Chuck’s Commentary - Tuesday Was A REALLY Good Night For Democrats + Top 5 Republican REBUKES Of Donald Trump In Term #2 - The Chuck ToddCast

Episode Transcript
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so use that code. Well. I am coming to you
very early on Wednesday morning. Even by the time you

(01:43):
do this, I am taping after our election night live stream.
For those of you that tuned in, I appreciate it.
I get a huge election night, obviously, just having California vote,
that's a big deal. That's but New Jersey, Iowa, Montana,
South Dakota, New Mexico, California literally races coast to coast,

(02:06):
and look a full disclosure here, We're not going to
have any California results for days. Okay, so we've got
some directional ideas of what's happening in California, but I'm
gonna set California aside here if you, because we don't
know what that situation is, and it could make what
I'm about to say completely overshadowed if things go in

(02:30):
any different directions in California. But Tuesday night was a
really good night for Democrats nationally. If Democrats are if
if you are the Democratic Party, you are in better
shape to win the House on Wednesday morning than you
were on Tuesday morning. And if you're the Democrats, you're

(02:53):
in better shape to win the Senate on Wednesday morning
then you were on Tuesday morning. And why do I
say that, Well, on the House, it's because of a
handful of developments, the biggest being in New Jersey seven.
New Jersey seven is home to Tom Kaine Junior. We
still don't know where Tom Kane Jr. Is. He has
not divulged where he is. He has simply said he
will run. Donald Trump endorsed him late in this process

(03:16):
just to make sure he gets the nomination. The more
important development is the Democrats that got the candidate they wanted.
And in this case, that candidate is a former Navy
helicopter pilot. And if that sounds familiar, you're like, wait,
isn't the governor a former helicopter pilot in the military,

(03:39):
and the answers, yes, she is. Well, so is this candidate,
Rebecca Bennett. This was the candidate that they wanted it to,
that the national Democrats were hoping would win this primary.
She won this primary. She'll be facing off against Tom
Kine Junior. Likely. Why do I say likely, because there's
only one other explanation for how New Jersey, how the

(04:02):
Kane family and the New Jersey Republicans have been behaving
in this race. There seems to be he basically, he
got out, he went, he disappeared. We last saw him
in early March, a few weeks before the filing deadline.

(04:23):
Filing deadline happened in the end of March. He didn't
get a major primary challenger. Obviously, had this come out,
he might have and he might not have won this primary.
But he's now won this primary. New Jersey is the
easiest state in the Union to essentially switch nominees after
a primary. Democrats have done it famously in a Senate
race Bob Torselli was headed for defeat and they famously

(04:46):
were able to switch candidates. They got Frank Lautenberg and
they were able to save a sendancy. It's his idle
speculation from a few consultants who are like the old
plausible explanation is X. So that's the only thing I
would say to keep an eye on when New Jersey seven.

(05:07):
But the whole larger issue is this Democrats got the
candidate they wanted. They didn't get somebody that was going
to be easily painted as too far outside the mainstream.
Moving to Iowa, they were already before the night began,
three house seats there were really major primaries that were
you know, there was a primary to decide to the
nominee was going to be in the seat that Ashley

(05:28):
Hinson is vacating to run for the US Senate. But
we knew that three were going to be competitive, the first,
the second, and third. They're kind of always swing districts
in Iowa, those three. But the fact of the matter
is the Democratic statewide ticket got stronger after tonight. Democrats
got the Senate candidate that Rob san was hoping that

(05:50):
they get, that national Democrats were supporting. They threw a
bunch of money. Vote Vets essentially was an unofficial arm
of the Senate Democrats in this campaign. They poured a
ton of money in this race to raise Josh Turick's name.
I d at worked. He swamped Zach Walls. Both of
them has stirred in the state legislature in some ways.
Sack Wall started this race with higher name recognition than

(06:15):
Josh Turick. He explicitly ran an anti Chuck Schumer campaign,
and he got thumped tonight. He lost two to one.
But Walls was also running a more progressive campaign. He
was endorsed by Elizabeth Warren. Josh Turick was endorsed by
Tom Harkin, was getting all of this extra help from
Boat Vets. He's potentially a very strong candidate for the

(06:37):
Democrats for Senate. We'll see Ashley Hinson, the Republican congressman
I talked about before he was vacating that second congressional district.
She's also going to be a very strong Senate candidate.
She won quite easily. She had nominal opposition. But the
biggest problem for her is not the fact that Josh
Turk won the nomination, though she would have preferred running

(06:58):
against Zach Walls. The biggest upset of the night anywhere
in anywhere in the country took place in Iowa was
in the Republican primary for governor where a gentleman by
the name of Zach Lane forged a path in the
forged a path in the Iowa governor's race in an

(07:19):
Iowa state wide race that many an Iowa Conservative has
done before. There's always there's a strong network of what
I would refer to as sort of non establishment Christian
conservatives in Iowa. This is the network that Rick Santorum
famously was able to tap into to tie or win.

(07:43):
It all depends on your point of view of what
happened in that infamous twenty twelve Iowa caucus between Rick
Santorum and Mitt Romney. But it was the pizza ranches
and sort of and there's always been this. It's a
very well organized Gary Bauer back in the day was
able to tap into this. Ted Cruz tapped into this,

(08:03):
and this the candidate here always gets thirty to thirty
five percent. I've seen, you know, there have been other
statewide Republicans over the years. Chuck Grassley had a primary
challenge once from somebody from this wing of the party
that was once again able to get into the mid thirties.
But when you have a crowded primary, the mid thirties
are suddenly a winning number, and that's essentially what happened here.

(08:23):
So Zach Lane, running more sort of a first time candidate,
use some of his own money. His spouse has some money,
but also tapped into the MAHA movement to Make America
Healthy Again movement. This, of course, we learn from the
Iowa reporters that we have in our livestream. And so
while Donald Trump came in very late for Congressman Randy

(08:45):
Fiinstro from the fourth Congressional District, that is the most
Republican district in the state. So in theory, Fienstro was
running from what is the state's Republican base, the fourth
Congressional District, mostly in western Iowa, northwest Iowa, but most
of western Iowa. But he's also known as the guy

(09:06):
who defeated Steve King, so he was the mainstream Republican
who came in to get rid of the far right
congressman and Steve King. He endorsed Ron De Santis during
the presidential CAUCUSUS So the fact that somebody got to
the President and convinced him to do this basically by saying, hey,
it's the only way we could be This was a

(09:27):
case where Trump got talked into being to taking one
for the team, to doing what was best for the party,
and that the National Party folks, both in the Senate side,
they didn't, you know, they said, no, you got to
make sure Fiensture is the nominee here. And it looks
like Elaine decision has projected and Fiatures already already conceded

(09:52):
the race. This Zach Lane won by less than two
thousand votes. But there's a couple of ways to look
at this. First of all, we had Maha versus MAGA.
That's fascinating. That's something that the fact that the Maha
movement might have proved to be stickier, might have proved
to be more of an outsider credential. Right, Mega, you

(10:16):
get a Trump endorsement. Yes it's MAGA, but in some
ways it's an insider credential. But you know, the politics
of i are very sort of are sort of in
flux at the moment. Right this is still a right
leaning state, don't get me wrong, but the tariffs have
done enormous damage to the agricultural economy. This is also
a state that Donald Trump's never really Yes, he does

(10:37):
well in general elections. I remember he lost the Iowa
Coxes when he ran in twenty sixteen something. He still
won't concede that happened, but it did. The sitting governor
endorsed DeSantis. Randy Feinstrop, basically the leading Republican congressman in
the state, endorsed DeSantis. Jony Ernst was not really a

(10:57):
big Trump what you would say. Partner in the Senate,
Chuck Grassley has always felt comfortable criticizing the President on
tariffs and on a few things that he thinks. He
also hit him pretty hard on the weaponization fund earlier
this week too. So look, I think it's it's hard
to sit here and say what was the definitive reason

(11:18):
why Zach Lane beat Randy Finstra. But to me, there's
a confluence of events you can tap into. Number One,
Randy Finscher's first name is congressman. And I think just
being perceived as an incumbent not good. As John Covilian
said during our live stream, you know this has been
true in a lot of Republican primaries in general, where

(11:38):
incumbents in competitive Republican primaries, incumbents are usually more in
more trouble on the right side of the oven, on
the left side of the album. We saw that with
John Cornyn getting ousted, and now you have Randy Feinstrat.
By the way, South Dakota, which is going to feature
its first ever run off for governor, had another sitting
member of Congress, a statewide elect official who happened to

(12:01):
be a sitting member of Congress, and Dusty Johnson, and
it doesn't and it looks like he is going to
miss out on the runoff. Certainly underperformed, so having the
last name of Congressman not being seen as fully mega
throw in the tariffs, which yes, is a little bit
mad at Trump, but a little bit mad at you're

(12:24):
elected officials in general. So it's just a large stew
of discontent in various ways, and then you just sometimes
just campaigns matter. Zach Lane ran clearly ran a better campaign.
He went from zero to relevant. And it looks like

(12:45):
Fainstred just sort of and his team just sort of
took this race for granted, it'll come, it'll happen, it's natural,
and it didn't. So what does this mean Democrats if
there's a Gooba natorial nomine in the country that they're
more excited about than Rob sand I don't know who
it is. Rob Sand is the only statewide elected Democrat

