Full Episode - Donald Trump Is Rattled By The Epstein Files + Bashar al-Assad, Broken Borders & Baseball - The Chuck ToddCast

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
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Hello there, Happy Monday, and welcome to another episode of

(01:24):
The Chuck Podcast. As you can see, I am not
in studio. I am traveling. I am in Miami. I'm
on a sort of a three city excursion here. I'll
be in Miami, I'll be in Charlotte. I got a
trip to New York all this week. I just came
from Austin. I want to actually give a report on that.
It was a participant at the Texas Tribune Festival where
I interviewed Wes Moore. Actually, a part of that conversation

(01:46):
I'm going to have in the feed later this week,
so you will get a full opportunity to hear that conversation.
Let me just give a quick rundown of what to
expect on this episode. Long interviews with a gentleman by
the name of David Lesh. He is the subject of
an interesting book that those of you that know me

(02:07):
know I'd be a sucker for. It's called From Dodgers
to Damascus. It's about a one time major league pitching
prospect who got injured in the minors, ended up. I
think I think may have had a cup of coffee
and the majors. We'll talk about it. We have that
conversation and instead became an expert on the Middle East.

(02:27):
Hence Dodgers to Damascus. Actually found himself to be in
the room with Asad at times and really is an
expert in particular on Syria. So really that's a big
part of our conversation is sort of where's the Middle
East headed? What could the next three to five years
look like, and what could the next ten to twenty

(02:49):
years look like. It's a terrific conversation, and David Lesh
is a wonderful It was a wonderful interview to have,
and I do think you'll learn quite a bit. But yes,
the hook was the Dodgers in baseball. Right, you go
from there to the Middle East? Right?

Speaker 2 (03:08):
What is there any better home.

Speaker 1 (03:09):
Than the check podcast for something like that it's also Monday,
which means it's time Machine day, and boy, do I
have a doozy for you in the Toddcast time machine
or we'll go back. This is a fascinating week. Here's
what I'll just tell you. This week in history is
basically the greatest week. If you're a conspiracy theorist, this

(03:32):
is your going to be your favorite week in history.
I will just simply leave you with that tease. Of course,
I'll take some questions, and let's just say I have
a lot to say about college football the playoff, and
I've got a whole bunch of advice for the college
Football Playoff Committee in the ESPN executives who are going

(03:52):
to be making these decisions. Hopefully they will actually care
about what happened on the field rather than the machination
that they usually care about off the field. But there's
a few issues that I think that they have to
take up, and we'll see how serious they are about
trying to actually find the most worthy teams versus those
that they want to just feature in a television show.

Speaker 2 (04:16):
But with that, let me get started with.

Speaker 1 (04:19):
A quick little take on where we're at at the
moment in our current politics, and where we're at is
we have a president who is in the midst of
a feeding frenzy, and it is a feeding frenzy that
he can't control, and he is flailing. We've been in
these positions with him before and he always navigates his

(04:41):
way out of it.

Speaker 2 (04:42):
But this time is different.

Speaker 1 (04:43):
As I said in our previous episode, we've got a
struggling economy, something that he's actually reacting to that's fascinating
and I want to get to that also in this episode.

Speaker 2 (04:52):
But at the end of the day, his.

Speaker 1 (04:57):
What he's doing and how he's react acting to this
Epstein situation is not exactly the way somebody who's innocent
would be reacting it is. There's so many aspects of
this that are strange when it comes to the way
he's treated this story. I mean, I'll go back to
something and I know, just set aside everything you know

(05:20):
about the story, but think about it in this way.
Donald Trump has the ability to be as his way
out of you know, he lies, you know, sort of
the way water flows out of a faucet, right, He's
very comfortable doing that, and he'll say whatever it takes
today to put off something that may be coming tomorrow,

(05:41):
and if he's got to say something else tomorrow, I'll
say something else tomorrow. The big head scratcher here on
this one is why he has chosen to be so
lenient on Glene Maxwell. And to me, this is the
part I want to focus on first. And then I'm
going to get to what is clearly an over action
to Marjorie Taylor Green and Thomas Massey, and I'll get

(06:05):
to that in a second, but I keep coming back
to this Gallaine Maxwell. And again when you get when
we get to my time the time Machine segment today,
you'll see where I'm going. But the reason there's an
assumption he's lying about something is because there's so many
politicians that have preceded him over the last fifty years
that have always lied to protect themselves first, and eventually

(06:30):
the truth would come out. It just sometimes would take
years and in some cases decades. What's a head scratcher
about the way he has treated Gallaine Maxwell is he
seems to fear her. And the question is why does
he fear her? She's in jail number one, number two.
She was convicted of essentially helping Epstein traffic underage women.

(06:56):
He could easily be wanting to throw the book at her,
and instead of putting her in a club fed, he
could have been putting her in solitary or making her
life even more miserable, rather than trying to be lenient.
And for whatever reason, he really wants her not to

(07:18):
say anything bad about him, even though if she did,
he could just simply say she's lying. She you know
that he had a story that was plausible enough that
would likely have kept everybody on his side. Right. The
story was Epstein was being a creep, He was recruiting.

(07:39):
He and Glaine were recruiting women from mar Alago. He
had had enough, he kicked him out. And of the relationship,
why is he keep pulling Glaine Maxwell back into his orbit?
And I'll just say this, there is something else in
his life. There is something that she knows about, perhaps

(08:00):
as there's something she assisted him with. Maybe it's a
relationship he has or had with somebody. But there is
something that he has that hasn't come out that he
apparently is petrified of that she knows, because there really
seems to be no other explanation, because he could be
behaving the exact opposite way, and the fact that he

(08:23):
isn't is a head scratcher, and someday, maybe sooner, maybe
it'll take a while, we'll find out for sure. Maybe
she knows the origin story of his personal life, Maybe
she knows things that we don't know about the origin
story of his marriage. None of us know for sure.

(08:45):
His behavior is making it easier to go down conspiratorial lanes,
and it's almost like he is he is either purposely
doing this just to try to create more fog, which
is not totally out of character for him, or there's
something that Maxwell has that he just can't he just

(09:06):
can't risk, and so he's got to figure out. So
we'll see. Look, if he commutes her sentence and releases her,
that will be you know, not just one red flag, right,
that would be a thousand red flags. But let's go
to the other part of this story, which is his
decision to punish Marjorie Taylor Green unindorse her. We already

(09:29):
know he's sicked his political machine on Thomas Massey trying
to primary him. There's an interesting pattern here Trump. I'm
trying to figure out who is Trump dumped or pulled
his endorsement from, or tried to defeat in his side
of the aisle who disagreed with him on an issue

(09:51):
of substance. Right, he went after those that voted to
impeach him after January sixth, right, the ten, and he
is he doesn't want to forget those. He's still got
vendettas against anybody that voted to convict him in the Senate.
Hence why I think there's still no endorsement for Bilcassidy,
and I don't think there will ever be an endorsement

(10:13):
for bil Cassidy in his Senate see but none of these.
He is angrier at Massy and Green for simply voting
for transparency on the Epstein files. Then he's as angry
at them as he was against the ten House Republicans
that voted to impeach him after January six It is,

(10:40):
it is if this is this, and the irony is,
he's got plenty of ways that they're likely going to
kill this. Right, he's got the Senate, we'll see. Look,
I think if there's a hundred or more House Republicans
that vote with the Democrats on this, and I think
there will be that many. I do think that once
this vote goes on the record, there's a reason Mike

(11:02):
Johnson wanted to try to just release the files as
a unanimous consent because he doesn't want a recorded vote.
There's a whole bunch of House Republicans that don't want
to have to vote against the president on this, but
they're more petrified of not voting to release files having
to do with a pedophile. So that's one. The second

(11:23):
way they could kill it is maybe in the Senate,
but if it gets one hundred or more House votes,
I think there are thirteen Senate votes. Now maybe leader's
Senate leadership just finds different ways never to bring it
to the floor. But somebody's going to bring this to
the floor. Somebody's going to be able to introduce it,
and then it's possible Trump could be to it. But

(11:43):
don't underestimate what the Justice Department just did with this
when Donald Trump railed ranted on social media demanding that
Pam Bondi started an investigation into Democrats in their relationship
with Epstein. Because here's what's likely to happen. If there's
an open and vestigation that the Justice Department is conducting

(12:04):
having to do with people in their associations with Epstein,
then it's likely they go to a court and say hey,
we can't have these files released because it's currently a
part of an investigation. Right there's been a lot of conversation.
One of the knee jerk right wing talking points is, well,
the Biden folks could have released this, Well, they were
in the middle of an investigation, so they couldn't release

(12:25):
any files at the time. Now the investigation, in theory
is over. But if they're reopening an investigation, then suddenly
that likely will mean that will be used. This quote
open investigation will be used as saying, hey, we can't
release any of this material. It may matter in an

(12:47):
investigation and we don't want to have to put all
that out earlier. So it's there's a lot of paths
I think for this to have these files prevented from
being released to the public. There's a handful of ways.
You can see how it could be Senate leadership that

(13:08):
does it. It could be that President Trump vetos it,
or it could simply be the Justice Department goes to
court to say they can't because there's an open investigation.
Because Pam Bondi agreed to open investigation just to investigate
Democrats in their relationship with Epstein.

Speaker 2 (13:25):
So the point is it's how much, it's.

Speaker 1 (13:28):
How rattled he is on this. And when he's rattled,
this is when mistakes get made, and he's rattled at
a time when the other parts of his job aren't
going very well. Right, you have, it's pretty clear that
this economy is not working for people that don't have money.

(13:48):
He is realizing how badly the inflation issue is impacting,
particularly his voters, because he's doing something he said he'd
never do. He's getting rid of tariffs on food and coffee. Now,
what's interesting is how all of his surrogates went out
on the Sunday shows and they won't say that they're
getting rid of the tariffs, like they keep not trying

(14:10):
to use the word, or they keep saying, no, we're
lowering costs. Oh, you're getting rid of the tariffs. So
the terroifts raised costs. No, the teriffs didn't raise any costs.
But we're going to lower costs on food. There's this
weird they don't you know. Donald Trump can't ever admit
he's wrong. And the fact of the matter is these tariffs.
Foreigners didn't pay these fees. You and I did. We've

(14:32):
been paying this if you've bought up banana recently, you
paid tariffs. So if he's going to sit here and
refund this to some people, and we'll see if they're
even able to do that, we're going to find out
soon enough. He's likely to lose at least some of
this tariff authority in court. He probably will try to
find another way in the law to try to to

(14:54):
try to implement some of these tariffs, and I think
there are a few other levers he can pull that
he'll be able to do this. But the reality is
is that, you know, despite everything he claimed that somehow
Americans weren't going to be paying this tax, Americans have
paid this tax. We have been getting more tax on food,
particularly fruits, vegetables, stuff that comes from overseas, plus coffee.

(15:17):
So the fact that they're dropping them shows you that
there's a bit of an acknowledgment that number one, prices
haven't calmed down, they've gone up, and number two, he's
been the reason why prices have gone up.

Speaker 2 (15:31):
And then finally he's got to deal with this healthcare.

Speaker 1 (15:33):
Issue and the fact that premiums are everybody now that
is on the Obamacare exchanges is seeing that the premiums
are about to go up if they were getting some
of these subsidies. It looks to me like there's going
to be an extension of these subsidies. Is it a year,

(15:55):
is it a year with a few extra strings attached.
I think all of those things are possible, But I
do want to highlight something Rick Scott said. Rick Scott
made it crystal clear in a Sunday Show interview earlier
that they were not going to repeal Obamacare and that
you know, there was not going They were not that

(16:16):
they that all insurance was going you know, they weren't
going to repeal the pre existing condition issue. Because the
only way to save money on this on on these
insurance exchanges in Obamacare is if you let insurance companies
essentially cherry pick who they get to cover and if

(16:36):
you don't have a pre existing condition, and they can
shift people with pre existing conditions and make them pay
higher rates but have healthy people pay super low rates.
That's you know that that's the system we had before,
which didn't work for anybody. So the fact that Rick
Scott is saying we are not going to do that

(16:57):
because you cannot have insurance companies be able to to
not accept clients because of a pre existing condition. This
is why the system didn't work before. But the talking
point that is really bizarre to me, as they're saying, well,
they don't want to give this money to the insurance companies,
are going to give it to the American people. Well,
where do they think the American people is going to
spend this money? Can you get health insurance coverage without

(17:20):
paying an insurance company? I mean, I guess unless we're
going to be doing Medicare.

Speaker 2 (17:28):
For all, is that the plan.

