Wallace,
who was arguably had some success at least in shifting
that election to Nixon in sixty eight, had had enough
charisma to lead a movement. So there is a you
can't just do this as a dry technocratic exercise.

Speaker 2 (49:34):
But I do think.

Speaker 1 (49:38):
Going after process and talking about how we need the
structural reform of the democracy, and I think post Trump
there'll be an appetite for this. The question is is
there an appetite for it in twenty eight or do
we need sort of a couple more years removed from
Trump before there'll be a full appetite for this. But

(49:58):
American Unity Platform, I mean, I'm gonna keep saying it
over and over. So my friends at the Forward Party
who I know listen to this podcast regularly. It's a
good idea because, especially if it's about how you centered it,
how do you make government more responsive?

Speaker 2 (50:14):
Right?

Speaker 1 (50:14):
Things I'd put in there is doubling the size of
the House. Right, maybe it's a constitutional amendment that says,
you know, no congressional district can be, you know, bigger
than point zero zero zero one percent of the population,
which would give a metric so that way you could
deal in case our population shrinks overtime rather than expands.
But that's something I would put in there because I

(50:35):
think that would be something that would make us more responsive.
Getting rid of partisan primaries where you're doing things that
are not about specific issues themselves, because that's where you
start to third parties can sometimes lose support almost the
more positions you start taking.

Speaker 2 (50:52):
So it is, it is.

Speaker 1 (50:54):
You certainly have warmed my heart in what you're prescribing.
But one of the things that I've learned is when
you have the luxury to worry about this, and you
don't have a financial crisis in your life or a
healthcare crisis, you have the luxury to worry about the democracy.
There's a lot of voters out there who, in theory

(51:14):
might agree with this platform, but are more worried about
the near term and are going to be more in
tune with somebody that's going to throw them a bone immediately, right,
a benefit bone of some sort immediately, And I think
that's the only risk in trying to run a very
sort of let's fix the democracy, because you almost have
to have a majority agreement that it's broken. And we're

(51:35):
getting there, right. We have over sixty percent saying we're
in a political crisis. So it may be that by
the fall of twenty seven this is a very appealing idea,
which is but the idea of just putting out a platform,
almost without a candidate and even without a political party

(51:57):
is an interesting idea as well. So anyway, you've given
me a lot to chew on that this is not
something I want to give up, the American Unity Platform.
I love how that sounds, all right. Next question comes
from Heather from Littleton, Colorado.

Speaker 2 (52:12):
Hey, there, I.

Speaker 1 (52:12):
Heard you chat your chat with Chrystaliza and appreciated what
you said about Trump being the worst role model for
our children. I have two boys, and my younger son
was born on election Day twenty sixteen. I remember sitting
in the hospital, heartbroken that our country had elected a
man who embodied everything I didn't want them to become.
As a lifelong conservative and former staffer for Rick and Torum,
I even voted for Hillary Clinton that year because I
feared that would happen under his presidency. Sadly, both his

(52:34):
temperament and character of only worsened. Sense Heather from Littleton, Colorado, Well,
you know this.

Speaker 2 (52:40):
Goes to the issue of character, and it goes back to.

Speaker 1 (52:47):
For whatever reason, and I think in sixteen, look, I
think you and I share a similar way that we vote,
which is, I do character matters a lot, right. I
think character is destiny. I think high character people are
going to do the right thing. Low character people are
more likely to do the wrong thing or more likely
to be out for themselves. And I certainly believe that. Unfortunately,

(53:11):
a second Trump term has perhaps, Look, we're coarser, we
just are as a society, and you can't tell me
it's disconnected from the way Donald Trump has modeled himself
for the American people.

Speaker 2 (53:30):
I mean.

Speaker 1 (53:33):
You may have heard me say this. I think the
American bad behavior at Bethpage Black during the Ryder Cup
is representative of the Trump era. Do I say Trump
himself go to those people to behave that way. No,
I'm not going to go that far. But I think
his behavior gives a permission slip that it's okay to

(53:55):
sort of be be rude, be dismissed, be dehumanizing. Hey,
if the president does it, why can't I? And of
course this gets it to what we're watching how the
Democrats are dealing with this Virginia issue, where there was

(54:16):
there was an attempt to hold Republicans accountable when they
misbehaved like this, and there are a lot of Democrats
who were lecturing Republicans for not holding their own side accountable.
And here you have something on the Democratic side and
they're not immediately taking the moral high ground here on character,
and it's you know how much of that is? And

(54:37):
you see that sort of some supporters of Jay Jones
have essentially said, well, if Trump can do it, why
can't Why can't we is essentially, you know, if the
voters are going to forgive him, why wouldn't the voters
forgive Jay Jones?