(13:07):
in the state. He won in twenty twenty two by
the skin of his teeth, but he was able to
win even during that big red wave that did sweep
across most of Iowa. Sand's been running in a pretty
interesting race so far. He's already done one hundred town halls.
He's really been running for governor for almost a full
four years. Ever since he won that race, it was

(13:29):
clear he was I in this moment to run for governor.
Nobody thought cam Reynolds is going to seek another term.
There's no term limits in Iowa, so she could have
if she chose to. She chose not to. Clearly the
split with the president right, she was on team Desantas,
and we know what happens to anybody that's on Team
DeSantis from the presidential era. It's not something that Donald

(13:49):
Trump will ever forget. So on paper, you know, Sand's
been preparing to run against Fienstra. Now. When I ran
into Rob Sand at a at an event that I
was moderating where he was a participant in the panel,
he said, I frankly thought he was spinning me a
little bit. He said, ah, you know, Finstre's not it's

(14:11):
not a done deal yet. He's got a tougher prime.
He's still got to he's still got to deal with
the primary well turned out. You know, Look he's traveling
the state. All these candidates run into each other, so
they keep track of this. Sand's been prepared to one
run kind of race. Now he's running against an outsider.
Sand was the was essentially challenging the Republican estestablishment. Well,

(14:36):
now his opponent is an outsider who was not endorsed
by Donald Trump. So you can't really run the He's
too far, too closely associated with Trump mindset. So look,
it's possible Zach Lane is just too much of a
neo Fhight. He gets painted as too far to the right.

(14:56):
Sand is able to pull off a high single digit,
made even low double digit victory, and if he could
pull that off, that drags other statewide candidates, in congressional
candidates across the finish line. This is why this Iowa
race if if Zach Lane cannot be competitive against Rob
Sand and look, whatever anybody thinks of Randy Feinstrett, he've

(15:19):
been the nominee. This was going to be a three
to five point race. No matter what in going in
either direction. Now there's a lot more unpredictability. Look, I'm
not going to assume that an insurgent outsider that is
able to topple a sitting member of Congress in or
primary for governor. I'm not gonna I'm not gonna underestimate
this gentleman. But if he has a hard time sort

(15:41):
of getting with the rest of the Republican ticket, this
is this is a cause for some concern for Republicans,
and this puts down I mean, I have identified Iowa
that if you want to test whether is twenty twenty
a wave election or not, my definition of wave will

(16:03):
be dependent on what the results are in the three
Iowa congressional districts that for grabs that US Senate seat,
and that governor's race. If this is a blue wave year,
I expect a sweep or near sweep of those five races,
with maybe one of the you know, I think I
think one of the two members of Congress could survive

(16:24):
in a blue wave year. But if you if this
is going to be a blue wave, the only way
I think you can call it a blue wave is
if these Iowa statewide races go blue. And I'm just
telling you tonight, the results that we saw that came
in are going to have the Democrats getty here on

(16:46):
Wednesday morning. They're going to feel better just simply on
what happened in Iowa. Forget everything else. And look, we've
got a long way to go to find out everything
all the different various matchups, did any parties get locked
down in the top two with the whole California mess,
But just with what happened in Iowa, this was a
big positive development for Team Blue and Democrats have their

(17:10):
best shot at sweeping the top two state white offices
in Iowa since the Vilsack Harken era. Believe it or not,
that's nearly twenty fifteen, twenty years ago. And that's that's
the possibility they're staying. And if that happens, I promise
you at least two probably the first and the second,
but maybe all the first, second, and the third could

(17:33):
all come over there. You know, when you think about
how small the battlefield is and for the House in general,
right we think we may have about twenty five competitive
House seats. The fact that three of the twenty five
are in the state of Iowa. One of the most
competitive Senate races now might be in the state of Iowa.
The number one target race now for Democrats to try
to pick up a governor seat is Iowa. You can

(17:55):
see why. To me, it's the state we will use.
It's the barometer to test is this wavier or not?
Iowa will deliver that answer. But for this primary night,
Iowa delivered for the Democrats in a big, big way.
And this upset in the governor's race. Look, we know

(18:16):
it's going to make the president nuts. Obviously they got
to him. Look, there was a poll that started circulating
John Colvulliam's firm, that circulated last Friday that showed that
Feinstro was trailing. It was that poll that was used
to convince Donald Trump, you've got to endorse fiinst in
the same way that he endorsed Mike Rodgers, even though

(18:37):
Mike Rodgers and Michigan wasn't his favorite type of Republican,
the same way that he endorsed Johnsonunu, even though the
Sonudu family was not a big fan of the Trumps
in New Hampshire. But it was the candidate that the
Senate Republicans wanted, considering what he just did to the
Senate Republicans with Ken Paxton and essentially costing them two

(18:59):
hundred and fifty the million dollars in extra spending that
is going to be necessary to try to save their
Texas Senate hide. He went ahead and agreed to endorse
a one time Dessanta supporter, Randy Finstrom. He's going to
he's not going to be happy about this. So let's say,

(19:22):
I can't wait to find out who who's going to
get blamed for forcing that decision on him, because especially
when he finds out that the Maha folks were already
behind Zach Lane, and I wonder if the person or
people who got him to endorse Fienstrom let him know

(19:44):
that the Maha side of the world had been siding
with another candidate in the race. Anyway, just a few
things on that one to think about. This episode of
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(21:57):
I do want to spend a minute on out the
coda because this is so South Dakota in the mid
eighties made that so. One of the reasons why we're
obsessed with the Iowa governor. One of when the night
began is Iowa has a quirky law. If no and
this is true in either side's primary, if no candidate,

(22:19):
and this applies to all races, not just statewide races,
If no candidate a primary receives thirty five percent, then
a convention will decide who the nominee is. And it
doesn't and it couldn't be anybody, not even necessarily anybody
that filed in the ballot believe it or not, and

(22:39):
there was a real chance that the Iowa governor Republican
primary was going to feature no candidate receiving thirty five percent.
Well the two winning The winning candidate got thirty seven percent,
thirty seven point eight percent, and Feedstrup just finished bying
them at thirty seven percent, so they across the threshold.

(23:00):
There's no runoff. South Dakota had the same law, but
in the eighties, instead of letting a county convention do it,
they decided to say, well, if this happens in a
primary state wide primary, and this one they just do
for statewide primaries, well then they would hold an actual runoff.
They've never had to do this, they will for the
first time. So July twenty eighth circle year calendars, folks,

(23:25):
July twenty eighth will be the only Tuesday, the only
state in the Union that will be voting on a
Tuesday in July. Last Tuesday in July. It's going to
be our friends in South Dakota, and it's going to
be a runoff between the populist outsider who we know
for sure, Toby Dodan either against the sitting up governor

(23:49):
who assumed office after Christy Nome was appointed Department of
Homeland Security, and know once she got fired from that,
she didn't get to go back to be governor. Or.
The sitting member of Congress, Dusty jo And right now
is sitting in third place. Look as I'm taping now,
there's still still anyway from five to ten percent of
precincts still remaining, and you got to wait for every vote.

(24:11):
Account we know it's going to a runoff. No candidate
at this point in time. Nobody's even crossed the thirty
percent threshold. Believe it or not, Four candidates in this
race received at least twenty percent of the vote. Yet
a sitting Speaker of the House, sitting member of Congress,
sitting governor, and then this populist outsider, and of course
it's the populous outsider that ends up the top vote getter,

(24:34):
fitting the pattern that we've been seeing where when in doubt,
the undecided Republican primary voter is voting out, voting against incumbents,
which has been a phenomenon, as John Covillian noted, that
has been taking place really since the Tea Party movement.
But in these competitive primaries, you'd rather be somebody who

(24:55):
didn't have a resume filled with political offices than have
the resume filled with political offices. One other note on
both Randy Fiinster and Dusty Johnson. Right, these are two
sitting members of Congress, Conservatives, okay, but conservative members of
Congress who are not bomb throwers were not theatrical guys.

(25:17):
And I'll just be honest, I'm kind of personally disappointed
what I'm about to say. But basically they were too
moderate in temperament. They weren't. They're not too moderate in
ideology and in their policy positions, but they're too pragmatic.
They're too they will they don't want to own the Libs.

(25:43):
They want to defeat the policy, but they're not interested
in sticking a finger in the eye of somebody type
of politics. Right, They're not performative guys. I say this
with a bit of a lament. Right. I think there's
a there's a there's a there's a certain if if

(26:04):
if sort of being polite to other people is a
net negative and a primary right now is is kind
of a big disciplointment because again, if you're apparently the
biggest sin that Randy finsterra and Dusty Johnson committed we're
simply being not being bombos, not being performers, not being

(26:29):
social media bs artists. That's a challenge, right, If this
is what the system is going to reward, at some point,
maybe we'll burn out on this. I don't know, but
this is this It it's notable. You can't ignore it.

