Full Episode - The MAGA Movement May Be Hitting Its Expiration Date + Clay Travis On Politics, Playoffs & The Future Of Sports Media - The Chuck ToddCast

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
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Speaker 2 (01:46):
I'm Chuck Todd.

Speaker 1 (01:46):
Welcome to another episode of the Chuck Podcast. So slight
schedule change here, normal episode drop this morning. As promised,
I'm not gonna have an episode drop Thursday. Instead, will
actually drop a special episode on Friday. It's going to
be one it's present very much focused on presidential politics,
meaning twenty twenty eight presidential politics, not the current situation

(02:09):
that we're in. But for today's episode, I do have
a little bit of a little bit that I want
to get into on the sort of both the unraveling
of the original Russia Ukraine deal and what is being
put together is now a Ukraine centric deal that might
be a piece to with Russia.

Speaker 2 (02:27):
We will get into that in a minute.

Speaker 1 (02:28):
More on the fallout from Marjorie Taylor Green and the
fact that the entire House Republican Conference may be fracturing
as we're speaking, But before I get to that, and
I do want to have a little bit of fun today,
my episode is a conversation.

Speaker 3 (02:43):
With Clay Travis.

Speaker 1 (02:44):
Clay Travis is somebody who unapologetically dives right in and
believes in the nexus of sports and politics and fuses
sports and politics together. He and Buck Sexton have essentially
inherited the old Russian about timeslot and the conservative radio
juggernaut that Rush was. Clay and Buck in some ways

(03:07):
are a bit different in how they approach things, but
also trying to service some of that same audience. But
I think they definitely have a younger audience, certainly a
conservative audience, if you will. We spend a lot of
time talking about the future of college sports. He's got
his SEC bias, I've got my anti SEC bias. So
that's a lot of fun in the conversation we have

(03:28):
and believe it or not. What some of you may
not realize is we're both supportive of the same institution,
and we're both I think we're both contributors to a
certain NIL program that supports the George Washington Revolutionary Basketball program.
So he is an old GW guy. I went to GW,
so we have a little bit of that in common too,

(03:49):
and we talk about where you know, is it good
or bad for the mixture of sports and politics. You know,
my feeling is it is. But I think you will
enjoy the back and forth that he and I have
on that.

Speaker 2 (04:01):
We did not.

Speaker 1 (04:03):
Do this podcast together to have a hard charging debate
about the role of media at this point. I'm a
believer in independent media, and that means I believe in
everybody's personal independence on that front. But we do discuss
sort of where things may be headed in a variety
of ways, and we get I have a fun, fun

(04:26):
little nugget there at the end where we find out
who he thinks is the future of the MAGA movement
and who he thinks could be a democratic nominee that
could actually succeed and win and might even be someone
he he wouldn't necessarily hold his nose.

Speaker 2 (04:47):
And not support if you will.

Speaker 3 (04:49):
So that's the interview today.

Speaker 1 (04:52):
Of course, after that, I will give you my college
football weekend preview, plus a fun little top five list
of Thanksgiving side dishes, because hey, I've got to do
a top five list, and why not make it a
little bit about Thanksgiving. But with that, I do want
us to sort of dive into what's the continued fallout

(05:13):
over the Marjorie Taylor Green resignation, because I think one
of the things that I've been previewing is that this
Trump coalition is fracturing. And you know, there's a lot
of speculation, why is it fracturing? Why in this moment,
I continue to believe it simply welcome to the end
of political movements. They all come to an end, they

(05:35):
all fracture, and many of these political movements don't have
a shelf life beyond ten or so years. And where
are we at in the era of Trump? We are
in year ten. Right, it was June of twenty fifteen
that he descended down that escalator, and here we are
Thanksgiving twenty twenty five, some ten and a half years later,

(05:55):
and you definitely can feel this is a coalition that
is more likely to continue to fracture. What is really
difficult to see is what moment what could galvanize and
bring this coalition together. And I have one theory of
what would help Trump bring his coalition back together. It's
as if his status as President of the United States

(06:17):
were threatened. Right if for some reason impeachment began tomorrow,
maybe you would see a rally around Trump effect, and
disparate aspects of the coalition that are starting to think
about life after Trump would sort of come together in
some sort of defense of Trump. But to be honest,
barring that, and in fact, I think there's a lot

(06:37):
of Trump folks who are secretly hoping that if Democrats
do win the House, that they do engage in an
impeachment inquery. Politically, I think that would be a mistake,
but we shall see if that does happen. But we've
got to understand the moment that we're in. And I
had been saying for a few weeks during the government
shutdown that I thought Mike Johnson, the Speaker, was making

(06:59):
a a catastrophic mistake for his House majority by keeping
them away from Washington. And it looks like other members
of the House Republican Conference were upset about this, and
I think, you know, if you look at the last
week that the House was in session last week and
the amount of vitriol that showed up, you had Democrat

(07:21):
on Democrat in fighting, Republican on Republican, in fighting, Democrat
on Republican, fighting, Republican on Democrats, all these censure votes
and this, and you know, resolutions of disapproval and attempts
just to kick people out of the Congress. And as
Congressman Mike Turner said, he goes, there was somebody wanting
to trip somebody's citizenship of a member of Congress. And

(07:44):
you know, I joked, I said, should we just hand
everybody canes and let's just go back to the nineteenth
century and everybody can beat each other up with a cane.
But the point was, and this was what Mike Turner
seemed to hint at me the conversations at keeping the
House away, all it did was make these representatives feel
as if they weren't doing their job. That here they

(08:06):
had constituents wondering, what the hell's going on? Why aren't
you there in Washington, Why aren't you there trying to
solve this? And you know what a representative in Congress
hates to tell their constituents is that they don't have
any they don't have anything on this that they're not
involved in this process.

Speaker 2 (08:23):
Right.

Speaker 1 (08:23):
That is emasculating, that it is humiliating, and that is
how you end up getting yourself unelected. So the point
is is that you have a very angry house, in
particular House Republican Conference at the leadership, and what it
looks like is you're you almost have a no confidence
in the leadership.

Speaker 2 (08:43):
Now.

Speaker 1 (08:43):
The problem is everybody in the House Republican Conference knows
that Mike Johnson is only speaker because of Donald Trump,
and ultimately Donald Trump is kind of the de facto speaker, right, No,
you know if Johnson, if Johnson doesn't have the votes,
he goes to the sees if he can get the votes,
and if the White House can't get him the votes,

(09:04):
then you know he's in trouble. And that's what I
think makes the why you haven't seen a full on
revolt and anger at the leadership the way you saw,
for instance, when there was a revolt against Kevin McCarthy
and essentially he had a no confidence vote and they
suddenly had another speaker. The only reason you're not having.
That is, no one believes Mike Johnson is operating on

(09:27):
his own. That whatever decision Mike Johnson made, he did
so with the encouragement or the support of the White House.
And so it makes it that's why you haven't had
even though there is all this anger at Johnson and
the House Republican leadership for what they believe. You know,
if you put it this way, if there are active

(09:49):
discharge petitions where rank and file members are working with
the other side to force votes on bills because leadership
won't allow him to happen, and these discharge petitions are
getting the two hundred and eighteen signatures necessary to force
this floor vote, that in itself is an indictment in
House leadership. That means the House leadership has failed. They

(10:09):
do not have their party, they do not have the
rank and file rowing in the same direction, singing from
the same song sheet. Pick your metaphor.

Speaker 2 (10:18):
And so.

Speaker 1 (10:21):
I think what the Marjorie Taylor Green resignation did is
rip the band aid off. And you've got right now
it's anonymous House Republicans who are all saying, you know
what what she said? I think the same thing. You
know that she's frustrated about what the House has tackled
versus what they haven't tackled. That you have, I think

(10:42):
what you have is House Republicans don't like being seen
as nothing more than an arm of the Trump white House,
even those that are the most supportive of the MAGA movement.
And in fact that's been the problem, right, the Trump
white House hasn't been the tip of the spear when
it comes to being America first, right. You know, yes,
he's gone about this tariff protocol, but he's done it
in such a haphazard way that he's actually hurt the economy, made,

(11:05):
you know, increased the price of everybody's grocery bills, so
that even though in theory that was an America First idea, right,
this idea of which does go back to the twenties
and thirties of a bit more US protectionism, it has
not helped heal this economy. If anything, it's made this economy.

(11:26):
You know, he had inherited a healing economy, and he's
actually made the economy worse, not better. So that has
frustrated these House Republicans, and the Epstein files in some
ways were symbolic, right, for many of these sort of
post Bush era, post Romney era Republicans who came into

(11:47):
this Congress. Maybe they got elected in twenty sixteen, or
maybe some of them even got elected in twenty fourteen,
but they're really sort of a post Paul Ryan wing,
post House post Bush Republican wing of the party. These
were people who came in and during the Tea Party
era a bit more, you know, and they quickly ended
up in the Maga movement. But they got there in

(12:08):
some ways even before there was it was identified as
quote unquote Maga Republicans. And it's that generation of Republicans.
They've been there now. Some of them, like I said,
that got elected in twenty fourteen, they've been their ten years.
Others got elected in sixteen, and a few more in
twenty and a handful even in twenty eighteen, even though
that was a big Republican Democratic here. And it's those

(12:31):
Republicans that I think are the ones that I would
be on the lookout for as potential retire retirees. And
that's something that I think because one of the interesting
fallout from the Green resignation is how many other lawmakers
have been telling our friends over Jake Sherman over at
punch Bowl and others that, hey, I've thought about resigning

(12:52):
to Part of it is that's what happens when you
sort of see the writing on the wall. And this
is where perception can become reality. If House Republicans right
now think they're not going to win the majority, and
they're in the majority's not going to get reelected, a
lot of them are going to seek to If they
get a job offer now, they will just take it

(13:13):
and resign. That's clearly what this Mark Green, congressman from now,
the former congressman from Tennessee, the special election that's coming
up in just a few you know, in just a
week or so, he left because he got a job offer.
And I think you're going to see more, you know,
House Republicans. I check your LinkedIn, right some of them
are going to be updating their linkedins. They're going to

(13:35):
be looking to see who's hiring. I'm being a little facetious,
but not too much. And so I think to be
on the lookout for a few things, a few more resignations,
you know, perhaps it'll be well they want to spend
more time with their family. We are in the season
of resignations and retirements. Right, the fact of the matter

(13:57):
is it's during family gathering time that many a member
of Congress makes the decision to go or no go, right,
they it's you know, a lot of times for many
of these folks, family is their kitchen cabinet. They get together,
you know, Thanksgiving, through Christmas and New Year's and this
is when these decisions will be made. You have a
bunch of filing deadlines, some super early ones in Texas

(14:18):
for instance, or now, but for the most part, most
of the filing deadlines start hitting in January, February, and March,
and so the next sixty days, we already have a
pretty high number of retire retirees. As it is, we're
in the forties of members of the House either retiring

(14:38):
or trying to run for another office. You know, I'll
set the over under at another ten retirements, and I'm
going to say another ten House Republican retirements or resignations.
I think the likelihood of ten or more is quite
high at this point between say now, even in the

(15:00):
end of I'll say at the end of January is
what I would put this window at. So that's somewhere
about the next seventy seventy five days.

Speaker 2 (15:11):
That's worth watching.

Speaker 1 (15:12):
This will be the window to see and you know,
the closer we get to ten or if it does
end up over ten, I think the more concrete, the
more concrete the Margie Taylor Green grievances that she laid
out in her resignation letter, clearly we're those speaking more

(15:33):
so speaking on behalf of more than just herself. And
again I go back to I think the biggest mistake
was what Speaker Johnson did keeping them away from Washington,
essentially saying you have no role here whatsoever, when that's
exactly how they ran for office, saying they were going
to be part of the process in Washington, and Mike

(15:54):
Johnson wouldn't let him be part of the process of
one of the most important moments that Washington was having
a spending debate, you know, how to spend the taxpayer money,
and the House was kept away by the Speaker.

Speaker 2 (16:09):
I do.

Speaker 1 (16:09):
I think it's easy fodder for challengers to throw that
at these incumbents, and it certainly hands Democrats more of
an issue.

Speaker 2 (16:18):
And then if you.

Speaker 1 (16:19):
Don't solve this healthcare problem, I still am pretty bullish.
I mean, the fact I mean, you could see Donald
Trump's in the throw spaghetti at the wall portion of
his presidency and it's like, maybe.

Speaker 3 (16:30):
We'll do it two year dale, or we could do this,
or we could do that.

