Chuck’s Commentary - Trump’s Decline Is Obvious…But Republicans Refuse To Acknowledge It + The 60 Minutes Story Isn’t About Scott Pelley… It’s About The Ellisons - The Chuck ToddCast

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
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(01:47):
another episode of the Chuck Podcast.

Speaker 2 (01:50):
It has been a.

Speaker 1 (01:51):
Busy seventy two hours since we've last chatted. I got
a lot to get to in this episode, including what
I think is an increase what is going to be
increasing scrutiny and increasing concern about the President's ability to
do the job. His temperament. The most recent set of
meltdowns with his Wisconsin trip, he impulse control is one

(02:13):
of those things that you lose as you get older, right,
your filter goes away. This was already a gentleman that
didn't have much of a filter to begin with. So
I know it's very hard to see, but I think
it's increasingly clear that Republicans now know what it was
like for elected Democrats in twenty twenty three, twenty twenty four,
when they would avert their eyes anytime Joe Biden had

(02:36):
a public event. We are in that stage with Donald
Trump on and to dig into that for a little bit,
Senate Republicans basically choked on an attempt to check the
president's power and the weaponization fund that I think is
a huge political mistake. I don't think they fully realize
how disastrous it is that they had a proactive chance

(02:59):
todentually kill it and do a favor for a whole
bunch of Republicans who maybe didn't have the guts to
vote against the president. But we're going to get to
that as well. We had huge primaries on Tuesday. Tuesday
is turning into as I said in a text back
and forth with my friend Chris Eliza will have our
live stream of course on Tuesday night. Tuesday is going
to be lit. The Graham Platner primary is suddenly fascinating.

(03:22):
We know he's going to win, but what is the
Janet Mills number going to be? I gave you a
sort of a formula of what what should qualify as
as yellow flag or red flag and the Janet Mills
percentages there. But clearly there's something going on there. Clearly
there's something happening in South Carolina, Lindsey Graham hitting the
panic button over a primary challenger that could force him

(03:45):
into a runoff, which leads to a larger trend that
I think is happening before our very eyes. Right, we
already knew, we've known for some time that there's an
anti establishment streak in both parties, but it is as
strong as ever inside the Republican Party. I think there's
still a debate inside the Democratic Party about how anti
establishment to get. Rhetorically, you can sound loud, but you

(04:08):
don't see the same results. But given what we've seen
sitting members of Congress being rejected as gubernatorial candidates in
South Dakota, Iowa, are we about to see that next
week in Alabama Senate on that runoff, We're going to
see it on this Tuesday. There's something happening out there,
and unlike my friend my friends at Buffalo Springfield, I

(04:28):
think what it is is exactly.

Speaker 2 (04:31):
Clear in this case. So we will get to that.

Speaker 1 (04:34):
And then finally, I think quite a few people ask
me my two cents of the sixty minute situation, Scott Pelley,
what would I do in that situation given my own
experience having a run in with network bosses more worried
about a political agenda rather than journalism. It's very very
difficult spot to be in. And I know from experience

(04:57):
how many people are backseat driving at the moment he
should have would have cut all these different things, whether
or Leslie Stall or Bill Whittaker, and as anything, you know,
they're everything is complicated. Everything isn't an easy answer, and
I just want to sort of dive into there. I
also have my podcast Time Machine to give you a
little hint of what's coming in the time Machine. I

(05:20):
quoted I use the most famous quote that I'm building
the time Machine off of in my monologue on Thursday.
That is the one hint I'm going to give you,
but I'm going to start with what the Germans would
called schodenfreud, I guess, and that is what elected Republicans

(05:41):
are now having to experience with their president and the
fact that he is now we are, as of this writing,
less than a week away from when he turns eighty.
He is creating a celebration to himself, as we know,
for his eightieth birthday with the whole UFC business, something

(06:03):
that apparently like the Eiffel Tower, would like to keep
the uf C claw as the apparently it is called,
which I guess encompasses the steel cage as a permanent
structure on the south lawn. I'm sure Andrew Jackson would
smile about that. That's probably the only president that would

(06:26):
smile about something like that. So it is I say
all this because, look, let's not kid ourselves.

Speaker 2 (06:36):
He's not.

Speaker 1 (06:39):
He's not doing well, and you kind of know it
because of how we're watching Republicans behave almost identically to
how Democrats behave when it was painfully obvious what was
happening with Joe Biden. Because there's a particular kind of
quiet that settles over a political party when it has
decided collectively and without ever voting on it, to essentially

(07:00):
stop seeing what's in front of him. Democrats lived onside
that quiet for just about all of twenty twenty three
and into twenty twenty four. Everyone knew Staffer's new donors,
new members of Congress, knew the reporters covering them new
We all knew this. We reporters were struggling to convey
it because of all the chicken hits in the party

(07:21):
that wouldn't go public with it. What no one had
was a reason to be the first to say it
on the record, right, and so the thing that everyone
could see became the thing that no one would describe,
right up until that debate stage in Atlanta made a
description unnecessary. Everybody saw it, and it was almost like, Okay,
we can all now admit what we've been thinking for

(07:44):
months when it comes to Joe Biden. Well it's pretty
clear now. Republicans are now living inside the same quiet,
and they are doing it with less self awareness than
the Democrats managed, which is frankly saying something. The evidence
is no longer subtle. Just consider this. Three years ago,
twenty eight percent of Americans told pollsters at the Washington

(08:09):
Post that the president wasn't healthy enough to serve effectively.
That was back when Joe Biden was president. This bring
the same pole, asked the same question, and the number
was up to fifty five percent.

Speaker 2 (08:17):
It was about a different president.

Speaker 1 (08:18):
By the way, Reuters and Ipsos have found that sixty
one percent of the country, including nearly thirty percent of Republicans,
believe Donald Trump has become more erratic with age. Now,
these aren't numbers of a fringe concern anymore, right, they
are the numbers of consensus that has not yet been
granted permission to speak.

Speaker 2 (08:35):
Right, We were sort of.

Speaker 1 (08:36):
Dealing with the same thing during the Biden presidency. Large
majorities thought he was too old to serve, and yet
none of that was beyond Dean Phillips, right, convincing many
Democrats to speak out publicly. You had plenty of reporters
that were even speaking out about this, but you didn't
have a lot of that. You know, you had certain coverage,

(08:57):
and I will always defend some of the you know,
I think everybody, you know, somehow wants to blame the media,
not the Democratic Party or not the Bidens for everything
that happened there, that somehow the media was supposed to
make them speak, make the sources say things that we
couldn't make sources to say. So all you could do
was show things in public. Right, Hey, guess who's using
the short staircase on Air Force one. Now look at

(09:19):
how few public events they're doing, right you sort of
we were treating viewers and voters with a lot more
intelligence than Frankly, the Democratic Party was. Well, we're sort
of seeing the same thing now with Donald Trump, and
I think frankly, there is some new some coverage that
we haven't seen, that we actually did see during the
Biden presidency that we haven't seen during the Trump presidency
that I think is quite necessary. I'd start with something simple.

(09:43):
I've done a cursory a bit of research on this,
but I don't have the archive of video that a
TV network has because they archive, and I know of this,
I know we did at NBC. All the networks, you know,
want to keep everything right. You don't want to lose
anything anymore after that small period of time in the
sixties when networks throw everything away. But that's a whole

(10:03):
long story. All you have to do is see that
the president won't do any events where he has to
stand for a long period of time anymore. Right, all
events are designed for sitting. Right, All of the things
at the White House, more and more are now taking
place in the Oval office.

Speaker 2 (10:18):
He sits right.

Speaker 1 (10:19):
There's very few standing events anymore, right, fewer rose garden events.
The weather's been terrific in Washington. There's not been bad weather,
but they which normally during previous White Houses, anytime you
could do an event outside, you did an event outside,
it was just better, better TV, better everything, better coverage.
You know, you ask any White House press shop veteran,

(10:40):
then they'll tell you, oh, yeah, good old fashioned rose
garden events much better than an Oval office event because
events are crowded and all this stuff, but they have
to do so many of them. Then look at that
Wisconsin event. You know, he's not standing for twenty minutes,
and I'm very curious he's going to give a rally
speech at some point during this birthday celebration sometime at
the end of June. Will he stand for it or

(11:02):
will will they figure out how to sit? If you
notice again this Wisconsin situation, he's sitting. He's clearly you know,
it's not it's something it's either hurts for him to walk,
it's uncomfortable for him to walk. Whatever it is, he
clearly there is something going on here. And again they
don't have to acknowledge anything. You can show the visuals,

(11:25):
just like with Biden. The reason the country figured it
out is because the media did show the visuals. The
media did show, Hey, this is what he was, this
is what's going on now. He seems to be using
a shorter staircase. He seems to be using a shorter staircase.
He seems to not have a lot of big events
with a lot of people coming in into the office, right,

(11:46):
and so you're starting to see a little bit. And frankly,
there's been some reporting in January seeing and reported the
Trumpet personally directed his team to start patting his public
schedule to start listing quote closed door meeting that had
previously gone unmentioned. Many presidents don't put all the meetings
that they have there. But it was specifically intended to

(12:06):
push back on this idea that he was having stamina
issues that basically he couldn't really have more than a
six to eight hour day. What it appears to be
he doesn't really have six to eight hour day, although
he can't sleep at night, and he post untruth social
so it does sort of allow people to think, well,
he's always on. Well, just because somebody's always on doesn't
mean they're always on top of things, right, So it

(12:32):
is so there are little things that you're starting to
see on this. So the irony to all of this
obviously is almost too neat to dwell on. So I'm
not going to dwell on it. But let's not forget
that Trump built his entire campaign on the premise that
the other guy was too old, and he will mark
his eightieth birthday this month, having just completed his third
annual physical in less than two years in office.