(26:55):
And as much as maybe I'm guessing some of you
that listen to this podcast probably share my view that
you know, this style of politics is kind of destructive.
It doesn't really get much done, but it's being rewarded
by voters. And as long as it gets rewarded by voters,
trust me, it's going to get replicated and we're going
to see more of it. But this, it's a pretty

(27:19):
notable trend. And right, John Cornan, the more running is
the more reasonable Republican. Randy Feinstrow part of the mainstream Caucus, Right,
Dusty Johnson, the chair of the of the mainstream Caucus.
Not not a trend to ignore on this one. This
very much is Donald the Donald trumpification of the Republican Party,

(27:44):
even though he didn't necessarily. The irony is he endorsed
the least Trump like candidate and the voters went ahead
with the more trumpy or the more outsider, the more
as my friend Charlie Cook likes to call them, exotic,
can't It's on that one, But history is made. South
Dakota will hold its first ever runoff for a statewide office,

(28:08):
and in this case, it will be for governor. The
question is will the current governor who assumed office after
Christino was appointed cabinet sectary? Can he get the second
spot in the runoff. I have a feeling that we
will have the answer to that question sometime on Wednesday,
after before I get to California. One another note that

(28:30):
I wanted to make here. I had a few things
I wrote down here that I didn't want to miss.
Deb Holland, who was a Cabinet secretary. She was member
of Congress Cabinet secretary in Joe Biden's cabinet, is officially
the Democratic nominee for governor in New Mexico, handily defeating
Alex Bragman's father, Alex Bragman, the baseball player. Well, Alex

(28:53):
Brigman's father is a city official in Albuquerque, and it
wasn't very close. Holland one bay, but if elected governor,
and she's going to be the heavy favorite for governor.
She'll be the first ever Native American woman to serve
as governor. So I just wanted to make a note
of that. So that brings us to California, and it

(29:13):
is going to be days because let me remind you
of something. The California law works as this for mail
in ballots. If the ballot is received by the county official,
is postmarked by election day, and that ballot makes it,

(29:33):
they know you have to have mailed it on election day,
so you have to have a postmarked by election day.
But they will receive ballots in the mail and process
ballots for up to one week after election day as
long as the ballot is postmarked on election day as
an election day postmark. So the point is ballots are
still going to be coming in all week. And this

(29:56):
isn't a small thing. Why do I say it's not
a small thing? Talking to my So this is about
sort of how this process worked this cycle. Because of
the topsy turvy nature of the California gubernatorial race, Democratic
voters were holding their ballot very late every just to
remind people, every single voter gets mailed to ballot in California.

(30:18):
The typical early voter is usually the sort of the
sort of the rank and file I always vote in
primary Democratic voter. Well, that voter voted but didn't drop
off their ballot until the last thirty six hours. Up
until the last seventy two hours, there was some concern

(30:40):
that turnout for twenty twenty six was going to be
lower in California than turn out for twenty twenty two.
And at twenty twenty two there was no it wasn't
an open race for governor. There really won this serious
you know, there's not a serious contested race for governor
that's just going to it's going to automatically bring down turnout.
There was some thoughts, I mean, the early vote was
coming in so low that there was some thoughts, Boy,

(31:00):
are people holding their ballots at the very end or
is there going to be a low turnout primary. Well,
all the ballots now have come in, we have an
idea turnouts likely now going to be higher this cycle
than it will be in twenty twenty two, which it
should be because there's an open seat race for governor,
really the first purely wide open race for governor probably
since nineteen ninety eight, and that was the last time

(31:24):
we had a shockingly high spending candidate for governor, a
guy named al Checki, and the boring candidate, Gray Davis
ended up winning the primary. Well, apparently jave Absara is
benefiting from being the boring candidate, the moderate and temper.
So here we were talking about the boring candidates don't
do well in Republican primaries, but the boring candidates sometimes

(31:46):
do well in Democratic prior to this is an all
party primary. But given particularly post swallwell, there suddenly was
an appetite for somebody that was a little less bomb throwing,
that was a little and the stier TV ads have
sort of are starting to wear people out, and so

(32:10):
Bessarah seems to be benefiting from that fact. Now, look,
in the first hours that the votes were coming in,
there's a bit of a what I'd call a red mirage,
which was kind of expected, and it's probably a bigger
version of it, but we're going to find out as
the votes come in. And why do I say it's
a bigger version of it, because of this unusual situation
with the early vote. Right the early vote came in,

(32:33):
Republicans knew who they were voting for early. They knew
they were voting for Spencer Pratt. They knew they were
voting for Steve Hilton, and that's why the earlier numbers,
as you've seen in and in fact, at this point,
Hilton may still be leading. My guess is by the
time some of you listen to this, Hilton probably will
have fallen into second place. The question is going to

(32:53):
be this count again. If they're receiving ballots for up
to a week, we're not going to have this. We're
not going to know for sure the second candidate is
in this California governates. We think until at least for
a few more days, we got to see what kind
of spread there is between second and third. But as

(33:13):
I record this, at the moment, Hilton still is narrowly ahead,
but it's narrow It's only by about thirty thousand votes.
But Sarah is second, and then there's a pretty big gap.
There's about a two hundred thousand vote gap between Besarah
and Styre, basically about a six percentage point gap. Stier's
number is going to grow, Hilton's number is going to

(33:34):
go down. The Besarah numbers probably going to grow a
little bit too. So we're sitting at twenty seven twenty
six twenty. Essentially at the moment with stire twenty, is
that a big enough gap for Hilton to hold on? Well,
A lot of it's going to depend on Bianca Bianco
was the other Republican in the race. With about half
the vote in, Bianco was still getting more than double digits.

(33:59):
That's not good for Hilton's chances of hanging on in
the primary. The expectation though, is as this later vote,
these later ballots come in, Hilton's numbers should hold fairly
steady and Bianco should start going down. Especially you've had
you had a bit of a paid Republican effort. Hilton
ran ads and was running messaging trying to consolidate vote

(34:22):
for him to prevent the Republicans from being locked out
of the general election. And then Donald Trump came in
with the endorsement really to try to guarantee the same thing.
I think there's a wide enough gap here between Hilton
and Stier for Hilton to hang on. My expectation is
is that when all the votes are counting, but Sarah

(34:43):
will be the top vote getterer. The question is is
how close does Styer get. We've seen a total collapse
of the Katie Porter vote total collapse of the Matt
Mayon vote, and that number continues to go down as
newer ballots get counted. Right, they were sitting at seven
and six percent when the first wave of early vote

(35:05):
came in. They're both now dipping below five. Well, how
many of those folks went to Stire? I guess you
would assume that the progressive voters are going to go
to Stire, the less progressive voters are going to go
to Bisera. How does that shake itself up again? I

(35:26):
think the Hilton number is large enough to hold off Stire,
but we know Stire had the money to run a
very sophisticated get out the vote effort, a very sophisticated
male balloting effort, So you know he's done spent an
enormous amount of money of trying to do this. If

(35:48):
you're Besarah, you obviously don't want to run against Styre.
You want to run against Hilt, no matter, you know.
I think of the three scenarios, right, the Sarah v. Stire, Baseravi, Hilton,
Hilton b Stire, the most competitive would be Baseravi Styr,
though I would suspect that most of the establishment were

(36:11):
rolling around Basara. There is a there is an exhaustion
that Styer has created with frankly political reporters, the political
side of it. I mean, he's just relentless right and
he's just saturated television ads to the point where we
ran one of them. But Sarah ran A ran an
ad that that was just if you have YouTube TV,

(36:32):
if you ever gotten the the the instead of a commercial,
in lieu of a commercial, you can just get this moment,
a zen type of you know, it's just like nature
and crickets and all of this. Well, that's exactly the
ad of Bsera ran because tired of the Tom Stier ads.
But nobody speaks in the ad. It's just writing on there.
Bseravi Stier would be. I mean Styr spent over two

(36:53):
hundred million dollars for this for this first half of
the campaign. Uh spend at least that for another five months,
and it will tear the party apart and it will
cause all sorts of problems. It'll probably raise boat right,
I guess, might help Democratic candidates a bit down the ballot.

(37:16):
A but Sarah Hilton race, I think is a very
conventional d versus our race probably won't be what the
shift Garvey margin was, but it will likely be double digits,
you know, I think fifty six forty four or something
like that. With the wild card being this scandal that

(37:42):
could touch Besara and if you're unfamiliar with it, a
former chief of staff of his who actually has also
has ties to Gavin Newsom, was essentially, you know, sort
of getting some campaign money on the side and whatever
he was doing. Joe Biden's Justice Department opened an investigation.