Speaker 1 (16:33):
And you know, Johnson's claiming there isn't the votes for that,
and it's because there's not a majority of Republicans that
are ready to vote for that. But a majority of
the House is willing to vote for that. And I
wouldn't be surprised if you have sixty plus votes in
the Senate for something that comes to some sort of
deal with this White House appoint is a healthcare extension
is going to happen. The question is how many Republicans

(16:54):
get on board of what the subsidy extension looks like,
because it's clear everybody, ever, everybody involved in that White
House realizes he cannot hand this healthcare issue to the
Democrats or it will be a sledgehammer. You know, it
already looks like this is this is a pretty bad
year that's developing for Republicans. And you know, this is

(17:18):
why this resignation and retirement watch moment is so crucial.
If you get another eight to ten open seats, it
it would it would almost guarantee, it would almost guarantee
that Democrats win the House, which is why ultimately the

(17:38):
real test of whether there's a waive or not is
going to be whether Democrats win the Senate. So look,
I think I think we need to be on the
lookout over the next sixty days for retirements, resignation, you know, gentlemen.
I interviewed for news Fair over the weekend. Mike Turner
put it this way that filing deadlines in February, I'm

(17:59):
quite into to see if he runs for reelection. He
did not give me an indication either way. But you know,
that's the type of member that you know, has felt
sort of dealt out. Now he's got his own beefs
and he is somebody that's not sort of not very

(18:20):
much of Maga Republican, a little bit more of a
of a pre Trump Republican, more in the in the
Bush Ryan vision of what that Republican Party was, that
form of conservatism. But he's just you know, you're he's
another one I would put on the list of like, hmm,
I wonder if he wants to come back to Washington
in twenty twenty seven with a lane duck Republican president

(18:43):
and a Democratic House majority and potentially a Democratic Senate majority.
And that's going to be I think among the things
that many of these frustrated incumbents are going to be
thinking about. Look this town it is, you know, in
some ways, because the president has concentrated power to himself,

(19:05):
including the lobbying power. Right, if you're trying to buy
influence in Washington, it used to be you wanted to
buy a lobbyists that had a lot of access on
Capitol Hill. In the Trump era, in some ways, Trump's
made it simpler. Right, if you're able to get Trump
to sign off on an idea, whether it's a merger

(19:26):
and acquisition, whether it's a you know, some sort of
idea and how to regulate crypto or whatever, whatever your
issue is, if you get Trump on board, then you know,
the Republican Congress has to salute. And in some ways,
if you're a lobbyist, what are you going to do?
You're going to go to the surest way to guarantee
that you can you're looking the influence that you're looking

(19:48):
to have, You're better off going right to the source,
because if you don't go to him, it's first and
he finds out, then whoever you're representing isn't going to
want I help at all. So I think by sort
of cutting Congress out of governing completely and cutting Congress
out from me even being persuaded or wooed by industry,

(20:11):
has really made the job suck. Right, you're taking all
this incoming and you don't get to do anything right.
The committees have been neutered. The House leadership keeps rank
and file members further away from the from the business
of Congress than they've ever been before. This is a complaint. Frankly,
you hear on both sides of the aisle, rank and
Filehouse democrats hate their leadership because their leadership keeps them

(20:33):
in the dark on so many things. And of course
they want to challenge their leadership. And I think, you know,
and the minority you always have a lot of that.
But in the majority, we're starting to see the same
things I've been hearing off. I'm a whole bunch of
Senate Republicans who quietly are ticked off that John Thune
hasn't been the shield from bad votes the way Mitch
McConnell was. Mitch McConnell didn't care if they he pissed

(20:56):
off the Trump White House and a Senate Republican leader,
Mitch McConnell never would have allowed Robert F. Kennedy to
be confirmed in that Senate because he never would have
allowed the nomination to make it to the floor soon
because he doesn't have a great relationship with the Trump
White Houser didn't at the beginning he does now. Didn't
want to look like an impediment, and if he was,
he wouldn't have He might have not won the job

(21:18):
of Senate Republican leader. So that's just on the Senate side,
and we're seeing more and more evidence.

Speaker 2 (21:24):
Of this issue on the Republican siding.

Speaker 1 (21:28):
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nugget before we get to the Klay Travis interview and

(22:33):
have a little fun with the infusion of.

Speaker 2 (22:35):
Sports and politics and culture.

Speaker 1 (22:38):
And that is in what's been happening here with the
negotiations and sort of where the president is on trying
to end the Russia Ukraine war. So right, the week
began with him pushing this Russian written twenty eight point
plan and as you can see how Marco Rubio operates
and those that are more Russia's skeptics inside of Trump

(23:01):
World and more supportive of Ukraine. They've found a way
without alienating the President, to essentially get the President on
the Ukrainian side of things. So now it's a nineteen
point plan written mostly by Ukrainians and the sort of
the anti Putin hawks inside the administration. So we now

(23:23):
have a deal that Trump and Steve Witkoff and Putin
have agreed on. And now we have a deal that
Mark Rubio and Zelenski and say General Kellogg have all
agreed on. Okay, in one area, the question is whether
these two agreements have any overlap at all, right, and

(23:45):
I think that's unclear, but I will say this, right,
Zelenski is doing everything he can to play ball with
the President. And what we know is this the President
just wants to prove he could get a cease fire here.
He really doesn't care about the details. And that's of

(24:06):
course a bit frustrating if you do care about the details.
He doesn't care if Russia gets, you know, gets extra land.
He doesn't care if you know, he'll sign off on
a big security guarantee for Ukraine. He's been sort of
he seems to not care about all these agreements he's
signing because I think in his mind, he won't be
the one to execute, It'll be future presidents, right, getting

(24:26):
NATO like security agreements to Katar. NATO likes security agreements
to Saudi Arabia, So in his mind, why wouldn't we
give a NATO like security agreement to Ukraine. So I
guess he's for that if Putin will sign off on that, right.
So he just wants a deal anyway he can get
a deal. So he got to Putin agree to something great.

(24:46):
Let's see if we enforce you know, Zelenski to take
this in because Trump just wants to quick win. Problem is,
there's no quick win here, and I think we're going
to find out again. You know, this is going to
be like boy, I think we've all seen this movie before.
Trump gets it in his head that he's got a
deal and he's going to get one. Then sort of
the pro Ukraine side of and this is where I

(25:08):
give I want to give Trump credit for this. He
has people on his team at the moment that he
listens to that disagree on what on Who's essentially who
should have the upper hand in any sort of peace negotiations.

Speaker 2 (25:22):
You have JD.

Speaker 1 (25:23):
Vance sort of essentially on the Putin side of things,
very skeptical of Ukraine in general, skeptical of Zelensky, skeptical
of whether it's a democracy we should trust. You've got
a Marco Rubio who feels everything that Vance feels about
Zelenski and Ukraine is what Rubio feels about Putin and Russia.
And so the fact is they both have the presidents here.

(25:45):
All Trump wants is a win, right. I know some
of you may think there's other, no other devious motives here.
All he wants is a win. And I am now
of the mindset that the reason he always seems so
portive of Putin is because he did know Putin helped
him in sixteen, and whether he knew he was coordinating

(26:08):
with him, I don't think there's been any proof of that.
But anybody that's supportive of him and says anything nice
to him, he's going to say nice things right back.
Did we not see that? On Zo on Mam, Donnie,
I promise you, mom, Donnie went in there, showed him
where they agree on a few things, and he just,
you know, great, look at me right whenever it's.

Speaker 3 (26:28):
About him, him him.

Speaker 1 (26:29):
So in that sense, Putin publicly flattered him and he's like,
why not. And if Putin wants to help me, great.
You know, in Trump's mind he can't be bought off.
But he's gladly will take anybody's help. And the truth
is it's loyalty with him has always been a one
way street. You're loyal to him, great, It doesn't necessarily
mean he's going to return that loyalty if you're ever

(26:52):
in trouble. So I'm more inclined to believe that in
weird way, Trump is kind of agnostic. He just he's
just impatient and wants a deal and wants to and look,
there's still a part of Zelensky that he views as
somehow part of his first impeachment. And so that is
something that that I don't think Trump's ever going to drop,

(27:15):
which is why he's so easily brought back on sort
of the pro Putin side of things. Whenever somebody gets there,
get get gets there, uh, get gets sort of into that,
you know, gets their claws back into him on that
side of things, right, it appears at Steve Woodkoff is
a pretty easy mark for the Russians. They always seem

(27:36):
to get the best possible version of what they're trying
to get across at times even better than they thought
they could get.

Speaker 3 (27:44):
So we'll see.

Speaker 1 (27:46):
But I'm skeptical that this deal is that this one
that that that the US is now shopping to the Russians,
that has a lot more security guarantees for Ukraine, probably
doesn't eliminate the possibility that Ukraine can join NATO. I
can't imagine Ukraine agreeing to anything that would limit where

(28:10):
they could get their security guarantees from. So that's going
to be if you told me that you know they've tried.
Zelensky shows up in mar A Lago for Thanksgiving dinner
and they have a great relationship.

Speaker 2 (28:24):
That doesn't mean we.

Speaker 1 (28:25):
Get anywhere there on the long term on this front,
until Putin is convinced he can't win this militarily. I
don't think we're going to see u ceas fire. And
right now Putin still thinks that he can. He said,
here's the thing, there's no Yes, they hold elections, but
you know there's no pressure for him to get something

(28:46):
done before he's quote termed out right. Putin will play
a longer game. I do think that he knows Trump
is a lamee doc and that he probably only has
one more year to sort of take advantage of the
fact that this is going to be the most I

(29:07):
don't want to say the most pro Putin president you
could have, but certainly the least oppositional to Putin that
you're going to have, whoever the next president is, unless
it's JdE Vance. I don't think you're going to have
somebody as soft on Putin as you have a Trump.
And Putin is smart enough to know this and know
that his window is closing. So does does he see

(29:28):
you know? At one point and this is a this
is going to be a question of whether Rubyo, Vance
and Trump can all get into the same on the
same page on this, but there might be a window
where they can make Putin think the best deal you're
ever going to get from an American president is the
one that's on the table at some point. And if
you don't take this, Trump becomes less powerful, has less

(29:50):
ability to get this through, and you get to the
point where Zelenski or Ukraine would rather make the bet
to see who the next president is. And then there's
one other aspect to this deal. It's possible that Trump
has so retreated from what I mean, we do provide
valuable intelligence still to the Ukrainians, but we're not providing

(30:13):
that many weapons anymore. There's sort of an indirect way
that we're providing weapons of Ukraine. It sell it to NATO.
NATO then sells it to Ukraine, right and some sort
of or the EU gives it or sells it to Ukraine.
But frankly, it's Europe that is providing a lion's share
of the military support for Ukraine. So it isn't clear

(30:37):
how much leverage Trump actually has over Zelenski. There's I
think perceived leverage that he has in Zelensky does not
want an antagonistic relationship with Trump, but given how little
we're now supporting the Ukrainians beyond intelligence, I think there's
an open question of really how much leverage does Trump have.

(30:58):
Trump had real leverage yahoo he could force him to
sign that deal. He does not have the same kind
of leverage at the moment because he's chosen to take
that leverage away right by pulling back. You know, most
of what's being sent over to Ukraine directly from the
United States are deals that Biden cut, and they're just

(31:18):
fulfilling the rest of those deals. So I think that
also will contribute to whether there's you know, whether frankly,
the United States is the proper mediator here at this point,
or whether it's going to be the Europeans that are
going to have to be the chief negotiating sort of
mediator here, or maybe it's Turkey, right, you know, in

(31:40):
that respect. So I think it's I think we ought
to be a bit skeptical of any deal coming together.
One other thing, by the way, we're noticing with this
debate about this peace deal, right, Vance and his guy,
the Army Secretary Dan Driscoll, seemed to have been the

(32:01):
point people getting this very Russia centric deal that has
since been rejected. Now you've got sort of Marko Rubio
working with the Europeans getting a bit more of a
Ukrainian centric So we're starting to see the real split, Right,
there's a Rubio wing, there's a van swing. Perhaps Vance
and Rubio are partnership that continues forward in twenty twenty eight,

(32:22):
who knows. And I think that that's the other thing
that has happened, and I think is why I'm skeptical
Trump has any chance of bringing of sort of keeping
this coalition from fracturing at the moment. I think you
have a whole bunch of folks, whether it's Marjorie Taylor Green,
whether it's Ted Cruz, whether it's JD. Vance, whether it's
Marko Rubio, who are all starting to think about life

(32:46):
post Trump and seeing what part of the Trump coalition
can they best appeal to. And I think you're starting
to see some of those lines start to develop. And
that's yet another of when your presidency has become has
hit lame duck status, and why I think suddenly this

(33:07):
could be almost a slippery slope of Republican despair between
now and November of twenty twenty six. Right that you've
got more people focused on the post Trump era that
begins in twenty twenty seven and twenty twenty eight, You've
got more Republicans thinking twenty twenty six isn't going to
be a good year to be on the ballot. Do
I even bother being on the ballot? Do I decide

(33:28):
to sit back, go get a job, and then maybe
run for office again in twenty seven or twenty eight.

Speaker 2 (33:37):
But the point is.

Speaker 1 (33:38):
We're something is shifted here, right, and we see pieces
of it. We saw pieces of it with this Marjorie
Taylor Green resignation and the fallout from that. We actually
see fracturing of the Trump coalition in this debate about
which peace Steel, who was involved in which peace Steel
vance involved in the Russian centric peace Steel Rubio being

(33:58):
the godfather a bit of the Ukrainian centric piece deal.
So this fracturing is starting to You're starting to see
it's almost like there's there's more ripples, right. You know,
first it was the Epstein files that began it, and
then now you're starting to see more cracks, and I
suspect more cracks are coming. And again everybody's going to

(34:19):
be looking for what's the trigger? What's the trigger? There's
a simple answer for it. I think no political movement.
You know, we're just at the shelf. This is called
shelf life. Everybody has a shelf life. Trust me, I'm aware, right,
You always want to you always want to be aware
of your cell by date, every political movement as a
sell by date. And it's possible we're just simply at

(34:41):
the cell by date for the Trump Mega coalition.

Speaker 2 (34:43):
All right.

Speaker 1 (34:44):
With that, let me bring in somebody who's quite familiar
with the Trump Maga coalition, and that is Clay Travis
will sneak in a break and we come back. My
conversation with political and sports commentator Clay Travis. Do you
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That's getsold dot Com promo code toodcast for thirty percent off.
So joining me now is somebody that some of you
may listen to a lot. Some of you may not
know who he is at all because of the way
our media, filters and bubbles live these days. It's Clay Travis. Otherwise,

(36:34):
some of you may know him as a sports guy
from OutKick. Others may know him Clay and Buck. I
know him through a different variety of ways. We're both
GW guys, and I know the coach of GW Basketball
is trying to get the two of us to raise
more money for their nil.