Speaker 1 (17:31):
I don't think that's going to be the plan that
comes from the Republican side of the aisle. But if
you don't want to pay insurance companies, who else do
you pay? And if you would like to get rid
of the insurance companies, if you hate insurance companies, Bernie
Sanders would love to talk with you. He's got a plan, Republicans.
If you don't like insurance companies and you don't want

(17:53):
to pay insurance companies, He's got a terrific idea, just
do it straight with the government. So it's a strange
talking point that they're using. But the point is they
know this is not good politics for them. They know
that they have to deal with this, and I think
they're going to deal with this soon. But this Epstein thing,
I it's a When I was growing up, there was

(18:16):
a deodorant commercial for a deodorant called Sure. And this
is back when we had aerosol deodorance, and you know
that the aerosol deodorance was gross, you know, thankfully, you know,
we had such a we were so worried about the
ozone layer back then. They finally got rid of those things,
which is there's a whole bunch of us that are
thankful for that. That was just gross. You walk into

(18:36):
a gem and you'd always smell that sort of aerosol deodorant.
It was disgusting. But the Sure, I always said, never
let them see a sweat was sort of the tagline
for Sure deodorant. Well, Donald Trump is letting all of
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He is clearly nervous about all things ups. It is
his personal obsession. He is trying to enact political and
vendettas having to do with it. He is making Marchie
Taylor Green a martyr. He is giving, he is helping

(20:48):
get her mainstreamed with independency. She is proudly calling herself,
you know, Mago without him, And that's.

Speaker 2 (20:56):
The thing, like he is not. You know.

Speaker 1 (20:59):
I do think Thomas Massey, who was a sort of
America first Conservative before Donald Trump ever showed up. Margie
Taylor Green's beliefs clearly aligned closer with with a conservative
that's more in line with Massy than she is with Trump.
Trump is always as many a Trump advisor will quietly

(21:22):
let me know, he's always the least Mega person in
any room you walk into, wherever you go with Maga,
Trump's the least Maga. And he's become obsessed with the
deal making overseas he's become obsessed with all the money
he's making off of his off of his influence in government.
It's pretty much the opposite of what the true believers

(21:45):
in MAGA, those that did want to go after the elites,
who thought the elites were using government to enrich themselves,
And what's Donald Trump doing using government to enrich himself.
So look, I wrote it my substeck last week, and
I think that so far everything is playing out sort
of exactly out I sort of was laying it out,

(22:08):
and I think we're going to continue to see it.
His influence is waning. More Republicans discover every day that
he will never be on a ballot again, and just
keep an eye on. So he's already gone after Massi
and it's not really going that well. Thomas Massey's primary
is going is May nineteenth, and that's fairly early in

(22:30):
the primary season. There's a lot more though, you know,
we have a few states in March, a couple of
states in April, but most of the primaries are in June,
than a big chunk in August, and are remaining a
few in September. If Massi wins, And right now, I'd
rather be Massy than anybody else in that Republican primary.
He's had a hard time finding anybody. It's yet going

(22:54):
to be another reminder that the Emperor is losing his clothes.
I'm not going to say the Emperor has no clue
at the moment, but I think the Emperor is starting
to shed some clothes at the moment. And if he
is trying to punish somebody and he can't do it right,
he already lost one big one with Brian Kemp. And
remember why he turned on Brian Kemp. He turned on

(23:15):
Brian Camp over January sixth. In the election. He turned
on Brian Camp because Brian Kemp wouldn't do an illegal
act right, Brian Kemp wouldn't abide by his by Donald
Trump's wishes. So again this pattern. The only time Donald
Trump wants to punish a fellow Republican is when they

(23:37):
won't go along with something that just is bullshit. Right.
They won't go along on the Epstein files, they won't
go along on January sixth, they won't go along on
the election. And whether they're it's the only time he
turns on folks. He doesn't ever really turn on him
over policy. Disagreements. He only turns on him if he
thinks other people are going to embarrass them him because

(24:00):
because they won't keep his lie up. And when Massey
wins that primary in May, it's yet going to be
another chink in the armor, and it's going to continue
to open the store and everybody is it's just getting
easier and easier to separate yourself from Donald Trump, and

(24:21):
there's going to be these different lease a little small.
The Epstein vote is going to be a step in
that direction, and you're going to see one hundred or
more House members do it. When the Supreme Court rules
against his tariffs, you're going to see a whole bunch
of Republicans suddenly find their free trade spines again, and
they'll put out releases talking about following the Constitution. So

(24:47):
these little and then you're going to see, you know,
as people are upset about the costs rising costs, you're
going to see more in Republicans look for ways to
potentially separate themselves from the way House, but certainly to
more directly appeal to voters, either in different ways to
try to get rid of terrorists the lower costs, or

(25:10):
to question big tech and what they're doing to raise
our electric bills with all these data centers that are
going up all over the place. So I do think
we are witnessing, like I said before the beginning of
the lame ducification of Donald Trump. One other thing before

(25:31):
we get to the interview that I want to get to.
So I spent Thursday and Friday in Austin, Texas the
Texas Tribune Festival.

Speaker 2 (25:38):
They have it every year. I've been to it a
few times.

Speaker 1 (25:40):
They asked me to moderate a conversation with Maryland Governor
Wes Moore. I think I told you I was doing
that while I was there. I also it kind of
unofficially became a bit of a cattle call for twenty
twenty eight presidential candidates on the Democratic side of the aisle.
Wes Moore was there, Pete Bootagige there, Tim Walls was there,

(26:02):
Chris Murphy was there. So, you know, while I'm not
going to sit here and say it was, you had
a whole bunch of people looking for twenty twenty eight candidates.
I think they were there looking for people to fight
Donald Trump more than anything else. It was interesting the
various conversations that were had looked. I would say, the

(26:24):
attendees at the Texas Tribune Festival were folks looking to
fight Trump. These were folks that are you know, fall
on the left side of the aisle. They were there
looking for They're looking for hope, you know, looking for
a stronger vision in the Democratic Party looking in some cases,
I think many of them probably were a little further

(26:44):
to the left than probably the average rank and file
member of the Democratic Party. And like I said the
wes More conversation, you know, I was intrigued by the
sort of the tone he took. He knew this audience
was very liberal, and yet he didn't try to play

(27:07):
to the audience. He really hugged the center lane in
ways that I didn't fully expect him to hug it.
He made it clear that, you know, he didn't view
himself as tied to the Democratic Party. He was a Democrat,
but that didn't mean he would abide by everything the
Democratic Party was for. I thought that was an interesting distinction.

(27:28):
Always a little bit easier for governors to say that
than any other officeholder, but he went out of his
way to say that. I thought that was intriguing, and
I do think it's you know, when he goes through.
I mean, his military experience is you know, I think
there's some you know, John Kerrey used to get criticized

(27:48):
by some who thought that he used his military he
went into the military for political purposes. I don't care
if somebody went into the military for political purposes. That
doesn't bother me. But some people think, oh, you're doing
it to check a box. That isn't why Wes Moore
joined the military, and that's what he got in.

Speaker 2 (28:07):
You know.

Speaker 1 (28:08):
I I'm not going to sit here and question the
motive of somebody that chooses to put themselves in a
position where they could put themselves in harms way because
they think it'll look good on a political resume. I'm
not saying some haven't thought about it that in those terms.
But if you're willing to do that, then I've got

(28:28):
no problem with that. I appreciate that you're trying to
have a variety of experiences in order to in order
to be a better leader if you do get a
shot at being a small, de democratic leader of this country.
So I don't think it's a huge deal, but I

(28:51):
do think his military experience a little bit different. Right
when you join at seventeen and he was already had
gone to military school. So I just think he I
don't think he's a conventional liberal Democrat, is my point.
And I didn't fully appreciate that until you had, until
you have this longer conversation, I was intrigued by him.

(29:13):
I thought it was I thought some of his answers,
his defensive capitalism was quite interesting. Again, later this week,
we're going to drop this into the feed, So if
you want to listen to this conversation, you can listen
to the whole conversation. I actually used it also this
week in my new sphere, so those of you that
are a member of Newsphere, you can check out Sunday

(29:34):
Night with Chuck Codd. That was a big chunk of
that interview appeared there as well. But there was one
other thing I wanted to bring up because both he
and Tim Walls. I saw Tim Wall's conversation. He was
in conversation with Jennifer Paul Mary, a longtime Democratic operative,
and I asked both. Jen asked Tim Walls a question

(29:58):
about sort of what does Trump do well? And I
asked a question, what does Trump get right? You know?
To Wes Moore, some version of it and they both
said the same thing. You know, he acts, it's moved,
he moves quickly. I think Tim Wall said, he moves
quickly and he goes. You know one thing Trump does well,
what Wes Moore said, is that there's always action. Right.

(30:22):
He doesn't wait around for a commission. He doesn't have
a committee to study something before trying to implement it.
A lot of times he tries to implement things even
when he doesn't have the authority to do it. But
he's always but the voter sees him trying to do something,
sees him trying to fulfill a promise that he made,

(30:45):
even if it's ends up being kind of an empty fulfillment,
he still attempts to do it. It tells me that
the next Democratic president is if there's one thing they're
going to attempt to emulate from Trump, You're going to
see a lot more signing ceremonies, a lot more public
signing ceremonies, a lot more executive orders, a lot more

(31:06):
attempts at doing rather than studying, and maybe even trying
to do too much rather than looking back like I
think many in the Obama years do. And wonder was
that was the two years that he had full where

(31:27):
he had fifty nine to sixty Senate seats. He had
sixty for a while, then it was back to fifty nine.
A fairly large House majority was that did he was
getting healthcare? Was great? Should he have just kept pushing
the envelope, tried to get cap and trade, just pushed, pushed, pushed,
and because no matter what there was going to be,
they were going to lose the mid terms, no matter what.

(31:48):
So you might as well have done as much as
you can. Because what's the lesson Donald Trump has taken?
Do as much as you can while you can, because
you're really there or know how long you're going to
be there. And I think the fact that both Wesmore
and Tim Walls that that's one of the lessons those
that's the initial and when they're asked what does Trump

(32:10):
do well or what does Trump get right? That both
of them and I don't think they talk to each
other about this. I don't think either. I don't think
More the Wall said at first. I don't think More
heard Tim Walls say this. It didn't really go viral
or anything like that. So I don't think he's alone.
And I've heard this from quite a few other Democrats
that that they get frustrated. They think when you know, well,

(32:32):
he's he's signing these executors, they're kind of meaningless. Yeah,
ninety percent of them are meaningless. But the message to
the voters is he's trying that he's making an effort,
that he's doing something. Nobody ever wonders whether you know.
I think it's why Trump's erratic health isn't hurting him

(32:53):
quite yet as much as it hurt Biden, because Biden
didn't look like he was doing as much. So then
you wondered, why is an age doing as much? So
it is it is. It was just intriguing that that
was singled out.

Speaker 2 (33:07):
But again I go back.

Speaker 1 (33:08):
My big takeaway from Wes Moore is that he is
he is definitely not going to be running as a
mainstream liberal Democrat. I think he is going to be
running as something a bit different. And those that are
thinking this is the second coming of Obama, I would say,
I think it's more likely the second coming of Bill
Clinton than it is Barack Obama. For what it's worth.

(33:31):
All right with that, let me sneak in a break
and when we come back, my conversation with former Major
League prospect for the Los Angeles Dodgers. David Lesh, who
ended up a life as an expert on the Middle East,
hanging out with the assads every once in a while
in Syria. So with that, let's sneak in the break
and when we come back, David Lesh, there's a reason

(33:56):
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Their fee is free unless they win. Well here at

(34:59):
the check podcast. When you get a book proposal to
interview somebody, and the book is called Dodgers to Damascus,
it's almost as if the publication was trying to identify
me as the target's interview e as a Dodger fan,
growing up as a political junkie. Now policy junkie a story,

(35:23):
and this is a biography. The book itself as a
biography of my guest today, David Lesh, who is who
began his studies of the Middle East by being a
prospect for the Los Angeles Dodgers. Well let him in
some ways, that's exactly what it was, the dream of baseball.
Like a lot of aspiring baseball players, injuries can sometimes

(35:46):
get in the way of a career, and you use
another part of your body, your brain, to pursue another passion,
which is what David Lesh did. And it's a fascinating
story and the book is fascinating but sort of lessons
from baseball to help resolve the Middle East crisis or
crises plural. So David Lesh joins me now the subject

(36:09):
of the book. David, welcome to the podcast. It's nice
to meet you.

Speaker 3 (36:12):
Nice to meet you, too supposed to be. I'm glad
the book found its way across your desk. That's great.
So let me ask this. What's it like?

Speaker 1 (36:20):
I mean, it is this. You didn't write the book,
you participated. It is an authorized biography. That's it's almost.

Speaker 2 (36:29):
Like you're you you you.

Speaker 1 (36:31):
I always say it's sort of it's going to be awkward,
but it's like you are willing to expose yourself to
the to the world. And I think when you're when
somebody writes a biography of somebody that's still alive, right,
You're You're, that's a lot of you got to You're
You're always being asked to give more and more. What
did it feel like to read about yourself through a

(36:52):
third person?

Speaker 3 (36:53):
It was weird. You definitely are identifying the awkwardness of
it for me. If I Catherine Cook, who did such
a wonderful job as an accomplished author, who wrote this
book and She called me one time. She said, David,
I'm having trouble writing the last chapter. And I said
why and she said, because you're still alive.

Speaker 1 (37:13):
You know, that's would be my challenge as a writer
if I had this assignment. You know, you're you.

Speaker 2 (37:21):
You want to make a.

Speaker 1 (37:21):
Conclusion about somebody's life or legacy, and if they're still alive,
how do you word it in a way that doesn't
make them either feel like you're doing their obituary or
you're taking a shot at them.