(38:02):
So this isn't Donald Trump's Justice department supposedly doing political weaponization, right,
this is a democratic justice department investigating a Democratic former
chief of staff both to Kevin Newsom into Javier Vesara.
What did be Sarah know? Right? Did he did? He
really not know that his chief of staff was looking

(38:23):
away to supplement his income and was complaining about the
fact that he had to take a pay cut in
order to work out in Washington with him at HHASS.
So it is I don't think it's as we were talking.
In some ways, it's a run in the middle scandal
these days. I don't know if it breaks through the
way Swallowell broke through, but it's not helpful. And so

(38:48):
you know, that's the only wild card that hangs over
Besarah here on that. But Basara v. Hilton is a
fairly conventional race and probably it's probably look it actually
helps both parties, right, it makes for a clean general
election campaign for the Democrats, but there's a statewide effort

(39:09):
to get Republicans to the polls, so it might be
able to help them save a couple of House seats.
And you know, for me, the most interesting I think
the house race I'm the most fascinated with is California six.
And California six is the one one where Kevin Kylie,
who was a Republican, decided to drop his Republican party affiliation,

(39:31):
become an independent and run in the sixth congressional district
as an independent rather than to try to either run
again do a member versus member race and stay a Republican.
I've spent a little time with Kevin Kylie. I think
he's dead serious about staying as an independent. I think
he's enjoying the freedom. I think he sees the freedom
of not feeling the pressure of partisan you know, leadership

(39:52):
forcing you to vote certain ways, and especially if Democrats
are going to win control of Congress, I think he's
likes the idea of a free agent, so it'll be
interesting to see he was he was leading early, he
should make it into the top two. Is he going
to face there was there's a Democrat and a Republican

(40:14):
and I don't know if it's a I you can
that's an interesting scenario. Now. I assume he ends up
facing a Democrat because the district was drawn to help
a Democrat and to try to help a Democrat win.
So I assume the Republican that was very it was
a very fairly tight three way race with about half

(40:35):
the vote in. I assume the Republican candidate in the
same sort of red mirage that we were telling you
you were going to see a slow fade of the
Republicans across the board, so that it would probably probably
not quite get there. So it's likely to be Kighlie
the independent versus a Democrat. And the question is is

(40:57):
Kylie take help from Republicans? Does he say no, he
doesn't want help with Republicans because he doesn't necessarily want
to organize with them. So that's going to be an
interesting decision because at the moment, the party hasn't decided
whether to help Kylie out. Let's see what happens when
he's the official I guess whatever we call him now

(41:19):
in nominees in the top two system. So that's just
a pet race of mind. And you know, look, I've
spent a lot of time. I've made no secret I
think the two parties are in a bit of a
rough spot and could use some independent third party disruption.
And anytime I'm seeing a disruptive Canada show up, I

(41:42):
think it's worth making note of. Obviously, the other race
in California that certainly gets plenty of media attention is
La Mayor and the Man from the Hills and Spencer Pratt.
And here's what we can tell you there. Maass is
definitely gonna make it. The question is she gonta run
against Spencer Pratt or Media Ramen. Now, Spencer Pratt is

(42:04):
running essentially to Bassa's right and Ramen is running to
Vassi's left. Pratt is really good at getting a lot
of attention. Pratt has made the issue of the fire
in the Palisades his issue. The problem for Pratt is
what's he going to promise the rest of the city. Right,

(42:27):
the rest of the city doesn't care about the rich
people as much as the rich people care about the
rich people when I'm referred to Baalisades. If you're Karen Bass,
you might prefer to run against the guy that Donald
Trump likes the best, and Spencer Pratt, then running against
somebody that's on Mom Donnie likes the best. Because Nitia

(42:49):
Ramen has been running essentially a running as a Mom
Donnie acolyte running to Bass's left, that is a much
more complicated race before I know. As I'm filing this now,
we have about about half the vote in at this

(43:11):
point in La Bass is going to get there. Pratt's
got a nine percentage point lead over Ramin. That's probably
enough to hang on. That number is going to shrink
over time in the same way, and she'll get a
little bit closer. Pratt will go down, but it's hard
to imagine that he loses that much altitude, especially since

(43:38):
he was actually starting to get even more attention and
momentum in the lighter part of this campaign, So even
late deciders may have thrown him a bone or two.
But as unpopular as Karen vass is, it's a lot
easier for her to run essentially a Democrat versus returning
Spencer Pratt into a trumpet Republican is going to be

(44:00):
a lot easier than running against somebody that's a mom
Donnie acolyte. And so it looks like Bass is going
to get what she wants there. So there you go. Look,
we got a lot more to go in California. There's
about seventeen thousand more house races that I would love
to dig into, and including Ken Calvert and Young Kim.

(44:23):
We actually called Ken Calvert spot in the runoff a
little bit quicker than we were able to count Young
Kim's and what happens in you know, we some of
those races will be easier to handicap once we know
will there be a Republican in the top two for
the governor's race or not? Right, that has all sorts
of implications on that. STI Besara is one type of

(44:45):
campaign and Hilton v. Besera is another. I don't The
one scenario I don't think we're going to get is
Stire b. Hilton. For what it's worth, I do think
it's the one scenario that Hilton would be a bit competitive.
There is I think I think there is a very
low ceiling for Styre and the question is does he
even have a high enough floor to crack the top two.

(45:09):
We shall see. But if he doesn't crack the top two,
that's a lot of wasted money. That is a lot
of money when you throw in how much money we
are talking. He is getting awfully close to have spent
in two campaigns about a half billion dollars and I

(45:30):
don't think he got a single delegate for the presidential race.
And I'm not sure what he's gotten out of this.
I'm not counting him out yet, But there's there's there's
a there's an old saying about you know, it doesn't
matter what the packaging says. Sometimes dogs won't eat the

(45:52):
dogs just simply won't eat the dog food. There's whatever
it is. Maybe it's his personality, maybe just simply the
fact that he's a billionaire. There's something that seems to
be and he's running sort of almost an aggressively progressive campaign,

(46:12):
so you would think, and there's a there is a
a progressive electorate to tap into, but there's something something
about him that seems to turn off a certain chunk
of voters that in theory he should be politically aligned with.
But he has had a hard time connecting as a
presidential candidate, and I'd argue he's had an equally hard

(46:34):
time connecting as a gubernatorial candidate. One more note on
the gubernatorial race and then I'm gonna I'm gonna wrap
up this analysis for the night. Matt Man. Maybe we
have may have rest an independent journalists former Ally Times
reporter on the election night live stream, and she made
an interesting observation that I think has been that that

(46:56):
deserves some deserves some highlighting sort of you know, up
in tweet if you will, and that is that if
you knew who Matt Mahon was, the one thing and
you weren't from San Jose, the one thing you knew is, oh,
he was big text candidate. And she seemed to think
that that actually was a problem for him, that he
was too defined by the fact that he was the

(47:18):
candidate that the tech community like, because guests who ain't
popular right now and on frankly either side of the aisle,
the tech community, you know, Man was running as more
of a technocrat. He was on this podcast. Some of
you probably heard him. I mean, you you know, he
he's sort of he screamed technocrat, which you know is

(47:41):
something that that. You know, I'll admit I'm always you know,
the technocrats, that the data driven folks, So I'm always
I'm the type of person that gives them a second look,
but not everybody else does. Uh. But as we've discussed,
you know, you got to you gotta do a little solid,
you gotta do little singing for your supper. So we

(48:02):
hit that wall. But I do think it's I do
think we shouldn't ignore the fact that perhaps his biggest
impediment was simply he was associated with the wrong group
of people in the wrong campaign here. And who do
I mean by that? The tech community. So anyway, I
just didn't want to let let my stream of consciousness

(48:22):
analysis from this night go without making that point. So overall,
if you're looking at it nationally big picture, really good
night for the Democrats, really challenging night for the Republicans.
I'd say, I'm not going to sit here and say
it was a bad night for them, but it's a
challenging night for them. A couple of incumbent members of
Congress can't get through gubernatorial primaries. You know that for

(48:46):
me is a Canarian. The coal mine about just being
an incumbent member of Congress. Not a great cycle. Democrats
got primaries to turn out the way they wanted to
turn out in New Jersey the way they wanted to
turn out Montana. I left on Montana Montana Senate Democratic
primary is likely now is going to be one by

(49:06):
somebody who has hinted that they might be willing to
drop out of the race. Why does that matter? John
Tester is supporting the independent candidate Seth Bodner in that
Montana center race. Seth Bodner would like a deal with
the Montana Democrats that Dan Osborne was able to put
together in Nebraska with the Nebraska Democrats in that center race,
which is to get the party to essentially take a knee.

(49:28):
Don't feel the candidate. Nebraska Democrats have agreed to do that.
A lot of Montana Democrats were grumbling about this, weren't
ready to do this. But at the last minute there
was one candidate that seemed to not you know, seem
to be at least open to the idea of doing this.
And magically, this candidate, Alani Bankhead, got suddenly got a

(49:52):
little bit of money spent on her behalf to make
sure because Riley Neil, who was also in this primary
had said that she was not not going to drop out,
which would have been a death sentence to Bondner, would
have just absolutely allowed the Republican nominee. Remember this is
that race where Steve Daines literally dropped out decided not
to file like an hour before filing, in order to

(50:15):
guarantee that Kurt all Me the US Attorney, didn't have
a serious primary challenge. If it's all Me v. Bodner,
that's a very tight Senate race that is up for grabs,
that it's a fifty to fifty race. But if it's
all Me Bodner and there is a somebody on the
Democratic line, unwinnable race for Bonner, it just isn't winnable.

(50:36):
I mean because a Democratic you know, there's enough sort
of people that just say, oh, what what party do
I vote for that will always vote one of the
two major parties. If it's five percent or more, it's
over right. The numbers don't add up for Bodner. And
I guarantee you if there's a Democratic name on the
line in the Senate race on the ballot, they're going
to get more than five percent. They'll probably get somewhere between.

