Chuck’s Commentary - Trump Has Weaponized Every Part Of Government + US Has Lost Moral Authority On World Stage - The Chuck ToddCast

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hello there, Happy Monday. It is Columbus Day Indigenous People
Day depending on the state you live in. Yes, both
are used. At the end of the day, a lot
of people have today off, which should mean quite a
few of you have more time to be listening. So welcome.
For those of you trying the podcast out for the

(00:26):
first time, Thank you appreciate it. We've loved our growth lately.
A few pieces of housekeeping. The biggest thing in the
podcast household is we have a new dog, rescue Dog two.
She's a poodle mix. I bring it up because she
may or may not make her presence known during this

(00:49):
portion of my recording. That's mostly why I'm sharing. I'm
sharing that news with you. Those of you that follow
me very closely on social media know at the end
of June we lost we lost a dog that we
had for fourteen years, Ruby. She was a standard Poodle.
She was terrific and lived a very full life until

(01:15):
the end. So we've been waiting for the summer. I'll
be honest, and I wanted to make sure it was
a rescue. This time. We didn't have kids in the house,
so you feel like you can be a little more
accommodating two more rambunctious dogs. Shall we say. She's got
a ton of energy. She's got the puppy energy of

(01:37):
a two year old. And at the same time, you know,
I probably only have like six to nine months of
this rather than the three years of puppy behavior that
many of you I know are used to when you
get a new dog. Anyway, so that is my daughter's
in town visiting for fall break, and so she's been
a big help here. My son comes for fall break

(01:57):
to meet her. He's a bit bumped that he wasn't
here for, but hey, she came a little bit earlier
than we expected. When you're on a rescue list, you
never know when they're going to say yes. Big thanks
to the folks in DC at City Dogs Rescue. They
do great work. It's almost all volunteers, as anybody knows.

(02:18):
You know. I hope if you're a pet lover you
help out any sort of dog and cat rescue in
your community. We know they do terrific work and it
is done simply. Most of the volunteers are there just
for the love of the animals. So big thanks to
City Dogs in Washington, d C. China. In the United

(02:39):
States had a escalating set of threats for the trade war,
one hundred percent tariffs and responds to protectionism with the
minerals in China. For what it's worth, all of it
seems to be posturing before the actual negotiation between the
two world leaders takes place in the next few weeks

(03:00):
weeks to a month. So even though the markets are reacting,
and it is interesting, when do the markets react to
Trump tariff threats, it appears whenever it's about China. Any
other aspect of tariff threats don't seem to impact the
stock market China. That's enough. Another story which I think
tells you how important the Chinese economy is to the
world economy. Right, we are the dominant economy in the world,

(03:22):
but we're not alone, and you know we can have
We can have a lot of impact, and so can China.
So I think we're learning here and each country is
feeling each other out. I think each country thought they
could quote unquote when this trade war, and I think
both countries are finding out in some ways this is
an unwinnable trade war. I'll get to more of it

(03:43):
before we get to my interview with Sandy, but I
wanted to get that out of the way. But look,
I'm going to begin with what we've been talking about
for some time, and that is where we are in
the government shutdown. And I will tell you this, We're
nowhere near We're nowhere close to seeing this resolved. And
the biggest reason is Donald Trump's not involved. Whatever you

(04:06):
think of Donald Trump, these days, you cannot negotiate with
Congressional Republicans without the sign off of Donald Trump. Congressional
Republicans cannot sign off on anything without getting permission from
Donald Trump. What do I mean by that? Permission? Sounds
you know, it sounds like I'm being snarky. But the
fact is, if Trump doesn't like something, he can absolutely
pull the rug out underneath from Republicans, as he has

(04:28):
right as he did, as he does to his own
cabinet secretaries. He just did a big one on Howard Lutnik,
who was about to amp up tariffs on international pharmaceutical
companies until Donald Trump stepped in and said, nah, we're
not going to do that because he's paranoid about price
hikes and uncertain things. Right, prescription drugs is one that
he's ultra sensitive to. He doesn't seem to be sensitive

(04:51):
to some things where his tariffs raise prices, but on
pharmaceuticals he is sensitive to that. I think it gets
what he believes is a big part of his constituency, older,
culturally conservative Americans who have been voting Democrat for most
of most of this twenty first century until Donald Trump

(05:14):
essentially promised that he wasn't going to be a Republican
that tried to cut sold security, Medicare, and Medicaid. Of course,
we're going to about to litigate a midterm election over
whether what the Republicans did is a cut to Medicaid
or not, and what voters think of the medicaid policy
that Republicans have put in. But it's just a fact.

(05:37):
And with Donald Trump really not engaged yet in the
government shutdown at all, he is in the Middle East
as I record this, essentially or on his way to
the Middle East, getting ready for a victory lap. And frankly,
it's a victory lop he deserves on this one, because
you know, when you look at his style of diplomacy,
it's not a good style of diplomacy to deal with

(05:59):
the Europeans. It is not a good style of diplomacy.
To deal with Southeast Asia, China, East Asia, you name it.
Not a good way. Maybe you could argue his style
works sort of kind of with the Indians, but that
so far has been a bit problematic. The one place
where his style of diplomacy I think can work is

(06:22):
in the Middle East. He's transactional, where many other of
an American president wouldn't feel comfortable, sort of doing the
kind of sleazy financial deals that are being done with
the Gulf States right now that get them engaged in
helping to pay for the rebuild of Gaza, get them
engaged with working with Israel. And if the Trumps make

(06:43):
a couple of bucks off of it, what does Donald
Trump care? And all of this right that it is
this sort of scratch my back, scratch your back kind
of mindset. It's unethical. It's something that I think we're
not comfortable our government doing, but it's going to get
the job done in some ways because there are no

(07:05):
rules in the Middle East at times. I think that
that's why you're seeing this style where ninety percent of
the time it's ineffective, but in this case it's an
effective way to go. I don't know if another American
president could have bullied Netnahu into taking this deal. He
didn't want to take any deal because his right flank

(07:25):
wasn't going to accept any deal. Any deal that stopped
this war clearly wasn't going to be acceptable to the
far right. One thing Donald Trump wanted was a victory, right,
He wanted to take the win. And it's an interesting
parallel because he basically it was interesting when they announced
the deal. Hamas accepted, but not quite on the terms

(07:48):
that Israel wanted. Trump went ahead and said, great, great
job Hamas, glad you took this deal. And it left
Netnah who completely naked, right, he yanked the rug. Bibi
did not want to say that Hamas agreed to those terms.
He wanted to continue to press forward, and Trump essentially
told him, no, you're not going to do it. Take

(08:10):
the win and move on. Now. Of course, the question
is going to be whether politically BB can survive without
having the threat of war right, Who's entire political career
has been about playing off of fear, fear of a Ran,
fear of Hamas, fear of Hesbelah. But it's always been

(08:32):
fear fear, fear. In some ways he's had, you know,
the last two years incredibly successful dealing with Iran, dealing
with Lebanon and Hesbela essentially is kneecapped Hesbela completely. Even
the uties are laying off, You're seeing diplomatic ties being
forged with many a Gulf state, and with all of

(08:53):
those fear factors off the table, it is likely going
to mean that the This is probably the beginning of
the end of bb NET. Now, who's political career is.
Does he have another six months? Does he stretch this
a year? We'll see. I told you about that poll
last week that showed two thirds of Israeli voters believe

(09:16):
he should resign. About two thirds of those wanted him
to resign immediately, another third we're willing to wait till
the war is over. Well, the war is essentially on
its way to being over. So we are now up
to two thirds of Israelis believe he needs to take responsibility.
That it was on his watch that an exposed Israel
got attacked by Jamas and all of it. You know,

(09:38):
it was strange much of the military strategy that bb
signed off on dealing with Iran. The hooties or hesblah,
we're all really smart and savvy. He never dealt He
never listened to his military advisors on how to deal
with Gaza and Hamas, which is arguably why it was
so brutal, was so terrible, why it was so poorly