Speaker 3 (37:33):
Well, that my wife is over now, you know, I
can't do anything else. But I'm still active and I
have a lot to look forward to, I hope. But
she did a good job. In fact, the last chapter
is entitled Stay Tuned, which hopefully is a metaphor for
better and bigger things that I can accomplish in my
life as we go forward. In all in all ways,
but it was a very weird experience, and I was

(37:56):
compelled to be introspective in a way that you know,
at this age of my life, I didn't, you know,
figure i'd be doing. And it forced me to look
at a lot of situations throughout my life. It was
interesting to see because she interviewed like fifty sixty you know,
colleagues and friends, family acquaintances, and it was interesting to

(38:17):
see what they thought of me, and which was much
better than that I had anticipated, by the way. But
so it was in a writing experience. It was emotional
at times because I had to revisit some periods and
events in my life that you know, had a great
deal of impact in positive and negative ways. But it
was really I thought, you know, well done by Catherine.

(38:40):
A very positive experience overall.

Speaker 1 (38:44):
So let's talk about what what what's drawn you to become,
you know, the essentially to do all the scholarship that
it takes to become a Middle East expert. And I
always I put experts in quotes because an expert of
what these days it's almost in some ways you're an anthropologist, right,
You're a civilization you're trying to understand and what it

(39:07):
really is is, you know, I have my own opinions
about how we just don't people don't understand the history
of the Middle East before nineteen forty eight, Right, that's
my largest frustration in sort of the coverage of stuff.
But what drew you to it? Why did you want
to make this your area of expertise.

Speaker 3 (39:26):
Well, I struck out of everything else, chuck.

Speaker 2 (39:27):
So, yeah, there you go. There's the dad pun striking
out there.

Speaker 3 (39:31):
It is no I think as in most cases, and
what I hope I'm doing to some of my students
as a professor now is I had a couple of
wonderful professors after I, you know, flamed out at baseball
with the injury, and I went back to undergrad school
and I had two wonderful, wonderful professors. It was just
pure luck. I was always extendent International relations. Lou Cantori

(39:53):
and Robert Freeman were the two. They were well known
in the field, and they just turned me on to
a subject that at that time, you know, the seventies
early eighties, as you well know, it was not covered
very well or objectively. And so I did the more
I started studying it, and more importantly, when I started
traveling there, I just became enamored with that history, with

(40:15):
the people and why things you know, went off the track,
so to speak, so much in so many areas in
the Middle East. I wanted to understand that and hopefully
later on, as I hope I've done in my books
to help explain it to an audience.

Speaker 1 (40:32):
So I have a bit of a snarky sort of
take on when it comes to sort of our what
I think is our ignorance about the Middle East, which
is and it comes from being a Jewish American, and
I'm not a very religious person, but I get I've
always felt I've never felt as if that part of
my identity mattered until a whole bunch of other people

(40:53):
want to tell me it's supposed to matter, and I
get sort of if I get my back up, I
joke anytime I hear the word populace, whether it's left
wing populism or right wing populism, I know the first
thing they're doing is coming for the Jews. But you know,
I realized in sort of the in the this was

(41:14):
began before October seventh, but certainly post October seventh, the
amount of people that didn't understand the Middle East pre
nineteen forty eight, and that really the biggest problem we
had generationally was And then it realized, well.

Speaker 2 (41:32):
How are we taught World War One and World War Two?

Speaker 1 (41:36):
And I think about World War One and we're I'm
guessing you had a similar grade school experience that I did.
You're a little bit older than me. But we basically
I think, you know, probably that fairly consistent education there,
which was we're taught World War One through the prism
of World War Two. You know, we screwed Germany too much,
made him angry and it started the Second War. We

(41:56):
never talked about the other part of World War One,
which was the fall of the Ottoman Empire and the
fact that in some ways, and a couple as I joke,
a couple of drunk Frenchmen and Brits decided to draw
straight lines and say you get a country you don't
you do?

Speaker 3 (42:11):
You know?

Speaker 1 (42:11):
And all of a sudden it's the United States. It's
left to deal with this mess. Again I'm being it's
a bit of a snark, but it's it does get
at what I think is the root issue of our
misunderstanding of a lot of the Middle East issues, which
is not understanding how it all broke apart after the
Ottoman Empire.

Speaker 3 (42:31):
Yeah, exactly. My pet peeve is that Americans in general, Westerners,
especially Americans, have had this telescopic view toward the Middle East,
and we need a microscopic view. And the telescopic view
is quite prejudiced and biased in many different directions.

Speaker 1 (42:46):
Incomplete, absolutely and complete is the best description I think.

Speaker 3 (42:50):
Yeah, and you need that microscopic view. But in today's
especially as time has gone on, in today's media, as
you will know, and sound bites and social media and
so forth pull on information in small bites and small packets,
and even foreign leaders, you know, they want that one
page brief less than one page brief instead of reading
a whole executive summary, even of a particular problem, especially

(43:12):
a country like the United States, which has so many
issues all over the world and responsibilities and objectives. For
a president to focus on one single thing and really
understand it is very, very unusual unless they have a
background in it. But yeah, I mean the Ottoman Empire
and you talk about the two drunk frenchmen that Jordan
was always said a joke was that Winston Churchill had

(43:35):
a hiccup and drew that part of Jordan that sticks out.
But the reality is it was to connect pipelines from
the Version Gulf to the Mediterranean Sea. So there was
all strategic reasons behind all of this. And one of
the things people understand, I think the British and the
French obviously allied on the Tient powers in World War One,
but they always saw each other as potential enemies.

Speaker 1 (43:55):
After the war, they were competing for reasons in the
Middle least, right exactly.

Speaker 3 (43:59):
And so you know, Syke's Pico and all these infamous
secret wartime agreements were always you know, from each side
aimed at the other for what they hope would be
victory and defeating the central Powers, including the Ottoman Empire.
But you're right, I mean, the fall of the Ottoman
Empire is sort of glossed over, and it's the Eurocentric
orientalist view of World War One and what happened with

(44:22):
the artificial divisions in the Middle East.

Speaker 2 (44:25):
Well, you know, it's interesting.

Speaker 1 (44:26):
This is also this week is the anniversary of Panamanian independence,
and essentially Panamanian independence came because Teddy Roosevelt cut a
deal because he wanted to a strip of land to
build the Panama Canal. So they basically created Panamanian independence, right,
And it reminds me of sort of how the Europeans
dealt with the Middle East. It's the same way the

(44:46):
United States has dealt with Latin America essentially for the
last hundred years, which is what can you do in
the region for us? Not what can we do for
you in the region? Is that.

Speaker 2 (44:58):
Simplistic view?

Speaker 1 (44:58):
But is that how you you would sort of describe
sort of the Eurocentric relationship with the Middle East over
the last hundred years.

Speaker 3 (45:06):
Yeah, I thought you were going to say, not the
one hundredth year, but the anniversary of the Balfour Declaration.

Speaker 1 (45:10):
As we were to that company too agreements.

Speaker 3 (45:13):
But yeah, absolutely, I mean, all countries act in their
own national interests and if they have leverage in terms
of those interests, they're going to exercise that leverage. And
what Israel has done, you know, ever since it came
into being in nineteen forty eight, And what all countries do,
the British, the French, the Americans, the Russians, and without

(45:34):
taking into consideration or very much consideration, the wants and
needs of the local populations other than that which will
feed their own strategic interests. And so's that's very, very true.
And it's you know, the countries in the Middle East
they lack in many ways of national identity, They lack
the rulers, lack legitimacy. A lot of that goes all

(45:55):
the way back to the artificiality of the heartland of
the Middle East.

Speaker 1 (45:59):
We just created archies right out of these tribal leaders.

Speaker 3 (46:01):
Right monarchies and so called Arab republican regimes that act
like monarchies because they want to be. You know, the
Mcadafi and Nassir and Lbark and Osad, they all wanted
to be. They all wanted to be and were in
some cases succeeded by their sons, so they turned out
to be monarchies in effect.

Speaker 1 (46:22):
So who did you have? Which aside did you have
did you start to strike up her I don't want
to say relationship, but sort of a conversation with.

Speaker 3 (46:33):
Yeah, that was Bisharl Ossad, who came to power in
two thousand after his father died. And you know, I'd
been going to Syria quite some time, and you know,
I like to consider myself a Middle Eat specialists in
mediaprent areas, but Syria's is definitely my number one specialty.
And I traveled the over thirty thirty five times over
the years, and so I knew I had a pretty

(46:55):
good network in Syria, particularly in mine academics. And when
Osade came to power in two thousand, he brought academics
into the government, which some thought, as you know, hope
for the future, other things.

Speaker 1 (47:05):
I was just gonna say, there was a brief period
where they thought maybe he'll be a modernizer, maybe he'll
be king using right, yeah.

Speaker 3 (47:11):
Exactly, yeah, and or a faisal in Saudi Arabi even
you know, back in the seventies and and you know
he was young. He liked Western music, he liked Western
you know, technological toys. Uh, you know, he was a
computer nerd.

Speaker 1 (47:25):
And everyone was educated in London, right educated.

Speaker 3 (47:27):
He received uh you know, he was trying to get
his what is essentially his boor certification ophthalmology in London.
But people have to remember he only spent you know,
two years in London. And even though he liked the
Electric Light Orchestra and Phil Collins and the Beatles, you know,
his upbringing was molded by, you know, being a child
of the Arab Israeli conflict, a child of the super

(47:49):
power conflict when Syria was on the side of the
Soviet Union in Russia. And mostly most importantly a child
of Havazalasat, his father, who had a very particular brand
of authoritarianism in Syria. So those are the things that
shaped his worldview, and I was very interested in, you know,
his transition from enthalmologists to ruler. And so I contacted
one of these academics he brought in who happened to

(48:10):
be the good friend of mine who was in the
Minister of Higher Education, and said, hey, you know, I
like to write a book on him. Can I meet
with Mischard Alasad? And that's how it all started, and
a couple of years later, in two thousand and four,
came into being.

Speaker 1 (48:22):
He's done this with a few Americans over the years,
like he seems to constantly. You know, there's there's been
a handful of Americans that I feel like I've had
that he does want to reach out to the Western side.

Speaker 3 (48:36):
Yeah, yeah, he did, and so timing, Yeah, when you
reached out to me in two thousand and four through
his ambassador in the United States, he was also a
friend of mine. It was not a coincidence at that
time because it was right after the US led invasion
of Iraq and Syria was slowly turning into a target,

(48:56):
not slowly, actually quickly turning into a target, whereas before
the invasion. Right after nine to eleven, American officials were
saying Syria was helping to save lies with intelligence cooperation
on El Kaeda. After two thousand and three, now Syria
was costing American lives because they were allowing Jahadas to
go through their country and into Iraq, which caused problems

(49:17):
for the US and its allies. And so you know,
I was, I was very interested in that transition, but
he was interested in portraying a more positive image just
when Syrian US relations, I think were deteriorating quite a bit.

Speaker 1 (49:32):
So let's fast forward. What do you think of what's
happening in Syria right now? And what kind of faith
do you have in this new leader? You know, to
go from a you know, essentially the insurgency to the establishment,
right whether no matter your political situation, no matter your country,
insurgents usually have a tough time governing.

Speaker 3 (49:49):
That is the question, isn't it? That is one hundred
thousand dollars question. I get asked it all the time.
I ask other people who know the president much more
intimately than the new president, much more intimately that I do,
and I still get different responses because we really don't know.
As you just said, going from revolutionary to ruler is
a trying process it's not always successful. The revolutionary can't really,

(50:12):
you know, rule in a way that is different from
the way that he handled things beforehand. Plus, and this
is throughout history. When rulers of opposition movements they come
to power, those that help them come to power want dividends.
They want you know, they want positions in the in
the government. They have a certain way of looking at things,

(50:35):
especially if they come from.

Speaker 1 (50:36):
Certain superpowers, believe they should get a little little extra
something as well all the time.

Speaker 3 (50:41):
Yeah, they want not just a little they want on
everything that so Ama Shaddah, the new president. You know,
on the one hand, the Israelis, quite frankly, they're skeptical
and after October seven, twenty twenty three, and this mcbunker
mentality that they have now, they're want to air in
the side of caution. And most of the Israelis I've

(51:03):
talked to in the military and politically, you know, they
see that Ahma Shada's turn toward moderation, pragmatism, wanting inclusive
government is more a tactical maneuver than something that represents
a true change. That he's going to revert to his
Jahada's roots at some point. And yet others I've talked
to that know him actually personally. One NGO in London

(51:25):
knew him for ten years and they are convinced he
is pragmatic. He has changed. You know, he's going to
be visiting Washington a week from today and meeting with
Trump and they'll probably serial will sign on to the
Anti ISIS coalition, which is supposed to be a big deal.
But they've been helping in terms of intelligence cooperation with

(51:45):
the US and tracking down Okada and isis outbart Is
when he was an IDLIB for the last decade. Now,
he did that because he wanted to clear out and
he helped clear out an any opposition or COMPETI zone.

Speaker 1 (51:58):
I was just going to say, this is a classic
case the enemy of my enemy as my house exactly exactly.

Speaker 3 (52:02):
But we've had this relationship with him for a while
that has been tactical and opportunistic. I mean all leaders
are opportunistic, they want power, they're egotistical. But if it
could be molded and it couldn't raise, so to speak,
in a way, the population stability than Okay, So the.