Speaker 2 (54:51):
And maybe that is the case.

Speaker 1 (54:53):
Maybe the electorate has given up that politicians can be
good people. Unfortunately, right now I do think the I
think good people are afraid to run for office, and
I think there is a sense that if you're morally
ambiguous person, but you're looking for legitimacy in society, holding

(55:18):
office suddenly gives you legitimacy. You know, it brings up
a quote I've been meaning to share with you guys,
but I just haven't had the right I just haven't
had the right moment to bring it up. But I'm
going to go find the quote for you. So Madison Cawthorne,
the guy, the kid who was sort of who when
he came to Congress sort of was just he admitted

(55:39):
the only staff he wanted to hire work communication staff.
He didn't really see the job as representing his constituents.
He saw it as just messaging and trolling. He offended
so many Republicans that they recruited at candidates to primary
m get him out of office, and he was a
one term wonder. Well now he has shown up in
Florida and he wants to run for the open seat

(56:00):
that Byron Donalds is vacating to run for governor. Well,
he's not the only former member of Congress running in
that district for Byron Donalds. There's another disgraced former member
of Congress that's also running in that race. It is
Chris Collins. And if you're wondering who Chris Collins is,

(56:20):
he was a Republican member of Congress from the from
western New York, representing the Buffalo area, and he was
notable at first. I mean, I could tell you how
he got my radar, and first time I interviewed me,
he was the only member of Congres. He's the first
member of the House of Representative, the first House Republican
to officially endorse Donald Trump, and for the longest time,

(56:42):
he was the only one that endorsed Donald Trump. I mean,
it was it was, it was something else, and he
was the only one, and he was sort of he
was kind of. I enjoyed interviewing him, and in fact,
I'm going to try to book him for the podcast
because this quote really stood out to me, and I

(57:03):
don't get to it in a minute, but it sort
of gets it to what I fear elected office has
become for too many character challenged people, and perhaps describing
Chris Collins this way.

Speaker 2 (57:17):
Will make him not want to come on.

Speaker 1 (57:19):
But one of the things I found interesting about him
is that he seemed to be comfortable in his own skin,
willing to sort of take any question and sometimes say
things out loud that you're shocked that he would say,
which brings me to this quote. So he's among again.
Madison Cawthorne is running in this race. So's Chris Collins, right,
the former New Yorker you had to resign in twenty

(57:39):
nineteen after he pled guilty to some insider trading. Collins,
who's now seventy five, he suggested that he wasn't coming
out of involuntary retirement purely because of his desire to
serve his new community in southwest Florida. Here's what he
said to a podcast in August. He said, quote, if

(57:59):
I they then retire as a congressman from Florida nineteen
and Marco Island in Naples, I think I would be
welcomed then to serve on some of the you know,
the not for profit boards and hospital boards and being
invited to the you know, fundraisers and galas and being welcomed.
He said, that would be a great retirement because right
now it's kind of lonely. He goes, you know, I'm

(58:21):
not invited to any of those things because all I
am is, you know, the former congressman who resigned in disgrace,
convicted felon This was this is Chris Collins in a nutshell.
He will he speaks some blunt truths. He's self aware
and not self aware sort of all at the same time.

(58:41):
Right says the quiet part out loud that the only
reason he wants to run if he could just win
a term. Then suddenly he's invited to all the local
events and he gets to I guess, sit on the
dais rather than I'm sure he could be invited to
these events, but he doesn't want to beg to be there,
I guess. Anyway, I use this as an example to

(59:04):
sort of respond to your question on that, because that
is my concern, is that politics is turned into this
place where people rehab bad images because we now think
politicians are kind of you know that we assume a
politician is slimy. You know, you're guilty of being slimy
until you prove.

Speaker 2 (59:22):
That you're not.

Speaker 1 (59:23):
And that's sad. Right, I got into this. I went
to Washington because, man, I looked up to these people.
And it's true, the more you get to know them,
the more you realize not all of them are are
worth looking up to. But there was a time more
of them were. And it's a bummer. We're not there yet.

(59:44):
All right, let me do one more question here and.

Speaker 2 (59:45):
I'll do my little college football preview for you. Good evening.