Speaker 2 (12:56):
Okay, fine, we'll note it. We'll move on.

Speaker 1 (13:01):
You know, the interesting question was never about whether there's
the symmetry exists. We've always be seen that the symmetry
exists here. The interesting question is why one party silence
broke in ninety minutes of a TV news debate and
why the others hasn't broken at all yet. Now, part
of it is Joe Biden didn't have a hold on

(13:22):
a piece of the electorate that Donald Trump has, right,
So there's a little bit of that. But in some
cases the reason why. You know, the Biden team had
effectively threatened Democrats from speaking out against him by saying,
the more you speak out about his health, questioning Biden
and his health and his stamina, you're only helping Donald Trump.

(13:45):
So the basically it was this idea, if you speak out, right,
and that's sort of essentially what the what the Republicans
or what the Trump White House is going to try
to do. Speak out about this, you know, it's your
own peril, and you know, look, when we decide to
come after you, it's terrible, it's uncomfortable, and most of
the people we come after lose.

Speaker 2 (14:06):
Right.

Speaker 1 (14:07):
Ask the Indiana state senators who are not going to
be in office next year. Ask Thomas Matthew Massey's not
going to be an office next year. Ask anybody who's
worked for Brian Camp, asked Brad Raethensberger. Right, So they
certainly have, you know, proof positive this list. Right, That's
what always made what the Democrats did head scratching, because
Biden had no kind of hold on the party like that, right,

(14:28):
there was death Nobody could somehow claim that they wouldn't
be in politics without Joe Biden. Outside the state of Delaware,
and I'm not saying this to be dismissive of Joe Biden.
It's just that is not that is not the type
of poll he had inside his own party. Donald Trump
has influence and poll inside his party. They're just stronger,
And in some ways it at least explains the behavior.

(14:53):
It certainly explains the fear. But my goodness, these Republicans
are going to look really sad, right, and the basic
questions local reporters are going to ask them about the
president's obvious slowing down, obvious health issues, obvious like he
can't seem to stamina questions, the falling asleep, the nodding

(15:16):
off again.

Speaker 2 (15:18):
He's.

Speaker 1 (15:21):
Acting like a typical eighty year old, right, This is
not unusual behavior for an eighty year old. It's just
unusual behavior for a president of the United States. And
obviously the amount of hey, the Republicans made about this
with Joe Biden and the Democrats, all this is doing,
you know, And of course this is where you know,

(15:43):
by Republicans ignoring what's right in front of them and
not sort of being honest about what's right in front
of them, they're doing enormous damage to everybody's credibility left
and right right, they're essentially rev So we're seeing this
notion that everybody's a freaking liar in politics. Both parties

(16:04):
just say whatever it takes to get elected. This is
the majority view because it's true. I somehow sometimes want
to sit here and explain to you why politicians behave
certain ways. Yeah, they make some compromises to do this
in order to do that. Look at A and e's
being an elective office, because you have to make compromises

(16:24):
and the public never wants you to make any compromises.
I mean, I saw some silly progressive get all angry
at the Amy Acting campaign in Ohio. She's running in
a state that Donald Trump carried by nearly double digits,
and she pledged that if she gets elected governor, she's
going to appoint Republicans to her cabinet. And this progressive

(16:46):
Democrat was like, why do Democrats always do this? And
it's the sort of like, you know, criticizing a Democrat
for attempting to actually rise above partisanship is exactly what's
wrong with the of both of these parties. Right, the
base of both parties do not want our system to function.
They want the other side, defeated, humiliated, and ostracized. They're

(17:11):
not interested in accepting the premise that in a country
of three hundred and fifty million people, not everybody's singing
from the same song sheet. And if you want to
govern this country incrementally, you better govern incrementally, all right.
And it is it is very difficult to bring sixty
percent of people along, let alone one hundred percent. It's

(17:33):
really easy to get thirty to forty percent of people
to be on your side. But you're never going to
get anything done. And all you're going to do is
make the country worse by being divisive. Even if you
think you're right, even if your policies look great on
a spreadsheet, if you don't have the will of the majority,

(17:54):
you don't have a good idea. So you better work
harder at persuading for a will of the major. And
if you're going to criticize, right, I mean just ridiculous.
If you're going to criticize a Democrat running in a
red leaning state for pledging to have a bipartisan cabinet,
then you don't want pluralism. And this country thrives when

(18:20):
we embrace pluralism. But when we try to unilaterally govern
with a forty percent mandate, which is what the Republicans
have been trying to do. They don't have a majority mandate,
let alone barely over forty percent that want them to
go in the direction they're going. Democrats didn't have a
fifty percent mandate let alone. They were also sitting in

(18:42):
about a forty to forty five percent when they went
for what they went for and didn't get it, and
then they had to default to what was actually a
majority mandate, and then it looked like they lost something
rather than the fact they actually won something. But it's
all about prioritizing, right, It's all about expectations, It's all
about how.

Speaker 2 (18:59):
You sell it.

Speaker 1 (19:04):
But I think this is increasingly for the short term
going just more credibility problems for the Republican Party.

Speaker 2 (19:10):
Right.

Speaker 1 (19:11):
One of their effective knocks on the Democrats is is
that they were you know, they couldn't tell the truth
about what was staring them in the face. Can Republicans
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Speaker 2 (20:59):
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Speaker 1 (21:05):
Which leads me to a I think colossal political mistake
that Senate Republicans made. They had an opportunity to kill
this weaponization fund once and for all, codifying the death
of this weaponization fund with an Act of with an
amendment to the bill for this homeland security thing. The

(21:27):
votes initially were there, and John Thune and the Senate
Republican leadership decided not to allow it to happen. And
they twisted enough arms and they clearly made some promise
that maybe it was coming. Whatever it is that they
did to sort of get the Yolo Caucus to basically,

(21:51):
I don't know, it's no longer you only live once
apparently only dream of living ones right, it's just the
dreaming Yolo Caucus since they didn't act not doing this,
You've just opened up every Republican running for reelection to
the easiest attack ad there is. They're so not looking
out for you. They're trying to pay off people that

(22:12):
beat up cops. Whose side are you on and who's
on your side? Who wants to protect you? Who's trying
to hire more cops? Who's trying to pay off people
that attack cops?

Speaker 2 (22:26):
Right? What are you doing? Guys?

Speaker 1 (22:30):
This seems like a really massive You had an opportunity,
a small minority of you had an opportunity to essentially
take one for the team. This is terrible politics. John
Houstead is not going to be able to answer this
very well. He's going to fumble and mumble, and these
are going to be the debate questions per se. Are

(22:50):
just going to be horrible moments for these guys. That's
if these debates take place. I hope they do. But
my goodness, the Senate Republican leadership and you began the
week asserting your leadership and seeing, you know, calling Bill
Poulti's acting appointment for what it was a bunch of bs.

(23:11):
You're not going to put a weaponizer in charge of
our intel, By the way, I think it's I think
it's illegal for him to be the acting DNI. While
while the President of the United States can certainly declassify
information for anybody he chooses to declassify it, for there
is a specific written set of credentials you have to

(23:32):
have to be the DNI, I cannot imagine that an
acting DNI is not supposed to have those same credentials.
Bill POULTI does not have those credentials. Therefore, I do
not believe, even though that there is there that because
Congress wrote into the law this specific you that the
executive branch come out can can overdo this even temporarily.

(23:55):
So I actually don't think Pulty can legally do the job. Now.
It doesn't mean that the president can't declassify things and
allow Poulty to pull his weapon hiss as in garbage
like he's been doing with them, digging into people's mortgage
mortgages like he was doing with elected and political enemies.

Speaker 2 (24:14):
Of the president.

Speaker 1 (24:17):
But it does mean it's probably illegal for him to
hold the acting title at all under any circumstance, because
it's written through Now that you know the problem is
with any of these fights with the judiciary. In order
to have standing, the Act has to take place. Well,
the Act has taken place, and now you've got to sue.
And it does mean he can operate, and he's going
to have operated in the job for maybe as long

(24:38):
as a week two weeks before the courts. I do
think we'll ultimately say he is ineligible to serve as
the acting dn I because he does not meet the
credential that Congress wrote into the law. Again, it is
written into the law. It is very specific. Mitch McConnell
pointed this out. Use Senate conferbable positions come with a

(25:02):
statutory set of qualifications, and there are deliberate reasons DNI
is one of them. This is what the statute says,
a dn I quote shall have extensive national security experience
and management expertise. And then it says specifies that the
Principal Deputy DNI director, currently a gentleman by the name
of Aaron Lucas, shall act for and exercise the powers

(25:25):
of DNI during a vacancy. So it is all spelled
out in this On other things, at who the acting
or the should be is not spelled out. This one does.
So this creates two legal questions on this vacancy, whether
the extensive National security bar essentially constrains acting service or

(25:46):
any of only formal nominees, and whether the DNI specific
succession provision overrides the Federal Vacancy's Reform Act, which is
the general law that otherwise lets the President install any acting,
any official as acting for a two hundred and day window.
So I'm very curious to see. I think this is

(26:06):
something that somebody should file suit on and question, because
we've got to find out whether Congress writing these specific
qualifications into the law matters. One thing about j judiciary
when it comes to these political disputes between branches usually,
and it hasn't meant whether judiciary is leaning left or
right usually on these things. They when there's a dispute