Speaker 1 (52:25):
First person that popped in my head when you were
talking about this debate, you know, no he's a secret
jihadis No, he's a pragmatist. Was air to one? Yeah, right,
we've had the same debate about air to one now
for almost twenty years.

Speaker 2 (52:37):
No, he can be dealt with.

Speaker 1 (52:38):
No, he's you know, at the end of the day,
he's still Muslim brotherhood, right, Like, there's this and yet
you know Israel at times doesn't want to deal with him.

Speaker 2 (52:48):
But he's a necessary you.

Speaker 1 (52:49):
Know, he's also the head of a country that's a
member of NATO, right, Like, there's this necessity. How would
you characterize the new leader of Syria through the prism
of air to wore like is he? Is it the
same type of unsurreness about where their real biases lie?

Speaker 3 (53:08):
Yeah? I think so. I mean, I think we're on
the road to a sectarian majoritarian state where his Sunni faction,
particularly a much more conservative branch of Sunni is Law,
are going to dominate things in Syria.

Speaker 1 (53:24):
If the actually does this mean he's going to get
a lot of funding from MBS ANDBZ and oh yeah,
oh yeah, as.

Speaker 3 (53:31):
He did as they did during the opposition times and well,
you know, this reminds me you were talking about. This
reminds me nineteen fifties, when we're talking about history in
the Middle East, there was this wonderful political science term
that the US applied to these authoritarian leaders. It was
called transitional authoritarianism, where you know, we support these guys
because they support US interests with military, political aid to police.

Speaker 1 (53:53):
It's why they all hate us. In Latin America, we
always supported whoever was on our side, not whether they
were smalldy democrats.

Speaker 3 (53:59):
Yeah, and we thought they would transition, right, that they
would transition to democracy. But yeah, oh wow, they live power.
They want to stay in power. And this is how
we got with the Shavaran as well, you know, all
these other guys. So you know, I see this playbook
again happening with Syria. We're going to be acting in
our strategic interests as well as Israel. We want to
keep Iran out, we want to keep the Russians at

(54:19):
bay in Syria and hope that it just doesn't implode
into another civil war.

Speaker 1 (54:26):
So can Syria become a democracy pledgling democracy all our
rock can it?

Speaker 3 (54:33):
Sure? Absolutely, they all can become democracies under certain circumstances.
It's like, well, those circumstances ever arise and not just
the you know, the larger ones, big ones, but in
terms of literacy, literacy rates, in terms of civil society,
all of these things that happen, in terms of economic
output and economic opportunity, all these things have to happen
before we get to the big questions of you know,

(54:54):
who can vote and how many people get to vote,
so you know it can happen. But you know, ninety
percent of the country is in the poverty rate. The
country has been dealing with fifteen years of withering international sanctions.
It's a population that's highly fragmented and militarized, with independent militias,
with drug mafias, with a rapacious warlords roaming around that

(55:17):
have more power than the national army. And you have
these sectarian fortresses which were created with the breakdown of
the state during the Syrians of a war. They you know,
you naturally retreat into your sectarian fortress and you look
at the other sex as a heathen scum that must
be eliminated from the world. And so how do you

(55:37):
piece all that together? And it's gonna take a long time.
A lot of patients. It may have to go through
various iterations of who is in power and hopefully not
another all out of civil war.

Speaker 1 (55:51):
So the what is I mean, what country has a
shot at trying democracy next after a rock? And why
are you surprised that Iraq is still sort of a democracy.

Speaker 3 (56:03):
Sort of being the operative.

Speaker 1 (56:05):
No, I mean it's not not a democracy. You know,
it's not Egypt.

Speaker 2 (56:09):
You know what is?

Speaker 3 (56:10):
Are we a democracy? You know? We have electoral college?
You know something?

Speaker 1 (56:13):
I mean, you know, do the people have an advanced
to change the government in this country? And I still
say the answers.

Speaker 3 (56:20):
Yes, yeah. And so in Iraq. One of the problems,
and this may be the future of Syria is you
have the Kurdish Autonomous Zone in the north.

Speaker 2 (56:30):
I want to bring up the Kurds in a minute
here yet.

Speaker 3 (56:32):
Which is virtually an independent country and actually doing much
better than the rest of them.

Speaker 1 (56:37):
I don't know why we don't support a Kurdistan. I mean,
I know why we don't because Turkey loses.

Speaker 3 (56:42):
Turkey Walton, Iran walten, Iraq walten.

Speaker 2 (56:45):
Why you know, all those countries don't want it.

Speaker 1 (56:48):
But you know, isn't the isn't the exposure of Iran
of being a paper tiger make the idea of a
Kurdistan more possible.

Speaker 3 (56:59):
I think think so in the sense that they won't
cause as much trouble in a Rock. And that goes
for what you were saying earlier, the possibility of Rock
becoming more of a democracy. I think Iran's being exposed
and being severely weakened has helped or increase the possibility
of a Rock becoming a functioning democracy, has increased the
possibility of Lebanon becoming a functional democracy, and maybe maybe Syria,

(57:23):
you know, down the road. But you know, at this point,
you know, I have a low bar of successors.

Speaker 1 (57:29):
How any Middle East expert is it going to ever
be too?

Speaker 3 (57:32):
Sadly, I just want stability and you know, benevolent governance
in these countries.

Speaker 2 (57:39):
Well, it's interesting.

Speaker 1 (57:40):
I have a colleague who just came back from Iran,
spent about two weeks here doing some reporting, touching base
with some sources again, and he came back pretty convinced
that the Iatolas are not going to be able to
hold power when this one dies. That is that this
is the next big crisis in the Middle East is
going to be Iranian instability, and that it's sort of

(58:01):
the It is, on one hand, something we've been wanting
right as a policy outcome, and yet are we really
ready for it?

Speaker 3 (58:09):
What say you, Yeah, be careful what you want right, right,
and careful what you wish for. I guess that's one
of the reasons why you know, NBS in Saudi Arabia
wants that security pack so desperate, as well as access
to nuclear technology because of that anticipation of instability perhaps
in the future in Iran, and what might what might
take over in Iran if the iatolas fall? You know,

(58:31):
will it becomes Sometimes when the boogeyman falls, it's not
necessarily what we want comes into power, something even perhaps worse.

Speaker 2 (58:38):
Well, we saw that in Egypt.

Speaker 3 (58:40):
We saw that in Egypt.

Speaker 1 (58:41):
Yeah, suddenly you're like, well, wait a minute, we'd like
that military dictatorship back please.

Speaker 3 (58:45):
Yeah, democracy is great as long as they left the
person we like, right, And but Iran I agree with that.
I agree with your colleagues observation. I think Iran is
on the precipice.

Speaker 1 (58:56):
You know that this was a really it's really the
unpopularity of the of the aetolas are huge, the distrust
and then the fact that they so easily folded right,
there was just there's no longer I mean, yes, they're
still brutalizing opposition, domestic opposition. They're still trying to be
an authoritarian state. But they've certainly there's not a lot

(59:19):
of fear anymore of the Iotolis.

Speaker 3 (59:20):
Yeah. And it's not so they folded. It's not so
much that they were beaten, they were obliterated.

Speaker 2 (59:28):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (59:28):
You know, despite all of this, you know, supposed deterrence
between Israel and Iran, and then Israel goes and takes
out his Belah in the most and most unique way,
and then a sad falls and the only viable and
then Hamas of course is terribly weakened. The only viable
you know, proxy militia is the Huthis now and Yemen.

(59:50):
But Iran is weakened their image. I think even more importantly,
their image has just gone down the tubes with regional powers. Uh.
And I think we can see a real clignment of this.
But what will happen in Iran? Iran has always been
reviewed as the prize, along as already being the Gulf,
So there are gonna be a lot of eyes the prize.

Speaker 1 (01:00:08):
I mean, I look at it as if Iran ever
decides to be a Western democracy, watch out. They're going
to be an economic powerhouse.

Speaker 3 (01:00:16):
Oh absolutely, And I mean they've got the largest natural
gas reserves in the world, large oil reserves, and they
have the minerals if they can just get their act together.
Of course, we could say it about Venezuela. We could
say it about you know, you didn't say it about Syria,
you know. I mean Syrians for years have always told
me we'd be much better allies than the Israelis, would
you know we would. We wouldn't undercut you as much
as the Israelis have done, and I'm sure the Iranians

(01:00:39):
would would try to do it after all. I mean
it's a you know, far COO's Arabic script is an
Indo European language, you know, and they have this past
that aligns with the West in some ways.

Speaker 1 (01:00:49):
So what do you make of the of this, of
this idea that the Middle East is essentially now the
rules are being written by the Israelis and the Gulf States.

Speaker 3 (01:01:00):
Yeah, I think there's a lot to that. I think
Israel is at its at its apex of power in
the region.

Speaker 1 (01:01:08):
Well it's funny apex of military power, but at a
nator in influence, right.

Speaker 3 (01:01:15):
I don't know. I wouldn't. I wouldn't say that because
military power speaks a great deal on that part of
the world. Yeah, and they are isolated international, but how
often does diplomatic isolation last when you need them, you know,
when they when they are on your strategic side, and
that goes out, that was out the window. So I
don't I don't think the Israelis ever really worry about
that too much. They're going to do what they want

(01:01:36):
to do. They they're going to do what they feel
is in their strategic objectives, and and they have done that.
I mean, look at this, Chuck, I mean that they
bomb Cutter.

Speaker 1 (01:01:45):
I think it's remarkable. You know, look, it's really frustrating
to me because you know, look, if they had the
way they managed the way they did the war in
Gaza versus the way they did Hesbela, it's like night
and day. Right, it was the you know, you could tell,
as I said, bb let IDF do its thing with
Iran and with with Hesbelah. They micro managed all things

(01:02:08):
Gaza through the lens of domestic politics, which is why
that's turned into an utter nightmare. Right.

Speaker 3 (01:02:14):
No, I agree, I mean they strategically took out his
blow in a very phase step way, very strategic way,
brilliant way in the same.

Speaker 1 (01:02:22):
Thing the way that we had come to be exactly
that many admire the Israelis about like they did with Munich.
They treated Hesbelah like they did the Munich terrorists, you.

Speaker 3 (01:02:31):
Knoweah, exactly, and they use the bulldozer in Ghaza, and.

Speaker 1 (01:02:35):
Which is why they have this weird moment where they
have maximized military power but problems with you know, but
they're pretty isolated in the in the world.

Speaker 3 (01:02:45):
Yeah again, they bomb Cutter, and no Arab countries that
are at peace with Israel break relations with it, you know,
not even Cuting.

Speaker 2 (01:02:54):
You're right, it's astonishing. It was so brazenishing moment.

Speaker 3 (01:02:59):
It's an amazing moment. And and talks about how those
shifts have occurred in the region UH and UH and
the and the importance of the Gulf state's intelligence cooperation,
economic cooperation that they've had with th REELL for for
years prior to you know, some of them establishing relations.
So this is this is absolutely a sea change for me.

(01:03:21):
And I see Syria coming on board if this current
uh UH government stays in power and follows along the
line they're doing at least signing a security arrangement with
Israel and then once society has crossed the line, which
they were they were gonna do probably if October seventh
didn't happen, which is one of the reasons, as you know,
the Hamas did. October seventh was.

Speaker 1 (01:03:42):
No, it was the you know, it's interesting, it was
you know the way Washington works, you know, in the
sort of everything is a deal. You know, the Saudis
were going to give Biden this, Yeah, this was going
to be Biden's like they weren't going to hold you know,
the Trump people were pressuring them to to basically wait
until Trump was there to add Saudi to the Abraham Accords,

(01:04:02):
and they were.

Speaker 2 (01:04:03):
Gonna because the Saudi's weren't. They're not stupid.

Speaker 1 (01:04:05):
They want to play bipartisan American politics here. They want
to everybody because they frankly knew, unlike Bebe, the Saudis
knew they had a problem in America's left and that
they were better off trying to appease the American left
rather than fight it. BB wants to fight it rather
than appease. But I'll but we could set that aside.
And October seventh, obviously made that impossible. But where talk

(01:04:28):
to my friends that are going to be listening to
this and say, I can't stomach MBS. Why should we
help him? What's say, give me the give me the
academic view of why we've Why would they're a necessary partner?

Speaker 3 (01:04:42):
Oh, he's the only game in town right now for
a very important strategic country. And and uh, you know,
I don't at all like some of the things he's on,
especially to you know, Koshoji and uh In in assassinating
and dismembering him, some of these things. But uh, you know,
I'm all more of a realistic understand that. You know,

(01:05:03):
tomorrow is a different day, and the Saudis an NBS
may be very much needed. You know now that now
that you know Iraan is perhaps weaken We always thought
of them at the Saudis as a counterway to Iran,
But we have to see what's going to happen with Iran.
It'll be interesting in the future. This will be interesting

(01:05:23):
if ten fifteen years from now, Iran does get rid
of the Ietolas, does stabilize, does become this potential economic
power is you know, much like Germany in mainland Europe.
You know, what will happen with the Saudis relationship and
so forth? Can the two mutually coexist with US interests?

Speaker 2 (01:05:45):
Right?