(10:03):
thought out, and why it is made Israel among the
most isolated nations in the free world. And that's uh,
that's sad. For It's just sad. I'm very sad about
the fact that Israel is so isolated. I'm relieved that
many of the threats are gone, but how you conduct

(10:25):
yourself over time has a huge impact long term, and
we're going to see what kind of long term penalty
israel Is is going to have to pay for. How
for the horrendous way that BB and his team conducted
the war in Gaza. Everywhere else was much more precision efficiency,
sort of the the the way the Israelis had been

(10:51):
in some ways admired by militaries around the world for
their for their Saturday savvy and their strategy. Nobody was
admiring what they were doing in Gaza. There was nothing
like that, and in some ways that was driven by
just a far right fringe that was keeping BB in power.
But still that is what President Trump is doing right

(11:11):
now he's taking a victory, Levet. What he is not
doing is in the room on the shutdown, and that
at the end of the day is why we are
going to be here until he engages and at this point,
and this is this sort of gets to the theme
I want to hit on today, and that is the
sort of next level ugliness of our politics. You know,

(11:36):
there's always been this. Obviously politics and governing blur, but
there is a point where every successful government, no matter
which why you were governed, why you were elected. You
were elected because you're a liberal, you're elected because you
were a conservative, that ultimately, when you're governing you have
to do what's in the best interests of everybody. That

(11:58):
when you're governing, you don't just worry about your supporters,
you actually worry about the electorate as a whole. That's
the hallmark of this democracy. This administration governs has weaponized
everything through a political lens. When you look at what
Russell Voyd is doing at the Budget Department, this is

(12:19):
not a left right thing. This is dangerous behavior. Because
the minute we decide that you should govern politically and
only govern for those that support you, that is the
end of the republic as we know it is the
I'm not saying that our democracy ends, but what it

(12:40):
becomes is that each time one party gets elected, they
get in there and decide to purge the other party
and purge the government of You've heard Donald Trump say
that he wants to just lay off the Democrat part
of the government, right, which is why you know, in
their first round of doing this, Russell Voyd, who is
as usual, is sloppy with his initial you know, he

(13:04):
comes across as somebody that's very precise. But it's shocking
how often they do a lot of stupid things when
they try to do these layoffs or reduction the reduction
in force, and that they overfired at CDC and they
overfired at HHS and why did they target, right, HHS
is considered a democratic cabinet agency. Right, It's obvious they

(13:26):
do that when you look which ones they consider the
democratic agencies and which one they consider the republican agencies.
Like nobody has essentially hardly anybody's been furloughed or laid
off from the Department of Olymit Security, but quite a
few have been laid off at the Department of Labor.
And they went with a hatchet at the Department of HHS,

(13:48):
specifically at CDC, and then they realized, oh wow, all
these people are experts at certain things. These aren't political hacks.
These are reputable sciences that have incredible expertise in a
lot of areas that are crucial for the US government
to be involved in. Public health is something government has

(14:10):
to be involved in. This is not something you can privatize, certainly,
and so it is this is what is so scary
about what's happening. And in some ways Lindsay Graham gave
a piece of this in a recent appearance on Meet
the Press, and this goes at the weaponization of the
Justice Department, where essentially he justified what Trump was doing

(14:32):
by saying, but they went after Trump, and because Letitia
James went after Trump and went over the top something
that I look, I don't disagree that she shouldn't have.
She shouldn't have gone there. She could have, but she
went there for solely political reasons. You know, there it is.
It's certainly that doesn't mean he didn't do anything wrong,

(14:54):
but it's pretty clear she went after him. To quote,
get Trump on that front. But if you are upset
about the weaponization law of law enforcement. Then the last
thing you ought to be doing is then weaponizing law enforcement.
But that's exactly what they're doing right. Pam Bondi's just

(15:14):
despicable appearance in front of the Judiciary Committee last week,
where you know we now have learned thanks to some
photographs that sort of leaked she wrote down. She clearly
had her staff she so cares about politicizing the Justice
Department that she prepared for her testimony with one line
Zingers to go after any Democrat that questioned her in

(15:36):
a tough way. So she like had some pre made
attacks on Sheldon Whitehouse and pre made attacks on different
Democrats that questioned what she was doing over there. And
it just just take a step back, take your partisan
hat off, or put your partisan hat on, and say
if that is how Merret Garland had behaved, okay, and

(15:57):
it sent a Judiciary Committee, it's just coming up with
these spending time, taxpayer dollars to get her get his
staff to write one line zingers. Republicans would be rightfully
apoplectic at the politicizing of the Justice Department. But that's
exactly what Pam Bondi did. She literally spent taxpayer dollars
coming up with one liners and zingers to go after

(16:18):
rather than explaining if they're because she had no legal
rationale for what they did to Jim Comey, She had
no legal rationale for what they're doing to Leticia James.
She had no legal rationale to how they're just firing
US attorneys if they don't abide by the president's words.
And you know, this is another story that sort of
has gotten lost. The Washington Post has since reported and

(16:42):
got multiple sources to confirm that when in the infamous
Donald Trump truth social posts, that is going to probably
get the Jim Comy case thrown out of court, and
likely we'll get the Leticia James thrown out of court
because of the obvious buy that was used to get
them and diet it. And if I remind you, the

(17:04):
truth social Post stated this, Pam, I have reviewed over
thirty statements in posts saying that essentially quote same old
story as last time, all talked, no action, nothing is
being done. What about Kmy, Adam, Shifty Shift, Letitia, They're
all guilty as hell, but nothing is going to be done.
Then we almost put a Democrat supported US attorney in
Virginia and with a really bad Republican past awoke rhino

(17:26):
who is never going to do his job. That's why
two of the worst DEM senators pushed him so hard,
referring to Mark Warner and Tim Kaine for agreeing to
have to confirm that US attorney even lied to the
media and said he quit and that we had no case. No,
I fired him, and there is a great case, and
many lawyers in legal pundits say so, Lindsay Halligan is

(17:48):
a really good lawyer and likes you a lot. We
can't delay any longer. It's killing our reputation and our credibility.
They impeach me twice, induited me five times over nothing
just as must be served now. President DJT this because
we now know this was never intended to be a
public truth social post, so believe it or not, in
the year twenty twenty five, your United States government, the

(18:11):
President of the United States sends a private direct message.
Although he didn't the seventy nine year old techno expert
didn't know how to do it right. Pretty much all
of our some of us in our fifties have been there,
but certainly many people in there. Was this supposed to
be public. I didn't know, but apparently he was trying

(18:31):
to send her a private message. Apparently the only way
he can send a private message to the sitting Attorney
General of the United States is through his truth Social app. Seriously,
but apparently that's what it was, because this was never
meant for the public. This was supposed to be a
direct message. This is how your president of the United

(18:54):
States communicates with our attorney general. Our president is doing
is communicating this way. How what kind of direct messages
have gotten through? This is how he communicates even to
his own staff. Look, he was clearly threatening her and like, hey,
you better get it done. I already fired in a

(19:15):
US attorney that wouldn't do what I asked. I mean,
it is not hard to jump to the conclusions that
he was using this. You know, he didn't. He didn't
give her any any sort of honorific It was Pam,
let me tell you what you're going to do. But
I don't think we have had nearly the amount of

(19:35):
focus and attention to the fact that the president is
communicating with his staff on a completely unsecured truth. Trust me,
you think truth socials are really secure, just up to snuff,
right that Devin Newness man. That guy is a real
sharp guy, right, you trust him with your cybersecurity, You
trust him with the government cybersecurity. This is the way

(19:58):
the president. You Look, did you have any did you
have an issue with Hillary Clinton's emails and her private server?
This is a hundred times worse. Look, this was why
some of us thought what Hillary Clinton did was wrong.
Don't set these precedents. Don't sit here and say no, no, no.