Speaker 2 (36:49):
So here we are. Clay.

Speaker 3 (36:52):
I appreciate you coming on the podcast.

Speaker 2 (36:54):
Well, thank you for having me on. Yes, hopefully the
colonials of your returning to the Ncaattornament tournament. Listen to
colonials colonials. Well, yeah, well that's a good point. The Revolutionaries,
whatever the heck they're calling them now. I was at
GW ninety seven to one, and so we went to
the tournament ninety seven and ninety eight I guess that

(37:17):
would have been ninety eight ninety nine March, and then
really enjoyed Thecarl Hobbs era when we had a lot
of wins there. But I was at the end of
Mike Jarvis and Tom Penders. For those of you who
are diehard college back, I got there. I was there.

Speaker 1 (37:31):
I was ninety to ninety four, and so I got
the sweet you were, Yinka Dare you were in I got, Yinka.
I was at the game in the Kingdome, the old Kingdome.
GW's in the Sweet sixteen playing Michigan, the Great Michigan team,
the Fab five team.

Speaker 3 (37:48):
The timeout.

Speaker 1 (37:49):
Yeah, this is the team that does the timeout. Two
games later, if Yinka Dare boxes out Chris Weber once,
just once because they couldn't hit a free throw. It
was it was that. It was that, and we narrowly
lose that game. If we win that game, we should
have won that game, just one rebound.

Speaker 2 (38:06):
We win that game.

Speaker 1 (38:08):
GW's playing temple for the right to go to the
final four. That's what that would have been an eight
all at the time, in all eight ten.

Speaker 2 (38:16):
Do you remember the year that GW went twenty nine
to one and lost terrible schedule? Yeah, you wunc Wilmington
in the first round, then lost to Duke in the
next round. I was there for both those games, which
was which was a lot of fun in Greensboro, North Carolina,
if I remember correctly. But that year George Mason went

(38:36):
to the final four.

Speaker 1 (38:38):
If that was a real stomach punch to the they
came out of nowhere.

Speaker 2 (38:42):
So that was the year. I think GW had the
best talent since I was a student, to be able
to make an actual run, and instead George Mason went
to the Final four with Jim Laernega who would later
take what Miami to the final four, I think as well.

Speaker 1 (38:56):
And had that assistant coach named Chris Caputo who were
now were living with now and I you know, GW's
not so crappy this.

Speaker 2 (39:02):
Year, I think again. I mean I think they should
be a twenty one team, and yeah, I had a
good dinner with Chris and I hope that I hope
he can put us in the mix to be back
in the NCAA tournament. Come come March.

Speaker 1 (39:15):
Hey man, I wrote my check. Jake Sherman of our
punch Bowl wrote his check. We need you to write
your check. Brother, I told him I owe him a check.
I've given a lot of money.

Speaker 2 (39:23):
I've also grew up a huge University of Tennessee fan,
and I've given quite a bit of money to their
in il fund.

Speaker 1 (39:30):
I'm a hurric I'm a University of Miami. But you
know it's fun about I do University of Miami. That
way I can give GW seems much more appreciative sometimes
than my friends at the U.

Speaker 2 (39:40):
Well, there's a lot less people who are donating money
to GW. I think for athletics, so that you're at
a higher even if you're not necessarily given crazy amounts
of money, you're at a higher or seme theyor for that.

Speaker 1 (39:51):
So let's talk about the It's so funny. My son
didn't even know I was interviewing you today and he
threw it and I'm I'm gonna bounce the same question
off of you that he said me, and he goes, hey, dad,
what do you think of McAfee interviewing Trump?

Speaker 3 (40:06):
And then he answered his own text. He goes, I
think it's kind of cool.

Speaker 1 (40:09):
Then on Veterans Day you interviewed the president and then
he goes, but I wish Trump wouldn't do politics. When
he did the interview, it was just interesting the way him.

Speaker 2 (40:17):
To receive it.

Speaker 1 (40:19):
Are you a sports guy that does politics or you
a politics guy that's doing sports and politics?

Speaker 2 (40:23):
How do you describe yourself? So I think I'll go
on McAfee first. I would imagine you probably feel this way.
If the President of the United States is interested in
coming on your show, you have to say what time?
What time do I get there to do the interview?

Speaker 3 (40:38):
You know, okay who the president is?

Speaker 2 (40:40):
Right? You're like, yes, please, yeah, yeah. When I did
local sports talker radio, we requested Barack Obama because he
was going to be in Nashville. And what you learn
is the President's always being requested for interviews and he
picks and chooses whoever he would like to do. And
I've interviewed President Trump eleven times now, I've interviewed him
at mar Lage Go Benminster, the White House Air Force One.

(41:03):
I feel like I've probably talked to him as much
or more than almost anybody in the media. But the
first time I had him on, I got a phone call.
I thought I was getting pranked, and they said, hey,
we'd like to put President Trump on your sports talk
radio show, and so I said immediately yes. So McAfee
made the right choice. I don't think it's a difficult one. Oh.
I don't either. When you interview Trump, I mean, he's

(41:26):
a little bit of a bull in a china shop.
He goes in so many different directions. Even professional political
interviewers can be challenged by trying to corral that. So
I thought he did a fine job. I went and
watched it. I give him a credit. I think a
lot of people who are criticizing him are jealous because
they haven't had the President of the United States on

(41:46):
their show, and I suspect almost all of them would
say yes. Now, the second part of your question, I
think both look sports and politics became so inextricably intertwined
during COVID that it became impossible. I mean or not
you were going to play sports was connected with whether
schools were going to be open, which was whether. And

(42:06):
I did a sports talk radio show for three hours
every day in March, April, May June of twenty twenty
with no sports, which is something that nobody ever really
prepares for, and our ratings and our audience skyrocketing during
that time. And then Rush Limbaud died in February of
twenty twenty one, and I had the same bosses Premiere

(42:28):
Radio distributes Fox Sports Radio, Colin Kler, Dan Patrick for
those of you who know those guys. I was their
lead in and my boss, Julie Talbot came and said,
we'd like for you to go with Buck and take
over this new radio show. So at some point in time,
maybe the world gets back to being sane and I
go back. I mean, I've got a daily show on

(42:49):
FS one, weekly show. Sorry, I'm done daily shows on
FS one that are entirely pretty much sports. I love
college football, It's my favorite thing in the world of sports.
I love the NFL. But ultimately, when I had that opportunity,
they pitched me and they said, the biggest sports show
that you could ever do in the history of the
country is going to have a Pinprick as influential as

(43:12):
what you can do if you take over this new
radio show. You know, it's interesting.

Speaker 1 (43:17):
You know, Rush was a political guy who clearly wanted
to get into sports. Yeah, and you know, we had
that brief moment at ESPN and it became a thing
and right, you know, and look they made a you know,
I have any I think publicly traded companies just shouldn't
own media companies because they're they're two, they don't have
any spines. Yeah, they're reactionary. They're going to be rare

(43:39):
and they're always going to be reactionary. That's right, and
that is what it is. In some ways, the halo
of independence is better for the person in the actual
media seat. You've essentially taken the time slot. And do
you when you think about the three hours, do you
say to yourself, we're going to do seventy percent sports

(44:03):
thirty percent politics or do you really just sort of
let the zeitgeist of the day decide.

Speaker 2 (44:08):
Well, Buck, my co host is not a sports guy.
So there are lots of shows where we do almost
no sports at all. Now I do a show called OutKick,
the show that comes on as soon as I finish
the radio program, and it is, to a large extent,
especially during football season, very much sports driven. So I

(44:29):
would say, you know, and obviously OutKick, which I'm still
involved in fairly substantially editorially, and everything else. The site
that I sold the Fox four years ago. I think
if you pulled it up at any given time, for instance,
right now, I think you would see seventy five or
eighty percent, particularly during October, you know, in November, when

(44:50):
we're in the middle of football season, that would be
very clearly sports driven. So I think day to day,
depending on the stories, I'm not an x as an
O's guy. I've never been an x as An O's guy,
but I still think of myself as someone who does both.
And the bigger context I would say is we've always
done at out Kick a lot of everything. So whatever

(45:10):
is popular in pop culture, sports, politics, we kind of
do it all it is.

Speaker 1 (45:17):
I mean, look, Bannon said it right. You know, culture
is downstream from politics, and you know, sports is a
bigger part of our culture today than it was when
you and I were kids. Sports was important, but it
was weirdly separated. Now I would argue sportsism is weaved
in to culture. The way movies and music the way

(45:42):
we would have that would have been described as culture before,
and sports always was considered separate.

Speaker 2 (45:46):
I don't think we do that anymore. Yeah. Well, I
also think there's a huge demand for authenticity and a
profoundly and authentic age, and so I think sports matters
even more because there's less frankly bullshit in sports, like
you either can you win or you lose?

Speaker 3 (46:05):
Like there's no subjectiveness to it.

Speaker 2 (46:08):
Right, Like in the book I just finished, I have
the argument you probably would sign onto this that the
scoreboard is the last trusted objective measure of reality in
American society because you try to get it right. There
was a guy on a three point line or not?
Was the guy put in or not? Everybody aspires to
the same goal, and both sides still start scoreless, right,

(46:31):
You still start on an even playing field and everybody.
That doesn't mean we don't have officiating controversies or gambling
controversies everything else, but the objective reality of the scoreboard.
At the end of the game, we have a winner
and a loser, and people accept the result.

Speaker 1 (46:49):
How much Because I think about this a lot, there's
an audience that I want And then there's the audience
that you have.

Speaker 3 (46:55):
Have you thought about that?

Speaker 1 (46:56):
There's the audience that you have versus the audience that
you want, and how hard is it to.

Speaker 2 (47:03):
Well, let me before I follow.

Speaker 1 (47:05):
Up, do you have the audience that you want? Or
do you have the audience that you have?

Speaker 2 (47:10):
I think I have the audience that likes me, and
you know that's maybe my wife's answer is, you know, like,
I don't know why anybody likes this guy. You know,
I think for a long time I wanted an audience period.
So I started writing online in two thousand and four
as a practicing attorney with an audience board attorney that

(47:32):
was like with an audience with an audience of zero.
And I remember writing articles and thinking, boy, if I
could have one hundred people reading me a day, a
thousand people reading me to day ten thousand, what a
pipe dream? You know. I talk to millions of people
every day now, across radio, TV and certainly the Internet.
And what I would say is my audience, if I

(47:55):
had to characterize them, is simply, if you love football,
if you vote in Trump, and if you think wearing
masks was bullshit, you hunt I have one hundred percent
name recognition with that group. Now, I think my arguments
would appeal to lots of people that have no idea
I exist, And that has always been the challenge I

(48:18):
think for any person out there, is how do you
reach I don't worry about people who are going to
hate me. They can find me or not find me,
it doesn't really matter. But I do still think quite
a lot about, Hey, there's people out there that are
in an SEC football stadium that might love everything that
I do or everything that out kick does, and they

(48:38):
still don't know that we exist. How do we reach
those people? I definitely think about that quite a lot.

Speaker 1 (48:46):
Because that's something that I, you know, as I've looked
as my first year sort of being independent, and you
sit here and you're like, it's you can. You can
grow an audience fast, But sometimes then your audience is
in charge of your editorial. Yeah, how often do you
think about that that I'm going to say something that
is going to piss off my audience? Now, my guess
is you're established enough that, in fact, you probably enjoy

(49:08):
zagging every once in a while because it's kind of fun.
And you strike me as somebody that actually would prefer
a debate than an amen choir.

Speaker 2 (49:16):
Yeah, one hundred percent. And also remember I came out
of the Internet, and the analogy that I made in
my most recent book, and I'll sometimes make it on
shows too, is the Internet's the ultimate meritocracy because you
are competing against everybody. There is no group ABC or
CBS or NBC or Fox News or CNN or MSNBC.

(49:37):
Isn't saying we have chosen this guy or this gal.
We believe they are successful and we're going to present
them to you. I started with nothing, as I said,
and I had to convince people that they should care
what my opinion was. And so when we when I
started doing a lot more of Fox News, which really
only was about four years ago, that dynamic changed because

(50:00):
suddenly we were getting the people who had known me
from the Internet for a long time and the people
who were being exposed to me on television. And so,
but don't I don't think about that at all, because
I think Charles Barkley gave me a great line on
this a long time ago, said, if you worry about
the opinions of people who don't like you, then eventually

(50:21):
the people who do like you won't like you either,
And so I think my you know, my wife says
my gift to the extent that I have any is
I say exactly what I think, and then I leave
my shows and I have no weight on my shoulders
because I said everything that I want to say. And
I just don't really care. I mean, I care if
my kids like me. I care if my wife likes me.

(50:43):
I care if the people who are in close proximity
to me. I'm not an energy vampire, right, I don't
want to make their life miserable. But if a random
person agrees or disagrees with me, it doesn't really change
my life in any way. And I just don't particularly care. You, Uh,
how did you get there?

Speaker 1 (51:01):
Because everybody, look, everybody in this business at first cares
a lot, and then uh I did, and then I didn't. Yeah,
And it was just this moment, and you know, sometimes
it's security in your job, sometimes it's security just in
your life, whatever it is. Do you remember when you
decided where it just was like, man, I really don't care,

(51:23):
and in fact, I'm not checking mentions, I'm not looking
at that stuff anymore.

Speaker 2 (51:27):
Yeah. So I think a couple of things. One, when
I went to college at GW. I'm born and raised Nashville. Nashville.
Everybody's very friendly. Everybody on the East Coast I thought
were assholes.

Speaker 1 (51:41):
And so for me for those of these because we
think everybody in New York's the asshole.