Speaker 1 (01:05:45):
You could see three economic powers in the Middle East Israel,
a democratic Iran, and this sort of religious monarchy in
the Gulf, right with the Saudis, and they are they
going to be alliance? Are they going to be competitors? Right?

Speaker 3 (01:06:01):
Yeah, exactly, exactly, and that will be interesting to see
and so many, so much more history will occur before.

Speaker 1 (01:06:07):
We can answer that question. So let's move backwards about
your baseball career and how you you.

Speaker 2 (01:06:14):
Know, tell me how you fused it? You know, what
is it? What are the lessons? You know?

Speaker 1 (01:06:19):
I'm a huge advocate of sports in general, youth sports.
It teaches human interaction, it teaches there's so many lessons
from team sports. In particular. I think football is ideally
the most incredible team sport to deliver because eleven people
have to do their job for success. In baseball, everybody

(01:06:41):
has to do their job. There's a little bit of
individual talent, right, you know that you can, but ultimately
you don't win with that. You could be the greatest
player in the world, Tad Williams, but if you don't
have enough good baseball players around you, You're not going
to win a World Series. So you know how when
somebody says the lessons of baseball helped me become a
better give me better perspective about the Middle East? You

(01:07:04):
answer this question half.

Speaker 3 (01:07:05):
Because I failed so many times in baseball. I mean,
as you and.

Speaker 2 (01:07:09):
Mist in the Middle East is a lot of failure,
A lot of failure.

Speaker 3 (01:07:12):
I mean, failure is at the core of sports. I mean,
you know, what do you have to hit to reach
the Hall of Fame in Major League Baseball?

Speaker 1 (01:07:19):
You only have to fail seven out of ten times.

Speaker 3 (01:07:22):
Exactly, And so you have to keep coming back as
a pitcher. Of course, I was a hitter as well
early on, but in professional baseball was a pitcher. And
you know, one inning you give up a home run.
The next inning, you know you have a chance to
rectify the situation or the next game, and so you
constantly fail. And I played basketball and tennis and all
in football when I was young, and you were constantly tested,

(01:07:44):
and you developed this resiliency which Sanjay Gupta I read
the other day says resiliency is like strength training for
the brain, you know, and it helps you get through
personal traumas it helps you get through failures later in life,
and as I've become a conflict resolution person involved in
high level negotiations and air BISAREELI stuff, steering, civil war.

(01:08:06):
You fail all the time, I mean, but you have
to learn from it, and you have to have that resiliency,
that persistence, perseverance to get through it and try again,
and try again and try again. Now you don't want
to make you know, Einstein's theory of insanity correct, but
you you, you know, learn from it and it just
and sometimes things just out of out of your control,

(01:08:29):
ruins everything and brings you back to ground zero. And
that's what happens in sports as well. And you just
have to have that resiliency. And so, you know, one
of my mantras is keep trying, don't eliminate yourself, and
keep trying. And that I had to think. That's what
I got from baseball and sports in general.

Speaker 1 (01:08:47):
When you you know, do you look back on your
injury and think, boy, if it happened today, you know,
the technology would have given me another chance.

Speaker 3 (01:08:57):
Jock, you be interviewing the lead comment of the World
Series right now, the lead analyst after a twenty year,
brilliant Hall of Fame career at the injury.

Speaker 1 (01:09:06):
Now that's the what if in your head?

Speaker 2 (01:09:08):
How do you not think about that?

Speaker 1 (01:09:09):
What if?

Speaker 3 (01:09:10):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (01:09:11):
I'm all the technological advancements. I mean, you know, Sandy
Kofax's career ends. You know, show has already had two.

Speaker 2 (01:09:19):
Tommy Jones, Yeah, I think, right, you know.

Speaker 1 (01:09:24):
It's uh, it's remarkable, right, Like Sandy Kofex might have
had another five great years.

Speaker 3 (01:09:29):
Yeah, I mean, you know, I had a rotator cuff
injury and rotator cuff surgery by Frank Joe, but the
Dodgers didn't really perfect itself for another five ten years. Yes, yeah,
I mean I really don't think of that because I've
had a fulfilling, you know, career in many ways more fulfilling,
and I have a wonderful wife and family and so forth,
so you know, all those If I become a major

(01:09:51):
league player, that wouldn't have happened and wouldn't have met
these one of the people. But I don't really think
of that. But but you know, sometimes, you know, I
think I would have made a lot more money. That's
rich there being a major league pitcher. But drafting pictures
is the worst investment in all of sports. That's why
you got a draft about ten or fifteen of them.

(01:10:12):
Hopefully one gets through because of all the injuries, because
everything you do physiologically pitcher is wrong against normal you know, physiology.

Speaker 2 (01:10:21):
Well, it's funny you say that I got you know.
I think I told you off camera.

Speaker 1 (01:10:25):
I was The Dodgers were the team of my youth,
so I used to just I know a lot of
the history of the Dodgers in general, and any any
individual player that sort of had made a name for themselves.
I always have some curiosity about and the relief pitcher
Mike Marshall, who I believes the first ever relief pitcher
to win this ion. He spent the last twenty years

(01:10:46):
of his like obsessed with changing the motion of pictures
for the very thing you just said said, like the
way that we've taught pitching is actually asked the arm
to do something it shouldn't be doing, and that if
you change the motion, you could actually limit injuries. And

(01:11:08):
I believe his method did produce one major leaguer who
got into the majors. But given when you came up,
it was sort of tail end of Marshall's career there.

Speaker 2 (01:11:18):
Did you ever follow that.

Speaker 1 (01:11:21):
That whole like, oh the case he had?

Speaker 3 (01:11:24):
Yeah, yeah, it's funny. I was. I was just thinking
about this yesterday when I was talking to someone. If
I had to change something with my motion I was
in college and then drafted in the pros, it would
be throwing more side arm. I was a straight overhand pitcher,
and the more straight overhand you throw, the more pressure.

Speaker 1 (01:11:42):
Oh my goodness, it's right on your shoulder. Like this
kid at the Blue Jays. Now, I just heard, right,
this kid with the Blue Jays, You savage.

Speaker 2 (01:11:50):
Don't you watch him throw and think.

Speaker 1 (01:11:52):
Yeah, buddy, in about two years, you're going to have soldiers. Suit.

Speaker 3 (01:11:55):
It's going to happen, and they're all throwing so hard
and putting so much stress on their extra ligaments in
their forearm that they're all getting Tommy John surgery. I mean,
as you said, Otani had two, it's like everyone has one.
They're having them now in high school and college. It's like,
you know, you know something that has to happen before, well,
isn't it you? Now?

Speaker 1 (01:12:14):
Rarely will an MLB team draft a high school pitcher anymore? Right?
They almost want the college level get your Tommy John out.
Get LSU to pay for the Tommy John, right, Get
cal State Fullerton to pay the Tommy John, you know
that sort of thing, and then we'll.

Speaker 3 (01:12:31):
Off, you know, and come back for twenty three or
you know, something like that. And it's so much stress
on the body in the arm. But throwing sidearm, if
I had to go back, I do that because I
did throw a sidearm every now and then just to
cross up the hitter. I crossed up my catcher as well.
But yeah, it was effective, and I threw actually even harder.
I mean I had a low nineties, high eighties fastball,

(01:12:54):
you know, peaked at ninety five, which in those days
actually meant something. Can you believe change ups today are
ninety miles hour change The whole goal.

Speaker 2 (01:13:02):
Of a change up is what it has to be ten.

Speaker 3 (01:13:04):
Miles less than your fast ball, exactly right.

Speaker 2 (01:13:06):
So if you're throwing a hundred, then yeah, right.

Speaker 3 (01:13:10):
That's just unfathomable to me. And sliders at ninety miles
an hours, I don't know how these hitters are doing it,
how they can hit these things, But.

Speaker 1 (01:13:17):
I know there's this point where you wonder, when does
the ligament just when does the body we have reached
the peak performance of the body.

Speaker 3 (01:13:26):
Yeah, and I think, you know, I think there's going
to be a trend. This is getting so it's a
pandemic of Tommy John surgery. I think there's going to
be a trend to go back to the great Maddis
Maddox type of pitching, you know, high eighties, maybe low
nineties at best, movement on the ball, placement, pitch longer.
I mean, you know, we were talking off camera and

(01:13:47):
Jim Palmer and right Bob Gison's guy. They threw three
hundred innings year after year, twenty complete games. So I.

Speaker 2 (01:14:02):
Love Fernando.

Speaker 1 (01:14:04):
Fernando was you know, I was ten when he came
up right like that was peak, you know, and he
was so much fun that World Series in eighty one
and following his career and you look at his year
stats and it was always like I always thought he was.
I always thought he belonged to the Hall of Fame
before everything else he did. And when you look at

(01:14:25):
his eight year sort of his eight year peak, Nope,
he always threw three hundred innings.

Speaker 3 (01:14:30):
You know.

Speaker 1 (01:14:30):
The joke was Tommy, you know, ruined his career by
leaving him into always way too long, and that he
that he basically his eight years was the equivalent of
what would be a seventeen year career today per number
of innings you pitch.

Speaker 3 (01:14:44):
Exactly, exactly. Remember the Braves, you know when they had
Smolds and Maddocks and glad Lavin. Yeah, they all pitched,
you know, every four days. They pitched long, you know,
deep into the game. And analytics have, in my mind,
screw things up with that regard. And you know, you
can't face a batter more than two times or the
third time they're going to catch on to you. But
this is what pitching is all about, if you have

(01:15:05):
enough pitches and and uh yeah, Maddox.

Speaker 1 (01:15:09):
I love those stories of Maddox, you know, and hear
stories and he says, yeah, I let this guy see
this pitch because I know I'm facing him in the
playoffs and he's gonna think I'm gonna throw it again,
and I'm never going to do Like Maddox was always.

Speaker 2 (01:15:20):
Game planning on that bat.

Speaker 1 (01:15:22):
The next at bat when he was facing the current batter,
I'm gonna make him pop this one up, And sure
enough he could do that. Like that's just that's pitching.
That's that's strac.

Speaker 3 (01:15:31):
Actually thinking, actually thinking on the mound, you know. And
and maybe that's why I'm into academia, Chuck. They always
thought think.

Speaker 1 (01:15:39):
Can you imagine do they having an earpiece, oh where
somebody's telling you what pitch to throat?

Speaker 3 (01:15:44):
That would be insulting to me. You know, I call
the game. I think is it shirt ser you mentioned
him Searcher actually shirts his own game. Don't ever get
me one of these things, you know.

Speaker 2 (01:15:53):
And now Max is the left.

Speaker 1 (01:15:55):
Max, it feels like we're about to see the end
of the last era of sort of the twentieth century
style of pitching. We're moving to this, right. Susier was
always a throwback, you know. He never wanted to go
less than seven, right, He always wanted to keep going.
Your Verlanders, your Sugiers, your Kershaws, and here they are.

(01:16:15):
They're all basically probably I kind of think Max, I
want him to retire. Now he gets to say he
pitched the last gave me pitch was a series. But
it's hard to walk away, right, Like, how often did
you wish you had one more year?

Speaker 3 (01:16:30):
I wish I wish I had I wish I had
one year in the majors. I mean, as you know,
I flamed out the miners. I wish I would have
stayed healthy enough to God, because I went up against
these guys in spring training and batting practice.

Speaker 2 (01:16:44):
And you knew you had your stuff. It was just
the injury that never gave me the shot I help, So,
you know, I.

Speaker 3 (01:16:50):
Mean there's lots of ifs and what ifs, and sure
I think I had the basic stuff. That's why I
was drafting number one, I think, and by the Dodgers,
so I like to think, I you know, if not, they.

Speaker 1 (01:17:00):
Were always a little bit better at identifying young pictures.
I mean that was their thing. That's what they did.

Speaker 3 (01:17:06):
That's what they did. But you still got to get
a bunch of them because you just never know when
the body's going to give out, and it will give
out unless you're Clemens or Nolan Ryan has to be a.

Speaker 1 (01:17:14):
Bionical I read, is it Nolan Ryan that doesn't have
the the the tendon that would snap or something like?
He was basically literally a gift from.

Speaker 2 (01:17:25):
God type of I know, I know, elbow it's the key.

Speaker 3 (01:17:28):
You know, if you want your kid to become a pitcher,
take out, take out the flexor tendon or something like that.

Speaker 1 (01:17:33):
Like, don't even have it. It turns out it's an impediment.

Speaker 3 (01:17:36):
Yeah, oh yeah, I mean, but look at his legs,
you know, uh Nolan Ryan and Tom c they're huge,
and he got a lot of his power. It got
low and pushed off and that's what a lot of
pictures it.

Speaker 1 (01:17:47):
Certainly it looks like he's built that way. Yeah, exactly,
He's built bottom up. And if you told me, if
I told you, he never It's interesting, by the way,
a guy like Max Scherzer's never had a Tommy John
and neither's Kershaw. Right, what does it tell you if
you've never had one these days.