(26:32):
between the legislative and the executive, usually the legislative gets
the nod here. And I can't imagine that it wouldn't write,
even with the tariffs right, the legislative branch an article
one got the nod, So I would assume that that
will be the case. But we shall see. And by
the way, just a simple thing that David French and
I talked about later in the interview. Have you ever

(26:53):
made a list one two, and three and made the
most important thing to just stew on that. When you
hear people pus about article one, article two, and article
three of the Constitution, again ask yourself, what list have
you made of one, two, and three where number two
was more important than number one? Right, I'm not saying

(27:15):
I'm just saying, all right, I want to pivot to Tuesday.
So it seems as if there's sort of multiple things
worth watching on Tuesday, which is why our livestream, I think,
is going to be lit. First of all, you got
the South Carolina. How many runoffs are we going to get?
We know we're going to get a run off in

(27:36):
the South Carolina Republican primary for governor. Does Nancy Mace
make it into that runoff or not? The President has
endorsed the lieutenant governor. It does not appear as endorsement
has had the impact he hoped it would. This would
be Can you imagine if second time in our second
state in a row where the endorsed Trump candidate, Actually

(27:56):
this would be the third time we're endorsed Trump candidate
finishes second, not getting in the runoff. Even Cornant, I
guess corn and Paxton were unindorsed at the time, So
that's a I won't I won't use that example. But
we saw it with Fienstra, where the last minute Trump
endorsement did not have the impact that they thought that
Trump endorsement was going to happen. We're going to find

(28:18):
out a Lieutenant governor Everet whether she gets the benefit
from this endorsement. Who knows, but you have that. The
other more interesting situation going on is with Lindsay Graham.
And look, Lindsay Graham, You're there's always been a thirty
percent of the Republican Party who has never thought Lindsay

(28:40):
gram was conservative enough. This goes back to when he
was hanging out with John McCain. This goes back what
wing of the party. The South Carolina Republican Party has
always actually been, in some ways a bit more ideologically diverse.
You've had your business community, you've had your more culturally conservative,
you've had more religious. But it's been a it's a

(29:01):
tapestry and there's different facets. It's why South Carolina makes
for such an interesting, uh interesting sort of battleground during
the Republican presidential primary process because there are different facets
of a military community, retiree community in South Carolina that's
not nearly as religious but certainly is right leaning. Then

(29:24):
you have this more religious So anyway, the point is
is that there's there's different flavors of the conservative movement
all over South Carolina, and Lindsey Graham has has always
been seen with a with a skeptical eye by members
of the of the certainly of the Christian Conservative more
the Christian conservative wing of the party. And now you

(29:46):
would throw in the populace Maga, the sort of libertarian right. Certainly,
the anti war right is no fan of Lindsay Graham
and has never been a fan of Lindsay Graham. And
in this and that's what I think we're going to
find out here is this combination of whether the two
things right. So if if the sort of anti war

(30:10):
right and the sort of more culturally conservative animated wing
of the party down there, if the combo of the
two is enough to keep Lindsay below fifty because there's
other people on the ballot, and then of course on
a runoff, all bets are off. And that's the thing
we're are we starting to see a pattern here, right,

(30:32):
So in Iowa you had an outsider and you had
a sitting member of Congress basically as the two leading
candidates and the outsider got it. You had a sitting
US Senator in Texas, you had the outsider running sort
of the anti establishment campaign in Paxton. Paxton wins the
runoff going away. How about South Dakota where the runoff

(30:52):
is going to be between the sitting governor and the
outsider populist and the person left that finished in third
place was the sitting member.

Speaker 2 (30:59):
Of course, Dusty Jones.

Speaker 1 (31:07):
I'm not ready to declare that this is definitely going
to be across the board. But if you're very more
in Alabama, in that runoff, you're the sitting member of Congress,
You're facing somebody that is suddenly getting to run as
the outsider. Hey I'm not my hands aren't dirty from
how Washington has been working. Right, you have a similar

(31:29):
situation perhaps playing out in the Georgia Senate runoff. Right is,
can Derek Duley take advantage of this over Mike Collins? Right,
Mike Collins the sitting member of Congress, if indeed we
do see Lindsey Graham forced him too a runoff. So
the point is there's clearly a trend here, right, and
it you know, and you could argue that that we've

(31:51):
seen this go off and on since the rise of
the Tea Party, that when Republican primary voters are presented
with an option to defeat somebody that's it that is
more establishmenty. Maybe they're a sitting member of Congress trying
to jump up to statewide office, maybe they're the sitting
lieutenant governor, maybe they're whatever it is, maybe they're the

(32:15):
sitting US Senator. When presented with that option and it's viable,
they do it now. They will enthusiastically support the nominee,
even if it's somebody that may not be their preferred
flavor of conservative. And we've seen this, right, these folks
have certainly won and gotten the votes of some of

(32:35):
these people when they've just.

Speaker 2 (32:37):
Chosen to turn out.

Speaker 1 (32:39):
But there certainly is plenty of evidence that we're here,
and the question is are we now? Are we in
that tumultuous of a moment here where you do and
you know, we're pretty fractured in both parties right now.
You have a real fracture inside the Republican Party still
between sort of the business wing that the what people

(33:01):
in the Maga world would say, the real populace and
then sort of the way Donald Trump's behaving, right, He's
basically trying to be all things to all of these wings,
and he's done nothing to try to settle him down.
If anything, he's only made life more miserable for the
establishment by pushing this war with Iran, and by the
way that you want to talk about sitting with you

(33:25):
know him just trying to deny that he ran on
no more wars, and then he did this like he
didn't even attempt like there was a better way to
defend it. If he was going to defend I didn't
start this war. If he really wanted to go down
that front, he could say, the Iranians started this war
forty seven years ago, I'm just trying to finish it,
and I'm trying to end it. But he, frankly is

(33:47):
not nimble enough to make that argument, and I don't
think it would be seen as as an honest argument,
because he himself didn't say that about Iran when he
was campaign. In fact, just the opposite. He said, if
you elect Kamala Harris, she's going to start a war
with Iran. So while he could come up with spin

(34:09):
that would be completely dishonest and completely throw himself and
make him look like a liar from the campaign trail.
He still wants to look like a liar from the
campaign trail and not even have an honest way to
answer this question on Iran. But the point is what
he's done on Iran has actually put some of his
own allies and has made his endorsement. The question is

(34:31):
is it made his endorsement sort of less definitive?

Speaker 2 (34:35):
Right?

Speaker 1 (34:36):
If you're still angry about this war, Trump endorsing the
person you're not happy with isn't going to make you
more inclined to support that person. So I don't think
it'll be as helpful as one thinks. But let's be
honest here on Lindsay Graham. Isn't this the way the
movie should end for Lindsey Graham's political career. Here's a

(34:58):
guy who has just been so blatantly finger in the
wind of wherever the Republican Party is going.

Speaker 2 (35:04):
Oh I'm going to go here. Oh I want to
go here, or I want to go here.

Speaker 1 (35:08):
I don't know what Lindsey Graham believes in anymore, And
I understand if many of you don't either he seems
to be a conservative of convenience and wherever it's convenient
to be conservative, he's gung ho about it, and the
minute and if he is and as long as it's
good for him politically. Look, I'll give him this, he

(35:29):
understands his state very well. When he did the flip
on Trump, he actually did it a lot earlier than
some of the other establishment critics of Trump. Flipped because
he realized he was a fish out of water in
his own state, and he quickly realized how much potential
political trouble he'd be in, so he fought. He flipped fast.

(35:50):
So as somebody who understand I will say this, I
think the man is very in tune to his own
state and very in tune to understanding where his state
goes on some of the stuff, and understands the power
of Trump. But you know, when you look at the
totality of his career, right, he's just been to the

(36:14):
things that he has been righteous, self righteous about. When
a Democrat has done it, he looks the other way
when Donald Trump does it right again, it's all explained
away in his desire to do whatever it takes to
keep that senency. So a guy who's been has done
everything he can to keep that Trump endorsement, has kept
that Trump endorsement, and eventually it doesn't work. I believe

(36:37):
some some would argue that that is that is probably
the rightful way that this would end.

Speaker 2 (36:42):
If it does end this way.

Speaker 1 (36:45):
That somehow, because I'll tell you this, if he gets
forced into a runoff, that's usually it is not It
is not a good history for incumbents forced into a
runoff surviving those it happens, it does in this political environment.
Does this feel like the political environment where an incumbent

(37:08):
can survival runoff?

Speaker 2 (37:10):
Anyway?

Speaker 1 (37:11):
That's just the South Carolina portion of our Election Night
livestream on Tuesday, folks. Then you got Maine and Graham Plattner,
And I'd set that bar earlier. I will say this,
I think on the on Thursday's podcast, I said fifteen
to twenty five, we're entering red flag territory. I would
raise the bar a little bit to twenty plus now,
simply because she's a kind of she's home, she's on

(37:35):
the verge of actively campaigning. Okay, Janet Mills, she's not
actively campaigning, but she reminds, she's continuously reminding people. She's
on the ballot, so I might raise the bar that anything,
you know, you need to hit twenty before you to
truly if you're in Platiner will start to panic. But
it's look, it's interesting that the new defensive Platner is, Yeah,

(38:04):
these wars messed them up, and this is and he
should be you know, and this this is why. And
this gets back to do you have the temperament to
do this job?

Speaker 2 (38:19):
Right?

Speaker 1 (38:19):
Do you have the ability to do this job? Is
your life in a position where you have the you
have the ability to be a public servant at this moment?
And I and I and that's why I've constantly said
empathy is required here, all right. I don't know if
anybody is going to come out with their with one
hundred percent their head on straight after multiple tours of

(38:41):
duty in Iraq or Afghanistan.