Speaker 2 (51:45):
Yeah, and it and it screws up. I remember, like
almost everybody at GW is from New York, it felt like,
and a lot of them are fir from Long Island,
and I had no idea what I was walking in.
I was a Miami boy. I felt they thought I
was a Southerner. It was really funny.

Speaker 1 (51:59):
They me with two freshmen, one from Louisiana, one from Alabama,
because they thought, well, you guys will have something in common,
and we kind of sure we were all from the South.
But it was like, I joke, when you're from Miami,
I'm from the sixth Borough of New York.

Speaker 2 (52:13):
Yeah right, you know. So yeah it was so it
toughened me up, and I cared a lot when I
was a freshman in college about what people thought about me.
By the time I was a sophomore, I didn't even
care what people really thought about me in college. So
I think that was important for me because it prepared
me for the Internet. And on the Internet, everybody's mean
as hell, So when you're coming out of the Internet,

(52:37):
people are means to you from the get go. So
I didn't really ever have that world where I was
seeking affirmation. Remember, I was a lawyer. Writing online was
my escape. It was my sanity.

Speaker 1 (52:52):
And even that's a job that everybody hates lawyers but
until they need one.

Speaker 2 (52:56):
Yeah, And also being a lawyer is a really tough job.
So I was unique in that the Internet was my serenity,
was my escape from the serious things in life, because
I'm a twenty five year old kid dealing with a
lot of complicated legal issues, and frankly, I didn't love
that job. So even though people might be mean on
the Internet, I had to creative freedom to be able

(53:19):
to write and say whatever I thought on any issue,
which was a lot different than being a young lawyer,
where your job is to advocate for anybody who's paying
your salary. Right. So young lawyers have to come to
grips with this because you go to law school for
three years and it's amazing. You sit around and you
debate Marmary Madison Brown versus very smart Yeah, and then

(53:41):
you get into the practice of law, and it's like, hey,
you've got twenty eight days to have a response on
this procedural mechanism that you don't care about at all,
and the client is only caring about you and the
context of are you making their life better? So I
put all that out there to say, for me, me
was my happy place where I went to get away

(54:04):
from the serious things that were going on in life.
So I think I got tougher in college. But then
also I wasn't looking for affirmation in the media space.
I was a lawyer who was doing media, which was
a different dynamic.

Speaker 1 (54:25):
Do you regret going to law school knowing what you're
doing now or do you love that you.

Speaker 2 (54:29):
Had that education. I think it was the best decision
I made because it prepares you. First of all, I
met my wife. I've got three boys now because of it.
But I loved Vanderbilt Law School. It was the best,
most fun three years of my life. Many of my
best friends to this day are people that I met
in that class in those three years. And really what

(54:52):
you learn is how to analyze arguments, how to analyze
different perspectives and come to right conclusion. What I would
say now is I basically am a judge, right, I
look at all the evidence, I consider all the arguments,
and then instead of having to be bound by whoever's

(55:13):
paying my paycheck, right as a lawyer would be, you
advocate for one side or the other, I look at
the facts and I say, hey, this is where I
come down on this issue, and let me tell you why.
But I don't feel bound or obligated to be in
any particular decision when it comes to that. In fact,
I think of the arguments that I make in many

(55:35):
ways in the context of a judge, where you have
to be aware of the precedent you're setting every time
you adopt a perspective. And I think if you went
through all my positions over time, you would say, hey,
you know, this guy has built opinions that stand on
the precedent over time that sometimes cut across in a

(55:55):
significant way political lines.

Speaker 1 (55:59):
Is there a one of the things you noted is
how with sports, there's you know, the scoreboard is the
ultimate yeah arbiter. What could we do in the world
of politics and government to bring that to bring that
kind of Is it possible or should it not be?

Speaker 2 (56:19):
Should it always be?

Speaker 1 (56:20):
Because ultimately, in a democracy, there's never going to be
one hundred percent consensus. If you have it, you're probably
not living in a democracy. So are we Just does
everybody need to accept the premise that, guess what, sometimes
you're on the sixty percent side and sometimes you're on
the forty percent side, Welcome to America. Or do we

(56:43):
need a better way to cover politics that creates a.

Speaker 2 (56:50):
That allows people to see what's right and what's wrong.
I think the distinction between fact and opinion is one
that is not established as well as it could be.
To me, you may disagree with a ton of my opinions.
That's healthy, that's happy, like, let's go. But if I
get factor wrong, I feel sick to my stomach. So

(57:11):
because to me, opinions are only as good as the
facts upon which they're based. And so I think and
again there, I think a lot of times even the
fact checkers very vere into the opinion space. But I
think the distinction there is super important. My biggest concern
in the political sphere is, and I don't know how

(57:33):
much time you spent on this, I don't think we're
represented by the best and brightest of us. And I
think there are tons of super smart people who have
success in other facets of life, and success in business
pays so much better. Success in media pays so much
better that I think a lot of people who would

(57:55):
otherwise be very skilled in politics actually just say it's
not worth the cost that both financially and personally.

Speaker 1 (58:03):
This is the biggest problem going No. I mean, the
joke about DC was Hollywood for ugly people. Yeah, and
you know, I look at a guy like George Santos
and this is a guy who just wanted to be famous. Yeah, right,
you know, and we have these people, right, you just
want to be famous. I mean, there's this new mini
series about Garfield on Netflix where and I've done a

(58:25):
lot of research on that assassin and that guy who
assassinated him good Toe, and that's all good Toe was.
He was desperate for relevance and fame. And it does
feel as if if you can't find the fame in
a in a nice space like Hollywood or entertainment politics,
you know, because anybody can do it, right. The only

(58:45):
requirement there's an age requirement for Congress, but basically that's it, right,
There's no other there's no other thing you have to
have other than citizenship and residency in some form. And
I do worry that politics now because if you win,
you get a platform that suddenly it has become the

(59:08):
easier way to find fame if you have failed in
every other part of your life.

Speaker 2 (59:13):
Yeah, I think if in an ideal world, people would
be politicians only if they have been super successful at
something else first. And I'll give you I could make it.

Speaker 1 (59:23):
I could make an argument that I'd rather see our
state legislatures filled with people who are doing it like
jury duty works that everybody should have to do a term.

Speaker 2 (59:33):
What I look at is, you know Nick Saban, You're
a sports guy. I think Nick Saban would have been
hugely successful at anything he did in life, right, He
is a supremely talented guy. He could have been a
CEO of a company, He could have been a great senator, governor.
Instead he ended up coaching football. And I've made jokes
about this before. Sometimes I think we waste guys like

(59:54):
Nick Saban because, yeah, if you're an Alabama football fan,
it's great, you want a bunch of Nationals.

Speaker 1 (59:58):
Saban, Jimmy Johnson, Bell Check. These guys had really nimble minds.
Why do we waste it on football?

Speaker 2 (01:00:05):
Yeah? Like, imagine if Abraham Lincoln, instead of being a president,
had been a basketball coach, Like in retrospect, maybe he
would have won some NCAA tournaments. But you know, like
ending the ending we may have had that that maybe
John Wooden.

Speaker 1 (01:00:17):
The more I've read about John Wooden, the more I've
read it, You're like, man, this guy, well we wasted
him and wasted Newts because sports is the toy chest
of life.

Speaker 2 (01:00:26):
But what I mean there is there is a culture
of success that would translate I think, and I worry
but that both parties have ended up with not the
best among us representing US.

Speaker 4 (01:00:41):
Yeah, college football, I am, yeah, I am obsessed myself.
I look I part of it always is, you know,
your formative years or your formative years. I grew up
going to University Miami football games when nobody was going,
you know, but we win every game.

Speaker 1 (01:01:00):
Anderson was my first guy. I got to live the eighties.
That was, you know. I remember getting an autographed picture
of Jimmy Johnson before he ever coached a game because
he was doing a meet and greet at the Jordan
Marsh at Dailian Mall in Miami, and there weren't a
lot of people online because that's just sort of what
Even after Miami wins a title, they were like, who

(01:01:21):
the hell is this guy?

Speaker 2 (01:01:23):
Right? You know, all that thing.

Speaker 1 (01:01:24):
So I'm obsessive about it and I am glad to
see it's more popular today than it was in the eighties.
And I think Miami had a lot to do with
that because I think we modernized football. It was a
ship game in a lot of other conferences, and Miami
brought sort of in Florida state, sort of brought more.

Speaker 2 (01:01:43):
Excitement to it.

Speaker 1 (01:01:46):
But how do we I hate what's happening here the
SEC and Big Ten, the Super league business.

Speaker 3 (01:01:53):
I think it's terrible.

Speaker 1 (01:01:54):
That a college football fan in Spokane, Washington doesn't have
relevance in the college football landscape.

Speaker 2 (01:02:02):
And I think that's a mistake.

Speaker 1 (01:02:03):
And I think that that is I think the two
conferences have made a massive business mistake here by trying
to shrink the world of college football. Rather than say
to themselves, hey, we can do something the NFL can't.
We can sell out a game and spoke cant they can't.

Speaker 2 (01:02:21):
Well, I think the result is going to be what
you just said, and has become basically the Big Ten
and the SEC are the AFC and the NFC of
college sports. And if you're not in one of those
two conferences, I think you're going to struggle immensely to
cut through the noise.

Speaker 1 (01:02:40):
The Miami in the Big Ten. At this point, Miami
in Florida State, we're going to the Big Ten. Miami's
got all the academic requirements now, AAU, all that business.
And the only region the Big ten's not in is
essentially the only important place.

Speaker 2 (01:02:54):
And I think that's going to be an amazing battle.
Is the ACC television deal is going to come up
for people who are not in the weeds on this,
and I suspect that there's going to be a flight
of the best schools in the ACC into Big ten
and SEC, and that's going to be the last kind
of cultural marker there. Maybe you see a couple of

(01:03:16):
Big twelve schools also get opportunities to make the move.

Speaker 1 (01:03:19):
I think Arizona and when you look at the markets, right,
there's Phoenix. You're not going to let Phoenix go, right,
So yeah, I wouldn't you know, Arizona State in Arizona
should be feeling alive. I wouldn't want to be in
Oklahoma State. I wouldn't want to be an Iowa state perhaps,
And then you see North Carolina and Virginia, those are
going to be the two big prizes. Then that'll be price.

Speaker 2 (01:03:41):
And it's interesting culturally because the SEC has still, even
at sixteen, a unique cultural connection.

Speaker 1 (01:03:49):
Eighteen, wasn't it sixteen still? But I thought Oklahoma and
next is made at eighteen.

Speaker 2 (01:03:55):
I guess maybe it's sixteen from fourteen after Missouri and
A and at it. But if you look at it,
they're all red states. And if you compare, say the
difference between well Georgia, I would argue Georgia is at
about it. Well, Brian Kimp won by eight but yes,
you're right, they're the only it's the only one that's

(01:04:15):
not right that potentially in question. Maybe going forward now
North Carolina Virginia to your point, culturally, there might be
a little bit different feel there, but there's a big
difference between Oregon and Iowa, between Iowa and Maryland. I
think the Big Ten has got challenges in that respect
more so than the SEC does. And so I think

(01:04:37):
it'll be interesting for the Uvas, the North Carolinas of
the world when that eventual day comes which conference, because
I think the money is going to be somewhat similar.
Which conference do they feel is a better cultural fit
for their athletic programs And how does that shake out?

Speaker 1 (01:04:53):
Do you think that will matter? I mean, I think
I think they want to be national brands, not regional brands.

Speaker 2 (01:04:59):
Well, the SEC become a national brand. I mean, I've
got a son who's applying to school. We were talking
about when we went to GW. When I went away
to GW and I talked about the University of Tennessee,
it might as well have been like they have outhouses there,
like do you still have running water? University of Tennessee
has a thirty five percent acceptance right now because all

(01:05:19):
of these kids from New York families, Chicago families, LA families,
they're desperate to send their kids to SEC schools. Vanderbilt
has a five percent acceptance rade now, it's almost impossible
to get into Vanderbilt.

Speaker 1 (01:05:34):
It's really no Look, Miami's experience said, look all the
Southern any southern school with a football or basketball atmosphere, particularly,
this is something I think is a COVID hangover because
we saw it at the at this you know, they've
shown some how pre COVID. The Northeast schools were still

(01:05:56):
and even the Upper Midwest schools were still arguably, at
least in the DC area, more popular than going south.
And in the last three years it's Southern schools from
Georgia particularly like Georgia has been a popular landing spot.
Miami and Tulane and the private my son's at SMU,
you know that's in the private space, and the obviously

(01:06:18):
ut Alabama.

Speaker 2 (01:06:20):
We've seen this really ole Miss.

Speaker 1 (01:06:22):
I think two of my son's closest friends are at
ole Miss from from high school.

Speaker 2 (01:06:27):
So you do see this appeal.

Speaker 1 (01:06:31):
And it's in all of it seems to be, Hey,
I want more than.

Speaker 2 (01:06:35):
Just academics, you know, I want to have a sphere too. No,
I think that's called that's a factor and uh and
that all kind of plays in in a significant way too.
And I think it's also cultural. In the wake of
October seventh, I think a lot of people who are
Jewish have said, hey, you know, I don't know how
I feel about Columbia or UCLA or some of these

(01:06:58):
schools with the huge test even GW compared to the
SEC schools where look, they had freedom of speech. But
if you look at Vanderbilt. The chancellor just said, hey,
you can protest, but you can't come take over our
Central Kirkland Hall building like you're out.