Speaker 3 (01:18:06):
That if you pitch the right way, if you don't
worry about throwing, use your legs now, use your legs,
use your body. And there's all sorts of mechanics now
to align your body. There's so much more technology. Perhaps
when I was playing, if they had that technology, they
would have aligned my body my motion more. I put
less stress on the elbow shoulder for me. So you

(01:18:28):
know they can do these things. But man, if you're
throwing one hundred miles an hour, your arm is going
to give out. You just cannot take that type of pressure.
And the thing is, you know, hitters are they catch up,
they're hitting these balls. And I've leuis, how many teams
your favorite teams? And a guy Jamie Moyer, you know,
who's forty he pitched forever eighty two miles an hour,

(01:18:51):
eighty five miles an hour, and he pitches a shout
out because hitters aren't used to that type of thing.
You know, they're not used to eighty eighty with with
motion and with the motion in the ball and with targeting,
you know, target to pitching. So it's I think there
there's room for both. And I think I agree with you.
I think we're gonna trend sort of in a in

(01:19:11):
another direction. I hope, I hope.

Speaker 1 (01:19:13):
Well, it was exciting to see Amamoto throw a complete game.
You're like, hey, that used to be a big that
used to not be as big of a deal. A
complete game of the World Series.

Speaker 3 (01:19:22):
It must be a different Yamamoto, you know at some point.
But and then he comes back the day after and
throws you know, three innings, you know, after he throws
a I mean, it's unbelievable, and uh, you know, I
hope his arm is Okay, uh, you know, I'm sure,
having invested gazillion dollars in him, they're not going to
ruin him.

Speaker 1 (01:19:41):
But I'm sorry as a as a Natch fan who
watched the team make the decision not to use their
young star pitcher in a run to the playoffs, and
then they decided to over use them in their eventual
run to the World Series. They you know, the price
of the world. I mean, Steven Strasburg never recover from
that overuse.

Speaker 3 (01:20:01):
That's true, That's true.

Speaker 1 (01:20:02):
I mean it ended his career. Now, the question is,
as a franchise, if the ultimate prize is winning the
World Championship? Is it worth it?

Speaker 3 (01:20:10):
Would you take that? Is that? Is that? Is that? Well?

Speaker 2 (01:20:12):
They did? That's the disc Basically, the Nats made that
worth it.

Speaker 3 (01:20:16):
As a Gnats fan, are you is that worth it?

Speaker 1 (01:20:19):
It's a great question I'm glad to have had. I
I tell this to my son because he's so depressed
about the state of the Nats and it's an ownership
group that doesn't look like they want to keep up
with the Joneses or the Guggenheims, et cetera.

Speaker 3 (01:20:32):
Right, right, correct, But.

Speaker 1 (01:20:36):
I tell him, you know what's what makes fandom fantastic
because you experience a low for so long that when
you get the taste of the high, it's so much
it tastes so much better.

Speaker 3 (01:20:49):
Well, you're talking to as I said before, I grew
up in Baltimore, a lifelong Orioles fan. We haven't won
the World Series since eighty three. If we had an opportunity,
if we were in the World Series this year, throw
cost win, throw right the top pitchers every every inning.
I don't care. You know everything you know, and I'm
a pitcher. I realized what could happen with overuse?

Speaker 1 (01:21:09):
You know? So let me ask the Otani question to you,
because I'm sure you get a version of it, But
let me ask it this way. Why is this so unusual?
I why why haven't more pitchers been more successful hitters
in the past.

Speaker 3 (01:21:22):
Yeah, well, I think I think you're going to see this.
And one of the things that most people don't realize
is that major league pitchers, almost all of them, I
would say, were really great hitters.

Speaker 1 (01:21:33):
In little They were probably the best team in their
little league. Best. They played every If they weren't pitching,
they were playing shortstop.

Speaker 3 (01:21:39):
Right on my high school team, I was the best hitter.
I was the best pitcher in college. It happens. But
in college you start getting weeded out and you get
into specialization. I remember, even when I was playing in
the minor leagues, only the Cincinnati Reds, even in the
minor low one near leagues, allow pitchers to hit. But
otherwise you're you know, DH four, and you never practice,

(01:22:01):
you never take hitting practice. And so just like anything,
you do skill and so the specialization of it. But
I did when a little league game, I did pitch
a complete game, six inning shutout and hit a home
run in the game. So and it was a legitimate
home run, not a little league Yeah, you get a
show exactly, but I do.

Speaker 1 (01:22:22):
It was always one of those I never understood why
more pitchers couldn't take batting practice on their off days.

Speaker 3 (01:22:29):
Yeah, I know it. I don't know. Maybe the Union
got together and this is this is conspiracy theory talk,
and they said they want these older guys who can
want jobs.

Speaker 2 (01:22:40):
A conspiracy theory. No, no, no, no. The argument the
DH is more jobs.

Speaker 3 (01:22:45):
He Aaron, Tommy Davis, you know these these older guys
that can't play in the field, and and they want
more offense. I mean, that's the that's the key. You know,
they want more runs, they want more offense. It was
a business decision. And all the National League, of course
is designated hit her and I missed the strategy of
the picture hitting and all of that sort of thing.
And but and there were some good there were some

(01:23:05):
good pictures some you know who who hit as well.
So I miss So.

Speaker 1 (01:23:11):
Could you know there's there's a team Israel in the
World Baseball Classic, but baseball's never really taken in the
Middle East. There is some cricket. Could you ever imagine
being able to get more people interested in baseball in
the Middle East?

Speaker 3 (01:23:29):
I think I'd like to get more people interested in
baseball in the United States.

Speaker 1 (01:23:32):
With first, well, I.

Speaker 2 (01:23:34):
Know my son is My son tells me this all
the time. He goes.

Speaker 1 (01:23:36):
You know, I'm the only one of my friends that
actually follows baseball like they're Nats fans, but they weren't
really Like he's now at school in Dallas, and the
first thing he did was he wanted to go check
out a Rangers game. He'd never been. And he had
the hardest time convincing somebody to go with them to
a baseball.

Speaker 3 (01:23:53):
Game because it's it's long, it's you know, to some
that it's boring. There's not as much action. There's a
lot more lot into it. I mean, you know, I
take the George Will you know view toward yeah, base
I think about every pitch where the fielders are, and
so it's it's a lot of fun in my mind.
But we're baseball aholics, you know. But for this generation

(01:24:14):
and the recent generations, uh, you know, they want more action,
more scoring, which is why baseball, you know, went to
the home run and steroids and looked the other way
and all this stuff to get more runs on the board.
But we'll take in the Middle East, I don't know.
I mean, the Saudi's play it. But that's a bunch
of a Ramco kids, you know that that's all right.

Speaker 1 (01:24:34):
It is cricket close enough that you could use it
as a gateway or not.

Speaker 3 (01:24:38):
No, I don't think it's a very different game. And
people look at the history of baseball and they think
it comes from cricket. It really doesn't. It comes from rounders,
which is much more like baseball. But I don't think
I can't even understand cricket, and cricketers can't understand baseball either.

Speaker 2 (01:24:54):
But I've tried to.

Speaker 1 (01:24:55):
I've like, you know, uh, you know, sometimes you're just
traveling overseas and you're stuck a hotel and there's nothing
to watch other than either a rugby match or a
cricket match. So you know, I would sit there and
try to figure it out, and you're just like, well,
you know, you know.

Speaker 3 (01:25:09):
While you make an interesting point, show maybe in the
Middle East and elsewhere, and maybe baseball has more of
a chance because their favorite sports, you know, soccer or
football and cricket. You know, they're they're long soccer and
they're low scoring.

Speaker 1 (01:25:23):
So maybe, right, and it is about strategy that you know,
in some ways the mentality of sports, especially in sort
of Southeast Asia with cricket and soccer, and at least
with cricket and soccer. I mean you're right, I mean,
maybe we're stumbling onto something and that they enjoy the
patience of the success. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:25:42):
We just we just need baseball. I mean obviously it's
it's very popular in Latin America and in East Asia.
We just need baseball to enter into Europe and the
and the Middle East and do what the NFL I
think has been doing. You know, we of course we
hold games in Mexico and and uh and have exhibitions
and Stasi and so forth, or actually had some regular
season games in Japan this this past year. So you know,

(01:26:05):
I think one of the things, one of the things
which changes everyone's perception in the particular region world out
of sport, United States, if someone from that region becomes
a star and it becomes a guiding light like a
show Atani or you know earlier Japanese players and Korean players.
We just need some some Middle East.

Speaker 1 (01:26:23):
You know, we almost had it in you Darvish, Yeah, Japanese, Iranian.

Speaker 3 (01:26:28):
Yeah, exactly exactly. So you know, if we get one
of those these these you know, lightning rods that can
that can act as a uh, you know, a form
of attraction to your day, and and then you start
to get youth baseball and stuff like that. May take
a generation, but that's what it'll take.

Speaker 1 (01:26:48):
Let me get let me get you out of here.
On the issue of Islamophobia, okay, because as somebody who
spent so much time in in Middle East, in the
Arab world in general, and obviously there's you know, not
all Arabs are Muslim, and not all Muslims or Arabs
and so forth. But Islam a phobia is one of

(01:27:10):
those phobias that is like anti Semitism.

Speaker 2 (01:27:14):
It has it's on the left and the right. It
can be a type of unifier.

Speaker 1 (01:27:19):
That's not a healthy thing for a democracy.

Speaker 2 (01:27:24):
You know.

Speaker 1 (01:27:25):
Just tell me about your experience of sort of learning
the culture that sort of got rid of or didn't
allow a phobia to take to take in you.

Speaker 3 (01:27:36):
Yeah, I think it's because of travel. And this is
why I'm such a big advocate of travel abroad in college.
Just to go places and not to an English language place,
you know, were unit a language. Go someplace that makes
you feel uncomfortable, Go someplace where you don't know the
culture or learn the language, immerse yourself, and that's when
you really start to understand that these people, even though

(01:27:57):
they follow in all the religion and have many different
habits and customs, they're like you in many different ways.
They want many of the same things. And I bring
students and I brought groups over to the Middle East,
and that's what they find out when they really interact
with people and not just stay in the five star
resort hotel. They go around to the rural areas, They
need people. They spend you know, an evening or even

(01:28:19):
overnight at some house and they learn about their lives
and that is the best way to get rid of
these phobias and all of this misinformation that exists regarding Islam.

Speaker 1 (01:28:33):
I mean, look, there's we're seeing more Muslim Americans run
for office over the next ten years, and you're going
to see it. It is the tension that shows up
in these communities, and it ends up being it could
be New York City, it could be Minneapolis, it could
be La like it's you do in it. It's definitely
a tougher barrier to break than I think I fully appreciate.

Speaker 3 (01:28:55):
Yeah, you know, Jimmy Carter said something that was very
interesting when a bot Warack Obama became president and a
lot of this latent racism came out because he was
the first African American president, and Jimmy Carter said, you know,
this is a good thing. People were afraid. He said, no,
this is a good We needed to come out and
only then can we address it. So maybe all of
these things, more Muslims becoming involved in the community. Yes,

(01:29:18):
it's causing some distress intentions and people are afraid of this, that,
and the other thing in sharia law coming in, which
is ridiculous. Maybe all of this has to happen. We
need to get through this and have these discussions and
hopefully through education and reasonable people making reasonable decisions that
we can get past it.

Speaker 2 (01:29:36):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:29:36):
I remember Collin Powell when he endorsed Obama the first time,
and he said, but his answer to that is lucky
he's not Muslim, But so what if he was?

Speaker 3 (01:29:44):
Yeah, yeah, exactly right.

Speaker 1 (01:29:46):
He tried.

Speaker 2 (01:29:47):
It was like, why it doesn't if he was, it
wouldn't matter, right, this is it.

Speaker 3 (01:29:52):
And there are many Muslims that are as Muslim as
I am Roman Catholic, which is not very much anymore, right,
called it's.

Speaker 2 (01:29:59):
More of a how you. It was more about your upbringing,
that your prep you now, how you live.

Speaker 3 (01:30:03):
What type of person you are, these type of values
and and you know, it just takes understanding, it takes listening,
it takes empathy, and we're in short supply of all
these things these days. But hopefully that'll change.

Speaker 2 (01:30:16):
So you still hang your hat in San Antonio.

Speaker 3 (01:30:18):
I do, I do, and probably we'll it'll be on
my grave, my grave site as well, because I love
it here it's a you know, big city with a
small town atmosphere.

Speaker 2 (01:30:28):
I have to say San Antonio, this San Antonio.

Speaker 1 (01:30:31):
Austin megaopolis that's developing, right, I mean, you know, it
feels like it's feels very similar to d C Baltimore
or Dallas Fort Worth.

Speaker 3 (01:30:41):
You know. Yeah, it's coming together, much more dominated by
Austin in the last decade than.

Speaker 2 (01:30:47):
But I feel like, you know, maybe Wemby will change things, right.

Speaker 3 (01:30:50):
I think so hopefully the team stays here long enough.

Speaker 1 (01:30:53):
Well, I know, I mean, you know, the Austin desperately
wants a basketball team. I think they have a better
shot at getting a baseball team. Like I love the
idea of San Antonio getting having football and basketball and
let Austin have the baseball.

Speaker 3 (01:31:05):
I would have loved San Antonio instead of building their
recent basketball arena where it is in the East Side,
to build it like about not maybe not halfway, but
a little bit more closer on I thirty five North.

Speaker 2 (01:31:15):
Well, is it that halfway between Austin and San Antonio
becoming its own city?