Speaker 2 (38:43):
And I think that we all have to be a
bit uh.

Speaker 1 (38:48):
I have to show empathy on that. At the same time,
that doesn't make one more you know, I think that
that means he somebody that I would like to see
testify in Congress and make sure people understand though the
fact of this, and people need to understand and he
would be a powerful surrogate supporting somebody else running for
the Senate against the decision Susan Collins made to send

(39:09):
people to war. So this is not dismissing that as concerned.
If anything, it's it's reinforcing it. But the damage that that,
you know, But to try to say that everything he's
done is that number one puts it all onto that
And you're does that mean you're supposed to if you're

(39:30):
feel uncomfortable with the way he treated women, you're just
supposed to just chalk it up PTSD. That doesn't mean
that just because you can explain somebody's behavior doesn't mean
that you that that behavior somehow gets excused. It can
be explained, you know, but it doesn't get excused. So anyway,

(39:54):
it's I get look where Platner's in save his campaign mode.
The way they're going about to save this campaign, I
think is I'm dubious. But ultimately it's going to be
in the hands of the voters, and let's see where

(40:14):
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(41:19):
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(41:40):
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(42:04):
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(43:00):
Slash predicts, Slash Bonus hyphen offer hyphen terms. I did
not four weeks ago think South Carolina, Maine, Nevada, and
North Dakota election night was going to be the best
election night of June. But it's going to be the
best election night in June. And hey, the good news
is we'll also be counting California ballots also on Tuesday,

(43:21):
so you know, we'll be able to sort of bring
you up to date. Hey, what's going on in California?
Still counting ballots here. And this is where, by the way,
our political debate world is terrible about this, right, which
is everything is you know, if you're on the right
and you're just assuming theft on this election, because California

(43:44):
has a very thorough way that they that they approve
you know that they make sure they certify that a
voter is the voter, They do the signature match right,
do everything. They've certainly built in plenty of protocols to
for security purposes, and I think they're quite good. But
they've got it is on them. Their inability to do

(44:07):
this faster is on the administrators. It is on the state,
all right. At the end of the day, there are
always going to be bad actors that try to exploit
slow government responses and try to create conspiracy theories around it.
This is not a new phenomenon. This has been happening
for centuries. So it is incumbent and bound government.

Speaker 2 (44:28):
To mitigate that. Get your act together.

Speaker 1 (44:31):
It is a really bad sign that we are going
to probably have all the votes counted in Maine in
South Carolina before we have all the votes counted in California,
and Maine in South Carolina will have done their primaries
a week after California began its counting last Tuesday. That's
I know, it's.

Speaker 2 (44:51):
A big state.

Speaker 1 (44:53):
I know there's a lot of people to verify. If
this is how you want to do it, spend because
part of an election process is being able to have
a process where a large majority of people have faith
in it, and the longer this takes you lose that.

(45:15):
So this, this needs to be addressed with a lot
more urgency than the Democratic leaders are addressing it in California.
I think it's been they just sort of they was
just the just wave it off. Oh this is just reporters,
you know, upset that they have to wait longer for results. No,
it's fricking voters that are upset. And if every other

(45:39):
state can get it done faster, come on, California, get
your shit together. It is ridiculous that we're going to
have another a primary, a set of primaries a week
later that all but Nevada will probably be counted completely.
Three entire other states. And yes they're smaller than California combined,

(46:01):
but come on, if you're too big to do this,
then cut the state up into or something. But admit,
in all seriousness, I you know it is. I'm not
blaming the leaders of California for the lying that takes
place by people like Donald Trump, but you have a

(46:24):
duty to do whatever it takes to make your citizens
confident in the system, and the longer it takes the
easier it is for confidence to be weakened in the system.

(46:45):
Do your part and speed things up. It's too late
now to have credibility with it with this cycle. But
you when you see some crazy rants like Megan Kelly
declaring that if somehow Spencer Pratt and Steve Hilton are
found to have not qualified for the runoff, that somehow
that means things were nefarious.

Speaker 2 (47:04):
No, it doesn't.

Speaker 1 (47:05):
It means they didn't get they didn't finish in the
top two when all the votes were counted. But it
is allowing this gap. We've done our job in the
honest press, right and I know what is honest press anymore.
I'm going to get to that in a minute. But
we've done our job. We explained the red mirage at
the beginning. I certainly did. I kicked off our coverage

(47:25):
with it. We've explained how this works, and we've even
explained it in this unique primary that people held their
ballots to the very end. And yes, ballots sort of
get counted as they come in in a lot of
these counties, not every county. Every county kind of does
it a little bit differently, but you were more likely
to see a surge of Democratic leaning ballots towards the end,
more so than before because of all the tumult that

(47:48):
was taking place in that governor's race. And it is
playing out exactly how we told you it was going
to play out, right, Spencer Pratt might even have a lead,
Steve Hilt might even have a lead. And Pratt's lead
melt pretty quickly. Hilton's took a few days for it
to melt, but it all happened just the same. But

(48:08):
come on, California, spend more money to get this stuff
counted quicker. If you care about the integrity of the
democracy and the citizens belief in it, you're going to
get this done, all right. I've had a lot of questions,
and I've not said much about what's happening at sixty minutes,
what's happening at CBS, and what's happening with Scott Pelly.

(48:31):
Given my own experience dealing with network management who made
a decision, who let politics sort of get in the
way of journalism, I certainly understand the situation that the
folks at sixty minutes Pelly in particular, find themselves in.

(48:55):
I think there's been a lot there's almost too much
focus on Scott Pelly and not enough focus on the Ellisons,
because we got to focus the main thing is the
main thing. The fact is, all of these media companies
have proven to be horrific stewards of media, of journalistic

(49:17):
of news organizations. Disney, Comcast, Paramount and before that.

Speaker 2 (49:23):
Viacom and Warner Brothers.

Speaker 1 (49:27):
They do not when when the chips were down at
all of those entities, all of those publicly traded companies,
when the chips were down, they folded whatever it did
to appease Donald Trump, to appease the administration in some
form or another, regardless of whether the facts matched the complaints.

(49:50):
They all went for appeasement, whether it was paying off
these settlements which sort of looked like bribes that didn't work,
by the way, because one payoff, you know, he keeps
coming back for more.

Speaker 2 (50:04):
Have you noticed that?

Speaker 1 (50:06):
Or the you know, the well timed spin off of
MSNBC by Comcast right when you know they get I
give Comcast a little more elegance about it than both
Disney and Paramount. And then of course there's this you know,

(50:31):
no man's land that CNN is operating in where they
basically have two owners, no owners and they're just waiting
for shoes to fall, and they're probably sitting there watching
CBS wondering. Okay, so this is how it works. So
I think there are two things you could do, and
I think Scott Pelly's interview sort of got at a

(50:53):
couple of things that I'm always heads it in. I
don't want to backseat drive too much in this situeituation
because I've, like I said, I've I during the the
issue when when the news organization attempted to hire Rona
Romney without sort of going through any sort of public

(51:20):
vetting or sort of accountability interview, nothing right before before
signing her, uh and not and not explaining what it
is that they were signing her, somebody who had literally
questioned the integrity of the entire news division multiple times
through her stewardship at the R and C. But NBC

(51:41):
wanted a debate, right, they wanted an RNC debate. So
I don't know what happened, but somehow they got one.
And look, I understand why these media companies did what

(52:05):
they did. I've said this before. They have a feudishal
responsibility to their shareholders, not to the public. And so
if that is going to be your north star. Don't
own a news organization because you're going to always compromise
the integrity of the news organization. I think it is
hard a heart's Bob Eiger didn't think he was compromising

(52:26):
the integrity of ABC News when he settled the frivolous
lawsuit against short Stepnopolis, but that's what he ended up doing.
I'd like to think he will one day publicly express
regret for that decision. He's in the middle of a transition,
he's in the middle. He may be tired of talking
about these things, of which I understand. But it was

(52:47):
a big It was a big mistake.

Speaker 2 (52:49):
But I under.

Speaker 1 (52:52):
The decision was rational, even if I disagreed with it,
and I think it did enormous damage because it was
the first one, and then it just put pressure on
everybody else. Now, the question is why is Trump obsessed
with sixty minutes? Sixty minutes is a symbol, and if
he can make sixty minutes heal, then he's making all

(53:13):
of all of sort of mainstream news heal.

Speaker 2 (53:18):
Right.

Speaker 1 (53:24):
You know, this is the most popular, most well known
news brand in America, and so if he can just
you know, sort of somehow claim that he was able
to topple sixty minutes. Whatever that means to him, that's
a that's a that's an accomplishment, And it doesn't matter

(53:46):
what happens in any other news organization, right, it's that
symbolism that he wants there. Right, you sort of you
take out sixty minutes, and in some ways it it
decaps the entire and but the point is is it's
all over right the second that I don't know what
the politics of the Ellisons are. I know some of

(54:08):
you think you know what the politics of the Ellisons are.
We don't know for sure. Here's what we do know.
They want to take advantage of a situation. They want
to own this big media conglomerate. They want to be
able to try to put together the biggest media conglomerate

(54:28):
they can possibly imagine with this Paramount Warner Brothers thing.
And they know it is a questionable decision by government
to approve the merger. So what's the easiest way to
do it. Give them to the president's shiny metal objects,
right and turn it into just remember, sixty minutes is
probably not even not five percent of Paramounts bottom line,

(54:51):
but probably point of five percent of.

Speaker 2 (54:53):
Paramount the bottom line.