Speaker 1 (01:07:15):
Innesty, Mimmy had nothing. My daughter is Jewish and yeah,
puts it on her profile and there were no issues.
It's also a private campus they didn't allow. This was interesting.
She works in student affairs and she said, hey, Dad,
I hope you're not offended by this, but the university
won't let any media on campus without permission. I said, well,
they're a private institution. They can Public institutions don't necessarily

(01:07:39):
can necessarily do that.

Speaker 2 (01:07:40):
Yeah, and as long as the standard is again this
goes to the principle. As long as you establish whatever
the principle is when it comes to protest on campus
and apply it in a content neutral fashion, I think
that's how you win. And I think the culture you
mentioned old miss it used to be the case that,
you know, you would send your kid the whole miss
if they couldn't get in anywhere else. Now you got

(01:08:02):
families in Manhattan Beach and you know, Westchester begging for
their people love the velvet.

Speaker 1 (01:08:10):
I have a cousin who teaches there. People love the
velvet ditch. It's my favorite description of Oxford. Yeah, you know,
and the beauty of Oxford. You know, if you live
in Oxford, the beauty of Oxford is you're still thirty
minutes from Mississippi.

Speaker 2 (01:08:21):
Ah. Yeah, that's true, and it's a great spot. I
was just down there interviewing Lane Kiffin, and the big
question for coaching carousel talk is, you know, everybody is
waiting to see what Lane's going to do, basically, and
if he goes to Florida, or he goes to LSU,
or he makes the move, then everybody else starts to
adjust their decisions as a result as well.

Speaker 3 (01:08:41):
What would be the motivation for him to leave?

Speaker 2 (01:08:44):
I think that he believes that he can't get to
the championship level at Ole Miss and only he knows.
I mean, he certainly has proven I think that he
can get to the playoff but he may see that
if he wants to get to the Ohio State or
Alabama next verbial levels, so to speak, where you can
win multiple playoff games and whin it's titled that maybe

(01:09:05):
he needs to go to Florida or to LSU. I'm
not sure that an answer is that he does but
I think that's actually a sign of how the expanded
playoff has maybe convinced people that they don't need to move.
But I think that's the thing that he's wrestling with
right now. How do we get rid of the because
my beef.

Speaker 1 (01:09:25):
Look, I am coming at this with my Miami bias
about the committee. Excuse me what I referred to as
the ESPN Invitational, Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:09:34):
Because it is.

Speaker 1 (01:09:35):
I mean, the fact is, the guy went on Tuesday
night and talked about how Miami is the only one
that's won any significant non conference games. Conveniently forgetting that
Florida State beat Alabama? Are we supposed to not count that.
I'm sorry that a mediocre ACC school defeated Alabama, but
those are the facts. And you can't cherry pick when
you decide to hold the ACC scheduling to account and

(01:09:58):
when you don't and then convenient and we leave stuff up.
This is why if I were the commission of the ACC,
I'd be pissed off that my business, biggest business partner,
ESPN doesn't give doesn't give a damn about me. Well,
that's where I get upset about the ACC. It's I
understand ESPN's they're in business, but they're also in business

(01:10:18):
with you. And the fact that the ACC has done
a terrible job of reminding ESPN to that, and if
they don't care, then find a better way out of it.

Speaker 2 (01:10:27):
Well, I think there's certainly a lot of tension for
the networks about all of that, and ultimately what they're
looking at is ratings and money. It's a TV show.

Speaker 1 (01:10:35):
Tony Korneiser loves to say this, it's a TV show, folks.

Speaker 2 (01:10:38):
Yeah, you know, sports and Sports is a great television show.
What I would say is college football is the only
sport where we end up arguing all the time, all
the time, right because nobody sits around in debates, Hey,
is the AFC East better than the NFC West this
year because.

Speaker 1 (01:10:56):
You might committee decided the NFL playoffs. Would Dallas ever
not make the playoffs?

Speaker 2 (01:11:00):
No? And but also we would You can argue maybe
it would be incredible for fighting based on which teams
are better. But they designed the system that I ultimately
think would be the best in college football, which is
you take, let's say right now, the SEC has sixteen schools.
You take four divisions of four and you say, if
you win the division, you're in the playoff, right, and

(01:11:22):
the Big ten. Now, designing what those divisions are going
to be becomes challenging and all those things. But then
you have a known expectation and sometimes you can end up,
as happens in the NFL, the team that happens to
win a division sometimes they have a losing record and
you look at it, you say, boy, you know that's
screwed up. And people may be upset about it for
a short period of time, but you know already going

(01:11:46):
in what the rules of engagement, so to speak, are
when it comes to playoff.

Speaker 1 (01:11:51):
You know determination, Well, and that's the thing, like what
you hate about this committee. And to me, nobody has
ever answered this question with real clarity. Mean, which is
what matters more who you beat or who you lost to?

Speaker 2 (01:12:03):
Yeah, and I mean I think the answer is. My
buddy likes to say, you know, college football is just
a cake baking contest. So we all and then we
all stand around and look and we're like, well, look
at the frosting on this one. We'll look at the depth,
look at the moisture of this cut. Right Like, ultimately,
you know, I think it's kind of an evocative This

(01:12:24):
is my big you know, sort of metaphorical take on
American society, and I think it applies to college football too.
It's do we judge people by their ceilings or their floors? Right?
My argument would be the Democrat Party of the last
generation or so looks at the floor, like what did
America get wrong? What did we screw up? What should

(01:12:45):
we be ashamed of? And sort of forces people to
marinate in that failure. I would argue the Republican Party,
this is my take, tends to focus more on the ceiling.
What did you achieve? You know? Or when you talk
about Thomas Jefferson, how long do you take to mention
Sally Lemmicks, you know? Or do you focus on hey,
Declaration of Independence kind of a good deal, Monticello impressive,

(01:13:07):
you know, Fridge the Louisiana purchased kind of a kind
of a significant accomplishment. And so I think it kind
of goes in with college football too, right, are you.

Speaker 1 (01:13:18):
Just there are some of us who sort of like
all of that, And that's always been my prest at
the bottom, Right, My frustration is like I sort of
love the fact that everybody's complicated in our history, and
that ultimately that complication and history does sort of inform
the future, and it always does, both good and bad
and indifferent. But in some ways, the complication, the fact

(01:13:40):
that Jefferson is complicated is.

Speaker 3 (01:13:44):
Actually very American.

Speaker 2 (01:13:47):
Yes, And also by the way it sort of jumps
into what I think is fascinating is you know, if
you look at Prestige era at television, almost everyone that
is a signal defigantly successful show, whether it's Walter White,
whether it's Tony Soprano, is you know, filled with substantial
measures of light and darkness, as we all are. And

(01:14:10):
so that's a big metaphor for college football. I mean,
I think it does turn into a question. Ultimately, I
would say I'm more likely to judge a team by
the body of work, but I would if I had
to choose what's more significant, quality wins or bad losses,
I would go with quality wins. But here's the deal,
there is no criterion. The committee can decide whatever is

(01:14:30):
the best argument to do whatever the committee thinks they
should do. And so that's why I think, you know,
there's Florida State fans that are probably watching this right
now still furious over Jordan Travis in the way.

Speaker 1 (01:14:42):
They it's not just any Florida State fan that's going
to be watching this, it's my wife, who's.

Speaker 2 (01:14:45):
A Florida State alone. Yeah, okay.

Speaker 1 (01:14:47):
Her anger at kirk Kirbstreet is on a level that
will never like, you know, visceral, There's no political figure
that would garner.

Speaker 2 (01:14:56):
As much hate for her well, And I think that's
why college football is so popular because unlike the NFL,
which I love, you don't feel that close personal connection
to it. And for college athletics, it is all person
It evokes an emotional response that is very different than
what happens, I think candidly with anything in professional sports.

Speaker 1 (01:15:27):
So you would go, what would you like to see
a sixteen team playoff? Because the other thought I had
is because I'd love to see.

Speaker 3 (01:15:34):
Like I think it's fun.

Speaker 1 (01:15:34):
I'm glad a group of five team is in there,
But I actually would like to see a mini tournament
of those four conference champions. They play each other, the
winner gets to come into the Maybe it's an eighteen playoff,
and maybe the SEC has its own tournament, Big ten
has its own tournament, acc and then you sort of
you do it that way way.

Speaker 2 (01:15:56):
I would go sixteen, and I would eliminate the conference
championship games, and I would finish it by Jan one.

Speaker 1 (01:16:03):
I think the SCC wants more revenue for I assume
the SEC and the Big Ten. And this is where
I think the media partners come in. Does Fox want
a Big Ten tournament? Allow the basketball tournaments right? And
does ESPN want that out of SEC?

Speaker 2 (01:16:20):
And so there's been a discussion where you say, hey,
we're going to guarantee four spots for the SEC and
four for the Big Ten, but we will have three,
four and five six to play in in other words,
one and two in the conference automatically in the playoffs,
and then to replace the conference championship game, you actually
add two playoff games, but you played and I guess

(01:16:41):
it would be three six four five probably is the
way that it would make sense. And then the two
teams that win those games advanced. So from a capitalistic perspective,
you double your value. And what I would like to
see is a done.

Speaker 1 (01:16:54):
Oh by the way, I get more football and you
make money, Okay, then we all win.

Speaker 2 (01:16:58):
So I think there's an argument that something like that
could happen, but I think it's ultimately going to end
up sixteen. And what I would like to see them
do is actually start college football a bit earlier and
you know, like a week or two earlier than they
do now, and be able to finish it all on
jan one is the national title game.

Speaker 1 (01:17:16):
Get out of the NFL's way, never going to beat
the NFL.

Speaker 2 (01:17:19):
And I don't like when they're playing games on random
Tuesdays and Wednesdays to try to avoid the NFL schedule.
And I think if you drag it on for too long,
it makes people, you know, just kind of lose interest.
So I would get it done. Jan one is a
traditional heavyweight of day for college football.

Speaker 1 (01:17:36):
The other thing I would do in my if, if
you would, if you in your magic world, if you
let me to orchestrate the beginning of the season, is
I would take all of the bowl games that are
not part of the national title, not part of the
whole playoff structure, and I would make those matchups play
each other at the start of the season. I would
that's cool to look at the I'd look at the

(01:17:58):
calendar right now, and the month of August is up
for grabs. Every month has a sport that they own, right,
but the month of August sits there, and you know,
college football has already done a pretty good job of
grabbing the last sort of week or two, and those
become like people are dying.

Speaker 2 (01:18:16):
They're startday. They do a great job of playing games Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday.
But I would start it even earlier and make that
the focal point of the early part of the season.

Speaker 1 (01:18:26):
If I had my Bowl, if you matched up fun
little interconference matchups and all that stuff that you did
it at the start of the year based on last
year's records or whatever, but hey, that is suddenly those
games mean something. You're not going to a great players
get out of it. And I think you could, and
that these cities, I think people would. It's August, it's

(01:18:47):
the end of summer vacation. Maybe it's the last trip
you take with your family, you know, to go see
you know, you go to l Paso to the Sun Bowl.

Speaker 2 (01:18:55):
You appreciate the choir on this. I think that the
college football brain trust need to get out of competing
with the NFL, and preseason NFL is garbage. So the
more time you can create a distinct, unique, awesome product
without having to compete with the NFL, the better. And
I think starting in August a little bit earlier, and

(01:19:18):
finishing on jan one. Is that window?

Speaker 1 (01:19:23):
Let me get you out of here. On Nashville is
a major league market. Yeah, what's the next major sport
that's coming.

Speaker 2 (01:19:29):
It's fuzzy. I'm going to a meeting about major League
Baseball at Nashville. Legitimately, when I hang up the phone
with you, I think we're going to get major League
Baseball and the NBA. Well, Memphis has got the NBA,
and I think that gets into a politically, it's hard
for Nashville to take Memphis crown jewel of professional athletics.

Speaker 1 (01:19:51):
So that you wouldn't right. I agree, So you wouldn't
see it. And you don't think Tennessee can support to NBA.

Speaker 2 (01:19:55):
I don't think they can support too. And I don't
think I think the political tension there is such the
that would not be tenable. But I think we're going
to get major League baseball. And I'm not sure what
the other city. Maybe salt Lake, because I think they
want one west of the Lake and Charlotte.

Speaker 1 (01:20:10):
There's salt Lake, there's Charlotte, there's Portland, there's Montreal. I
have heard the Charlotte has some real money and that
you know. But but I've heard the Salt Lake thing.
So let me get you with a couple of stats
that blow my mind. And you may may not have
thought about this.

Speaker 2 (01:20:25):
There are more NHL, NBA, and NFL teams in the
SEC footprint than there are MLB teams. It's crazy. And
yet so the Braids are kind of the team of
the SEC because this is a sport. There's a baseball
crazy footprint they haven't served. So actually Nashville and Charlotte
should both get them. I don't know that they'll do it,

(01:20:48):
but but that that stat really kind of jumps out,
and so I think they want to give Nashville a team.
And here's the other thing about this. I am told
there's likely to be a lockout, shut down.

Speaker 1 (01:21:00):
Everybody has said, please, I got my national season ticket.
Guy said, I said, give me the best case of
why I should sign up for next year.

Speaker 2 (01:21:08):
He says, because we probably won't have baseball in twenty seven. Yeah, no,
I mean, so that's and I think one of the
ways that they will reach an agreement going forward is
by saying to the players, hey, we're going to add
two teams, which is going to add you know, sixty
jobs or whatever the math is to the overall Major
League Baseball environment, and haven't expanded very much Baseball compared

(01:21:31):
to the NFL, compared to the NBA, compared to hockey.
So I think Nashville is going to get one. I
would bet on play starting I don't know, twenty thirty one,
twenty thirty two something in that arena.