Speaker 3 (01:31:20):
Yeah, San Marcos and le bron Fels. It's it's as
you said, it's a megalopolis, and that would have drawn
from both cities, and therefore, you know each team. I
don't even care if they call it the San Antonio
Austin Spurs or something. Just right, keep them here, draw
from both cities, and that would have been great. But
now we have a proposition going out to being elected
on tomorrow that will decide whether or not the Spurs

(01:31:43):
build a downtown arena. And if it doesn't pass, who knows,
they may become the Austin Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:31:48):
Boy, the timing of that with Wemby on the rise,
my guess is that probably helps it a couple of
points I would. I mean, cities usually reject this stuff
though they don't like taxpayer dotas.

Speaker 3 (01:31:57):
We don't like it's, especially San Antonio. But you know
there's in town.

Speaker 2 (01:32:01):
I'm going to put this on my list of races
to watch.

Speaker 3 (01:32:05):
Prop on the proposition A and B.

Speaker 1 (01:32:07):
They're both key fantastic.

Speaker 2 (01:32:10):
Hey, Dave, this was great. I appreciate it getting.

Speaker 3 (01:32:12):
To know you well. I really enjoyed it too, Chuck,
thank you.

Speaker 1 (01:32:14):
All right, Well, people should check out the book Dodgers
to Damascus. Uh.

Speaker 2 (01:32:19):
It's more of a Middle East book than it is
a baseball book.

Speaker 3 (01:32:22):
It is it is I spent a few years in
baseball and the rest of my life in Middle East.
So yeah, proportionally appropriate.

Speaker 1 (01:32:28):
But you know, it's a it's a reminder that that
sports is part of your education. It's you can't have
a complete life in some ways, a complete education without
without sports.

Speaker 3 (01:32:40):
About sports, I'm having other life experiences. You know, there's
competition and discomfort and failure.

Speaker 1 (01:32:46):
So no, it's terrific. Lesson. Congratulations And like I said,
I I appreciate you exposing yourself because that's what that
is when you let somebody else write about you while
you're still alive.

Speaker 3 (01:32:56):
Yeah, thanks, thanks, Jock. I'm a rep in the end.

Speaker 2 (01:32:59):
But anyway, David, great to know you.

Speaker 3 (01:33:02):
Okay, take care of them about well.

Speaker 1 (01:33:10):
I hope you enjoyed that conversation. I think understanding the
modern Middle East is going to be almost an every
day exercise. To be frank, it's let's just say, nothing
feels permanent still, and I don't think anything will feel
permanent for some time. But let's go into the podcast

(01:33:31):
time machine. So it's the week of November seventeenth through
the twenty third, and you know what I like to do,
go back in history and we're just looking at this
these seven days, and believe it or not, this is
quite I stumbled onto what is conspiracy theory Week? In

(01:33:53):
American history? Three moments in particular have anniversaries this week.
The Jonestown massacre, the kool Aid drinking November.

Speaker 2 (01:34:05):
Eighteenth, nineteen seventy eight.

Speaker 1 (01:34:07):
There's, of course, the jfk assassination November twenty second, nineteen
sixty three, and the eighteen and a half minute gap
in the Nixon tapes was revealed on November twenty first,
nineteen seventy three, three events that on their own would
be enough to bend the country's imagination, but together, stacked

(01:34:27):
on the same week of the calendar, I think they
tell us something a bit more profound about why Americans
believe conspiracies and why those beliefs are so durable. And
by the way, this is also the same energy right
now fueling our current national fixation on the Epstein files,
where the fantastical spreads faster than any known fact. But

(01:34:49):
we only have one type of person to blame, the
elected American elected official, right, So let's get to the
time machine. So we're going to start with Jonestown. That's
when conspiracy thinking became catastrophic. It's November. We're going to
go back to November eighteenth, nineteen seventy eight in Jonestown. Now,
a lot of people think of Jonestown as a cult tragedy,

(01:35:10):
and it is, but it's also the story of how
a closed information system can destroy a human judgment. Jim Jones,
the cult leader, didn't just isolate his followers physically. He
isolated them psychologically, emotionally, and informationally. He convinced them that
outsiders were coming to kill them. He convinced them that

(01:35:30):
only he understood the truth. He convinced them that everyone else,
from the media to the US government was lying. Perhaps
he alone could fix it. But I digress. But here's
the terrifying part. The more erratic Jones became, the more
his followers trusted him. Because once you buy into total
this sort of total narrative, once you build your identity

(01:35:54):
around a conspiratorial worldview, facts are no longer persued. Facts
become evidence of the conspiracy against you. Jonestown is not
a government conspiracy. It's the consequence of conspiratorial thinking, and
it becomes a template, decades before social media for how

(01:36:16):
a charismatic figure can sever followers from reality and create
a world where the fantastical is accepted without question. It's
why QAnon didn't surprise psychologists. It's why people fall for
online calls. Jonestown is a modern cautionary tale of what
happens when people choose narrative over truth. My god, imagine

(01:36:39):
how big jonestown might have gotten with social media. All right,
let's to the second, the second big conspiratorial event in
our timeline this week, the conspiracy the public never accepted
fourteen years earlier, the same week, November twenty second, nineteen
sixty three, John is assassinated in Dallas. If Jonestown shows

(01:37:03):
what happens when people buy into a false conspiracy, the
JFK assassination shows what happens when the official story fails
to convince the public. The Warren Report was assembled very quickly.
The evidence was confusing. The single bullet theory sounded well,
pretty implausible to the average American, and the result was

(01:37:25):
a permanent fracture in public trust. In fact, I always
go back. I mean, if you look at the original
sin of when did you know? If you look at
baby boomers today, right, they grew up with this, This
was their coming of age. Moment was government they believed
lying to them about what happened to their president, right,
And then just about every subsequent generation would have a

(01:37:47):
little bit more of the government lion to them, and
we'd chip away, chip away, chip away. But this was
a big one because the generation before the Baby Boomers
trusted their government. But for millions of Americans, JFK's death
marks the moment when they stopped believing the government reflexively
and started believing the government selectively, not because they wanted

(01:38:10):
a conspiracy, but because the government couldn't explain the tragedy
in a way that felt complete, transparent, or sufficiently humble.
This is where CIA theory is, mafia theories, castro theories,
LBJ theories, deep state theories. They all began here. But
the more important important point is this after JFK, Americans

(01:38:33):
no longer needed evidence for conspiracy.

Speaker 2 (01:38:36):
They only needed doubt.

Speaker 1 (01:38:39):
JFK didn't create the conspiracy culture, but it created the
psychological conditions for the next event that did. And that
brings us to a year that still feels like a wound.
It's nineteen seventy three, the Nixon tape gap. The conspiracy
that was well was a conspiracy.

Speaker 2 (01:38:57):
It was true.

Speaker 1 (01:38:58):
Two weeks before Thanksgiving, No First, nineteen seventy three, America
learns that there is an eighteen and a half minute
gap in one of Nixon's Oval office tapes, the very
tape that might have shown what he knew about Watergate.
This is the moment that permanently rewires the American brain.
After years of being told trust us, after years of

(01:39:18):
dismissing accusations as partisan, and after years of insisting that
critics of Nixon were hysterical, here it was a missing tape,
not metaphorically literally an erased tape, Thank you, Rosemary Woods.
And the White House explanation was so implausible secretaries accidentally
leaning on pedals fingers slipping, that it practically invited conspiracy.

(01:39:43):
The lesson for the American public was brutal and simple.
Sometimes the conspiracy theory is true, and sometimes the cover
up is even dumber than the crime. And once that happens,
once government credibility is broken in this specific way, you
don't get it back through press releases, you don't get
it back through official investigation, and you don't even get
it back through prosecutions. And of course we never did

(01:40:04):
prosecute you know, I think when I first started my
time cast time machine, one of the I started with
the pardon, with Ford's pardon and a mistake. I think
now we see that was clearly I don't think it's
it's even a close call anymore, that that was clearly
a mistake, because we never did get justice for what

(01:40:29):
was done. But Watergate taught Americans that powerful people sometimes lie,
and institutions sometimes protect those lies. And once you know that,
you never unknow it. And then it just sort of
sits there, and it chips away and chips away, and
we wonder why we have a government we don't trust today.

Speaker 2 (01:40:48):
So let's look at sort of the.

Speaker 1 (01:40:49):
Modern parallel, right the Epstein files, fast forward to the present,
and conspiracy is the default. It's not the exception. Look
at this Epstein moment. We're all living through. People assume
elites lie, people assume institutions are hiding things. People assume
the truth is always worse, and people assume if there
is a conspiracy, it's probably bigger and darker than anything

(01:41:11):
the government admits. Now, I'm an Ockham's razor person. I
think if there was something even darker, deeper, we there'd
at least be a leak about it somewhere, but we
haven't gotten that.

Speaker 2 (01:41:21):
But still.

Speaker 1 (01:41:24):
Conspiracies persist. But it's because of Johnstown, because of JFK,
because of Nixon, because of IRAQ WMDs, because of the
NSA surveillance revelations, because of January six. Americans now process
every new event through a lens shaped by generations of
government betrayal, government confusion, and partial truths at best. So

(01:41:47):
just look at what we did with Epstein.

Speaker 2 (01:41:49):
Right, the conspiracy theory arrived.

Speaker 1 (01:41:52):
First, the facts are We still don't have all the facts,
do we They're arriving later. The public decides what it
believes before the evidence even begins to land. It's not
that people want to believe in sane things. It's that
the factual world is moving slower than the fantastical one.
We have more information than ever, but we have less

(01:42:13):
trust than ever, and in that environment, speculation fills every
gap instantly. And then you look look at our ridiculous
algorithms that sort of reward those that have a new
theory rather than those that have factual information. Right, if
I were to say, right now, boy, it's got to
be that Gallaine Maxwell knows the origin story of Malania

(01:42:36):
Trump and how Malania and Donald met boy the algorithms
would go crazy, and this video could go viral because
I'd say it, because I'd say that I have no
evidence of this. Okay, I certainly am trying to figure
out why the president is hiding so much of this
and why he seems to be so scared of Gallaine Maxwell.

(01:42:59):
So your mind wanders, and unfortunately, because of how poor
government's been about being transparent about things including the jfk
assassination being frankly exhibit A, how do you tell an
American not to go down that conspiratorial rabbit hole? This

(01:43:21):
is where we are. So what do we take away
from this in this week in American history? Here's the
common threat. We are conspiracy prone, not because we're gullible,
but because our institutions have repeatedly given us enough reason,
just enough reason to suspect that we're not being told
the full story. When leaders lie, even tiny lies, they

(01:43:42):
leave behind just enough ambiguity for our collective imagination to
go to work. And when institutions are slow, opaque, or
even arrogant, doubt becomes a form of self defense. When
information drips out instead, of flows out. The vacuum fills
the narrative, and when the officials story doesn't feel complete,

(01:44:02):
the unofficial ones become irresistible. So I'll leave you this.
We Americans can handle plenty of bad news. What we
cannot handle is missing news. You got to tell us everything.
Don't hold back, because if you do, if we find
out and you held back, it is so much worse.

(01:44:24):
The more than institutions give us half truths, delayed truths,
redacted truths, or contradictory truths or alternative facts, the more
this week in history becomes every week in our political system.

Speaker 2 (01:44:40):
So there you go.

Speaker 1 (01:44:40):
Enjoy conspiracy Week in the Todd Cash a time machine.
By the way, if you're looking for some good jonestown documentaries,
there are a ton of them out there. They're all fascinating.
There was a couple recently, I think on Netflix that
definitely is worth your time. My friend Jeff Morley JFK.

(01:45:01):
Fax is a terrific substack. He goes through, He goes
through all the government releases the way you would want
a reported to do it. You know, yes, he has
his theories, but he separates the facts from the theories.
I wish I had a really good place for you
to go for all things having to do with filling
the gaps and Watergate. But in some ways, I think

(01:45:25):
I think we've filled we have between Garrett Graft's most
recent book about Watergate, plus everything Woodward and Bernstein has done,
we have a pretty decent handle on them. So you
know what this means. It's college football time. Okay, So

(01:45:46):
Miami kept up its end of the bargain, had a
nice I will say I was pleasantly surprised. There's there's
nothing like a Hurricane's game when the defense sort of
sparks things and the pick six early set the tone.
The offense started to hum. Yes, NC State didn't have
the best of defenses, but the fact is Miami won

(01:46:08):
by a margin that they should win by. They covered
the spread. I think they doubled actually the actual spread.
So it was a it was a decisive victory. And
you know, some things went Miami's way as far as
you know, teams that needed to lose ahead of them,
A few teams did. Texas lost, that's a big one.

(01:46:31):
They're not you know, they're they're not going to get
in even a victory over Texas. A and m they're
not a three loss team, is not yet going to
make the playoff. A couple other things, Boston College had
Georgia Tech on the ropes. You know, I certainly would
like to see Miami be able to play itself into
the playoff, not having to wait to see if their

(01:46:53):
body of work will be considered better or worse than
the body of work of other two loss teams. But
I want to get to that here in a minute.
But for the look in fairness, I think it was
the best game mim he's played since Notre Dame and
in South Florida, where two which were probably the two
most complete games they've played all year. Even the Florida game,

(01:47:14):
they didn't play a great first half. It was the
second half that they sort of put that game away.
But but Notre Dame, they played three great quarters. They
let they let Notre Dame sort of make the game
look like it was a close game. And I think
this this. You know, they basically were ahead by double
digits most of the game. Notre Dame gets a lay
touchdown and so the game looked closer than it actually was.