(20:20):
But it's okay for me because I'm somehow I'm not
you know, I know what is what belongs in the
public record, and what doesn't. And this is what happens. Right,
We do these slippery slopes, and every time somebody decides
to change the way we do certain things, everything moves.
And now this guy has decided to have carte blanche.

(20:41):
He has no morals or ethics at all. There are
actually laws. These are again more laws that he's breaking. Here.
Nobody's going to prosecute him for the Presidential Records Act.
We we thought about trying to do that during the
uh UH, during the term that he was not serving,
when he clearly took classified material that belonged to the government.

(21:02):
Not Donald J. Trump, but he of course, does not
see the presidency as any different other than an extension
of himself, and he doesn't see any of it that plucky.
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(22:09):
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Their fee is free. Unless they win a US Congress
with any other president, oversight hearings would be set. Look
at all the hearings we had with Hillary Clinton's email

(22:31):
server where she was up there for hours being grilled
about the use of it. And again, I'm sorry, I
think she did have to answer for that because it
was wrong that she did it, because I know why
she did it. She did it to avoid Freedom of
Information Act requests. Okay, but she but she was held accountable,

(22:55):
and then some nobody's holding Donald Trump accountable for But
it is a brazen violation of the Government Records Act
one two, exposing all sorts of security issues by using
an unsecure truth Social app to communicate with a member

(23:21):
of the National Security Council. The Attorney General is a
member of the National Security Council, so in theory, much
of what they discuss is classified information all somehow in
this stew again of that, you know, because I'm sure
many people feel comfortable. If you feel comfortable with the

(23:46):
security of truth Social go ahead and direct message your
social security number Donald Trump. Tell me if you would
be comfortable doing that. I don't think you would. But
this is something that is just completely completely insane, and
we're like totally glossed over it because we're so used
to Donald Trump not sort of abiding by norms or

(24:09):
following the law. You know, when we say abiding by norms,
that's code for not following the law. Sort of totally
dismissive of laws in the US Congress's past. But of
course we have a Congress. This current Republican control Congress
is the single weakest Congress we have had easily going
back to the FDR and the New Deal. Right, but

(24:31):
he at least had numbers on his side. That's why
he was overwhelmingly getting Congress to essentially do what he wanted.
He actually won a large political argument which gave him
a large majority. Donald Trump has never won a majority
of anything. Even winning the popular vote, he didn't get
fifty percent. He didn't get over fifty percent. And this

(24:55):
Congress is just rolling over and again. The concern is
we are just setting all sorts of new precedents and
there are going to be this this Donald Trump's decision
to weaponize and ruin the credibility whatever was left of
the FBI. It is gone. Right, he is cash Ptel

(25:16):
is literally making Hoover seem like a statesman. We are
completely destroying the reputation of the rule of law in
this country, all because Donald Trump can't can't accept the
fact that he won. That's what's strange here. Right, he

(25:36):
lied to the country when he said he wouldn't be
focused on retribution. Right, he clearly was focused on retribution.
And in his own way, he thinks like a He
thinks like a movie mobster. Okay, not a real mobster, right,
Donald Trump, everything in him is sort of imaginary in
many ways, so he thinks like a movie mobster. And
in the movie, the mobster send a message, so no,

(25:58):
everybody knows you don't do this again. He goes after
certain people so that he can make sure other people
abide by his wishes. This is movie mobster stuff, and
is it really is deteriorating what is left of political
discourse in this country. It is deteriorating the reputation long

(26:18):
term of the Republican Party. And the thing is, you
know who knows it? About half of the elected Republicans
in Congress, they all know this is ridiculous. They all
know that if the roles were reversed, they would be apoplectic.
Sometimes every once in a while they admit it. The
governor of Oklahoma, Kevin Stitt, is one of the few

(26:40):
Republican governors questioning the decision by Greg Abbott to send
National Guard troops for the president's use in the state
of Illinois. As he said, if Joe Biden sent National
Guard troops from the state of Illinois and Oklahoma, there'd
be a problem in Oklahoma, and a lot of Republicans,
a lot of Oklahoma's have a problem with that. Good

(27:02):
for Kevin Stitt for speaking out the lack of people
and again, I understand the political fear many of these
Republicans have, but this stuff is not conservative, and this
stuff is eroding, eroding the reputation of the US government,
eroding the reputation of democracy around the world. Right, Because

(27:23):
if the US government, which is the United States, which
is considered the leading democracy around the world, starts to,
you know, essentially be abusive in its way and its
attempts to dibort people, who who are we to talk
about human rights violations to take place in Turkey, right,
or human rights violations to take place in China, where

(27:44):
the Wigers are clearly clearly being ex being forced basically
enforced labor camps. But we have no credibility on these
issues anymore because of how our democracy has behaved. We
have made no legal We've really not given any legal

(28:04):
justification for bombing boats that come out of Venezuela. I
had an interesting conversation with Jim Stevriti's for my new
sphere show. Please check it out and on oh Sphere
if you haven't tried it, do a free trial and
check out the interview. Sta Vradis was terrific. We talked,
We did a whole you know, we we did a
tour of the world, but we also talked about what

(28:30):
would military leaders do. What would he do? He was
the former head of Southern Command and if he was
given the orders that Southern Command has been given in
Venezuela so far. I asked him how would he handle it?
And the first thing he did, get his lawyer, he said,
his jag lawyer, which would then and if there was
some question about the legality of it, he would go
back to the Secretary of Defense and say what is

(28:51):
the legal justification of this? And if they created if
they had a legal justification that he felt that that
was defensible. He would follow the order, but if he
couldn't follow the order, he would resign. And I asked him,
I said, that's what is the if? What is the
most likely scenario if a high level general or admirals

(29:16):
given what they believe is an illegal order? And he said,
they'd likely resign without saying it in public, just simply resign.
There's there's that in his His explanation was there is
such a high level of belief in staying out of

(29:36):
the political fray that many a general or admiral would
feel uncomfortable making themselves the story in something like that.
I know some of you may hear that, because I
told the story to a few others and they were
disappointed to hear that. Many of these generals and admirals,
if they choose resignation, would probably do so silently and

(29:57):
not not go public right away why they were resigning.
Maybe they'd eventually go public, but not right away. But
that's just the that's that's how seriously many in the
military take the a political status of the military, and
what Donald Trump's trying to do right now by politicizing

(30:18):
the military by trying to turn the military. I mean,
it was interesting to me to see the story about
Joe Biden in the Washington Post where Biden was really
seething apparently at how Donald Trump in that in that
speech in front of the military leaders, seemed to run
down Biden personally like eight or nine times, right, totally nope. Again,

(30:40):
before Donald Trump, presidents drew the line at at sort
of dehumanizing previous presidents. Right, you may criticize previous policies,
but there was always there was some sort of respect
given to the person that once held the office. And
Donald Trump's lack of respect and and and a supper
order will tell me he's he's treating Biden the way

(31:03):
he thinks Biden treated him. Of course, Biden gave Trump
a post election oval office meeting. Donald Trump did not
do that. Joe Biden accepted the results of the twenty
twenty four election. Donald Trump didn't accept the results of
the twenty twenty election. But he has just runs down everybody. Shoot,

(31:26):
he's runs down pretty much every president before him except
Abraham Lincoln, and then sort of has these has this
weird obsession with saying he's better. Some people think he's
greater president than Lincoln. He's lucky. Some people don't think
he's being compared with James Buchanan, and I'll just leave
it at that. But it is this politicizing of everything right,

(31:54):
using the government shutdown to only attack Democrats. He's supposed
to govern for the entire United States of America. And
you've heard me rant about this before, but this inability
to want to go again. If a democratic administration refused
to govern for Republicans refute, tried to find a way
to prevent government congressionally approved government money from going to