(50:58):
Even if they don't campaign fifteen percent and that that
becomes that just makes the math there impossible. But Democrats
got somebody who they think they can convince to do. So.
The point is everything went their way in New Jersey,
everything went their way in Iowa, everything seemed to go

(51:19):
their way in Montana. And we got a long way
to go. But at a minimum, they're not getting shut out. Right.
The big fear in California in the top two is
that they could actually get shut out. That's not going
to happen there. So all in all, a really good
night for the Democrats at best, a really challenging night
for the Republicans. And depending on what kind of candidate,

(51:48):
what kind of candidate that Zach Lane turns out to
be is the Republican nominee for governor Iowa. If he's
a bad candidate, then tonight we'll look back and say
this was a disaster for the Republics because one bad
statewide candidate for the Republican Party in Iowa could cost
them three House seats a Senate seat. Put all that
together could actually cost them control of both thousand in

(52:12):
the Senate. So that's why for now I'll just say
challenging because I think we got to give Zach Lane
a chance. Here see what kind of candidate he is.
But if it's if he turns out to be a
bad nominee. Tonight was a disaster for the JAILBA. This

(52:34):
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(54:02):
code podcast for thirty percent off. And yes, I too,
am a customer. Top top it's top five list time
and I got an intriguing one today. It's sort of
built off of the news that Donald Trump is trying

(54:23):
to replace Tulsea Gabbert with one of his personal you
might call him weaponization czars, Bill POULTSI, who was at
over you know who was using a perch over at
the Housing Authority to investigate people to try to get
Lisa Cook on the FED fire to try to get

(54:45):
some members of Congress that were enemies of Donald Trump
in trouble over mortgages. Basically, he was clearly violating some privacy,
sort of weaponizing a government agency in order to do
some bidding. So what does Donald Trump do. He wants
to appoint him to replace Tulca Gabbard, who has resigned

(55:07):
Slash been fired from DNI, and we're going to talk
about DNI here in a second. Well, what's interesting is
that almost immediately the Republican Party started pushing back on this.
And what's astonishing is what John Thune said in the
immediate aftermath of finding out that he was the nominee.

(55:32):
John Thune told reporters, quote, we don't need a weaponized
director of National Intelligence. Chuck Schumer didn't say this. John Thune,
the Republican Senate leader, said this his immediate reaction. He
did him and Hall. Look, there's most of the actions

(55:54):
Donald Trump has taken in personnel or something that John
Thune hasn't been in favor of, but he always dances
around it. Well, you know that's we're going to let
the Senate work its will, or he would hide behind
one of those cliches. There was no mincing words here.
We don't need a weaponized his quote director. Now some

(56:18):
of you might say, Tulsa Gabbard used her purchase D
and I to do all this phony beloney twenty twenty
election stuff. So we've already had a weaponized Director of
National Intelligence. Now, look, I think the bigger issue is
this is a useless position. The only thing it is
useful for is foreign adversaries getting a crack at an

(56:40):
individual person who happens to sit at the nexus of
all intelligence information supposedly coming into one. So there, you know,
after nine to eleven there was worry about stove pipe
of information. The intention was to make the Department of
the Director of National Intelligence, he said, essentially the head
of the intelligence community. It may be on an ORC chart,

(57:01):
but it is not. The CIA has won this turf battle.
I told you this before. They won this turf battle essentially.
Right after Obama's first DNI failed, and his failure just
everything shifted back to the CIA. Barack Obama put his
chief intelligence picks at the CIA, not at DNI. Donald

(57:24):
Trump did the same thing in the first term. Joe
Biden did it in his first one term, and in
some ways, Donald Trump did it again in this second
term by moving by putting Ratcliffe at DNI and putting
somebody who couldn't have been more un Well, that's not true, right,
He she was incredibly unqualified Telsea Gabbard for the job.

(57:44):
Bill Polty actually is making Telsey Gabbert look a bit qualified.
Long story here, This is a kind of my big
wind up here in the top five list? Why am
I signaling out Poulty and why am I singling out
John Thune? Because you're starting to really see that if
Republicans want to push back at Donald Trump, they can,
And in this second term, we've seen a handful of

(58:08):
times where not just disappointing rhetoric, where actions actually changed
because of semi unified pushback by congressional Republicans beyond just
complaining about what he was doing, and not anonyness, not
anything like that. So I thought, with my top five lists,

(58:31):
I will do the five instances where Republicans have actually
successfully pushed back at Donald Trump and made him change
either pull back a nomination, change a direction of a policy,
or retreat. Bill Poulty doesn't make the list yet he

(58:51):
hasn't been. He hasn't been his nomination have been pulled yet.
So it's Poulty's not going to make my list, but
it's my opportunity to bring this one up. And by
the way, for the Bill BOLTI doesn't have a lot
of friends within the administration. Poulty is the guy that's
got Besn't threatened to punch in the face because he
was upset at what Pulty was doing in harassing somebody

(59:11):
that bessnt cared about, that was trying to get a
job in the administration. It was clear that Poulty was
just using the government databases as basically personal opposition research files.
Imagine putting that at d NI. I mean it is.
This is completely irresponsible, and so kudos to John Thune.
Do immediately say we can't have a weaponized Director of

(59:33):
National Intelligence. He went right there. No Democrat has to
say the word. This is the Senate Republican leader saying it.
So Poulti's nomination is dead. The Senate Majority leader isn't
going to vote for him. We already know the Yolo
Caucus in the Republican side of the Ale is going
to vote for him. So it's dead. But it's not
dead yet, so it doesn't crack my top five lists. So,
but where are the five instances where you can tangibly

(59:55):
say Republican pushback? Maybe Trump change directions number five in
the let's see Epstein files right. In some ways, it's
one of the cleanest forced reversals that we've seen in
the Trump era. He personally whipped against the discharge petition.
He was trying to prevent the files from being released,

(01:00:18):
prevent the discharge petition from happening. It didn't work. At
the last minute, when he saw that it was going
to pass, he flipped and said, Okay, they've passed it,
go ahead and release the files. Well, we know he
didn't like it. Why because you know, he was so motivated.
The only reason he went after Thomas Massey was not

(01:00:40):
over his lack of support for Israel, although that certainly
won the President allies in helping find financial resources to
defeat Thomas Massey in a primary. He went after him
for one reason, because he was the chief Republican making
this bipartisan. And he went after Marjorie Taylor Green, and
he threatened primary Jenne of Loan Boberg. And in the

(01:01:00):
threat of all of that. In the face of all
of that, these folks still did it. They still push
back and you would see, I mean, the House passed
the bill that distart position eventually four in twenty seven
to one. So have we gotten everything? We don't know,
do we, But we certainly have gotten more stuff than

(01:01:22):
Donald Trump wanted to see released. And again I go
back to he's petrified of the story. We have yet
to find the thing in the file that makes him
so petrified in the story. But we do know he's
petrified in the story. That's number five in the list,
number four, his threat to take over at Greenland, right,

(01:01:43):
and it was some of the more loud Republican opposition,
and Mitch McConnell went on the Senate floor and warned
that it would shatter the trust of all of our allies,
and he was hearing pushback all over. And this is
when this instigated the essentially the Mark Carney split, the
fact that Middle Powers and allies are cutting deals with

(01:02:04):
China out from under the United States. It did enormous
damage just his threat to take over Greenwell. But he
finally gave up the push in January. And he had
to give up the push because he wasn't getting any
Republican support for this. Now the White House calls it
climbed down and they just simply say it's for now.

(01:02:25):
But I think it qualifies in the list, and that's
why I put it at number four. You've noticed Cuba
maybe on the list, but Greenland is no longer on
the list. J Powell is number three on this list
where you saw successful Republican pushback. Basically Tom Tillis, who
had the ability to do this, said that he was

(01:02:47):
going to block every FED nominee over this manufactured investigation
into then FED Chair J. Powell over the over the
remodeling of the Federal Reserve offices, and Tillis stuck to
his guns, and after the loss and the attempt by

(01:03:10):
the administration to fire Lisa Cook on the Supreme Court
said that they couldn't do that, and you had and
then finally they realized they weren't going to get a
new FED chair unless because tell Us wasn't going to
let it happen, and he had the power in the
committee that he sat at to do that. And so
the Department of Justice in April twenty fourth drops the

(01:03:31):
probe on pal Donald Trump gets his nominee, and Japwell
stays on the FED, and Lisa Cook is still on
the FED. So this is a case where Republican pushback worked.
It made him change behavior, and it made him pull
back on that weaponization attempt to target j. Powell. Number four,

(01:03:55):
excuse me, number two on my list, not number four,
number my fourth one, but number two. I'm going in
first order here the Matt Gates nomination. Now, there's a
part of me that believes Matt Gates was never intended
to be a confirmed attorney general. That the whole point
of Matt Gates was to basically throw you know, throw

(01:04:15):
some you know, throw a bleeding fish to the sharks,
let him gnaw on it. And then meanwhile, you know
you let you get Haig Seth Kennedy and gathered the
three incredibly unqualified cabinet secretaries to be confirmed. So if
you wanted to push back on me and say, well,
the Gates thing was that it's possible that that's what

(01:04:35):
it was, right, that Gates was never an actual intentional
nominee to be Attorney general. But the universal pushback, and
yes it was technically before he actually became president, it
was universal, and it was threatening to derail everything from
the start. If he actually stuck to his guns and

(01:04:56):
tried to get him through. Now, I'll be honest, that's
the sliding doors that I'm always very curious about. Could
Trump You know, how stiff were the spines of the
Republicans at that moment in time. There's no doubt in
my mind Matt Gates never would get through today. But
if he'd really twisted arms, I mean, I look, I
never thought Pete hag Seth would get confirmed as Defense

(01:05:17):
Secretary based on the conversations I had, based on the
emphatic opposition that existed on the Republican side of the aisle,
and yet Donald Trump and his cronies were able to
intimidate a handful of Republican senators to cave. So there
has always been a question that hangs over the head

(01:05:38):
for me on Gates. That said, it's still important to
put on the list, and that's why I put it
on a number two because it was early, but it
was one can only imagine what MATC. Gates would have
done it as attorney job. But number one just happened,
and it appears to be the death of this anti

(01:05:59):
weaponization fund. The Republicans in Congress basically said we're going
to stop working with you, We're going to stop legislating,
We're going to stop these reconciliation bills in order to
fund DHS and fund some other things. And he clearly
didn't want to pull back. But after the judicial ruling
that made it clear that this was going to be

(01:06:20):
exposed as a shady, intentional deal that somehow was cooked
up by the president's personal lawyer, who, for some ungodly
reason is technically the acting Attorney General. That in itself, right,
you want to talk about losing the plot. We have
lost the plot here that we've allowed somebody's personal defense
attorney to become the chief weaponizer of the Department of Justice.