Speaker 1 (59:48):
Loving the Check podcast find myself anxiously awaiting the next
installment every other morning during the week. I appreciate that
my question you recently cited congressional carve outs for pay
during government shutdowns, such as military pay and social security.
I was listening to someone on Boston Public Radio a
few days ago, where you are a frequent guest, discussed
military pay would cease during the shutdown. So I'm confused.
Thanks for a fantastic source of information critical of both

(01:00:11):
sides of the aisle. The pay is guaranteed, that the
pay can be delayed, but it's guaranteed, and the military
pay was always guaranteed as a carve out, and then
they have to a lot of times. Most of the
times when they've done these shorts shutdowns, they do pass
a bipartisan bill that says, hey, we're going to go

(01:00:33):
ahead and let military pay happen on time. And that
was frequent when we always had some you know, some
members of the military in a hot zone or a
war zone, notably for whatever reason, they didn't you know Democrats.
In fact, that's one of the ways that Democrats are
now trying to go to Mike Johnson back to bringing

(01:00:55):
the House back this week, is to just simply vote
on that so that there's no interruption in their pay.
But the carve out, they're guaranteed their pay and in
the case of active duty military, you know, they're housing,
the don't have to worry about that. So that's why
it's that carve out. If they weren't guaranteed their pay, I.

Speaker 2 (01:01:18):
Think you'd have a different situation.

Speaker 1 (01:01:20):
So where I may have confused you was I may
have indicated that they were they were getting it without
interruption because they always do, but they hadn't. Actually each
time they had to individually vote to make sure it
was done without interruption, and they didn't do that for
this time, which was unusual. But there is no but

(01:01:43):
the law guarantees that back pay. Quote it's what the
law guarantees the back pay now of all federal workers.
That was a separate law that was passed in twenty
nineteen that Donald Trump signed the law and now that
his current budget director is trying to claim does not abide.
But anyway, apologies for confusing you on that, but that

(01:02:04):
that's where that goes, all right, So with that, I
am this is my first weekend and four weekends and
I'm not traveling to see a football game.

Speaker 2 (01:02:14):
I will be honest, as.

Speaker 1 (01:02:16):
A middling aged man, I am getting exhausted for mayor travel.
So maybe I needed a weekend off from traveling to football.
But that doesn't mean we don't have a great lineup
of games this week. Look the most the one I'm
most curious about, and I think the one that will

(01:02:38):
be more determinative to me. You know, there's two big
ones this week, and they're both in the Big ten. Right,
you have Indiana at Oregon. Do you fully believe in Indiana?
And how good is Oregon?

Speaker 2 (01:02:51):
Right?

Speaker 1 (01:02:51):
Do we look at the Penn State loss to UCLA
and start to question whether is was that just Penn
State flat spot or is Penn State really just not
that good without Tyler Warren?

Speaker 2 (01:03:02):
Right?

Speaker 1 (01:03:03):
And I think we're starting to come to the conclusion
that they had a special, special talent in Tyler Warren.

Speaker 2 (01:03:09):
How good was he? He's so good.

Speaker 1 (01:03:10):
He's made the Colts a playoff team right all on
his own. He's made Daniel Jones look like an MVP candidate.
So shame on all of us for not realizing how
maybe that dude should have been invited to New York
at least to be a Heisman finalist on that front.
And then the other interesting game is Ohio State going
to Champagne in Illinois.

Speaker 2 (01:03:31):
Who is Illinois?

Speaker 1 (01:03:33):
Are they the team that beat USC or the team
that got their clocks cleaned in Bloomington by Indiana? They're
tough at home. Ohio State does appear to be getting
better every week. Justin saying, I'm just saying, right, I'm
not going to get over that punditry that that ability
to do so many puns with the quarterback of Ohio State.

Speaker 2 (01:03:56):
We're all just.

Speaker 1 (01:03:57):
Saying that, justin saying is getting better every week. I'm not,
by the way, I'm not somebody who will bet on
individual players. I accept the premise that I think player
props are very corruptible when it comes to when it
comes to gambling, and in fact, in the state of Virginia,

(01:04:17):
they don't even allow you to bet on awards. You
can't bet on the Heisman in Virginia. I have to
go across the river to DC if I wanted.

Speaker 2 (01:04:24):
To do that.