Speaker 1 (54:55):
But the Allisons know that Donald Trump is erratic, and
if literally one piece shows up in sixty minutes that
he doesn't like, he could just blow up the whole
thing and the merger's off and the Ellisons, more importantly,
Larry Ellison, the father, is left holding a really really
expensive back that he is already personally essentially used his

(55:20):
own wealth as collateral to guarantee. So it would be
a huge blow. So if you're the Allisons, you're gonna
do whatever it takes to appease this president and get
through this regulatory merger. They don't care about the long
term interest of the news division for one simple reason.
The second this merger gets approved, the combination of CBS

(55:43):
and CNN will likely be put up for sale, and
the second Trump leaves office, they're going to put it
up for sale. They're not interested in the long term.
So I do think that that's if I were sitting
at sixty minutes, That's how I'd be approaching this. Okay,

(56:04):
we know what the motivation is. We know there's nothing
we can do currently internally. You blow up Barry Weiss,
the Allisons will find another Berry Weiss, you know, and
this isn't you know. My only question for her is
is she comfortable being used this way she's being used?

(56:26):
Maybe she doesn't think she's being used. Maybe it aligns
with what she wants to do or what she believes,
and that's fine. But she's being used here. And I
assume she knows it because she seems like she's got
a lot of common sense to her.

Speaker 2 (56:40):
But I don't know.

Speaker 1 (56:41):
But she's being used here. But just remember the main
thing is the main thing, which is and this is
the calculation that I think that I would be thinking
about at sixty minutes, which is, can sixty minutes be
repaired if it has a new owner. I think it
is reasonable to conclude that CBS and CNN will have

(57:02):
new owners sometime in the next thirty six months. It's
not a guarantee, but it's pretty reasonable to conclude that
that's going to happen. There's massive debt that this new
merger has taken on. They're going to have to start
trying to whittle down that debt. The thing that is

(57:23):
the biggest headache, least impactful to their bottom line is
anything news. So and you know, and then and then
if you're CNN's last sixty minutes sas CBS, right, and
you're there and you're deciding do I put the raincoat on?
See if I can get through this storm and see
if the next owner isn't crazy, especially if you don't

(57:47):
have the financial savings to sort of have the few money. Right,
Scott Pelly had some few money, and he took it
was sort of like, you know, I understand the situation
he was in, right. He he could take hits that
others couldn't. And that was that was I think, as

(58:08):
much of anything as why he chose to concentrate your
ara was on me seeing if he can speak and
protect those behind him and blow him. But I think
that's the calculation I'd be making, do I. And I
think that's what Whitaker Install and those folks decided and
why they said, look, we're going to stick and see

(58:31):
if essentially we can if the franchise cannot get so
damaged between now and the eventual soon sale of the
combination of whatever cn NCBs looks like. Is that, you know,
is that better than everybody quitting simultaneously and starting something
that looks awfully similar to sixty Minutes down the road.

(58:54):
There is a lat you know, so it's a it's
a fifty one to forty nine call far I'm concerned,
So I'm not gonna That's why I don't know enough
internally for sure, But I do think that's the calculation
I'd be making. But ultimately I think there's a lot
there's been too much focus on sort of how Pelly's

(59:17):
gone about this, and not enough focus on the larger
issue here, which is what the Ellisons are using Barry
Weiss to do. And the goal is to make the
President think they have changed the ideology of sixty minutes.
Whether they do it or not doesn't mean it's all
about convincing him that they've done this. So high profile

(59:40):
firings and you know, bringing in unusual people to run
it and things like that are all designed for an
audience of one. No serious journalists would have made these decisions.
No serious person about the future thinking digital first would
have made these decisions. You wouldn't take something that has
such incredible brand equity and positive a positive view from

(01:00:05):
the public and got it like this if there wasn't
a larger financial incentive to do it. And you know what,
the larger financial incentive. Is the only way the Ellisons
get this monstrosity combination of Paramount and Warner Brothers is
if they sacrifice sixty minutes on the altar of Donald Trump,
and it is the symbol. It's not you know, it

(01:00:27):
doesn't matter. The rest of CBS doesn't matter, right for Trump,
he just sees sixty And that's all this is about,
which is why they're thankfully other shows she's not messed
with over there, other shows that I think do a
terrific job. And they've basically been living, you know, they've
been just avoiding the war, if you will, God bless them,

(01:00:51):
hopefully the war doesn't come to them. I'm not even
gonna mention to you the names of the people I'm
talking about or their shows, because I do not want
to make sure that those targets are not tarnished by me.
You know, It's like, do you what's better for you
to my friends over there and endorse or criticize, Right,

(01:01:13):
But let's not take our eye off the main All
my media reporter friends, this is not a Scott Kelly's story.
This is always about the Elessons allowing sixty minutes to
be used as the chip to get a questionable merger
approved by Donald Trump's government. That is and has always

(01:01:36):
been the north star of all of this. Don't confuse
anything else from what that is. And it doesn't matter
whether you like the direction of sixty minutes or not.
When that is the motivation, it should upset even those
that at the moment consider themselves allies at this administration,

(01:01:56):
because government influencing the media is that it is the
step one in eroding the democracy. Just asked them, no
longer free citizens of Turkey.

Speaker 2 (01:02:14):
Is all right?

Speaker 1 (01:02:20):
It is toodcast time machine time. So where are we going? Well,
we're going to go back to the mid nineteen fifties.
We're actually going to go to June ninth, nineteen fifty four.
I just it's actually a phrase I repeated as I
told you earlier in this broadcast on the podcast on Thursday,

(01:02:44):
have you no sense of decency? I think I just
said have you no decency?

Speaker 2 (01:02:48):
Sir?

Speaker 1 (01:02:49):
When it came across to the President's treatment of women
reporters in particular, but Caitlin Collins specifically. But it's that phrase,
have you no sense of decency? When Americans think about
Joseph McCarthy, they usually remember that one sentence.

Speaker 2 (01:03:06):
That's the sentence, right, have.

Speaker 1 (01:03:08):
You no sense of decency? Sir? At long last? Have
you left no sense of decency? It's one of the
most famous lines in American political history, and it's certainly
the most famous line ever uttered in congressional testimony, probably
right up there along with you have a cancer. There's
a cancer on the presidency. The no sense of decency, sir,

(01:03:29):
came during the Army McCarthy hearings on June ninth, nineteen
fifty four, when Army Attorney Joseph Welch finally confronted the
Wisconsin senator after one accusation too many. Now, the way
we remember this story today is a bit simple. McCarthy
was a bully, Welch stood up to him. America watched
McCarthy fell the end. It's a good story. The problem

(01:03:53):
is it's not quite how it all happened. In fact,
I think we remember the Army McCarthy hearings backward. The
famous line didn't end McCarthyism. Joseph McCarthy wasn't brought down
because Americans suddenly stopped fearing communism. And the real story
isn't primarily about ideology. It's about media. I think it's

(01:04:15):
an undertold part of the McCarthy story. It's about attention,
and it's about how one politician tell me where you've
heard this one before. It's about how one politician learned
to manipulate the fastest news cycle America had ever seen,
and how eventually millions of Americans got a long enough

(01:04:36):
look at McCarthy to then make up their own minds.

Speaker 2 (01:04:40):
And that's the.

Speaker 1 (01:04:40):
Part of the story worth revisiting seventy years later, because
to understand McCarthy, you have to start with the myth itself.
The myth is that McCarthy created the Red scare.

Speaker 2 (01:04:52):
He did not.

Speaker 1 (01:04:54):
By the time McCarthy emerged as a national figure in
nineteen fifty, Americans had already plenty of reasons to be
worried about the Reds. The Soviet Union had exploded its
own atomic bomb right the nuclear arms race was on.
China had fallen to Maus communists. It's one big giant
country going communists. The alger His case dominated the headlines.

(01:05:18):
The Rosenberg investigation was underway. The Korean War was about
to erupt. The Cold War was not some distant geopolitical abstraction.
Millions of Americans in nineteen forty nine and nineteen fifty
genuinely believed this country faced a growing threat and we

(01:05:41):
had just had two wars in thirty years, so the
likelihood of war seemed high, not low. And that's all
very important because it helps explain why McCarthy was so effective,
as in his fear mongery, the soil was fertile and
inventing the fear he was writing it. He wasn't creating

(01:06:03):
a wave, he was surfing it, and he did it
with a skill that was surprisingly modern and very innovative
at the time. Today we talked constantly about social media
and cable news, podcasts, the attention economy. But every era
has its own version of a fast moving information environment.

(01:06:27):
And in nineteen fifties, especially after the war, we you know,
think about this, if you have any memory of nine
to eleven in the post nine to eleven, remember it
basically created the always on news channel, right the newstickers
Suddenly we didn't have newstickers until then, and we have
these newstickers constantly going all the time. And I know
we used to have newstickers like in the Times Square

(01:06:47):
in like the forties and fifties, but the point was
being right. After World War Two, we became news junkies,
and so yes, there was there was a faster news
cycle than ever. Now us looking back on it, it looks
like a slow news cycle, but to Americans living then,
this was speeding up. This was speed. So that's why
it's important to understand that every era has its own

(01:07:08):
version of what is a fast moving information environment, and
in nineteen fifties, in nineteen fifty this was speeding up
dramatically for that era. There were morning papers, afternoon papers,
national wire services, hourly updates on radio, a growing television audience. Okay,
all of this was new, and it was speeding up

(01:07:31):
the information wars. Politicians themselves, for the first time had
multiple chances every day to shape the conversation, and most
of McCarthy's colleagues were still operating in a much older
political news cycle. But McCarthy wasn't. He understood headlines and
he rode these afternoon to morning to afternoon to morning

(01:07:53):
cycles so cynically and well. He understood the deadlines that
those wire reporters were on, and most importantly, he understood
creating anticipation. You won't believe the names, you won't believe
it right. A favorite tactic was a hint that a
major revelation was coming tomorrow or next week or soon.