(32:21):
a constituency that votes more Republican than Democrat, there would
be impeachment proceedings, and by the way, it would be justified.
What Donald Trump is doing is illegal, will likely get
reversed by the courts, but in the meantime, he is
setting some precedents that this is somehow acceptable politics and

(32:44):
the lack as always and I know I'm just sort
of old man yelling at cloud here, but the inability
of what's left of the principled elected Republicans out there
who cannot bring themselves to say this is wrong because
they know it's wrong, all because they are just trying
to survive politically because oh, you know, some of them say, hey,

(33:07):
if if you got rid of me, somebody crazier would
replace me. That's just that's just wishful thinking. Nobody is irreplaceable, Nobody,
even James Franklin at Penn State, right, nobody is irreplaceabent.
How'd you like that? Right? Giving you a hint a
little bit of what I'm gonna chat about in football

(33:27):
after the interview, but it is really they'll let you know, Look,
we've got a lot of crazy stuff that's happening right
now with the way he's conducting this government. But the
idea that he communicates with his staff via direct message
on truth social that sometimes can't make it out. He

(33:48):
has put you know, so so much of national security
at risk by by by doing that, and again god
only knows how other what other bad idea ways that
they're communicating with each other, including members of the national
security staff. And then the second thing is the lack
of outrage or concern that Again, this goes to the

(34:12):
whole two wrongs make a right. Donald Trump governs as
if two wrongs make a right, so weaponizing so if
he believes that, Leticia James unfairly prosecuted him. He's gonna
unfairly go after her. Well lucky for both Jim Comy
and Leticia James. Donald Trump said the quiet part out

(34:32):
loud because he didn't know how to send a direct
message to Pambondy on truth Social. But imagine being a
cabinet secretary and realizing before you go to bed, oh god,
did I check my direct messages on truth Social to
see if I have any new orders to follow from
dear leader. That's an this is this is this is

(34:55):
how we're running the country. Anyway, Before I get to
Mark Xandy, as I said, a few little updates on
the economy, I do again the one hundred percent tariff threat. Look,
there's no doubt that our trade relationship with China was

(35:16):
a mess. Is a mess, has been a mess before
Trump got there has been a mess. Trump knows one
way of trying to deal with them tariffs, sledgehammer. Biden
kept many of them in place. Right. This is a
very antagonistic relationship. But what we're both finding out is
we both need things from each other, and we're going
to end up having a trade deal that gives away

(35:40):
some things that neither side's going to be happy about.
But that's the reality of the situation. And if we
because if we don't do that, we're going to go
to war. And but this is a reminder when you
start a trade war, it is really hard to win
a trade war. And we've started a trade war, and
we're having a really hard time quote unquote trying to

(36:02):
win this trade war. There are real reasons why we've
got to we've got to recalibrate our economic relationship with China,
but much of it has to do with what we
need to do here, right And and one thing Donald
Trump another thing that you know, Look, I will point

(36:23):
out when I think Donald Trump does things that are correct.
This Midi Steel, I think is one that only he
could have pulled off given the characters involved here. But
he signed an executive order basically trying to jump start
UH production and research and UH and frankly the mining

(36:47):
of rare earth metals in the United States. And it
is what is motivating the quote the purchase of Greenland,
and that we are way too reliant on China for
these rare earth minerals. Look, if we had if we had,
if we knew how to conduct better form policy with

(37:08):
Latin America over for the last fifty years. And I
say we, I mean the United States. This is not
just something that Trump doesn't do well. This is something
every president hasn't done well. We could likely have dominance
in our own hemisphere, but we have so blown our
relationships down in South America, with Brazil in particular, Mexico

(37:28):
slightly improved there, and within Canada. All these antagonistic relationships
we're creating. Our own hemisphere likely could be the answer
to many of the rare earth metals that we could use,
but we've been short sighted there either way. Figuring out
how to either try to find these rare earth metals

(37:52):
domestically or diversifying our supply chain around the world will
allow us to be tougher on China. But right now
we have we really can't uh. And that's the that's
the uncomfortable that's the uncomfortable truth. There. It is Monday,

(38:20):
which also means we're going to go back into the
podcast time machine. Do I need to do a right
I don't know how. If you guys have you know,
I hope you like our little music interlude on this

(38:41):
you should. You should know that the inspiration I was
looking for was sort of Huey Lewis meets you know,
without you know, without having to pay Huey Lewis rights
for you know, Huey Lewis adjacent to give you the
vibe of of of back to the future. So the
time podcast Time Machine has actually got a financial theme

(39:02):
to it. I figured, you know, we're talking a lot
of things having to do with money the economy. Well,
on October nineteenth, nineteen eighty seven, that's where we're going back.
It's now called Black Monday. That was the day that
the US stock market lost twenty two point six percent
in a single trading day. It was one of the

(39:23):
most sudden and alarming crashes and financial history. And today
as we move in October twenty twenty five, we're in
the middle of it, with a lot of people wondering
is how bubblicious is this AI driven stock market? Right?
It's worth re examining the moment and asking could history
teach us anything relevant for this market? And what risks

(39:44):
lurk in twenty twenty five that echo nineteen eighty seven,
and are there safeguards that are missing? I have to
tell you this, we have a lot of safeguards today
because of the nineteen eighty seven black market. But here's
what you need to know about how it happened, and
I'll just be honest it that eighty seven crash. I

(40:05):
was fifteen. My dad would die thirty fourteen months later.
He was a modestly successful financial advisor. Needless to say,
all his clients lost a lot of money that day.
Whatever savings my parents had were gone that day never

(40:27):
recovered at that point and led to sort of So
I've it has always been a it was sort of
I've always pinpointed it, even though my dad had not
been diagnosed yet, always have pinpointed it as sort of
the beginning of the end for my father. So there
is a for me. This is both personal and professed

(40:50):
and certainly had an impact on how I think about
markets and how I think about the economy, and how
I think about how you what you think the stock
market and how much you should react, underreact, overreact, et cetera.
But let me give you sort of a larger look
at what the economy was looking like back then. In
mid eighty seven, market had already been running up big time,

(41:15):
valuations were stretched, growth was decelerating, while inflation and interest
rates were starting to rise again. Yet international currency was
a contributor to this one. The eighty five Plaza Accord,
which sought to push the US dollar lower, that had
a contribution there, and by eighty seven markets were uneasy
about the coordination under a follow up accord called the

(41:36):
Louver Accords. And what was interesting is that in the
week leading up to the crash, it was a crash
happened on a Monday, markets had already been seeing some sharp,
sharp decline, so there was definitely pressure to sell more
and more we're thinking about selling. So when you look
at you know, when you look back in history, the

(41:59):
biggest structural culprit to the sort of near to this
crash was something called portfolio insurance or dynamic hedging. This
was sort of the first iteration of computerized, computer based
programs that automatically triggered trades. So as prices fell, it
automatically increased short positions i e. Futures that were then

(42:20):
to hedge, and it effectively was selling into a weak
market and it would sort of ballooned on itself. It
triggered all sorts of horrible feedback loops, falling prices more hedge, hedging,
more selling, more downward pressure, more hedging, right, and it
was it was sort of it was what it was
the first time we were warned of what happened when

(42:42):
you start to attempt to automate certain trading decisions, right,
you automatically buy if you see a number here, automatically
do this if you see a number there. So all
of a sudden, quickly liquidity and and got stressed immediately.
Some stocks even open late, they were halted. Sometimes bids
disappeared because remember some things are computerized, some things weren't,

(43:06):
and then the structure of the market couldn't absorb all
the orders. I mean it basically, if you think about
what happened in October of eighty seven, and you know
the movie Trading Places, when they're having that when those
guys are on the floor, when everything's panicking and they're
having heart attacks, theyll sell and the whole frozen orange
juice concentrate business. If you can imagine that, that's kind

(43:28):
of how it looked there, and that's still the way
trading was done on that floor, and it was it
certainly led to a lot of safeguards being put in,
but the crash Interestingly about this crash is it wasn't
rooted in sort of a singular catastrophic macro shock like
the collapse of Layman Brothers right in the Great Recession.