(01:06:44):
But unfortunately that's what we have here in mister carte blanche.
But guess what there's clearly I mean the defeat that look,
this was an this was enormously unpopular. You can argue
this was easy to do, but it also is important
you know the timing of this. Right, most filing deadlines

(01:07:05):
have passed I think every filing not quite every filing deadline,
I think there's a couple of more, but most filing
deadlines have passed, so it is safe to oppose Donald Trump.
You may say, wow, he could still rally a primary
challenger in twenty eight He could, there's no doubt, but
he's incredibly unpopular right now. And if they lose both
houses of Congress, his own more people in his own

(01:07:28):
party are going to start turning against him. Not in droves,
but is you know, an erosion of sorts. So I
think you're starting to see I think the death of this,
essentially this weaponization fund that they that Donald Trump and
Todd blanche are trying to concoct using taxpayer dollars, your

(01:07:49):
money in my money in order to pay off January
sixth rioters. That apparently was an enormousge too far for this.
So look, it's there's two lessons they take away from this.
One is they can push back on him if they
want this idea. They're powerless. They're not. Yes, it can

(01:08:11):
be career painful to the career, but it's not totally destructive.
But this is how guardrails work. It's not pretty, they
get dented up, it gets kind of ugly, but that's
you know, they're not it's not a clean it's not

(01:08:31):
a guardrail. That's going to make you stay straight on
the tracks. But they're there. And I know many of
you were concerned they didn't exist at all. You know,
you can sit here and say, but they didn't do this,
and they've let this go, and they've let this go,
and they've let this go. Yeah, the question is what
are they going to do with the really bad stuff? Well,

(01:08:55):
guess what with the really bad stuff? They stood up.
I'm not going to sit here and give him a
gold star for essentially doing the bare minimum mirror, but
it's pretty important for the Republican for the system that
there is a line that can't be crossed. Right, the
line moved, the line shifted, but there's still a line,

(01:09:20):
by the way. If you need one more reason why
Bill Poulty will never be a confirmed head of the
Department of National as Director of National Intelligence. And I'll
I will, I will eat the cover. I will. Let's see,
I will eat the cover of a Roger Stone book

(01:09:44):
if I'm if he's actually becomes a confirmed Director of
National Intelligence, Bill Poulte. So why am I saying Roger Stone?
Because a guess who's being credited with convincing Donald Trump
to a point? Bill Poulty to that position. Guests who
saved Tulsea Gabbard a couple of times before she finally

(01:10:05):
decided to walk It was Rogerstone. I think it's a
fair question to ask why Roger Stone cares so much
about this particular position that serves as the nexus of
all intelligence that comes into the United States government. As

(01:10:26):
I've hinted at before, if I were running a foreigned
intelligence agency and I were looking to find somebody to
flip or to use, or to coerce into giving me intelligence,
it would be in the office of the Director of
National Intelligence. So you want to talk about this, ain't

(01:10:49):
a yellow flag for me. It's a big frickin red flag.
If Roger Stone is working with Bill Poulting, that guaran
that is likely a death sentence now for Poltice nomination
at Vienna. So there's your top five lists, the five
things that Republicans successfully got Trump to change, pull back,

(01:11:16):
or change his mind. Number one that weaponization fund, Number two,
Matt Gates's attorney general. Number three, the probe into j. Powell,
Number four Greenland, and number five we think the full
release of the Epstein closs. Ask Chuck, all right, let's

(01:11:45):
do a little ask Chuck. First question comes from Michael
T Chicago, Illinois. He goes, Hey, love the podcast, especially
the recent Common Cause interview. You asked for some reform ideas,
and I wanted to throw out a few, including one
banning congressional stock trading, two fanning the House, three improving
member travel. I'd like to understand that more improving member travel,

(01:12:05):
and five strengthening the FEC, the Federal Elections Commission. Curious
which of these or others do you think are most
realistic in today's environment. I'd like to understand more. On
improving member travel what you mean by that, per se,
because it's for all right, you know it's it's you
know some members, you know you live across country. How

(01:12:26):
often do you go back and forth? Can you make
it easier for members to do their work in their
district offices, considering how expensive it is go back and forth,
how time consuming it is, things like that. But anyway,
I will confess Michael that I'm not quite sure the
reform you're asking about an improving member travel, what the
specific thing is. But let me take the other three

(01:12:46):
Congressional stock trete. I think it's Look, this is this
this isn't hard to implement, and it seems to me
that it is that this is a this we need
a structure, We need a system, because this isn't just
about I mean, the fact is Cabinet secretaries shouldn't be

(01:13:10):
stock trading. Anybody pulling a six figure government salary as
a political appointee or an elected political representative shouldn't be
trading stocks on this. That doesn't mean they shouldn't be
allowed to have investments, but they should not have It
should be and you can actually, I mean, look at
this point, I'm not I know some of you're gonna say, oh,

(01:13:30):
we don't need a bureaucracy, but we might and you
might need an actual agency that just simply handles this
blind trust stuff. And I and I actually think if
you institutionalize it, it's it's more likely to stick than
if you just do a congressional ban. But then what
are you going to have whether you have you know,

(01:13:51):
look at look at the corruption inside the Defense Department.
We've got Pete Hegsett's attempts to try to uh make
invest it deals off of defense contracts. Right, So it
is you know, you can't sort of solve this problem.
And not do this. And I don't want to not
do something just because it isn't going to have the
reach it should have inside frankly, the judiciary and the

(01:14:13):
executive brand. That's why institutionalizing it gives it where essentially
it's it's across the board. Again, I this is the
hemin and hawing on This tells me that whatever gets
past is going to have so many loopholes. Sort of

(01:14:35):
reminds me of following the name, image and likeness bills
that all these college football programs have been lobbying their
own state legislatures that pass. You know, they're like, oh, no,
we want we need to have some certainty, but within
the certainty or nothing but loopholes for rich downers to
be able to go in and manipulate the system. So
I am a little concerned about that. But I think

(01:14:57):
there's no doubt that in order to rebuild trust in
government this isn't necessary. It absolutely is necessary, but it
has to also apply to the executive branch and the judiciary.
So this has to be whole of government. Does that
mean we may need to you know, it's possible we

(01:15:18):
need a constitutional amendment, But I also think what Congress
ought to do not only do it for themselves, but
set up the institution that you said, because this isn't easy,
and I wouldn't you know, I've put it in blind trust.
You know, my brother in law handles it. Now. You
don't want that either, right, You kind of need, I
think in this case, and an institution to deal with this,

(01:15:39):
strengthening the Federal Elections Commission. I think the question is
do you strengthen it or do you start all over
and come up with something a bit different because this
isn't working just simply getting a quorum of enough commissioners
appointed at the right time so that you know, essentially
everybody's going to aim the system of control on this

(01:16:03):
or or at stalemates to too, and there's you know,
there's no third entity. I'd like to see a massive
reform of the FEC that had the commissioners not be
members of Congress, like I think we ought to have
this as jury duty or something like that, something akin
to that. Meaning, I don't trust the Senate Republican leader,

(01:16:26):
president United Democratic president the United States or Republican president
the United States Senate Democratic leader to appoint commissioners who
are going to do anything other than look out for
the partisan interests of their sign So h you know,
for a long time we thought bipartisan could could sort

(01:16:47):
of that tension could could balance us out. I'm not
sure that works anymore, and we might be better off
with actual individuals being recruited or getting you know, outside
and to ease or a random rotation of judges. You know,
the the members of the FEC need to be as

(01:17:12):
far away from political stickiness as possible and yet at
the same time have credibility. But we've you know, you've
also got to have a you know, the part of
the FEC's challenge, Michael, it's the fact that there are
no laws that stick. So you pass one set of

(01:17:33):
campaign finance laws or one set of disclosure laws, and
it doesn't apply to a different type of committee that
is oh no, no, no. This is an education committee that
is just educating voters. It has nothing to do with
the campaign and it technically meets that that, you know.
So in order for the FEC to be viable, we
probably have to simplify and strengthen our actual campaign finance laws,

(01:17:55):
and we probably need a constitutional mement on that. So
I've here, I've taken two of your ideas and already
complicated by saying you might need a constitutional amendment. It
doesn't mean they're not necessary. It just means, this is
why it should explain why these are been harder. You know,
these aren't new in somebodys are not new ideas. They're

(01:18:16):
just have been harder to make happen because ultimately you
run into whether it's separation of powers, or you run
into other constitutional issues. But the simplest one expanding the house.
But you know, you know that itch I scratch it
almost every day, and that's something you don't need a
constitucial mement for. It seems to be painfully obvious to
me that we need to expand the house for a

(01:18:37):
variety of reasons, but fairness is the biggest. If we
are going to clean up this and create the perception
of fair representation again, we're going to need to expand
the house because I don't think you know, the more
you're relying on people drawing fair lines, the harder this
is going to be. More districts mean less necessity. Gerrymander.