(01:08:19):
Reporters would rush to father stories. Wire services would move
the news nationally. Hey we're just covering. Editors would splash
it across front pages.

Speaker 2 (01:08:27):
It was urgent. People would buy papers.

Speaker 1 (01:08:30):
Then the promised bombshell would arrive and often failed to
match the build up. The names would change, the numbers
would change, the evidence would be a lot.

Speaker 2 (01:08:39):
Thinner than advertised.

Speaker 1 (01:08:41):
Sound familiar, But McCarthy always had an explanation. His investigation
had frightened people. The guilty parties went underground, the bureaucracy
was hiding the information. Fear those bureaucrats. And now there
was another day's worth of headlines. And he understood something

(01:09:02):
that remains true in politics today. The accusation usually gets
more attention than the repubbal The promise of a revelation
often gets more attention than the revelation itself. I'm going
to go find the real killers. Joseph McCarthy didn't invent
the politics of attention, but he may have been one

(01:09:25):
of the first modern politicians to truly master it. And yes,
it's amazing that Joseph McCarthy had Roy Cone working for him,
and roy Cone ended up the single most important mentor
to Donald John Trump.

Speaker 2 (01:09:38):
But I digress.

Speaker 1 (01:09:40):
So what you also need to understand is the nineteen
to fifty election cycle ended up becoming a very important one,
probably the one of the five most important midterms in
American political history. Because today we tend to remember McCarthy
as the loan figure of the Red Scare Senators, but
he was part of something much larger. The nineteen fifty

(01:10:02):
cycle became, in many ways a national referendum on anti communism.
Richard Nixon sentate race against Helen Kagen Douglass in California,
Claude Pepper's defeat, and the Democratic primary in Florida to
George Smathers. So it didn't matter if it was general
elections like the one in California or primaries like the
one in Florida. The communism was the wedge, and it
wasn't are you a communist? Are you going to be

(01:10:24):
tough enough on the communists? Right races across the country
where candidates discovered that accusing an opponent of being soft
on communism could be devastating, and that is you know,
it was important that the charge was always they were
soft on Communism, not that they were a communist, because
more often it was that they didn't they couldn't be
trusted to confront the Communism, that they were naive, that

(01:10:46):
they were weak, insufficiently vigilant. McCarthy didn't create that atmosphere.
He just became its most recognizable spokesperson, right, and that's
why it became his era. It's the celebrity, he's the
headline masche, he's the pied piper. But it brings me
to the second myth, and it's the myth that McCarthyism
sometow ended in June of nineteen fifty four at those

(01:11:08):
hearings where mister McCarthy was asked to be at any
decency because it didn't. Anti Communism, in fact, remained one
of the most dominant forces in American politics for decades
after McCarthy. The Soviet Union didn't disappear, the Cold War
didn't end. Containment remained American policy. Defense spending remained high
and went higher. Both parties remained fiercely anti Communists would

(01:11:30):
purge itself of any time anybody at all dabbled closely
to it. So what change wasn't the fear. What changed
was McCarthy's credibility. The public gradually stopped believing that Joseph
McCarthy was the best interpreter of this fear. So, if
you ask Americans what brought down McCarthy, ELO's usually hear
one of two answers, Edward R. Murrow or Joseph Walch

(01:11:52):
now Murrow's famous see It Now broadcast in March nineteen
fifty four and Welch's famous confirmation confrontation in June. They
both mattered, but neither was sufficient. The country's verdict wasn't
delivered in a single evening or a single sentence. It accumulated,
and the Army McCarthy hearings became the place where that

(01:12:14):
accumulation became visible. And what's fascinating isn't that Television wasn't
really responsible for McCarthy's rise. McCarthy was primarily a creature
of these post World War two expansion and seriousness of newspapers,
wire services, and radio. Television served a different purpose. Then
television exposed him. For years, Americans mostly encountered McCarthy through excerpts, headlines,

(01:12:39):
quote summaries. The Army hearings for something that we had
never seen before. Now people could watch the entire performance,
hear the detail, and here's a detail that often gets forgotten.
The major networks weren't exactly eager to carry these hearings.
CBS and NBC largely protected their daytime schedules, But there

(01:13:01):
was one network that embraced the hearings more aggressively. It
was ABC. Then they were the struggling third place network.
The upstart network carried extensive coverage called There was a
Dumont network that also carried coverage. But one of the
most consequential political broadcasts in American history wasn't the result
of some grand civic decision by television executives. It sort

(01:13:24):
of happened partly as an accident of economics. The smaller
networks had less to lose, so they aired more of it.
And what Americans saw did matter, because the public wasn't
just hearing accusations anymore. They watched the whole process. They'd
see McCarthy's interruptions, they'd see his insinuations, they'd see his bullying,
the constant search for advantage. McCarthy may have mastered the

(01:13:47):
headline in a press scrum that most Americans didn't see.
The raw footage of the army hearings forced Americans to
actually watch the whole movie and the process take place.
Why was McCarthy, by the way, fighting the army in
the first place. This is a fun little side story.
The dispute centered on guests who Roy Cone, McCarthy's then
chief council, and David Shine, a wealthy friend and aid.

(01:14:10):
When Shine was drafted into the army, McCarthy's team allegedly
sought special treatment on his behalf. The Army pushed back.
Accusations followed. The Army accused McCarthy. McCarthy accused the army.
So it started as a personnel dispute over somebody. Roy
Cone cared a lot about and mister Shine exploded into
a national confrontation. And politically, McCarthy had made a huge

(01:14:33):
mistake because for years he had targeted institutions and individuals
that struggled to defend themselves. He was really good at
picking his targets. Career bureaucrats who didn't quite know how
to defend themselves, state department officials, academics, diplomats. Now he
was fighting the United States Army an institution that was
trusted by millions of Americans. We had just successfully won

(01:14:55):
a world war. It was a prestigious institution of many Americans, resources, credibility,
and so McCarthy, for the first time, picked the fight
with somebody who could fight back. Even President Eisenhower played
a role privately. Eisenhower despised McCarthy, but he rarely attacked
him directly, and it frustrated actually many critics at the

(01:15:16):
time that Eisenhower wasn't more vocal. Eisenhower believed confronting McCarthy
head on would have strength, only strengthened him. This sort
of was This was Obama's view of Trump back in
the day, and why he didn't go after Trump very often. Instead,
Eisenhower worked quietly, allowing institutions to isolate McCarthy, supporting the army,
letting the Senate gradually move against him. It's one reason

(01:15:38):
the story doesn't fit neatly into the popular version. There
wasn't one hero, there wasn't one decisive moment. There were
multiple institutions moving at different speeds, gradually reaching the same conclusion.
So that brings us to June ninth, nineteen fifty four,
the moment everyone remembers.

Speaker 2 (01:16:01):
They're in the hearings.

Speaker 1 (01:16:02):
McCarthy turned his attention to a young lawyer named Fred Fisher.
Fisher had briefly belonged to the National Lawyer's Guild while
in law school. McCarthy raised it as another point of suspicion,
another insinuation, another attempt to create guilt by association. Joseph
Welch had finally had enough. He looked at McCarthy, and
he defended Fisher, and then he delivered the line that

(01:16:25):
entered American history. Have you no decency?

Speaker 2 (01:16:28):
Sir? Excuse me? Have you no sense of decency? Sir?

Speaker 1 (01:16:31):
A long last, have you left no sense of decency?
The room fell silent, the audience applauded, and the moment
became legendary. But the line's power wasn't that it revealed
something new. It didn't expose a hidden fact. It didn't

(01:16:51):
suddenly change public opinion. Its power came from perhaps something else.
It gave words to a conclusion, and millions of Americans
were already reaching on their own. Welch wasn't creating the verdict.
He was simply articulating it. History is a way of
compressing these stories one sentence one hearing, one hero and one.

Speaker 2 (01:17:14):
Turning point right.

Speaker 1 (01:17:15):
It's easy to understand it that way, and these Joseph
Welch was incredibly important, and it was a huge moment, right,
But you need moments to create momentum that get institutions
to do what they should have done in the first place.
The verdict on Joseph McCarthy is one of those that
accumulated millions of Americans watched. Eventually, parts of the press

(01:17:38):
that had helped amplify McCarthy began challenging him. So the
Army pushed back, Then the Senate pushed back. Then even
members of McCarthy's own party began to push back. The
line became a symbol. And that might be the real
lesson of these hearings, not that one person defeated McCarthy,
but that eventually an entire system I had to stop

(01:18:00):
accommodating him. What defeated McCarthy wasn't simply exposure. It was
shared exposure. It was millions of Americans watching the same man,
the same hearings, the same behavior, day after day after day.
I wonder if we'd just had cameras up twenty four

(01:18:21):
to seven in the Oval Office and let all Americans
observe the behavior on their own, without a filter, for
the conclusion that people would take it. That said, back then,
there was still a common audience. We had a common experience,
and there was a common narrator essentially narrator. That didn't

(01:18:43):
mean everyone agreed, but they were watching the same thing,
and that made a national verdict possible. The harder question
is whether the conditions that made that possible still exist today.
The shared audience, the common set of facts, the institutions
willing to absorb the political cost of pushing back. I
just told you about media companies that refuse to do that.

(01:19:03):
None of those things are guaranteed. As we we in
the that either had worked in the legacy media space
or do work in the ladies legacy media space are
finding out in real time. It wasn't the end of
anti communism, but it wasn't the end of fear. It
was the end of one man's ability to monopolize both.
History remembers the moment, but the moment only mattered because

(01:19:26):
of everything that came before it and the collective.