Speaker 1 (01:21:45):
They do have a financial problem though, right, because unlike
the other major sports, baseball teams don't share their revenue.
That's right, right, And the Dodgers Japanese media rights more
than anything. The Minnesota Twins can sell, that's right, and
you cannot have And you know, if the NFL worked

(01:22:07):
the way baseball worked, there'd be no Jaguars, that's right, right,
There'd be no Packers.

Speaker 2 (01:22:12):
And yeah, the way to put it is, sports is
a unique business where the business itself is the competition. Right.
Walmart wanted to put Kmart out of business, right like
home Depot wants to knock the Lows out of business Coke, PEPSI, whatever,
dueling businesses. The quality of the sport is entirely determined

(01:22:32):
by the quality of the competition. And if, for instance,
the Dodgers because they have showby and all of the
money rolling in from Japan are able to spend far
more money than anybody else, and they win eight titles
in a row. It's not beneficial in any way for them.

Speaker 1 (01:22:51):
No, it's like, why, you know, there's a reason college
football wasn't popular in the forties and fifties because it
was Notre Dame, and Army and Navy had all the
talent and there wasn't a way.

Speaker 2 (01:23:00):
To share it around. Look, this has been my concern.
We love college football, but that somebody the Elon Musk
of college football, he doesn't care, but if he did,
just suddenly comes in and says, I'm going to give
a billion dollars to school in il funds. I think
that's why they're trying to set up some form of
salary cap inside of college athletics.

Speaker 1 (01:23:18):
I was at the University of Illinois doing a talk.
I was happened to be hanging out with the coach
of the basketball team, Brad Endward there when when they
found out Larry Ellison, a University of Illinois alum, wrote
a check to Michigan to sign to sign.

Speaker 2 (01:23:34):
The court under Brice Underwood.

Speaker 1 (01:23:36):
Brice Underwood and they were just like apoplectic, Yeah, like
what what?

Speaker 2 (01:23:40):
What? He needs to give us money? Do you? Why
are you doing that?

Speaker 1 (01:23:44):
And it was all because you know, he had the
girlfriend who was going to be upset if Michigan football
wasn't story of life right right? The things men will
do for what we'll do for love. Let me get
you out of here on this. Who's four people you'd
like to see to run for president in twenty.

Speaker 2 (01:24:01):
Oh, that's a fantastic question. Well, let's eliminate people that
we know are going to run. You know Jamie Vance,
you know Marco Rubio. I think there's a good chance
that they run as a tandem ticket. Gavin Newsom's clearly
going to run.

Speaker 1 (01:24:15):
Do you think anybody the last name of Trump runs
And I'm not talking about the sitting president.

Speaker 2 (01:24:18):
I'm talking about Junior or Eric or I don't think
that I know those guys. I don't think that they
want it. That could change, but I think they like
the life that they have now, and I think they've
seen what the life is required to have. And I'm
not sure that you know it's very there's a lot
of fancy, awesome parts of being involved in politics. You've

(01:24:41):
been there. There's also a lot of standing and posing
for photos on a rope line for an hour and
a half and making small talk with every person, like
I don't think that actual. It reminds me, honestly of
kind of what people think the practice of law is,
and then what the practice of law actually is. They
think you're to be Tom Cruise all the time and

(01:25:01):
a few good men, or they think it's going to
be a time to kill and your Matthew McConaughey talking
to a journey and the reality is you're sitting in
front of a computer screen on dock review or filing
a motion. Now, hey, I'll do all that for you, right,
and maybe civil procedure related. So I would like to
see successful people in the world of business. I would

(01:25:22):
have liked to have seen he's getting older now. I
would have liked to have seen Nick Saban in politics
because I think he would be really good at it.
I think he's gotten a little bit too old. I
think Brian Kemp, Governor of Georgia, really really sharp guy.
I think he could be a great unifying candidate. I
love Ron DeSantis and what he did. I understand that
there's issues there. I love both those guys on the

(01:25:44):
Republican side. On the Democrat side, I'm somewhat impressed by
what I've seen from Ram Emmanuel because he seems to
be rational and be willing to talk like a dude,
which I think Democrats are struggling with in general. Just
have a beer and watch a game. Who would I
like to do that with. I've been a bit impressed
with Maramamanuel and his ability to cut through there. And

(01:26:06):
then I would like people who are not professional politicians
to potentially get involved, who have had success in other industry,
not unlike Trump did. And you know, there are the
mayor Bloomberg's of the world. I would like to see
them just kind of look at things analytically and analyze

(01:26:28):
facts and just say, hey, let's run the company a
little bit more like a business. So there are some
of those figures that I think could be could be
very helpful.

Speaker 1 (01:26:36):
Do you think I have a feeling the pitchforks are
coming though for corporate America left and right.

Speaker 2 (01:26:42):
It is a profound anger. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:26:45):
And I don't know if because I you know, instinctively,
I'm always looking at for business leaders, and I'm starting
to think that even if they're good.

Speaker 2 (01:26:53):
That doesn't Matt like.

Speaker 1 (01:26:54):
I think Jamie Diamond in another era could be an
interesting Yeah, candidate for office, but I think I think
the pitchforks would come for a banker, right, you know,
you had Steve Jobs had a personality maybe, yeah, you know,
But again.

Speaker 2 (01:27:12):
So I wonder though, if the world.

Speaker 1 (01:27:13):
Of business just in the next ten years, if that's
just going to be a like like that, that it's
an anti halo effect on somebody.

Speaker 2 (01:27:22):
Yeah. Look, I think you're going to see. Let me
give you a couple of media Megan Kelly, I think
is uniquely talented. I don't know if she would ever right,
I could see. You're right, a media personality is gonna
is going to try and do it. My big take
on twenty eight is I think men have been won
by the Republican Party, but I think women have been
won by the Democrat Party. I mean, talking broadly, I understand.

Speaker 1 (01:27:42):
Oh it's pretty it was pretty sharp. I don't know
if it'll stay that. What'll be interesting is do both
parties attempt to fix their problem?

Speaker 2 (01:27:49):
That's right, So if they do, then there's an opening
actually for someone who is woman that is able to
talk to women. And say, hey, the Republican Party flip side.
Is there a man that is just like a dude,
just a normal guy. Maybe it's Wes Moore, you know,
who rises up on the Democrat side and can have
normal conversations with men. I think Gavin Newsom is trying

(01:28:12):
to do it, and so to me, that may well
be the way the election is decided is who's able
to talk not to their base, certainly, but to the
opposite genre. You ever wanted to run for office? My
wife is has forbidden it. Look. I love what I
do right now. I don't ever want to leave Nashville.

(01:28:35):
I've got seventeen, fifteen, eleven year old boys. When all
my boys are out of the house in seven or
eight years, I'll look around, I'll have, you know, hopefully
had four years of seasoning and everything else, and see
how things look then. But I don't think for the
next eight years or so. And here's honestly, the thing
that I've thought about. I think a lot about how

(01:28:56):
do I be? How am I the most efficient and
effective verse of myself? And I'm not trying to be
egotistical here, but with our show with Clay and Buck
without Kick and everything, else, people know us a lot
more than they do a lot of governors, and a
lot more than they do certainly a lot of congress people.

(01:29:16):
So I feel like I can have an impact in
a positive way in media, in a way. I remember
Scarborough saying that politicians can't.

Speaker 1 (01:29:25):
You know, early on Scarborough the show was going pretty
well and somebody was trying to get him to go
run for Senate again in Florida. Yeah, this was more
this is pre Trump era, so it was sort of
he was still sort of a more comfortable Republican, and
he came to the conclusion that he had more influence
doing what he was doing than to be a senator.

(01:29:45):
And I remember thinking that sucks. I'm sorry, like that's
not the way it should be.

Speaker 2 (01:29:53):
But he's right. I mean, the senators and the governors
asked to come on the show all the time, so
they off to our audience and reach it.

Speaker 1 (01:30:02):
They want to be seen as normal people, so they
desperately don't want to be on a political show.

Speaker 2 (01:30:07):
They want to be in a non political show, that's right,
and so they want to do you know, events with us,
and so look, I mean, I think Paul Finbaum is
going to run you didn't ask me about this, like
he sat down and talked with me. I don't know
how well you buy it. You think he's going to run.

Speaker 1 (01:30:20):
I just don't think he's going to be able to
sell MAGA that he's mega.

Speaker 2 (01:30:26):
I'm sorry, I don't buy it. I think I think
he would run. If he runs, I think he'll win.
So uh. I think college football matters more in Alabama
than anything. Uh. You've got Tommy Tuppervill who's going to
be the governor. You got aj Mccaerron who might be
the lieutenant governor.

Speaker 3 (01:30:41):
You're right, I mean we may see an entire r.

Speaker 2 (01:30:44):
Entire fatespired to Wesley Britt, who's a former offensive tackle
for Alabama and an NFL guy. I think people look
at it more their parties are Alabama Auburn. They're not
necessarily Democrat Republican. Uh. And the one thing I'll say
about college football but makes fun of me about this,
but I actually think America would be better if we

(01:31:05):
thought of each other more like college football fans, because
I innately trust other college football fans more than I
do people who aren't college football fans, even if they
are rooting for different teams, because I know we speak
a common language and it's a tribe.

Speaker 1 (01:31:21):
You know, it goes back to you know, the best
part of being an American is if you're a member
of multiple tribes. That's right, and you're right, like, you know,
there's my University of Miami tribe, and there may be
people in there I politically can't stomach. But when we're
watching a game together, we're high five.

Speaker 2 (01:31:37):
That's right. And there's a college football tribe, and there's
a media tribe.

Speaker 3 (01:31:40):
You know, there's you know. The only thing bad is
if you're a.

Speaker 1 (01:31:44):
Member of only one tribe, and one tribe only well,
and also if you decide.

Speaker 2 (01:31:49):
What I always say is I have tons of friends
who think that my political opinions are crazy, and I'm
open to being convinced that I'm wrong. I wish that
more people were open to being convinced that they were wrong,
because part of being a lawyer is at some point
you look at the argument, they're like, hey, they got

(01:32:09):
a better argument. Like you have to be rational on
some point, because that's the job, is to look at
arguments and deciding makes the better one. I wish more
people did that, and that's why maybe college football is
the perfect approximation of that because everybody is super passionate.
But in the end we all argue and then we
come to the conclusion. People may not be satisfied, but

(01:32:31):
they end up still being engaged as much, if not
more every year.

Speaker 1 (01:32:36):
Well like, look like, eventually there's a vote, Eventually there's
a game that's played.

Speaker 2 (01:32:41):
That's right, That's exactly right. Hey, I appreciate you doing this, man,
Hey man, I appreciate you having me on. We got
to get you on some of our shows as well.
And good luck to the Hurricanes the rest of the way,
you name it.

Speaker 1 (01:32:52):
If they look I just wish they wouldn't hold Miami's
coaching staff against the team. The team itself is probably
the most talented or as talented as any team in
the country.

Speaker 2 (01:33:03):
Just don't have it. We can't get the most out
of them. But I hope camer Woord develops. He was
a lot of fun to watch last year with Miami.
So far hasn't gone very well.

Speaker 1 (01:33:11):
Man, he's already you know what happens these anytime. Look
what happened to Trevor Lawrence when he had to go
through multiple coaches early. This is such a bad sign.
I'm so worried about this for him. That sucks to
I have to go through a Uh think about it,
he's had four O season four years. I do think
he is high level thinker because he's gone through so

(01:33:35):
many OC's in college, right, three different systems. I think
you're going to be okay. But man, that sucks that
he got drafted into a terrible situation with the guy
that probably doesn't belong in the NFL. In the meantime,
something I never would have believed as a Nashville kid
growing up. We're going to host a super Bowl in
this new stadium, and I think we're going to have
a Major League Baseball team too.

Speaker 2 (01:33:57):
So it's not a bad spot to live. You'll have
to come down and visit. No, Oh, it's Nashville.

Speaker 1 (01:34:01):
What is it that you guys are the new Vegas,
the new Austin, the new You're always the Nashville feels
like it gets the it's the new this, it's the
new Hollywood.

Speaker 3 (01:34:08):
It's the new that.

Speaker 2 (01:34:09):
When I started out Kick as a media company here
based in Nashville, everybody told me you can't succeed, you
got to move to New York or LA. Now everybody's
moving their media companies to Nashville. Now you and Taylor Swift,
you guys know something. Thanks appreciating, Thanks you.

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Speaker 3 (01:36:02):
Brett all right, well, I enjoyed that.

Speaker 1 (01:36:08):
I hope it's something we at some point we will
I think do a home in a way.

Speaker 2 (01:36:13):
I think it all depends on what I don't know how.

Speaker 1 (01:36:17):
We'll see what kind of reception I get from Clay's audience.
I'm curious. I would like to think my audience here,
you guys expect me to be a little more diverse
in my selection of guests and selection of topics. So
I hope this turns into a more interesting array of conversation.
Not necessarily, but I would love your feedback, good, bad

(01:36:40):
or otherwise I might as well. It is pretty much
one of the great I mean, we have taken the
greatest holiday we could have come up with as Americans, Thanksgiving,
which I do think of it as the most it is.
It is it is our attempt to be a more
perfect union. I believe with Thanksgiving more so than any

(01:37:00):
other American holiday, that Thanksgiving is the holiday where we
all try to be the best version of ourselves right
and in some form or another. Right we're a bit
more generous so we find out somebody's not, you know,
with family and Thanksgiving, we'll come out over to my house. Right,
we're the most open door. And I think just it

(01:37:21):
generally turns out to be true. I know that's the
way I feel. It's my favorite holiday because hey, we
don't have to bring a gift. Yes, you should show
up to my house with a pie. I will demand that.
In fact, I prefer a pie over wine or booze,
because you know, I've become a little less boozy as
I've gotten older.