(43:51):
There was no war, there was no overnight dead crisis.
The ferocity came simply from the market's of fragility, leverage,
and mechanical strategy. It was a bit over leveraged trust.
Me as a kid, I knew. I knew that it
was a tripping triple witching Friday. It was something like
when option Friday coincided with a report. I can't remember

(44:14):
what all of that lingo meant, but I know it
would make my father's mood either good or bad, depending
on the situation. Let's just say he never had another
good mood after that. Again, the good news about that
crash is that, because it was essentially a mechanical crash,

(44:34):
I guess the way to put it, it didn't provoke
a broader banking crisis. Right. There wasn't a run on
banks like we had during the Great Recession, and we
didn't end up in a deep recession unlike two thousand
and eight or even after nineteen twenty nine. Believe it
or not, It took only two sessions after the crash
for the DOW to claw back fifty seven percent of

(44:56):
its drop. The market fully regained its prior high by
early nineteen eighty nine, less than two years later, and
then afterward regulators and exchanges added mechanisms like circuit breakers
trading halts to slow panic in future crashes. Look, it
was the first lesson I ever got, which was, hey,
don't panic, you know, close your eyes. If you're younger,

(45:20):
close your eyes. Eventually the market is going to come
back because the market always you can see it, right,
there's always this upward trajectory, and in some ways many
people behave that way anyway. Now, the question is where
are we sitting now? Right? Is this a bubble? Do
we only have? Right? The S and P five hundred
keeps going gangbusters? That down not so much, right, There's

(45:43):
all sorts of things that could be happening here that
were not quite one hundred percent sure of. Right. Why
are the large stocks continue to go up? Is this
all due to AI investment? How much of this is
due to people who've gotten who are sort of heavy
into crypto. It got essentially legalized by the government, and
they've quickly got out of crypto and then bought Microsoft, Google,

(46:05):
you know, all the large cap stocks in order to
take this imagined money and turn it into a real asset.
We shall see, but there's certainly a lot going on
in this market that for those that are not experts
in it are wondering, are you sure you're not missing something?

(46:26):
Are we sure this isn't a bubble? Are we sure
we're not going to end up in a situation like
what we saw in two thousand and eight or what
we saw in nineteen eighty seven, in twenty twenty five,
so the question is you know what parallels are out there, Well,
we do have an algorithmic parallel, right that you could
be their markets are even more dominated by algorithmic trading,

(46:47):
quant strategies and AI and models, and it raises the
risk of algorithmic collisions or systemic feedback loops. We supposedly
are constantly looking to make sure this doesn't happen again,
but so much is automated. Remember we had that flash
crash this is probably about eight years ago now, which
we had that thousand point drop out of nowhere because

(47:10):
of a glitch in one of these automated things. And
so you can't help but wonder. And then of course
there's the fact that could a nefarious actor hack into
one of these large private equity funds and sort of
trigger trigger a flash crash of some sort, right, and

(47:34):
trigger a market collapse essentially by redoing an algorithm. I
think there's a lot of things here that we ought
to be worried about. The other parallel is the sort
of concentration risk, right in twenty twenty. So far this year,
valuations in certain sectors, particularly I in tech are under
a ton of scrutiny. Central banks are worrying about overvaluation,

(47:55):
structurally fragile markets. The equity markets are increasingly concentrated, meaning
it's just a few big, mega tech names that carry
outsized weight. Right. If Palenteer is in Navidia are somehow,
you know, exposed to be something that they're not. And
I'm not implying that they are, right, but if they

(48:16):
somehow were the contagion of something like that, right, it
would impact your Microsoft's, it would impact Google, it would
impact Amazon. I mean, the contagion effect of this is
something that you do have a lot of people worried about.
And then, of course the other part of this is
something we didn't have in eighty seven that we do

(48:36):
have today, concerned about the politicizing of the FED, which
could manipulate markets, which in turn could cause a trash,
cause a crash. Now some of the differences, right, why
eighty seven is not really a corollary to twenty twenty five.
Market infrastructure is a lot more mature. We have a

(48:56):
lot more exchanges that are resilient. There are more circuit
breakers in case they are halts that are baked in
in case we do have a flash crash, in case
an algorithm does go haywire. Information is a lot more transparent,
it's a lot more real time. Every investor has more
tools at their own disposal. You know. That's both good
and bad. It means everybody could make their own run

(49:17):
on a bank. You don't have to go find a
trader to do it for you. And in some ways,
because the markets are so global and so interconnected that
in many ways, we all either rise and fall together. Right,
It's not as if this would be an American problem,
and it wouldn't be a problem everywhere else. In a
weird way, if we're all in it together, is that

(49:39):
a good thing? Or will we somehow take the blame
if we somehow bring down the world the world economy.
But either way, that's the way back machine. Nineteen eighty seven,
Black Monday. It has a particular resonance for me because

(50:00):
it was it was for me sort of the beginning
of the end for my father and for a variety
of reasons. But it also taught me some lessons about
the market. And you know, there are people that were
close to my father were very angry about how the
market acted that day and not paying attention to the

(50:20):
fact that if they had just taken a breath, they'd
have been in a better place two years later than
they were on the day of the crash. And it's
something I've learned over the years. Never panic right away
when it comes. If you're investing money is don't invest

(50:41):
money you need right away. If you're investing money, it's
just that let it, let it do its work, and
you know the long term rise. There's always going to
be volatility in the middle, and you've got to if
if you have us, if you're invested soundly, the volatility

(51:01):
should should be in some ways minimized. Sometimes the worst
thing we have these days is it's too easy to
follow all of this right, So there's a history lesson
for the day. So with that, let me turn to
a few questions ask Chuck. First question comes from Brian Chuck.

(51:23):
I really enjoy listening to your show. For some reason,
all of our local, state, and even city political parties
all seem to be affiliated with the two national parties.
You've had independent candidates running for governor in certain states
that say they can't be a Democrat or Republican because
that brand name is toxic in that state. Here's my question.
Would it make more sense for the Democratic Party of
Idaho or the Republican Party of Massachusetts and similar situations

(51:44):
to change their name to something different than the Democrat
or Republican or to carve off the state political party
from the national political party names and run state candidates
for legislature for governor under a different name. Regards to Brian, well,
actually that's the state of Minnesota. It's the Demoocratic Farm
Labor Party and the Republican Party until recently used to
be known as the Independent Republican Party. Those two state parties,

(52:07):
and in fact, there were two parties at one time
in Minnesota that make up the Democrat and Farm DFL.
It was known as Democratic Farm Labor Party. I have
often wondered why parties haven't done this, and that, actually,
to me, isn't such a crazy notion to this day.