Speaker 2 (01:19:30):
Reaction we all had after it. So there's your history
lesson for the week.

Speaker 1 (01:19:41):
Ask Chuck All right, let's do a little ask Chuck.
I know we're this this thing's getting long, so I'll
just do four questions today.

Speaker 2 (01:19:53):
You know, four questions. That's something that.

Speaker 1 (01:19:56):
We have a dinner once a year where four questions
matter in my house.

Speaker 2 (01:20:00):
But I digress.

Speaker 1 (01:20:01):
First question comes with Kevin B. In Nashville, and he writes, Hey,
thanks for the podcast. Always appreciate your perspective. Two part
question here, when do you think Congress will more actively
hold cabinet officials accountable? And what mechanisms actually exists to
enforce that? Looking ahead, is there any realistic way to
establish clearer qualification standards for cabinet and other political appointees?

Speaker 2 (01:20:17):
Kevin B. Nashal, Tennessee.

Speaker 1 (01:20:20):
Look, I mean, this is why I brought up the
bill POULTI attempt to appoint him acting and that's actually
a very important This is why you just gave me
another reason why we need to get the courts to
litigate this, because Congress did write in a very specific
set of qualifications for dn I. Normally there is not

(01:20:42):
the same set, but it was a very specific set
of qualifications. If the courts say that that supersedes the
president's authority to just appoint anybody, you know, as far
as acting, then I would say, well, actually, Congress then
can if they write it into the job description of

(01:21:02):
how they will And I do think Congress because they
have the power of the purse, and they can connect
the job essentially the job itself, to their decision to
fund it, right, they can say funding is only you know,
funding automatically ceases to go to this agency if the
person does not meet you know, these minimum standards. So

(01:21:25):
I think the answer is yes. Now, I'd like to
see clarification with this pulty, and this Poulty moment actually
provides an opportunity to test that. But I'm pretty confident
that as long as you tied it to funding and
the funding was only triggered based on qualifications, and there's

(01:21:46):
and again clear power of the purse does belong to Congress,
I think that yes.

Speaker 2 (01:21:50):
You could do that. Now as for.

Speaker 1 (01:21:55):
As for holding the you know, as for for holding
the cabinet officials, I mean, I think that you're going
to see, you know, these are the subpoenas that I
would do. Look, I think that I think it's important
to put everything Trump did on the record, and I

(01:22:15):
think it's important for future administrations. It's important because I
think there's two ways to look at.

Speaker 2 (01:22:21):
The Trump presidency, right.

Speaker 1 (01:22:23):
And I think that this is where there is a
divide inside the Democrats, and certainly a divide in amongst
the group of people that are trying to resist Trump,
those that believe there's an emergency at the moment that
has to be dealt with at the moment, and you
kind of have to throw away some guardrails if you're
going to deal with the emergency at the moment, right,
And that's how people rationalize their way to support people

(01:22:44):
that probably are unqualified for office, and why you end
up supporting gerrymandering, even though you spent ten years being
against jerrymandering. But if you believe the threat is so
existential and so urgent that the Republic, you know, it's
sort of it's literally a Sophie's choice type of situation.

(01:23:04):
I at least understand that behavior. That doesn't mean I
agree with it, and doesn't mean I believe the situation
wherein is quite the same. I look at the situation
where Donald Trump has provided he has been an MRI
to every loophole that could destroy this republic via the
executive branch, and we've got a lot of work to
fix it. And in order to understand what you need

(01:23:25):
to do to fix it, you need to chronicle everything,
and you need to do it sort of and so
particularly the pay to play and the transactional nature of
how so many of these departments basically we're in the
pay to play functionary position that to me would be
what I would be from center on. I mean, what's
happening here, I think is the is the grift and

(01:23:47):
plane sight. This is the straight up stuff that needs
to be dealt with asap. And look, cabinet secretaries may
somehow hide behind executive privilege, and the White House may
do their best to sort of prevent the testimony of
its own aids. Obviously, the cabinet secretaries are going to

(01:24:07):
have to show up for budget hearings and things like this.
But I think anybody, any private entity that benefited from
participating in these transactions are probably going to get subpoenaed
by Congress. It's certainly what I think is the you know,
it's sort of like gather your evidence before you try

(01:24:29):
to get an indictment. I think that the mistake Democrats
could make here they get control of the House and
the Senate is to basically write the indictment and then
search for the evidence to support it. And you may
think you've got everything that you know has happened. I think,
go go gather. I think the evidence is work is

(01:24:50):
more is more powerful.

Speaker 2 (01:24:53):
Than you would imagine.

Speaker 1 (01:24:54):
I mean, just focusing on these pardons. I mean, we
just got another one over the weekend, Steve Buyer, Right,
I mean, my goodness. You know, talk about a White
House that doesn't care about the Republican Party. Right, there's
this huge debate about whether that whether Congress should be
banned from buying and selling stock, right, And what does
Donald Trump do in the middle of this debate, pardon

(01:25:15):
somebody who was a member, a former member of Congress
who was convicted of insider trading. I just have to
present you the headline. Forget the details of the story
he tells slightly different than it, but it doesn't matter. Right,
optics are everything here. I think, just focusing on how
he has perverted the pardon process, how he's undermined the

(01:25:37):
rule of law. You know all of these, but you've
got to gather your evidence, and you got to go
in there and put it all on the record, not
just relying on other media accounts of this stuff. You
got to get it, put it on the record, pressure
test it, and you know that's what I'd be doing
because I think ultimately, again, you can treat the Trump

(01:26:00):
era like a catastrophe or you can also say, what
are we going to learn from it? And he's providing
an MRI for every loophole that exists, Norms that need
to be codified and made into laws, right, guardrails that
need to be erected in places we didn't normally know
we needed guardrails, all of those things. His presidency has
been an incredible help in exposing. Right, It's like a

(01:26:22):
black light and suddenly showing you, oh my god, look
at that loophole. Look at that loophole. Look at that loophole.
My goodness. You know that's what to me, irresponsible political
party would would take as their mandate if they did
indeed win.

Speaker 2 (01:26:40):
Control the center. All right.

Speaker 1 (01:26:44):
Next question comes from Katie and Winston Salemould Rights, Hey,
love the podcast or appreciate your straightforward balance takes. Curious
about reports that DHS may poll CPB from certain Blue
state city airports. Does that seem feasible or would it
create major logistical and economic issues. It's not a serious proposal.
What do you think the is? Thanks a lot, Katie
Winston Salem Pas fully support your and Sarah Esker's idea
for a top five political songs list. Perfect overlap of

(01:27:06):
music and political nerds. I love it, you know, I
have a whole I have an election day playlist. The
two songs that anchor it are the Ramones I want
to be sedated, you know, twenty twenty twenty four hours
to go, So that to me is my election day
song because usually we're twenty four hours ago and we're

(01:27:28):
going to finally get the answer and then one day
more from lay miss right, if you were so, and
that if I could sum up my music taste with
the Ramones, meet lay Miz that musical.

Speaker 2 (01:27:41):
That, I'd be okay with that.

Speaker 1 (01:27:43):
If you said that, try to try to draw conclusions
of him based on that, I'd be okay because I
think it paints eclectic picture. So on election Day, November
I will post my playlist again.

Speaker 2 (01:27:59):
I may have even mosted it on Spotify a few
years ago.

Speaker 1 (01:28:03):
If you wanted to go seek it out and search
for it. But it's a pretty lengthly playlist. It's just
some of my favorite songs that I that.

Speaker 2 (01:28:13):
I can that.

Speaker 1 (01:28:14):
I think at least have some campaign or election type
homageries too. Ask for your specific question, I just I
don't think that. I just don't think that's legal. I
don't think that's constitutional. You know, this is this is
you know, there is such thing as a tenth amendment

(01:28:36):
in States rights. So I just don't think this is
even constitutional what they're threatening. If you're wondering why he
says it, I think it's just it's just bas rhetoric.
It's not serious. There's no serious way to do it.
And if you did it, I mean you would just

(01:28:57):
all right, I know this is going to sound hyperbolic,
but it's it's almost like an act of war. Right,
if you essentially say we're going to cut off Blue
States from air travel, I mean it's kind of an
I mean, I don't again, I don't want to come
across hyperbolic, but what else would you call it? It's

(01:29:20):
a trade embargo, right, It's a it's a you know,
it's it's an embargo on air travel. So anyway, I
don't it's beyond illegal, beyond unconstitutional. I believe with with
with states' rights in here. I don't think there's this
superseding law in this and I think they would have
to specifically write into the law in order to make

(01:29:44):
this even legal for them to do it, and they
don't have that kind of statutory authority number one, So
it just, I'll be honest, I don't take it seriously.
I chalk it up to just red meat that's being
fed to the to the to the to the part
of the base that just obsesses over a problem that

(01:30:06):
is a bit overheated in this country. And I think
now most people, if you work in an agricultural economy,
if you work in the service industry, you realize how
self defeating and how terrible for the economy this entire
process has been, and you will understand how defeat us

(01:30:27):
this all is.

Speaker 2 (01:30:27):
But forget that.

Speaker 1 (01:30:28):
I just that's why I don't take it very seriously,
because some of the president's biggest supporters would be put
out of business by a decision like this. Next question
comes from Ken. He says, Ken from Maine again, then
political analyst here. I was struck by your point on Mills'
support in the second district, But wouldn't her share in
the more progressive first stuctory be just as telling you

(01:30:49):
if not more? Yeah, you know, you're right. Also, how
do you think about the tension between voting for cannate
versus voting against one? Thanks, Ken, Look, you know what
you're in some ways, if the more sport she gets
from the first you know, even you know, I think,
but look, there's no good explanation for her getting twenty
percent or more anyway, right, Like, it's all bad for

(01:31:09):
Blattner at this point, right, So, but it's a it's
a fair point that it's one would actually show, Hey,
this is rank and file Democrats, people that will vote
Blue the entire.