Speaker 1 (01:04:25):
But if I were taking a long shot Heisman pick
right now, justin saying would be a pretty good bye
at this point, because you know the way the Heisman
stuff works, it's all recency bias. And as much as
I think Reuben Bain and Miami or Carson Beck and
Miami both deserve consideration, their most high profile games are

(01:04:45):
now over and Ohio State has a lot more high
profile games to come. And of course that you know,
the whole recency bias, right, He's going to be having
that Michigan game, you know, not very far from the
voting itself, perhap. Ohio State Oregon in the in the
Big Ten Conference final itself is another stage for him. Anyway,

(01:05:07):
It's it's interesting how good is he? How good is
is Illinois. It's slowing this game down in order to
give themselves a chance. They can't afford to trade scores
with Ohio State. So I'm intrigued by that game. I
don't know if I buy into Illinois, And in fact,
their victory over USC makes me doubt USC more than
it does make me more confident in Illinois. And then

(01:05:31):
there's Indiana in Oregon right the other game, So it
all depends on how much of a juggernaut you think Illinois.
I think it's clear Indiana is better this year than
they were last year. But does that mean they're they're
they're a contender for the whole thing or not. If
they can put up a once, you know, even lose
just by one score in Eugene, I think it's fair

(01:05:52):
to say, because that is one tough place to play,
I think it's fair to say they are contenders. Uh.

Speaker 2 (01:05:58):
I can't believe.

Speaker 1 (01:05:59):
I'm not that The first game out of my mouth
isn't about Texas Oklahoma. Here we have the Red River
Shootout rivalry, whatever we're supposed to call it. Now, it
does feel as if this is a This has become
a very important game for Arch Manning's reputation, fairly or unfairly.

(01:06:21):
I do think it's worth reminding people that Arch's grandfather, Archie,
was the first one to say he's not turning pro
in twenty six. Perhaps he knew his grandson needed more
time to sort of in the football factory to get better.
Look the hype machine. It's not as if the Manning
family didn't contribute to the hype machine. And you know,

(01:06:43):
it is what it is. Sometimes you can't do anything
about it. You know, if he were Arch Smith, he
wouldn't be He wouldn't have gotten the same amount of hype,
nor would he be getting the same amount of criticism.
But the real question is whether John Matteer, Oklahoma starting quarterback,
is really going to try to play here in this game.

(01:07:05):
Except look, Oklahoma are are they legit contenders for the
whole thing? They beat Texas without Matier as a relevant force.
That's a big deal and that shouldn't be ignored. So
that's probably the third most interesting game for me on
the docket. Then after that, everything else is only interesting

(01:07:27):
depending on how much money you plan on putting down there.
I mean, Georgia Auburn, I think we thought that.

Speaker 2 (01:07:32):
Would be a big deal game.

Speaker 1 (01:07:34):
I assume Georgia wins that with a little bit of
put it this way, I I will be surprised if
that's a if that's a close game in the fourth quarter,
and if it is, then maybe Georgia isn't a top
ten team this year. And by the way, no shame
in that. My goodness, look at how many people they've
sent to the pros. At some point, I'm not saying

(01:07:56):
the cupboard is empty, but their depth at some point
is going to catch up with them, and in this environment,
you don't get to stockball talent the way you used
to be able to stockpilot. So that's a little bit
of a we'll learn a little something there, depending on
the on the spread of that game and if baseball
is not doing it for you. That Friday night South

(01:08:17):
Florida North Texas game, it's a big deal to South
Florida if they want to be the group of five
representative in the playoff. I think it's gonna be a
great game. They're going on the road. They got to
win that game. And as a Floridian and as a
team that that the Hurricanes have defeated, I want to
see everybody that Miami.

Speaker 2 (01:08:36):
Beat do well.

Speaker 1 (01:08:37):
So let's go Bulls. Let's go see if you can
go to the other big game in North Texas this
weekend and give them a good preview. Should be an
entertaining game. If you're just looking for some entertaining football,
North Texas and South Florida is one that will be
worthy of your time. All right, with that, I have
a relaxing weekend as my Hurricanes have another bye. We'll

(01:08:59):
get a buy week before Florida State bye. I have
to tell you The scheduling this year for Miami has
been fantastic, which means, let's not screw this season up.
We are not going to have where we get a
buy before Florida State and then a BUYE to recover
from Florida State before going into this Friday night game
that we have coming up next week with the always

(01:09:20):
dangerous Louisville Cardinals. So with that, I'll see in about
ninety six hours. Enjoy what is this is right now,
we are at peak sports fandom. They're all coming together, NHL,
NBA regular seasons begin, baseball playoffs, college football, NFL. It

(01:09:43):
is a smorgasboard, So enjoy it while it's here. Enjoy
this October weekend, and with that I'll see in my
name

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Chuck’s Commentary - The Shutdown Has Become A Choice + Trump’s Showdown In Chicago