(52:27):
You know, look, the word independent is totally I can
create a halo effect. And I remember, look, Minnesota always
had a different type of Republican that could win because
they were a member of the Independent They were I
are Independent Republican Party of Minnesota. And you had guys
like Dave Durnberger Rudy Boschwitz that could win in Minnesota

(52:49):
probably couldn't have won in many other places as a Republican.
But I think if I I think this would make sense,
I think it would make a ton of sense. Because again,
especially if you want to believe all politics is local.
Unfortunately all politics has become national. But all politics should
be localized again. And one of the better ways to

(53:11):
do it is to in some ways be your own brand. Say, look,
we're affiliating for fundraising purposes with the National Democrats or
with the National Republicans, but we're kind of an independent organization.
And you know, now maybe the national parties are you know,
don't want their state chapters having that kind of independence,

(53:35):
or maybe it's a way to sort of test splintering
off and see how it goes on that front. But
I think it's an absolute worthy experiment. If you're the
Democratic Party in South Dakota, the Republican Party in Delaware.
And here's the thing, you can it's a cheap experiment,

(53:57):
you know, because you can experiment in these smaller states,
you know, these smaller sort of one party states, and
see if it does have an impact, See if you're
able to sort of recruit a different type of candidate.
Suddenly you might win more local elections. And ultimately, the
more local elections you win, the more credibility you might
get in statewide elections. And to me, if you really

(54:20):
want to grow your state party, the goal is to
win the governorship. The goal isn't to win Senate seats,
the goals when once you prove you can win races
locally in the state legislature and governor, everything else will
take care of itself in the state. So, Brian, I
think this is a great idea, and again it's it's
actually been done before. The Minnesota was sort of the

(54:41):
prime example in the twentieth century. Both I think now
they're both have gotten rid of those older names, but
they were. They had their own distinct brand, and they
prided themselves. You know, you'd have politicians in Miniicina. No,
I'm not a Democrat. I'm a member of the Democratic
farm Land Party and that was a point of pride. No, no, no, no,

(55:02):
I'm not a National Republican. I'm a member of the
Independent Republican Party in Minnesota. That branding helped both parties,
both helped candidates in both parties in that state. And
Minnesota is no small state, right and they're kind of
swing ish, you know, it could be a swing state.
It's not quite there. I think a non Donald Trump

(55:22):
led Republican Party could make Minnesota a bit more competitive
and D versus are. For what it's worth, I think
Trump is just a hard sell in the suburbs of
Minnesota for people. But anyway, I think it's a again.
It's been tried and it probably should be tried again.
Great suggestion, Brian. Next question comes from Jason with a

(55:43):
w Y from California. Hy Chuck, Hearing your take on
the two party system and how big these tents can
get makes me wonder why more small parties are independents
haven't emerged, You and me both brother huge overlooked reason
seems to be battle access. Oh yeah, I don't think
it's an overlooked reason. I think it is the reason.
But battle access is costly and time consuming, so only
candidates back by a major party usually make it getting

(56:05):
on the ballot. We're easier, we'd likely see more options
and less polarization. It's California. I am weary of a
race with one hundred plus candidates. Hello, twenty ZHO three
recall election. Ah, yes, remember we had Gary Coleman, Arianna Huffington.
I think there was at least one prostitute in that
race as well. Some might argue that if you're elected official,

(56:30):
you've already prostituted yourself, but I will leave that there anyway,
I keep injecting my own commentary into Jason's question. My
apologies there. Back to Jason's question, But our system right now,
where parties serve as king makers and create the rules
that block other parties from gaining access or individuals from
getting on the ballot, seems like an understated cause for
increasing polarization. What best practices would use suggest to reform

(56:51):
battle access and open the field. Thanks Jason from California. Well, look,
I'd like to try some better legal strategies. I think
that there's an equal protection argument, and that it is
if you can't you know the fact that there that
that a third party doesn't have an equal shot at
making the ballot as the two major parties doesn't. There's

(57:14):
no there's no mention of a political party in the Constitution.
I also think taxpayer funded partisan primaries are likely unconstitutional
because they they leave out they intentionally leave people out
from participating unless you're a member of this private club

(57:35):
known as either the Republican Party or the Democratic Party.
So I look, I think there are better legal arguments
to make. But here's here's the problem. Right, you want
to talk about a system that's rigged. Even the judiciary
is rigged by the two party system. Why they're all
appointed by members of the two parties. But I do

(57:57):
think a high profile effort to make this argument. I
think banning partisan primaries is probably if you could ask me,
what's one thing we could do to chip away at
polarization in America, banning partisan primaries pure and simple, having
none of it. I mean, I go back to what

(58:18):
David Holt said. I'm guessing you guys devoured that entire
episode with the mayor of Oklahoma City. The least polarizing
executive elected officials in the country are mayors, and it's
because of how mayors are elected. They're not Most of
them are not elected in partisan primaries. They're elected in
all party primaries. They don't run with a party ID

(58:39):
next to their name. Yes, people know who's liberal or conservative,
but they don't run with a party ID next to
their name, and they don't end up governing as polarizing
as now partisan governors do or partisan presidents. And here
we are, so partisan primaries is the virus. It's a
big one, and we need to if we need to.

(59:01):
It's one of those things. There's a lot of things
I'd like to do to open up the ballot, but
you know, in some ways, let's singularly focus on what
would help in the very very very near term banning
partisan primaries. So let's start there. Chris k from South
Carolina Rights, is it un American to feel that control

(59:23):
of TikTok may be less risky in the hands of
China than in the hands of a few powerful of a
few powerful Americans. Eke, I know where you're going here.
The current risk is unregulated propaganda and data harvesting. Than
I am not sure Corporate America has made the case
they would be better actors to Shay to add to
the turmoil. Fourteen billion dollars sound shady, by the way,
go hawks, Do we know who is good yet? Maybe?

(59:46):
Or oh this is a separate question, and he has
a separate question, do you know who's good ed yet?
On college football? I'm going to get to college football
in a minute. So it was a two part question.
Thank you, Chris. I appreciate it that. But look, the
TikTok thing, I I don't understand why TikTok's legal Congress

(01:00:07):
passed the law and and somehow Donald Trump is going
to agree to an ownership structure for TikTok. That doesn't
solve the initial problem, which is China controls the algorithm
hard stop. China controls the algorithm concentrated. Look, we're now
going to have the Ellisons owning CBS News, perhaps CNN

(01:00:31):
and TikTok. That's a pretty large chunk of the news.
I mean, the public information systems shouldn't be owned by
a select few people. And yet the concentration of power
in our in the in the ownership of platforms, right,

(01:00:54):
I mean, look at we talk about independent media. Most
of us though, are basically on two platforms, Google owned
YouTube or substack. Right, there's there's not a diversity per
se of platform there are. You know, we probably need
to diversify. There's no doubt there is too much monopolizing
of the distribution system, let alone on the content side.

(01:01:19):
We're starting to see consolidation. Uh, and it's quite a
bit of consolidation on the content side. So I think
both of them ought to concern us. And with TikTok,
it is you're right, it's the but I mean, that's
always what made the It was really frustrating to hear
many members of Congress correctly point out the propaganda potential

(01:01:42):
of TikTok and frankly the propaganda accomplishment of TikTok. Right.
You know, you know, if you if you somehow point
out what the Chinese do with the wigers, you know, nobody,
nobody ever sees that. The fact that it seems to
the algorithm re wards anti Israel messaging just automatically, no

(01:02:06):
matter what it is how do I know this. We
did our own polling on this where TikTok users between
eight and eighteen and thirty had a unfavorable rating of
Israel that was twenty points higher than if you didn't
regularly use TikTok. So this was already and so I
think what was so frustrating. Hear you're worried about TikTok,

(01:02:27):
but you're doing nothing about X or YouTube or Instagram
or anything Meta owns, right, And I think that that
was why there was plenty of TikTok users are going, well, geez,
I mean Amazon and Google take my data and sell it.

(01:02:48):
I'm certainly not crazy about that, But how is that
any more or less nefarious than what the Chinese government
is doing? At least that was the user experience. So look,
I think you bring up a lot of important points.
But I also think that we've this that this is
another thing that you have elected Republicans who were the
biggest drivers of this, who are suddenly looking the other way.

(01:03:13):
Even though Donald Trump is literally ignoring the rationale for
why the TikTok ban was put in in the first place,
which was control of that algorithm. We still don't know
anything about it. Then Ellison's are not going to hear
know anything about it there apparently is just going to
be the data will be housed here. It's not about

(01:03:34):
the data to me, it's about the propaganda and about
that algorithm and how it's used to dial up or
dial down what China cares about when it comes to
public opinion. All right, I'll do one more question h here.
The next one comes from warn. Hey, I haven't heard
any status about infrastructure projects that were started before the
current administration where they defunded as part of BBB or

(01:03:56):
are they still in progress? Thank you well, Warren, some
of them have been sort of interrupted. You know, a
lot of it. The Biden administration tried to move a
whole bunch of money out the door before January twentieth,
but some of it has been cut via the recisions,
which is arguably a part that has triggered the real
shutdown showdown between Democrats and Republicans here. So that's one.