Speaker 2 (01:31:23):
Time and are uncomfortable with this.

Speaker 1 (01:31:24):
But I guess the point I was making there is
that you're probably gonna have an easier time convincing Mills
voters in the that are first district voters who are
probably more regular Democrats to hold their nose and take
one for the team and vote for Team Blue over
you know, if despite your character questions, then you will.
And the second district, it's a little more independent voter

(01:31:45):
might have a little more you know, sort of independent
street to it. I think so that, But anyway, it's
a it's a fair point. Look, I think Senate races
are often votes for Jersey. You know you do you
want to Republican Senate or a Democratic Senate. I think
I've shared with you a story that is just I

(01:32:09):
just will share you my father's final vote before he died,
And any of you that have been listening to me
a long time in public forums, I've used this before.
I remember vividly my father couldn't speak at that time.
He was on a breathing tube, but he could write.
And he died on November fourteenth, about a week after

(01:32:32):
election day. But he wanted to vote absentee, and the
time that getting an absentee ballot was a big was
much harder in nineteen eighty eight than it is today.
And I remember helping him vote. He couldn't quite, you know,
do all the bubbles and all that stuff. So I
was reading him and he would read it, and I'll

(01:32:53):
never forget the back and forth he had with himself.
To the Senate race. It was a very competitive center race,
open seat. Lawton Childs was retiring at the time. He'd
retired because he'd become the first sort of the most
public one of the early people to go on prozac,

(01:33:13):
and at the time that was considered a stigma. Oh
my god, he's on an antidepress and he can't seek reelection.

Speaker 2 (01:33:18):
Believe it or not.

Speaker 1 (01:33:19):
That's how stigmatized depression was back in this as the
late eighties, right, it was considered politically impossible to run
for reelection with that going on. Obviously, it turns out
talk about underestimating the voter. Laton Child's two years later
would be elected governor of Florida for two terms. But
I digress. The two candidates were Connie Mack and Buddy McKay.

(01:33:43):
And my father was a political junkie. I think many
of you know in many ways. You know, my father's
love of politics got passed down to me. You know,
my politics was a bit less formed when I was sixteen.
When he died, then his politics were very much a
he would he would have called himself a one time
Reagan Democrat who was now a conservative Republican.

Speaker 2 (01:34:05):
That's how he would have described himself in nineteen eighty eight.

Speaker 1 (01:34:08):
But he really liked Buddy McKay, and he didn't know
much about Connie Mack and wasn't that impressed with him
at the time and is in Congress, and whether that
you know, and thought Buddy McKay was the type of
Democrat he could support, a more conservative Democrat, and he
was going back and forth, and he decided to vote

(01:34:28):
for Mac And I remember asking him, so, why'd you
vote for Mac? I thought you liked McKay better, And
he goes control the Senate matters more right that he said,
And in fact, he said, if I'm going to die,
I want to die knowing I voted for a Republican
Senate and that that was what he believed in. So

(01:34:49):
my point is is that now he was a pretty
he was a voter. He's strategic voted all the time.
He was a registered Democrat his whole life because at
the time in the South, the only way you can
participate in primaries, absolutely in his mind, would be you'd say,
as a strategic voter. Look, I don't want to let
one person's experience color what I think is everything. But

(01:35:11):
you asked about this idea of voting for or against
a candidate. I just think in senate races generally, it
is a lot easier to get people to think party,
you know, who should control, right, It's why you're more
likely to get unusual, why a minority party can get

(01:35:33):
get their candidate elect and governor more often than they
can get their candidate elected Senate because most people, I
think it's not about voting for or against. I think
a lot of people. Certainly we know with the double
negatives of Clinton and Trump that people voted, you know,
they were voting on negative, they were negative voting. And
we know that negative partisanship in some ways drives our politics.

(01:35:55):
But I think in Senate races in particular, and I
think that this is going to be and at this point,
and if Platner survives all this and gets through it,
I think if he wins, it'll be because he made
the case that Democrats need to control the Senate heartstop,
and that is you may like Susan, you may think
Susan Collins is better than most Republicans, but ultimately she's
a vote for a Republican Senate which supports Trump's agenda.

Speaker 2 (01:36:16):
YadA, YadA, YadA.

Speaker 1 (01:36:19):
That's my guess of the best possible messaging that Democrats
can come up with that can at least nod to
the character discomfort that voters have and at least have
the conversation with those voters who are who are not
sure whether they should let the character issues impact them
or not. But I do think Jersey Color, I think

(01:36:41):
control the Senate does have more of an impact on voters.

Speaker 2 (01:36:44):
Today than ever before.

Speaker 1 (01:36:46):
All right, last question, This one comes from Donatello, who
writes another regiciary taking question here, do you think it
would be effective for Democrats to adopt a pledge to
ban jerrymanding nationally, similar to how Republicans once to use
pledges on taxes. Curious if that kind of a which
actually could actually work, well, what could argue they've kind
of been the party that was against jerry mandering until

(01:37:08):
they decided to go. I mean, you could be pledge,
you could pledge it all you want, but if you
don't act upon it when you have an opportunity to
do it, does the pledge mean anything?

Speaker 2 (01:37:20):
Right?

Speaker 1 (01:37:21):
And I think Republicans have a bunch of pledges where
they've not when push came to shove. They didn't support
the pledge when it was necessary, So then there's a
sense that they didn't care about the pledge in the
first place. So I you know, I ultimately think that
the better answer on this, and I know I'm going
to go back, but I feel like I've said I

(01:37:42):
want to do two things with this podcast. One is
cover politics as it is, but the other is to
cover politics as it could be or should be. And
I just think that the right answer on this is
to advocate from for a larger Congress. If you want
more representation, more people represented and feeling like they're represented
in Congress, then you need to expand the size of Congress.

(01:38:02):
That needs to be it. It improves everything else below it.
It makes jerrymandering less necessary. It does give people more
a more direct feeling like they have a little more
direct link. Ultimately, you should be pro democracy, and the
pro democracy stance here is not about jerrymandering. The pro

(01:38:24):
democracy stance is, I think two things. More voters involved
in the selection of members of Congress and more members
of Congress so that the country can be accurately and
correctly represented the way the founders intended for Congress to
represent the people. And with that, that's going to do it.

(01:38:48):
For my quick ask, Chuck of the day, I've gone on.

Speaker 2 (01:38:52):
This is a big, long episode.

Speaker 1 (01:38:53):
I gave you a little sports with the French interview.

Speaker 2 (01:38:56):
I will admit.

Speaker 1 (01:38:57):
That there are two rants that I haven't gone on
in the sports world that I'd like to go on.
Rant one is where's the love for James Wood? You
know It's funny is somehow the Nationals become the team
that gets guys Compared to Ted Williams. I remember Soda

(01:39:18):
in his first couple of years was doing things that
Ted Williams was the only other hitter that had ever done.
And now Wood is doing things that only Ted Williams
and one Soda or the only two other hitters are
ever done number one and number two. You know, the
hard part is what do you do with show?

Speaker 2 (01:39:37):
Hey?

Speaker 1 (01:39:38):
Because the easy way to say, you know, there's no
doubt Wood is in a conventional year would be the
be the at least a co favorite or.

Speaker 2 (01:39:47):
A co front runner for MVP.

Speaker 1 (01:39:50):
The numbers are just I mean, he is easily the
best hitter in baseball right now, and that could change.
We know that, But I mean you just look across
the board, right he just dominates in so many of
these factors. But you know what James Wood hasn't done,
isn't he doesn't have an er below one?

Speaker 2 (01:40:06):
Right?

Speaker 1 (01:40:06):
Like that's the killer aspect of show. Hey here, but
I want to recommend what my son did was he
voted for Schwarber for DH, not Otani because he says
Otani should be the starting pitcher for the National League.
So and who's been the better DH this year? Then
I guess you would give it to Schwarber right on

(01:40:27):
that front. But anyway, there's a long rant there. And
the other is, of course, how the SEC and the
Big ten twenty four playoff teams is ridiculous idea, and
the SEC and the Big Ten tired of them not
wanting to grow college football. All they want to do
is freeze college football so that only the SEC and
the Big Ten. They want to essentially lock any other

(01:40:49):
entities out from participating in the spoils of college football.
I say, screw you guys, enough of this. It's obvious
what you're doing, and all you're doing is creating a
situation that baseball finds it's right. It was greedy ass
owners for one hundred years that refuse to share their
local revenue that put them in the situation that they're
in today. And it's the greedy SEC and the big

(01:41:10):
Big Ten that are trying to so desperately lock out
any other schools or conferences from ever expanding and touching
college football, that they're going to destroy the sport. In
the meantime, how about this sport is more popular, expand
it more access, my god, better scheduling. You're just trying
to essentially hoard an advantage and create more velvet ropes

(01:41:35):
and make it impossible for the sport to grow. That's
what irritates me the most about Sankie and the Big
Ten is that their interests are just self serving. They
just want to make their two conferences stronger and more influential.
Neither one of them gives two shits about the future
of college football. So those are the two rents that
I've been saving. So I will postpone them and save

(01:41:57):
them for another time. And with that, I'll see out
of the election nights stream on Tuesday and Wednesday in
this same pod channel, talk to you them

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