Speaker 3 (01:37:39):
I'm a little more into the pies.

Speaker 1 (01:37:40):
Frankly, I'd rather get If you're going to make me
eat sugar, I'd rather have a nice piece of pie
than have that sugar hidden an alcohol.

Speaker 2 (01:37:46):
Right.

Speaker 1 (01:37:49):
But I tease, but I do. I do love me
some Thanksgiving. In fact, before I get to my college
football breakout, I might as well give you my top
five list of the five things you've got that I
think you have to have a Thanksgiving dinner to be satisfied.

(01:38:13):
Number one is a turkey that isn't a roast turkey,
whether it's smoke turkey, whether it's fried turkey. At the
Chuck Todd Thanksgiving, you get all three. By the way,
we do roasted, we do fried, and we do smoke
because I want I want a variety. Or, as my
son says, we're doing everything we can to make turkey
taste like chicken. He's not wrong about that. But you've

(01:38:35):
got to provide more than just the traditional turkey. If
you're not providing another type of turkey, particularly fried or
smoked in particular, and frankly, bonus points. If you're a
Thanksgiving that wants to add in a brisket or maybe
even a ham. If that's your that's your choice. You
know we don't we stuck with turkey for a while.

(01:38:56):
You don't have to do turkey. I've taken turkey off
the my winter holiday menu, if you will. So that's
number one. Number two macaroni and cheese cast role. I'm sorry,
it is. It is an important staple. If you don't
have it, you're you know now. To me, it is,
it is I must have. It is not a nice
to have. And I think there was a time when,

(01:39:18):
as a kid, macaroni and cheese was thought of as kids.
Oh that's the kid's plate. And now there's so many
better ways. I do one that uses all sorts of
gourmet cheeses and I really actually bake it. This is
not out of a box. Don't do out of a
box mac and cheese. I want I want a real
I want a real attempt you where you mixed your

(01:39:38):
cheeses and your pasta and you put some effort into it.
Don't don't give me any powdered cheese on that. So
you got to have diversity of types of turkey. You
gotta have your mac and cheese. Number three is a
sweet potato castrole of some sort, and it's got to
have marshmallows. If you don't have marshmallows, what the what's
the point of sweet potatoes?

Speaker 2 (01:39:57):
Right? And go all in?

Speaker 1 (01:39:58):
It should feel like desserts, Okay, it should be deserty.
The most deserty, the more deserty, the better, I might argue.

Speaker 2 (01:40:08):
You know.

Speaker 1 (01:40:08):
In fact, I realized I might like sweet potato pie
more than pumpkin pie. Although I will tell you the
best time to have pumpkin pie, and it's not after
Thanksgiving dinner. I'll tell you in a minute. Again, these
are just my rules. But certainly, if you invite me
to your Thanksgiving, I'm gonna judge you on whether you
have these items. So there you go, right, your sweet
potato castle. Very deserty, all right. I don't just want

(01:40:29):
sweet potatoes, I want it. I want a lot of marshmallows.
I want some brown sugar. I want some pecans, right,
and I don't care if they're pecans or pecans right,
meaning I don't care how you pronounce it. Number four,
and this is an important one because I have dropped
the ball on this over the last few Thanksgivings. A
green bean mushroom cast role and you know what I

(01:40:52):
want the can? This is one I said no to
powdered cheese. I do want Campbell's Crema mushroom soup concentrate.

Speaker 2 (01:41:02):
You want that out.

Speaker 1 (01:41:03):
Of the can mushroom soup, because let's be honest, you
don't have time to make a fun scratch cream of
mushroom soup. But that cream of mushroom you know, now,
you know you've got a diversity of adults there. You
might want to get the lower salt version of the
cream of mushroom soup, all right, because it does get
sometimes canned soup can be a little too salty. So

(01:41:23):
I'm not gonna do that. Get those crispy onion rings
of some sort, those crispy fried Indians. My god, it's
just no reason to make it from scratch. You can
buy those, but you don't have those crispy onion things
on there, then you're not doing the green bean cast role, right.
And then the fifth thing, and this is the most
This is very important. It's not the most important. The

(01:41:44):
most important is having an alternative to your roast turkey.
To your roasted turkey. I'm not saying you can not
have one, but you better have an alternative.

Speaker 2 (01:41:52):
Fried.

Speaker 1 (01:41:54):
I always fry turkey, smoked brisket, you name it, gotta
have an alternative. But the fifth thing leftover pumpkin pie
with coffee the next morning. I think pumpkin pie is
the single best breakfast leftover pie to have. I think
you do that a little bit of the extra whipped

(01:42:14):
cream that you hopefully made the night before, you made
for Thanksgiving dessert night. But you know you're almost too
stuffed to eat dessert. You know you'll have you might
have a half a piece of pie after that, you know,
after the everybody leaves, and you might have a little something.
But you're pretty stuff. But don't trust me. Piece of
pumpkin pie that's been chilled in the refrigerator that Friday morning,

(01:42:37):
throw a little whipped cream on it, get your coffee out.
Forget any pumpkin spice, Lotte. That's the best way to
enjoy your pumpkin and your coffee. And you have it separately,
like a real American, right, you don't have it in
some sort of fancy conglomerate pie there Anyway, I'm being
a little snarky about real American but why not? Why

(01:42:58):
can't I have a little fun?

Speaker 2 (01:42:58):
So there it is.

Speaker 1 (01:42:59):
There's your top five The five must have to truly
have what I would say is the correct Thanksgiving and
certainly my checklist of a successful Thanksgiving meal. All right,
So with my with my authoritarian views on Thanksgiving out
of the way and having a little fun with that

(01:43:21):
top five, let's let me give you a quick preview
of the college football weekend.

Speaker 2 (01:43:24):
Let me just tell you this.

Speaker 1 (01:43:27):
First of all, I am going to the pit game.
Looks like I'm going to the pit game. My University
of Miami daughter has been on me on this, so
we're certainly we are making plans to make that happen.
It is a three and a half hour drive. We've
already mapped out the drive. This is the same day
trip noon kickoff, get up early Saturday morning.

Speaker 3 (01:43:48):
You know, it's doable. It all, it all depends on
some sort of you know, we got.

Speaker 1 (01:43:53):
Other visitors to juggle and all of that thing. So
I may be witnessed there too. As my daughter said,
could be the last game of the year for Miami.
Obviously we hope it is not. And no, some bullshit
Pop Tarts Bowl is not that interesting to me.

Speaker 3 (01:44:07):
I have no interest in it.

Speaker 1 (01:44:08):
I have no interest in in any bowl game that
has not counts Okay, I am out on those at
least this year for the nursery of Miami.

Speaker 2 (01:44:17):
But let me tell you what I am.

Speaker 1 (01:44:19):
I'm not going to sit here and predict this, and
I sort of I think I hinted at you before,
but I given how little chaos we got last weekend, Right,
there were no major upsets. The top fourteen ranked teams
all won. Right, there was literally nothing changes. Well you
know it's the top fourteen teams won. But the let

(01:44:41):
me just paint you a scenario that is not an
unrealistic scenario that after Saturday night is over, we could
have the following teams be ten and two. Okay, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve,
we could have twelve ten and two teams. And this

(01:45:03):
is none of this is unrealistic. Ole miss they lose
to Mississippi State. If Utah wins, they're ten and two.
If Georgia Tech beats Georgia.

Speaker 2 (01:45:13):
They're both ten and two. Miami.

Speaker 1 (01:45:17):
If they beat pitt their tenant two. If Michigan beat
Ohio State, they're tenant two. If Texas Tech loses this week,
they're ten and two. If BYU loses, their ten and two.
If Oregon loses to Washington, not an insignificant idea. They
could be tenant two. If Vandy beats Tennessee, they would
be ten and two. If Uva wins, they would be
ten and two. If Alabama beats Auburn, they will be

(01:45:37):
ten and two, and if Notre Dame wins, they'll be
ten and two. That is your true chaos scenario for
the in that way. And I'm not saying you're gonna
have all of those ten and two teams, but I'll
just say this, I smell a lot of questionable games.
So let me let me start with ole Miss Mississippi State.

(01:46:00):
We're going to get that on Friday. Here's a real question.
When Florida State lost its starting quarterback, the ESPN Invitational
Committee decided they didn't want to invite Florida State. They
for some reason decided winning the conference without Jordan Travis
shutting out Louisville wasn't enough. It is really an inexplicable

(01:46:22):
decision and only explained by ESPN's desire to just put
on a more entertain what they thought would be a
more entertaining football team, rather than the most worthy who
earned it on the field. This is the beginning of
their decision on the field. And by the way, I
see you, Kirk kurb Street, I see you claiming he says,
the longer a season goes on, the less head to

(01:46:44):
head matters. He is already setting up this narrative that
Notre Dame should get in over Miami, regardless of the
fact that Notre Dame doesn't have a single victory over
a top twenty five team unless Pitt gets ranked into
the top twenty five this week, because guess what USC
is going to be out maybe to put into the
top twenty five, but they don't have any top twenty
five wins, and that is still to me a should

(01:47:09):
be a problem, and for any other team not named
Motor Name, it would be a problem. But I see
what you're doing there, mister Herbstreet, by setting up this
narrative that somehow head to head should be less and
no other sport is head to head. Ever, less head
to head is usually the number one tiebreaker you have.

Speaker 2 (01:47:25):
Okay, but I'm going to get off of that.

Speaker 1 (01:47:27):
But in all seriousness, here's a question for you. If
Ole miss loses to Mississippi State and Lane Kiffin announces
on Saturday that he's going to be the next coach
of LSU. Does Old Miss get treated by this committee
the way Florida State was treated when they lost their quarterback. Hey,
you don't have like, at the end of the day,
if this is if this is a TV show, as

(01:47:48):
my friend mister Cornheiser likes to say, this is a
TV show, this is not. You know, you're not worried
about the ethics of whether the most deserving teams are
getting in there. It's all about putting together your TV show.

Speaker 3 (01:48:00):
Well, isn't Lane Kiffin the star of Ole Miss?

Speaker 2 (01:48:02):
Can you?

Speaker 1 (01:48:03):
I challenge you non Ole Miss fans to name me
three players on Old Mess. Trust me, I'm a college
football obsessive fan, and I know there's the kid that
was quarterback at a D two school. I can't remember
his name, Jackson Dart was the quarterback last year, but

(01:48:24):
I don't remember the guy this year. The point is
Lane Kiffin's the star. If Lane Kiffin's not going to
be coaching, is that enough to actually plus a lost
in Mississippi State?

Speaker 2 (01:48:34):
Does Ole Miss.

Speaker 1 (01:48:35):
Get dropped out completely? I don't think that's an a
crazy idea. Let me get you to the Georgia Tech
Georgia game. On one hand, this game is meaningless. It
certainly doesn't matter for Georgia. George is in the playoff
no matter what. But if Georgia Tech wins a game
they almost won last year and went to what seven

(01:48:55):
thousand overtimes? If Georgia Tech wins this game in their
ten and two, it's suddenly of the ten and two teams,
the only the only other team with a with a
win over George is Alabama. Trust me, as a Miami fan,
this has to be really nervous. A went over Georgia
by Georgia Tech might be better than Miami's went over

(01:49:16):
Notre Dame. Just something to think about on the Georgia
Tech front. Then, of course there's the Miami situation. How
about Michigan beating Ohio State ten and two? Michigan that
beats Ohio State, They're a lot for the playoff?

Speaker 2 (01:49:30):
Right? Well?

Speaker 1 (01:49:30):
Whose spot did they take? Yet another spot that I'm
worried about. Put it this way, I'm worried about U
of M taking um spot on that one b YU
in Texas Tech. Are they the big twelve? Not going
to get two teams? And what happens If b YU

(01:49:50):
beats Texas Tech in the in the Big twelve title game,
that's that's obviously a next week problem. We still have
it this week problem and nothing again, nothing should surprise
you this week. And that's why Washington defeating Oregon does
this drop how much you know Oregon doesn't have? If
they lose to Washington, there's gonna be real questions. Has
Oregon beaten anybody? They lost Indiana? If USC is not

(01:50:14):
considered a top twenty five team, and they may not
be after this week, their victory over Penn State isn't aging. Wow,
is Oregon going to be suddenly especially if Michigan wins
and there's a decision made by this committee they don't.

Speaker 2 (01:50:28):
You know?

Speaker 1 (01:50:29):
And then South you've got Notre Dame, You've got Miami.
You know, is Oregon on the outside looking in? And
does that become problematic to them? Just something to think
about there. Vanderbilt, if they beat Tennessee, they don't have
great wins, but their losses are not bad either. Right,

(01:50:49):
they have the Alabama loss, I think they have a
Texas loss that was pretty close. I think they need
an old miss loss. Uh that had to be considered.
And if you told me Old Miss without Lane Kevin
versus Diego Pavia with Vandy. I think again, if you're
just making a TV show, you're gonna put Diego Pavia.

(01:51:11):
Vandy's the dieg of Pavia h Vandy team in over
the lane, kiffenless Old Miss rebels. Just something to think about.
And then finally I want to close with this. I
know that we're just assuming Notre Dame beats Stanford, but
Notre Dame plays Stanford all the every year Stanford cares
about this game. Andrew luck is the general manager there.

(01:51:38):
He sort of also appears to be the guy that
helps motivate these players at times. He got them all
fired up for that col game.

Speaker 3 (01:51:48):
Let's just say that.

Speaker 1 (01:51:48):
I look, do I think if they play ten times,
seven of those times Notre Dame wins by five touchdowns
or more. Yes, But we all know this weird last
game of the season business. Stanford's not going anywhere. This
is the lat for some players on Stanford will be
the last time they ever played football, and you just
never know. And again, there's this sort of Stanford pride.