(01:19:03):
Bottom line is, all of your reform ideas are good ideas,
in some cases necessary ideas. Much harder to implement than
they should be. Next question comes from Jim Tobahana, Pennsylvania,
and he says, how often here you say Democrats are
held to a higher standard because they claim to be
the party of higher standards? And I'm not sure I
fully understand that. What do you base that on? And
is it something you've heard directly from politicians on either side?

(01:19:24):
Shouldn't all elected officials be held with the same standard,
especially at the highest levels. Appreciate you elaborating. So it's
a little bit of just looking at their behavior, right,
the tolerance of Trump and what he's done. There's obviously
this lower standard here. If the Democrats are out here

(01:19:49):
preaching that no, no, no, no, we think there needs a
higher standards, they got to live by the same. They've
essentially as they are. You know, look free districting. No,
we're for fair districts. Then they're not. Then they get
mad that we're somehow you know that some of us
in the media are holding them more accountable for their
flip fop than from Republicans who never were serious about
it in the first place. They weren't the ones that

(01:20:11):
owned it. So it's more on some of these important
reform or some of these important character questions. Democrats have
been running multi year campaigns about it, and then suddenly
they look the other way when it happens to them.
Then they get mad that the media sometimes gets harsher
on a Democratic misstep like that than on the Republican Party.
But the Republican Party's not out there saying, you know,

(01:20:33):
we're going to nominate people of the highest ethical standards.
They're not trying to do that anymore. They're the party
of Donald Trump. They have become the party of self dealing.
They have become the party that you know, ends justifies means,
And so I think it's a that's what I mean
by that? Do I think? Of course, I think everybody
should be judged by the same high set of standards.

(01:20:58):
But I'm going to be tougher on somebody. You know,
It's like we're going to be tougher on the Catholic
priest that tells us to live a moral life and
then doesn't. Then we would on somebody who isn't claiming
to be on the highest of high high ground and
then misbehaved. So that's what I mean by that. And

(01:21:25):
you know this is it's the basis for my column
this week, which you can find on both the Newsphere
and substack, which is simply you know, and I think
Democrats are they're playing with a little fire here come
twenty twenty eight. It may not matter in twenty twenty six,
but you know the idea that they look, you know,
they have questionable characters on their side of the island.

(01:21:48):
They rationalize it away, just like the Right was doing well.
Here we go hypocrisy all around. And I'm not saying
Platinu is somehow done things that are worse than can Paxton. No,
I don't think so. But again, you can't claim high
moral ground over here and then ignore it over there.

(01:22:08):
And I think that's why, you know, when when Democrats
get annoyed or peeoed at me because they think, you know,
I get tougher on them, I'm like, yeah, they the
party has promised to be better, and I think the
party's benefit of the last ten years by not being
Trump I promising not to to sort of play by

(01:22:31):
the Trump rules. And I think this decision to essentially
play by Trump's rules, whether it's un redistricting, character, you
name it, it's gonna bite you in the ass, I
don't know when. Maybe it'll work this cycle maybe, and

(01:22:52):
if it just because it works this cycle doesn't mean
it's a good idea, all right, So Fia T right Hey,
I recently saw your take on potential twenty twenty eight

(01:23:14):
Democratic candidates and agreed with your points, especially on more
Whitmer and Footagic. Surprised to see Wes Moore left off
some recent discussions. Given his background and potential appeal, do
you still see him as a top tier contender even
as he publicly downplays a run. Look, I do I
think he's being I think he's being correctly. I think

(01:23:35):
he's correctly showing a little bit of humility about a
second term. Doesn't want to be presumptuous about winning a
second term in Maryland. I think that that's you know,
you gotta be careful of that. Bill Clinton in nineteen
ninety he was running for reelection and there was some
concern he could you know that, and that his opponent
could use his presidential ambitions against him. Now, Bill Clinton

(01:23:56):
pledged to serve four years and of course broke that
pledge within nine months. Barack Obama broke his pledge. But
when I meet the press to announce that he's breaking
his pledge not to seek the presidency in twenty oh
eight when he decided to do it. So there's certainly precedent.
It's why I treat him as a top tier candidate.

(01:24:16):
But he has said it a few times. He's careful
with how he says it. I mean, for a guy
that's not interested in running, he's already made a number
of trips to certain early states, including South Carolina. That's
certainly in Texas Tribune Festival things like that, there's no
doubt he's thinking about it now. I do think the
real issue, and it's my understanding and done my own

(01:24:39):
reporting on this, is his family. And I think that's
a serious thing with him. Meaning if he doesn't think
his family can handle the scrutiny, handle the spotlight, all
of that, he's you know, he's in his mid forties,
no reason why he has to run in twenty twenty eight.
But I still, you know, when you look at his resume,

(01:25:01):
you know they're you know, for me, there are you know,
there there have been three, maybe four candidates that stand
above everybody else right now on the Democratic side, uh
Rafael Warnock, Mark Kelly, John Ossoft Wes Moore for uh,

(01:25:24):
and I'll put Pete bootage it's there. Although I think
I still think biden baggage is heavy, you know. I
think those are in that sort of none that that
sort of I think those are all Democrats who have
a good shot at unifying the party. That could that
could get the business Democrats and the Progressives comfortable in

(01:25:44):
the same tent. Maybe not excited, but comfortable. And I
think all would be on paper pretty strong to potential
general election candidates. Now, look, who knows how they'd wear,
how well they'd wear, and all of that, But right now,
right it's it's there. I'm I'm I've got got a

(01:26:05):
little more skepticism. And all the other governors, I'm not
saying any of them, may you know, Look, I think JB. Pritzker,
if he grabs the progressive lane, there's no AOC or
Bernie and Pritzker is able to grab it, not ro Conna.
Britarck's got the resources to be a formidable candidate there,
and I don't want to underestimate him. I'm just not
quite sure he could unify the party right away. I'm

(01:26:30):
not sure. In Josh Shapiro, I'm not sure in anybushier
I think they are all going to be excellent potentially
excellent candidates and and and could provide opportunities. But no,
I'm I'm you know, there's a reason I put more
on my most likely you know of people who have
not run before, most likely to be in the UH
in the top tier of the twenty twenty eight race

(01:26:51):
should he choose to run, He's got he's got it,
I think a very good story to tell. Now, like anything,
how will he hold up? Right, there's going to be vetting,
there's going to be you know, people can look good
and then all of a sudden they look like Graham

(01:27:12):
Platner does at the moment. Right. You know, this is
a guy who a month ago people are saying, hey,
could he end up being a presidential candidate? Right now
there's talk of whether does he stay on the ballot? Right,
So this is how quick this stuff can come and go.
But this is why I sort of him leaning on
the candidates who I think have shown an ability to

(01:27:32):
stick around and have had staying power and have kind
of already maybe been around the block, gone through a
rough go. Right, you know, Warnock's been through some tough
campaigns already. Two of them Osoff has Mark Kelly has
been vetted once for VP. You know. Probably the one

(01:27:55):
guy that hasn't really had it had to take real
incoming just yet is Wes Moore. So he will be,
you know, so he will be you know, taking incoming
for the first time winter if he does decide to run.
But you know, right now, the in the on paper primary,
I think Wes Moore is a top three candidate, all right,

(01:28:17):
Tim c and Mount Clemens, Michigan rights. Hey, if Republicans
were to lose more than forty House seats, do you
think Mike Johnson's position as leader would be at risk?
I don't think Mike Johnson is going to be the
House Republican leader if they lose the House, whether it's
nine seats or forty seats. Mike Johnson was only Speaker
because nobody else wanted the job and had the votes,

(01:28:38):
and Donald Trump decided he would have Mike Johnson's back.
But I think the last thing Johnson wants to be
is House minority leader, So I don't think he'll be
minority leader. My guess is it's probably going to be
somebody like Jim Jordan that it's that it's a little
bit more fire brandish. We'll see, But I you know,

(01:28:59):
I I think Jordan's been kind of staying quiet sort of.
You know, it's almost like he wants to follow the
path of MacArthur. Remember McCarthy got denied the speakership before
he ever got there the first time, and then sort
of licked his wounds and came back and ended up
leader again and all of that. So I think that's

(01:29:20):
what Jim Jordan is potentially eyeing. Maybe it's somebody new,
maybe it's somebody younger, but I would I you know, look,
I know that once people get some power, they don't
want to give it up. But I'm just just on

(01:29:43):
a personal note, I think this job's just wore him down.
I think he'd like a break. I don't think he
and it's tough to go from being the most powerful
member of Congress to minority leader. You know, despite the
title she gave herself a Speaker of America, there really
is no title for Speaker of Aerona. So I imagine

(01:30:10):
that if they lose the House by one seat, let
alone nine or forty, as you put in there, Mike
Johnson can be later Michael al Wrights. Hey, do you
think here Starmer can survive as prime minister? Do you
think Nigel Farrage is on his way to becoming prime minister? Well,
I will tell you this, I'm surprised that Starmer, as

(01:30:31):
of this writing, and as of your question, and as
of this moment in time on June second, and I'm
recording this, I'm surprised he's still prime minister. So it
certainly seems as if we get a snap election today
that Nigel Farrage will be the nominee, would be the

(01:30:53):
likely next prime minister. In some ways, there's a it's like,
all right, you want the car, go ahead, let's see
how you do. I am skeptical for As is going
to be a successful prime minister. I have a feeling,

(01:31:15):
you know, when you get when when a you know,
it's it's when a when an insurgency grabs power. They
a lot of times the insurgency doesn't know how to
govern and and doesn't know how to stop being an insurgent. Right.
Trump has really struggled with this. He hates being the establishment.