(01:47:38):
But this was a pretty complete game they got. This
was the last home game senior Day, they got two
more road games, Virginia Tech and then Pit. And let's
talk about Pitt because Notre Dame now got to face
a PIT team that did not chose to play an
exhibition game. Now, I'm not saying the players that actually
played in the game didn't play hard. They did, but

(01:48:00):
the coaching staff made a decision that they were not
going to play to win this game. Anybody that was
fifty to fifty you could play, but you know, they'd
rather have him rest for the conference their last two
conference games, which are Georgia Tech and Miami. They chose
to do that. The coach went public earlier in the
week and said, it doesn't this game was meaningless to them.

(01:48:22):
This was akin to a preseason game, an exhibition game.
They could lose by one hundred, it didn't matter. Their
path to a playoff did not go through Notre Dame.
Their path to the playoff went through making it to
the ACC Conference title game. And if they went out,
they will have a place in the title game, which
brings me to and then, by the way, same thing
just happened a week earlier with Notre Dame when they

(01:48:44):
played Navy. When Navy decided not to play one of
their quarterbacks in that game, Horvat saving him because he
had been somewhat he'd been dinged up a little bit.
They wanted to basically give him a week off before
their conference game against South Florida. By the way, that
was a terrific game. I watched a lot of that
game that was in my multibox. That was a fun

(01:49:07):
game to watch, and it was a shootout and somehow
South Florida couldn't stop Navy very often. And Navy won
that game, and they still have a path to the
college football playoff again through the Group of five playoff slot. Again,
the Notre Dame game was meaningless to them in their
attempt to get.

Speaker 2 (01:49:26):
To the playoff.

Speaker 1 (01:49:29):
So now Notre Dame and this, you know, I saw
that ESPN was promoting this win on Pitt as if
it was an impressive win that hey, they they had.
They made it part of their ticker lead, and they
made it seem as if that this they played an
exhibition game. Pitt did not take this game seriously. And
I do think the College Football Committee, if there, if

(01:49:50):
this committee is serious, and I am I am a
huge skeptic. Given that three years in a row, they
have made decisions that were not about football teams that
were instead about what ESPN wanted or what the SEC wanted,
which maybe one and the same. Right, we go back
to the decision not to put Florida State in the
end of the playoff when they were undefeated after winning

(01:50:11):
their conference title game, and they just chose not to
put Florida State in. Right. So, if you're wondering why
I have have been so hard on ESPN and the
SEC about this, is because not that they might do this,
because they've already done it once and then they arguably
did it last year. Miami absolutely belonged in that playoff

(01:50:34):
and they chose not to put Miami in because they
didn't want to put in a third ACC team.

Speaker 2 (01:50:37):
They have decided the ACC isn't.

Speaker 1 (01:50:39):
Worthy of having two or three teams on any given year.
That's just a decision they make, period. There is not
I would argue, not as many metrics that would actually
argue for that than others want to say. But this
is the decision, yes, or they're not going to put
in two Big twelve teams, and they're gonna try really

(01:51:01):
hard not to put in two ACC teams. We'll see
if Miami can sort of force the envelope. But explain
to me, I mean to me, if you were to
treat Notre Dame as sort of instead of knowing that
it was Notre Dame. And I just gave you the
profile of team A, Team B, Team C, Team D. Right,
there is no way Notre Dame is a playoff team.

(01:51:22):
They don't have a good Their best win is USC,
who may or may not be a competitor for a
playoff spot. And then two of their victories are against
teams that chose essentially to pull some of their starters
so that they didn't face the toughest version of PITT.
Miami's going to face the toughest version of PITT. They

(01:51:43):
didn't face the toughest version of Navy. South Florida faced
the toughest version of Navy. So you know, I I
that that should matter if the head to head isn't
going to matter. Now, obviously the most important thing ought
to be the head to head. Notre Dame loses to
Miami and they're both ten and two, it's obvious what
any actual tie breaking scenario in any other league, the

(01:52:06):
first tiebreaker is head to head.

Speaker 2 (01:52:09):
Now they don't.

Speaker 1 (01:52:10):
There is no there are no rules, right, this committee
has never said what the metrics are to get into
the playoff. They don't release a criteria. You know what
that means, because they make up the criteria when they
when it suits them. Right, If if it's easier to
make a case for a team to get in because
of their losses, they'll say, hey, they have great losses.

(01:52:32):
And if it's easier to make a case for a
team to get in because they have great wins, and
they'll say, hey, they have great wins. Right, But they
don't seem to have a standardized metric on what matters
more wins or losses when you're trying to differentiate between
a ten and two team or three ten and two teams.

(01:52:53):
In fact, we're gonna have a lot of this, right,
You're gonna have You may have ten and two Oklahoma,
ten and two Notre Dame, ten and two, Alabama, uh
and ten into in Miami. And let's just take a
look at this. Okay, Alabama, one of their losses is
a team Miami beat. Do you think that's going to
matter to the committee. I'm not naive. I know it's
not going to matter. I'll give Alabama this. They have
the best win of the four because Alabama beat Georgia,

(01:53:16):
so they will get credit for that. Oklahoma has now
Alabama is their best win, right They lost to Texas,
a team that Florida beat, a team that Miami whipped
before Florida was giving up okay, before the whole firing

(01:53:37):
and all that business. And then of course when you
compare Miami Notre Dame, Miami beat Notre Dame. Obviously I'm
singling those four teams out because I am that if
they all four ten and two and there's three slots
for those four teams, I know this committee is going
to try to keep Miami out. And if you looked

(01:53:58):
at him in a blind survey, Miami argue at believest
the second best of those four. If you're going to
do that, let alone third or fourth.

Speaker 2 (01:54:08):
So I all I am.

Speaker 1 (01:54:11):
I want to try to give the assume that some
people on this committee take their job seriously and are
simply trying to get the best teams. The fact is
Miami's probably got one of the three best rosters in
the nation, easily, the combination best offensive and defensive lines
going for whatever reason, the committee decided to overly punish

(01:54:34):
Miami for losing a gamed SMU on the road. They
didn't punish him as much for the first loss to Louisville,
but they punished him a lot for that SMU loss.
It was a way over punishments in this idea that
when you lose somehow should should matter. And I know

(01:54:55):
this has always sort of been out there because of
the of the screwyway college football work. But again, in
the NFL, your record's your record, and if there's a tiebreaker,
it doesn't matter when that game happened. Right. The head
to head is the head to head.

Speaker 2 (01:55:14):
So look, Mimi's got to do its part.

Speaker 1 (01:55:17):
Yes, I'm still you know, you know, the irony is
that Miami should be undefeated, shouldn't have lost either one
of those games. Sort of coach farted those games away, arguably,
and they were both winnable even at the very end,
but they got coach farted away. I think I'm gonna

(01:55:38):
try to use that term going forward, coach farting. But
we'll see what the committee does. But the thing that
I that I want to see whether this committee is
taking itself seriously at all, is the fact that Notre
Dame has two teams on their schedule that decided not
to play to one, and this is the look Notre

(01:56:01):
Dame should be ding for not being in a conference
playing conference games. The stakes are higher when you don't
have a conference game, there's no stakes. Yes, the stakes
are higher, they have to keep winning, but the conference
game is so much more high pressure. And whether your

(01:56:22):
conference road game or hosting a team that just you
would make their season if they beat you, which is
just about every team Miami plays in the ACC. Okay,
you know what Miami doesn't do. They don't storm fields
because when you win national titles, you don't worry about
storming a field because because it isn't a big deal
to you until you actually win the whole thing. But

(01:56:43):
I tell you, I've been to plenty of Miami games
where the other team storms the field because it's a
big deal of them to beat Miami in a regular season.
Notre Dame knows this feeling. Plenty of teams when they've
upset Notre Dame on the road, they storm the field.
But the fact is Miami is playing more high pressure games. Shoot,
Oklahomas playing more high pressure games. Us every one of
the power for because of how important this path to

(01:57:05):
the playoff is. These conference games are much more high
stakes and Notre Dame.

Speaker 2 (01:57:10):
Doesn't have any of them.

Speaker 1 (01:57:13):
And so I actually think that Notre Dame not the
arrogance of Notre Dame not being in a conference and
still wanting to be treated equally compared to what everybody
else has to go through with these conference schedules. I
actually think that these athletic directors that are on this committee,
as much as they want to, you know, do whatever

(01:57:35):
they have to do for ESPN for the ESPN Invitational here,
at the same time, are irritated that Notre Dame doesn't
have to go through this conference business. So at a minimum,
Rhys Davis, please ask whoever's going to be that I
think it's now the Arkansas ad who is going to

(01:57:56):
be the spokesperson for the committee. Please ask them whether
the committee is going to essentially downgrade the two victories
that Notre Dame had over Navy and pit They should
be downgraded. They did not face they faced an exhibition.
They faced two teams that treated the game as an exhibition.

(01:58:17):
I'm not saying the players themselves did, but the coaching
staff did. And when you say you don't care if
you win the game, you know your players hear it.
So when you're comparing not every ten and two record
should be treated the same. And I think clearly here

(01:58:37):
Notre Dame should be the one that's in much bigger
trouble in their playoff path right now because they have
teams that are not taking the Notre Dame game that
seriously anymore because of how important now the conference pathway is.
I have to say a few other notes on what
I saw over the weekend. I get more impressed at

(01:59:00):
Texas Tech all the time. I have no idea why
anybody's ranking Oregon as high as they are. I think
Oregon I have some questions about Oregon here. You know, yes,
they have one loss. I'll be this Oregon USC game
coming up. It's a huge game to see if the
Big ten can get three teams into the playoffs. But

(01:59:20):
Oregon's best win is now Penn State. How good of
a win is that Oregon needs to blow out USC?
I think to justify they're certainly to justify how to
see them at ranked as high high as they are.
I got to give Texas A and M a ton

(01:59:41):
of credit both A and M this week in Indiana.
Last week, when you should lose a game and you
figure out a way to win and you're one of
these undefeated teams, I am in some ways more impressed.
They didn't play their best game in the first half.
You know, I gave you that tip last week. I said, hey,
I had heard that with the new offensive coordinator, they're
worried about losing Lenora Sellers in the portal. There's even

(02:00:04):
rumors at Miami he may end up at Miami that
they were going to open things up a little bit.
And boy did they and he looked terrific in that
first half, and A and M shut him down and
shut everything down in the second half. So I have
to say A and M impressed me, and impressed me
quite a bit. They don't have to win another game.
They will, but they don't have to win another game.

(02:00:24):
I'm very curious, and here's going to be something to see.
Texas got its third loss.

Speaker 3 (02:00:29):
What is that?

Speaker 1 (02:00:30):
You know, what's their intensity going to be like for
the rest of the season, particularly for the A and
M game at the end of the year. It's exciting
to see Texas, Texas, A and M play I think
they're gonna be playing on Thanksgiving weekend, which will be
kind of nice that And then there's Vanderbilt. You know,
there's still They're still sitting there at eight and two,

(02:00:52):
and you have Utah sitting there and eighty two, both
ahead of Miami. So don't don't think I haven't. I
don't have my eyes on them on that front. I
have a feeling if Miami takes care of business and
wins by margin in their last two games, that they
likely leapfrog, because again, Miami does have better wins I

(02:01:12):
think than either of those other two teams. But we
shall see. All in all, I am obviously nervous, I'm willing,
I'm trying to will every everything I have and making
sure Miami is treated fairly in this. That's all I'm
asking is that Miami is treated fairly, because I don't
think the a c C in general gets treated fairly

(02:01:34):
in this, and frankly, until we have a year where
they are treated fairly, you're going to have a hard
time convincing any fan of any team in the a
c C that the that ESPN or the College Football
Playoff Committee or the ESPN Invitational Committee, whatever you want
to call it is going to give an ACC team
a fair shot. But like I said, I will I

(02:01:59):
will pull back some of my critique of the media
company's influence on this committee if I see some hard
questioning of the committee chair on this issue of whether
Notre Dame's two victories over Navy and Pitt ought to
be downgraded. So with that, I do enjoy trolling my
friends that are Notre Dame fans on this one. But

(02:02:20):
in all seriousness, if I know if somehow this could
be used as a demerit against an ACC team, this
committee would be all over it. It's a big name,
Notre Dame that's doing it. Will they have the guts
to publicly call out Notre Dame's victories on this one?

Speaker 3 (02:02:40):
We shall all right with that.

Speaker 1 (02:02:43):
I hope you even had a good weekend. Hope you
enjoyed your weekend. I'm glad, since I'm traveling a lot
this week that all of the airports are up and running.
I thank those TSA agents and those air traffic controllers
who have been working without pay. Thank you for doing that.
Thank you for your surch of us. Thank you for
at least doing what you can to keep a government

(02:03:05):
that behaves so dysfunctionally, a bit more functional and with
that until I upload again.

Speaker 3 (02:03:11):
M m hmmm.

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