(01:04:19):
The second is you've had some of the money the
Trump administration has enough authority over that they've essentially redirected
it to projects that they would prefer as opposed to
some of it is, for instance, going to be I
think some of these projects pushed to building some of
these data centers and things like that. And then some

(01:04:40):
of it is projects that the Trump administration is claiming
are their ideas and they actually come from what was
passed by the Biden administration and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Act.
But for the most part, a lot of particularly the
energy projects in particular, this is what Russell Voyd's been targeting.
The This is the goes back to my introduction in

(01:05:02):
this in the in the full episode here today, the
political targeting, you know, using what was legally passed legislation
and essentially only trying to cut off Democratic funds, I
guess right. And you know he pulled funding of certain

(01:05:23):
clean energy projects from any state that was carried by
Kamala Harris, sort of ignoring the fact that there were
a lot of Republicans in those states. You know, more people,
I think more people voted for Donald Trump in La
County than I think in all of Idaho or certainly
all of Wyoming and a few other states like that.
So it is not very smart how they do this,

(01:05:48):
but it is all about getting the headline and owning
the Libs and feeding the magabase who thinks this kind
of weaponization of the democracy is somehow healthy and the
right thing to do is they have convinced themselves that
the Democrats have governed this way. And again, it's just
because your feedback loops says they did this doesn't mean

(01:06:11):
the facts actually match your feedback loop. But either way,
if what you think the Biden administration did was wrong,
why are you cheerleading the same behavior on the right.

(01:06:38):
I will pivot to my little rant of the weekend
in college football. It was sort of a relaxed weekend
for me personally. Miami Hurricanes were idle. But here's my
favorite stat of the week. When it comes to college football.
Nine of the top seventeen teams in the preseason AP

(01:06:58):
pole are unranked this week. How about that nine? Essentially
the more than half of the top seventeen teams. So
of course your first reaction may be, well, why do
they bother with a preseason ape pole? Well, if AP
didn't do it, somebody else would do it, and there'd
always be somebody trying to do preseason polls. And if
nobody was doing a shoot, I'd be doing it, right.

(01:07:20):
We'd all want to do it. We all think we're
we all think we're we're we follow this stuff enough.
By the way, I have a correction from my Thursday podcast,
courtesy of my son I kept talking about. I said, hey,
you should make a bet on Justin saying for the heisman.
And I'm guessing that you couldn't find a Justin saying
to make a bet on for the heisman because his

(01:07:42):
name's Julian. And those of you that knew his name
was Julian when I was saying it, we're probably going
you dumb and that or how do you not know
it's Julian not Justin, etcetera, etcetera. Well, just so you know,
my son was on the case. So thank you Harrison
for that correction. I said I would give him for
that correction. But here's where we are in college football.

(01:08:05):
When you have essentially fifty programs spending somewhere between fifteen
and twenty five million dollars for roster construction, you are
now professional league right among this top forty, so among
those sort of seventeen, you know, among the top twenty five.
Pretty much everybody Indiana spends money on roster construction. Okay,
maybe they don't spend as much money yet as organ

(01:08:27):
or penn state, but they're spending a lot of money.
I know Miami spends a lot of money. Florida spends
a lot of money, Clemson spends a lot of You
get the drift the rules of change, but in some ways,
everybody's spending. And so the first couple of years, not
everybody spent, and it allowed your TCUs to sort of
come from nowhere and jump up right and bite everybody.

(01:08:49):
And then they immediately disappeared because suddenly more people, more entities,
started spending. And now we're sort of almost already at
a major power or parody in spending. And so what
that means is just like it's just like the NFL,
which which is a year to year league, and you know,

(01:09:12):
everybody's spending about the same amount of money. It is
really hard. Yes, you have two or three or four franchises,
are you know, can can can be in the can
be in the top tier of the league for four
or five years at a time. But you're gonna have
teams go in and go out, and you're also going

(01:09:33):
to have sort of chapters to your seasons. Like I
also think it's a little early for us to assume
we know that the two lost, two loss teams now
are terrible and that the undefeated teams now are going
to be the ones that make the playoff. Right, You
now have a situation where you're gonna have ebbs and
flows right and one, and you can you know, teams

(01:09:55):
may lose. Look, Florida State's lost three in a row.
Penn States lost three in a row. U I didn't
see it coming with Florida State, by the way, that
has not been very popular in my household, as some
of you may be aware. But they also certainly had
some holes in their roster construction, and nobody should have
expected them to go from a two and ten season

(01:10:16):
to playoff contention right away. But they pull an early upset,
and so everybody sort of got over enthused, kind of
like you know what happens to a two and o team.
You're like, oh, wow, like last year the New Land
Saints for two and oh they suddenly were terrible. Right, So,
just like in the NFL, you don't know who's good early.
Are the Chargers a good team or not? I'm not sure.

(01:10:38):
They almost lost to the Dolphins today. They did lose
last week, but they started off too, and oh and
looked amazing. My Packers looked amazing the first two weeks.
Then they lost a game to Cleveland tie Dallas. We'll
find out how they do the rest of the season.
So I do think that college football now is going
to look more and more like the NFL. There's there's

(01:11:00):
more parody. So you're going to have a year where
a couple of years where in Indiana is contending, and
then they may, you know, fall short on their ability
to find the right defensive lineman and offensive linemen they
need to sort of keep in the top tier, and
so they may slip back. Right, That's what happened to
Florida State, That's what's happened in to a Clemson. You know,

(01:11:22):
I've got to sort of prepare for that with Miami.
And I think this idea that you can expect your
team in college football to win ten games or more five, six,
seven years in a row is totally unrealistic because nobody
has depth anymore. Right, Georgia and Alabama, Miami and it's heyday,
they could stock bile talent. The greatest college football team

(01:11:43):
of all time might be the two thousand and one
Miami Hurricane National championship team. I say, might I accept
the twenty nineteen LSU team as a contender for that spot. Right,
Miami had a third string running back named Frank Gore
on that team. Right. The first string running back was
and Portous, His backup was a guy named Willis mcgahey,

(01:12:03):
and the third string one was Frank Gore, who's going
to be in the NFL Hall of Fame. So the
point is is that in this day and age of nil,
Frank Gore doesn't stick at Miami for two years waiting
his turn. He's probably in another roster. And I think
that's what you're going to see with college football, and
that's probably why we're seeing where because you cannot you know,

(01:12:27):
you don't have the depth, and it's really now a
war of attrition. The teams that can stay the healthiest
or the ones that are going to be there and
the teams that sort of end up with some injuries
or bad luck or the wrong you know, turns out
somebody just wasn't as good of a quarterback as they
thought they were going to be, or wasn't as good

(01:12:47):
of a receiver as you thought they were going to be.
There goes your season because there isn't a guy waiting
in the wings that you could just tap into, and
I think in some ways that's what we should be realized.
Thing is that college now that college football has been professionalized,
it's going to resemble the quirks of the NFL. And

(01:13:08):
in many ways I would argue that college football in
the sort of the top forty programs looks a heck
of a lot like the NFL, more like the NFL
than it does what college football look like even six, seven,
eight years ago. As for who's good, I think everybody
agrees that Ohio State and Miami seem to be good.