(01:31:38):
He wants, you know, he wishes he were an insurgent
figure still and he struggles with it. And I think
this explains why Trump has been terrible when he's been
the incumbent, whether whether in a midterm or or running
for reelection. And he's and he's much more comfortable being
a challenger, as he says, a counterpuncher. So uh, you know,

(01:32:05):
I if the Reform Party is going to be the
leading party, I don't see how Farage doesn't get a
shot at this. So now I fully expect that Farage
is going that the next the next Prime minister after
the next elections in the UK will be Farage. I'm
not going to sit here and say the next prime

(01:32:26):
minister after Starmar is going to be Farage. It's you know,
it still seems as if the party's desperate to find
a replacement for Starmer, but the fact that it hasn't
happened yet, I think it shows you that there's just
there's a lot of factions, right. It's like, you know,
Biden was nobody's first choice, and I don't think Starmer
is anybody's first choice. But you know, you can't beat

(01:32:47):
somebody with nobody and is as hard to you know,
It's like maybe it's an equivalent of answering the other
question about about Mike Johnson, like watching Republicans desperately look
for somebody that could get two hundred and eighteen votes.
It doesn't appear that there's an alternative to Starmer that
can get a majority of Labor to make this happen.

(01:33:09):
But there's no question that Labor's got to find a
new face, right Starmar is just not you know, he's
trying not to. He's just he doesn't he doesn't project strength.
I think he's ideologically about where Labor needs to be

(01:33:29):
and when they're the majority, but he's kind of weak
in how he projects his ideas and how he projects
his power. And I think that and I think that
weakness certainly. And then you've got the whiff of losing
on you right now, as it does right because the

(01:33:50):
party just seems but you know, there's a part of me,
are we really blaming Kre Starmer for this? Right? And
it was just sort of like, you know, Labor won
because they weren't the Tories, and I think this is
this is it's very similar to like the Democrats won
in twenty twenty because they weren't Trump, but then they

(01:34:10):
governed like they had won some big landslide and the
voters totally rejected that, you know, the UK. I continue
to believe the UK is a little bit ahead of
the United States on this sort of rejection of its
two major parties. Right already you've seen both of the
UK's major parties or not even in the top two. Right,
it's reform its it. Maybe it may be the lib

(01:34:34):
Dems and it may be the Greens that end up,
you know, ahead of both Labor and the Tories. Our
system makes that a little more difficult, but it's pretty
clear if you just look at voter registration role that
voters are rejecting the two major parties in this country
in droves, particularly voters under the age of thirty five.
So no, I don't expect sir Starmers survive, and yes,

(01:34:58):
I do expect that in the same way that it
was pretty clear there were enough Republicans that are like, no,
we want to try this Trump experiment. We know everybody
thinks it's a bad idea, but we want to try
it anyway. That's what Nigel for ours feels like to
me to the UK electorate. All right, last question, Caitlin

(01:35:21):
Nee and Bristol, Pennsylvania rights longtime follower from your White
House correspondence days. Thank you, big fan. Really like your
idea of expanding the House, especially given how much larger
districts have become over time. Do you think a more
virtual governance model could work alongside that keeping members more
rooted in their districts will still convenient when needed. Yes.
In fact, I want to share with you one of
the fantastic ideas one of my students, and I'm I

(01:35:44):
still plan to do this. I want to share one
of the things that I had my class at USC
do for their for their final essay was to essentially
pick something to fix to make Washington work better. So
one one of the ideas that one of my students
had was to move Congress. Move the entire basically, and

(01:36:08):
I'm i'm i'm I'm adding some flourishes to this, but
think of it as, Hey, every year the NFL now
holds the NFL Draft in a different city, well maybe
every two years, Congress is going to go to a
new city. And wouldn't it be great if residents in

(01:36:28):
Montana got to host Congress for a session. Wouldn't it
be great if the citizens of Mississippi got to host
Congress for a session. Wouldn't it be great the citizens
of Maine got to host Congress for a session to
sort of you know it. I love the spirit of it.

(01:36:51):
And it gets to this virtual governance. I look, what
I think is, you know, I'd like to see Congressional
offices be more only staffed in the districts, and they
are in Washington. I think the committee staffs should be
in Washington, and your personal staff should be in your district.
And you figure out the balance of that. But the

(01:37:12):
ability to do so many things remotely. Ultimately, you're a
representative of your constituency. You need to be as close
to your constituents as you can at all times. So
I'd love to see the ability for members to vote
from their offices, and maybe you would only you know,
they can't vote from their bedroom, they can't vote for
their home office. They actually, you know, a district office
almost becomes a virtual you know, you make it a ski,

(01:37:34):
a skiff, a place where it's secure and all of that.
So I would have some limitations about where they could
remote vote, but I think that there's some especially look,
especially if you're going to have eight to nine hundred
members of Congress, like I am advocated it is going
to be hard to put them all up here. And
I think everybody should get offices in DC when they're here,

(01:37:57):
and we have plenty of office space. If mem of
Congress or committees didn't have suites of eight to ten
to fifteen offices, right, they could have that in their communities.
They don't need it here in Washington, DC. And you
can have your staff in different places like that. So
so the answer is yes. I mean, I have partnership

(01:38:20):
the production company I partner with for this podcast. We're
all over the country and we're able to have all
sorts of meetings, make all sorts of decisions. We all
you know, frankly, the downside is we're all always available
to work. You know, that's the But if you're working
for the PAXs payers, that's a good thing that you're

(01:38:42):
always available, You're always on the clock, you're always available
to work. So, yes, I'd like to see more virtual governance.
And I take it a step further, and yeah, it's
a little you know, you might you know, I'm you know,
the the idea of moving Congress. I've actually wanted it.
We believe that if you know, make the lobbyists go

(01:39:03):
find you. Right, I'm not saying you're ever going to
get rid of a lobbyists and they're good. Look, lobbying
is is necessary, and they're good lobbyists, and they're bad lobbyists.
But lobbying itself is neither good or bad. It's the
lobby It's the person behind the lobby that decides whether
it's good lobbying or bad lobbying. But I think just frankly,

(01:39:28):
bringing Congress to different parts of the country, bringing the
focus of different parts of the country, front and senator
members of Congress, you know, And one hand it sounds
crazy pie in the sky, right, And on the other hand,
it seems like, you know, what if the if we
had had the ability to do this in seventeen eighty

(01:39:49):
nine when we were devising this constitution, the idea of
Congress rotating among the thirteen states would have been an
easier sell. Then well, we got to find a capital. Yeah,
I don't know if it should be New York. No,
I don't know if it should be Philly. Why don't
we manufacture a city. The point being is, if we

(01:40:10):
logistically could have pulled it off in seventeen eighty nine,
My guess is the founders would have been all for us.
That you know, Congress is an institution, is permanent, but
that Congress when it meets to decide, they rotate again.
It's a crazy idea that makes way too much sense.

(01:40:34):
And with that I will it's been a you know,
I appreciate you coming in for the live stream. By
the way, I've got a new episode. Let me give
you a few things. I got a new episode of
Dynastic Up. We do the Warriors from the Philadelphia Warrior
Days to the San Francisco Warrior Days to the now
current Golden State Warrior Days. We go from Wilt Chamberlain

(01:40:56):
to Rick Berry to Steph Curry, and I will tell
you I learned a bunch and I hope to share everything.
I hope I shared everything I learned with you in
this episode with my pal Jayadande. But it was a
labor of love and I hope you will check it out.
That episode is now streaming wherever you get your podcast
is also obviously I share my own feed with it.

(01:41:18):
And of course I appreciate all the election night live streams.
Appreciate you coming in with the long election night that
we have nothing like the West Coast and the never
ending counting that comes with the state of California. So
with that, I will see you in twenty four hours.
Thanks for listening, and until I upload again,

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Chuck’s Commentary - Tuesday Was A REALLY Good Night For Democrats + Top 5 Republican REBUKES Of Donald Trump In Term #2

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Chuck’s Commentary - Tuesday Was A REALLY Good Night For Democrats + Top 5 Republican REBUKES Of Donald Trump In Term #2