(01:13:30):
They look good statistically, and they've looked good on the field.
I could make an argument if I really, if I
really want, I don't want Miami to be ranked number one.
I don't like the statistic that's out there already that
says Miami is the best chance of finishing undefeated. Look,
I am well aware. You know, despite what the SEC thinks,

(01:13:50):
everybody's conference road games are hard. It's not just in
the SEC conference. Road games mean more in every conference
and they're very difficult. And Miami has only had to
play one road game so far. So I am fully
on upset alert for the rest of the season. If
we can just get through the season with one loss,

(01:14:12):
we'll be fine, thankfully. That's how the college football playoff
system has now made it where you don't have to
be perfect if you're not a member of the SEC
like you were even when we were in our top four, right,
and sometimes perfection only doesn't work if you lose your
starting quarterback, as Florida State found out. Because the ESPN
Invitational is just that, it is an invitational, and even

(01:14:36):
at twelve teams, it's still an invitational. And clearly what
the matchups are, etc. Are going to have the networks
are going to have to say on all that. But
I think we know this much. We know how State's good,
we know Miami's good. Is Indiana in that top three
or not? Right, you start doing the you know, I

(01:14:58):
think Indiana has looked impressive. I think they do. I
think they're part of it. But if you want a
question Indiana by saying, well, Oregon beat a Penn State
team that turned out to be terrible, are they terrible?
Are they just missing Tyler Warren? I do think that's
something we have to realize, right Tyler Warren was so
good at Penn State, and without him there, it's it

(01:15:21):
is set Drew allerback. Obviously, now he's injured, so he's
totally set back for the season. But even before he
got injured, he didn't look like the same quarterback. Tyler.
Warren made every made that team, made that offense incredibly
hard to stop. He was a unicorn. How good is
he He's turned He's helped turn the Indianapolis Colts into

(01:15:42):
a top tier NFL team this year. So clearly they
miss him and miss him a lot. But I think
those are the you know, you look at those three
teams and then after that, oh Miss almost lost to
Washington State, a group of five teams. You know, I
guess they're still you can say they're they're still technically
member of the two right now. But this is a
team that has just been devastated by the portal. Right

(01:16:05):
They've lost their last two starting quarterbacks, Scamboard to Miami,
John Mitteer to Oklahoma, and they lost their coaching staff.
They're they're they're great offensive coordinator to Oklahoma as well
with matir Uh And yet they went into Oxford and
almost beat Ole Miss. I guess The good news is,
if you're a long time Lane Kiffin watcher, you could

(01:16:25):
argue the way I argue so far with Mario, which is, hey, uh,
Lane Kiffin blows that game two years ago. At least
he didn't blow it this time. And that's kind of
the way I look at it. I still think Old
Miss is going to be there at the end. And
I think text A and M is the best team
in the SEC. And I think they're better than Ole
Miss by a by a little bit more than than

(01:16:48):
than the than the rankings indicate Alabama is certainly vulnerable.
They're not. They're not, and and limp, can I just
say this, Georgia only won because of the official in
that Auburn dorga game that was an atrociously officiated game.
And you know, normally, normally most games where fans complain

(01:17:12):
about the officiating, myself included, you know, you're only seeing
the calls that go against you. You're not really processing
the calls that go for you or the calls that
go against the opponent. You don't really sort of have
the same emotional and I do think it's sort of like,
you know, those that judge officiating as fans are like
partisans trying to claim they can identify media bias. Right,

(01:17:35):
no partisan. I always laugh at people that accuse me
of bias. It's always somebody from the from hard left
or hard right, And I'm like, how do you guys
know what bias looks like? Right? You're upset if people
aren't biased in your direction. That's what you view as
political bias. Like those that clown show that the Bozell
family that has turned into a family grift. It's some

(01:17:57):
sort of grifting business that that thing in the entire
Bozell family makes money off of this off this group
that claims there's there's somehow left wing bias hidden everywhere
in America, and a whole bunch of right wingers like
Bozell who thought Nixon didn't commit crimes. The old Man

(01:18:18):
is somehow an arbiter of neutrality. Anyway. I'm not saying
there's not biased in different places. I'm saying the Bozells
don't have the qualifications to identify it. And it's that
way with many fans. We don't have the qualifications to
identify I didn't really have a I didn't really have
a rooting interest in Georgia Auburn. I've got a lot

(01:18:40):
of in laws that are Auburn fans, so I want
to see Auburn do well. But I hate Hugh Freeze.
I don't like that guy, I'll admit, so I struggle
with you know, with my with my in laws on that.
I'm like, yeah, okay, but why Hugh Freeze. But you
know what, ask any Auburn fan and they sort of like, yeah,
you Freeze. They're not they they know it, right, But

(01:19:02):
those were just some terrible calls, and I, you know,
Georgia gets I certainly hope the following isn't happening that
somehow SEC officials because this is not a great year
for the SEC. It doesn't appear they have four or
five great teams ap peers. They might have one great
team in Texas A and M, and a couple of
good teams. No different than the Big Ten, no different

(01:19:24):
than the ACC, no different than the Big twelve. They
just look like another conference this year. They don't look
like the SEC. Right, But how badly does the SEC
want to protect its big brands? Right? Are Alabama and
Georgia going to continue to get calls for the rest
of the year like this? You know, and is Texas
and Oklahoma sort of in that same category where those

(01:19:46):
teams will get calls more likely, right, Oklahoma got it
against Auburn. Now Auburn, you know, didn't get a call
against Georgia. I hesitate to see how the refereeing looks
when Auburn has to play Alabama. But my good, the
refs decided that game when they didn't award that touchdown
to Jackson Arnold and they gave it a turnover that

(01:20:07):
it flipped the game completely. Instead of seventeen to nothing
at halftime, it was ten to three. And that was
a massive, massive swing. By what was again, I mean
you break the plane period, right it is? And by
the way, guys, in this day and age, can we

(01:20:30):
please create some sort of new barrier right where and
a chip in the ball so that the second it
crosses that goal line, you know right that, you know it,
you see it. You can't tell me we don't have
the technology to be able to do that rather than
having all of these days, because here's the other thing

(01:20:51):
you have is that not every every NFL game has
every camera angle that you would want for replay, but
not every college game has that. The big time college
games right that are gonna get covered in primetime by
your Fox, your NBC, your your NBC, and your Fox
at CBS and ESPN. They there's about six or seven
games that'll have seventeen eighteen different cameras, but most of

(01:21:15):
the other games don't have that many cameras because the
networks are wanting to spend that kind of money for
what might be a streaming game, or what might be
an ESPN two or CBO Sports Network or if this
one peacock you get it right. So, like I was
watching the Florida State pit game. They didn't have a
camera angle right down the goal line, so they couldn't

(01:21:38):
tell for sure. They did a review of a touchdown
that I'm pretty sure was a touchdown, but they didn't.
It's because they didn't have a camera angle to dispute
it even if you wanted to dispute it. That seems like, look,
if you're gonna do replay and we have the ability,
my god, we can put GoPros everywhere. Now. This is

(01:21:59):
not a high cost the way it even was just
five or six years ago. If you do care about
the outcomes of these games and you want to make
sure we always get it right. Let's make sure we
have all the equipment at all the games that are
getting televised and that are going to use replay. You
can't just sort of be glad that, oh well, hey,

(01:22:20):
because believe it or not, I don't know if we
would have had that camera angle that Georgia Auburn had
which showed Arnold the ball crossing the goal line before
it was punched out. I don't know if you would
have had that at the U. Mass Can't State game.
Then again, maybe we didn't need any replay officials for
the U. Mass can Stake game. All right, there's my

(01:22:41):
college football rant for the week. So there you go.
Appreciate it, Appreciate you here. I hope you enjoy If
you have a holiday today, I hope you're enjoying it.
For those that are nervous about getting their paycheck due
to the government shutdown, I'm sorry. I hope this podcast
and the attention that we give to it serves as
at least something that can be done there and maybe

(01:23:02):
at worst or at best, my podcast is a distraction
for the day. So with that, thank you for listening,
Thank you for liking and subscribing. Thank you for all
those five star reviews hint, and with that, I'll see
you in forty eight hours.

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Chuck’s Commentary - Trump Has Weaponized Every Part Of Government + US Has Lost Moral Authority On World Stage