(01:52:15):
There's sort of a bit of an academic rivalry with
Notre Dame.

Speaker 3 (01:52:18):
At times.

Speaker 1 (01:52:19):
I'm just saying I'm not as convinced. I certainly am
not going to be touching this game financially in either direction,
because the uncertainty would concern me in the same way
that Alabama should be at Auburn and the Iron Bowl.
But my god, my son's first memory in college football

(01:52:40):
is the infamous kick six. You know, he distinctly remembers
just the pandemonium that my wife and I had, and
we didn't even care about the outcome. We sort of
root for Auburn because we've got family members that went
to Auburn and root for Auburn, and we're if you're
going to make us pick between Auburn and Alabama, we're
going to root for Auburn each time. And it was

(01:53:00):
just such an amazing thing, something you've never seen before,
probably will never see in another thirty years, in the
same way that anything can happen in that game. Just
trust me, don't be shocked if anything can happen in
that Notre Dame Stanford game. You may be saying, maybe
Chuck just wants this to happen because a Notre Dame

(01:53:21):
loss would be so helpful to Miami. You know, I'm
not saying I wouldn't.

Speaker 2 (01:53:27):
I wouldn't.

Speaker 1 (01:53:28):
I certainly would be smiling if it happened. I'm just
being realistic here. If I didn't care so much, I
will tell you this, all these ten and two teams
hurt Miami's chances. Trust me, I don't want more ten
and two teams. I want fewer ten and two teams.

Speaker 3 (01:53:41):
But the amount of.

Speaker 1 (01:53:43):
Potential chaos we have, and we get twelve ten and
two teams that don't include the teams that we know
are already going to be in the playoff Indiana, Ohio, State, Georgia.
And I guess at text A and M so you
already sort of so you're gonna have essentially six spots
because you have these other conference heats. You're going to

(01:54:04):
six spot twelve ten and two teams vying.

Speaker 2 (01:54:06):
For six slots.

Speaker 1 (01:54:08):
Put it this way, the big ten idea of twenty
four teams in the playoff will suddenly be a lot
more interesting, uh and a lot more accommodating.

Speaker 2 (01:54:15):
So there you go.

Speaker 1 (01:54:19):
I am sort of prepared for chaos this weekend. And hell,
I actually somehow think Miami's going to end up in
the a SEC title game. And it was it will
absolve the ESPN executives from that from the horrible decision
that they clearly want to make, and it will be

(01:54:40):
decided on the field between a Miami and SUMU. But
I can tell you what I feel like it's coming
in my Todd household is that I have my two kids'
schools playing against each other in the ACC title game.
Is that is, if Miami beats Pitt, SMU beats Cal,
and Duke and Virginia both lose, then I think it's
Miami and SMU loses to Cal and UVA and Duke

(01:55:05):
lose too. That's where I'm not sure how this plays out.
It may end up being Miami and Georgia Tech. Not
one hundred percent sure on that one, but I'm not
betting on that three way outcome. I have this sneaking
suspicion that if Miami ends up in this ACC title game,
it's going to end up being.

Speaker 2 (01:55:23):
A rematch with that s all right? So with that,
let me sneak in a few questions ask Chuck.

Speaker 3 (01:55:40):
First question comes from Dan.

Speaker 1 (01:55:41):
Dear Chuck, if AI becomes capable of taking over nearly
every job, wouldn't that include the roles held by CEO
billionaires as well. What would an economic reckoning in that
scenario look like? Does AI present a threat to capitalism
if it eliminates upward mobility? And if upward mobility disappears,
could we see a resurgence of communism or some other
economic model. Dan, you know, it's funny. I've seen more

(01:56:02):
and more stories about how actually the job, that the
job of CEO would actually be best suited to be taken
over by AI, because you would you would you would
want pros and cons and every decision and that if
you just a if a CEO. And apparently more CEOs
are using AI to help them in the decision making

(01:56:25):
process on tough decisions. So the more you use it, yeah,
I mean at that point, you know, look at how
many we're hearing this that football coaches are using AI,
Baseball teams are using AI to make decisions on certain scenarios.
You probably don't want to know how many high school
football coaches might be using artificial intelligence to decide whether

(01:56:49):
to go for it on fourth and three depending on
where they are in a certain situation. So I continue,
I know where you're going here, and I think that
that I hear you, But here's just can I here's
a question that I think we all forget when it
comes to AI. Where's these large language models going to

(01:57:13):
get their new information? Do we think that there's no
new Is there a point where they don't? A large
language model needs no new information to come up with
new information?

Speaker 2 (01:57:24):
You sure I'm going here?

Speaker 1 (01:57:24):
I know it sounds like it sounds overly meta and
what I'm describing, but you know it's like, you know,
could AI take over journalism? Okay, but don't you need
the live person to observe something new happening and report
on it. Like in order for a large language model
to get more information, somebody has got to be providing

(01:57:46):
this information. And I know that there's this idea that
what we're going to have a large language models are
going to create new information based on old information and
then consume that new information and then make that their
new information. I know it sounds it's probably making it's
making my head hurt trying to describe what I just did.
It's probably just made your head hurt hearing it. So

(01:58:11):
while I understand the point you're making, this is where
I really think that.

Speaker 2 (01:58:16):
That there are limits here to AI. And here's the thing.

Speaker 1 (01:58:20):
I mean, look at the look what Elon Musk may
be doing all of us a favor. The fact that
he programmed his AI to claim that Elon Musk is
like the superhuman, you know, the best athlete, the best intelligence,
the best dresser, the best sex fiend, whatever it is. Right,
Groc says, Elon Musk is the perfect human specimen.

Speaker 2 (01:58:42):
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (01:58:42):
I look at a sort of a weird looking dude,
so I don't think we've perfected anything. He's got a
weird personality, so he's I don't think he's the ideal
of any version of the human being a human species,
because I don't think there is such thing as an ideal. Right,
one person's ideal is another person's problem. But the point

(01:59:03):
is the fact that he programmed his AI to come
up with those answers, in some ways is reassuring because
it should send the message that hey, AI doesn't have
all the answers and that you're still going to want
the human element. And this is where I go back
to something man, the human species has survived quite a
long time in this planet. And if you don't think

(01:59:23):
the human species isn't going to fight for its own
existence over some frickin' robots, then you really underestimate the
human species.

Speaker 2 (01:59:33):
Darwin didn't and I wouldn't either. Dan.

Speaker 1 (01:59:36):
Our next question comes from Chad hey Check. I am
an Army civil affairs officer, and during a recent union discussion,
I argue that World War One, not World War Two,
has been more impactful in today's global conflicts from the
Middle East to Ukraine. Americans often view wars through a
narrow US centric lens, but World War One's legacy is everywhere.
I recommend the First World War by John Keegan and
Martin Gilbert and the podcast World War One Not So

(01:59:56):
Quiet on the Western Front. One last question, has Trump
given license for racist and misogynists to become more overt in?
How do we move forward when so many feel emboldened
by his example? Well, I certainly think that we're in
a moment where they think they're to answer your last question,
where there's you're not going to quote unquote get canceled
for expressing some of these forms. But you know, all

(02:00:19):
I would say is to these folks that express this
racism and narcissism, good luck breeding, good luck mating. You
know you're not going to find many mates out there
that want to breed with racist and misogynists.

Speaker 3 (02:00:34):
So there's a part of.

Speaker 1 (02:00:35):
Me that just believes that, particularly the women of society
in general, are just not going to want to date
these misogynists, if you will. So maybe I'm being a
little Pollyannish on this, but I kind of think that
I appreciate people self iding as racist and misogynists because

(02:00:55):
I know who I want nothing to do with, and
I think they do this for a lot of folk.
So I do think that while they think that they've
gotten stationed because you know, Trump has insisted that certain
certain of these people, you know, you give them a
second chance or a third chance or a fourth chance,
or you know, you pardon them or whatever. I guess

(02:01:17):
I don't. I don't fully I don't fully believe that that. Like,
I kind of think we're gonna actually turn hard against
these folks in the post Trump era.

Speaker 2 (02:01:30):
I do.

Speaker 1 (02:01:30):
Hey, I have a couple more though, I have a
couple more recommendations on the World War One front that
I wanted to share. I promised you a few others.
I'm gonna have a more formal uh version in my
substack next week. I took this week off of substack.

Speaker 2 (02:01:48):
But uh.

Speaker 1 (02:01:51):
The uh, there's a set of podcasts that a friend
alerted me to and I've started them and it's really good.
It's called Empire, uh. And they did one on the
East India Company and it's a pretty long set of episodes.
And then they also that was its first season they
did on the British Empire in India, and the second

(02:02:11):
season is on the Ottoman Empire. So people were asking
me about a good podcast on the Ottoman Empire, the
Empire podcast series, and again if you look up Empire,
East India Company and the second seasons on the Ottoman Empire,
you can take a look at that. I'll have these
links in my sub stack next week. And then, of course,
Dan Carlin's hardcore history. He's done this, He's done a

(02:02:37):
variety of episodes on various various parts of the Ottoman Empire.
I would recommend. I feel like the Dan Carlin stuff
has always been pretty thorough and presents opposing points of
view and when there's some disagreement on historical analysis. So
I've I've been fairly pleased with his work over the

(02:02:57):
years as well. Again, I'm going to have a more
concrete set of recommendations. I'm going to take a look
at these as well from Chad and curate a whole
bunch of stuff. Three or four books that are worth
reading and three or four podcasts that are worth listening to.
Next question comes from Chris k from Greenville, South Carolina.
He said, Hey, the Ann Apple Bomb interview was grounding.

(02:03:19):
It was a good reminder of things that may not
have the nation's attention. My question, I'm sitting here watching
Pitt throttle Georgia Tech. Is it possible that teams would
play down against Notre Dame. If so, what does that
mean for the program? Will they be forced into a conference?

Speaker 2 (02:03:34):
I love this.

Speaker 1 (02:03:34):
I love that I've got an audience that's willing to
absorb an Apple bomb and then ask me about.

Speaker 2 (02:03:39):
Pitt George Tech. This is why I love this new
world of media.

Speaker 1 (02:03:48):
Look, I think it does especially Here's what I will say.
As popular as Notre Dame might be with ESPN executives
for TV ratings purposes, I will tell you that the
other people on that committee, coming from the powerful conferences,
know what a pain in the ass. Conference games are
conference road games against whether if you're in the SEC,

(02:04:08):
it's never easy playing don't I know, Missippi State's doesn't
look like they're a tough team to play. It's never
easy to play with that goddamn cow bell ringing in
your ear right and in the ACC. Trust me, it
sucks to play in the cold weather in Boston when
you're playing Boston College and I hate playing on that
horrible surface, that horrible turf up in BC. Or ask

(02:04:31):
SMU what it's like to play in Winston Salem to
play Wake Forest. So again, these may be places that
you think are cake walks, but when you're playing these
folks every year and you these conference road games, they're
a pain in the ass. And the fact is it
is true that Pitt didn't play their best players that
were questionable on health in that Notre dameing game. Saved

(02:04:52):
them for Georgia Tech because they have a path to
the College Football Playoff just through the ACC. They were
never going to get an at large bit, so they
knew what they were doing and their coach was probably right,
you're going to get more of this. For instance, does
Georgia need the Georgia Tech win? You know, yeah, you
could say it's you know, wouldn't be great for Georgia's

(02:05:12):
recruiting George is not going to be recruiting problems. If
you're Georgia, how seriously do you take this game? And frankly,
if you know you're in the College Football Playoff, if
you're in the SEC, if you're Texas A and M,
how seriously do you take the Texas game? So you're
going to have some of that, But until Notre Dame
doesn't make the playoff because of the fact that they
have teams that essentially took the Notre Dame week off. Right,

(02:05:36):
Navy did it and they rested players and instead saved
them for the week later. And Pitt, Now you might
think nobody who ever did that before against Notre Dame.
That's true, but conferences have never mattered more in the
path to the playoff, so I and now that conferences.
So Miami just had to cancel a series with South
Carolina because both the SEC and the ACC went to

(02:05:59):
a mandatory nine conference games and ten Power four games.
What that really means is, so South Carolina already has
an out of conference home and home with Clemson that
they play every year, and they were going to do
a second game for a home and home over the
next two years with Miami. Well, with these with both
the SEC going to a ninth conference game and the
ACC agreed to a ninth conference game, you're not going

(02:06:21):
to have as many of these cross conference games. So
it's actually gonna be harder for Notre Dame. I think
to schedule in general. You know Miami wants to is
going to try to schedule Notre Dame as much as possible.
But I do think that Notre Dame in order to
schedule teams, especially with the mandatory ninth conference game, that
all these conferences are going to frankly because ESPN and

(02:06:45):
Fox want want more of that content for them, That
could be the trigger to force Notre Dame into a conference.
Next question comes from Lisa VI. He says, Hey, Chuck,
please pursue the Qatar Air Force base that is going
to be built out in Home, Idaho.

Speaker 2 (02:07:01):
Huh.

Speaker 1 (02:07:01):
I live in Idaho and I have seen news coverage
on this and have seen nothing on the national news.
I've watched you for years and believe you're the one
to blow this up.

Speaker 2 (02:07:07):
Lisa B.

Speaker 3 (02:07:08):
Thank you for that. I will look into it.

Speaker 1 (02:07:10):
I will admit that seemed I cannot imagine we are
letting a foreign country build a base on our soil.
That would be a bit unusual and would be pretty
bad politics. And I would say this if we did
do it, the last place I would expect Katar to
do this would be an Idaho, where they would I

(02:07:30):
think be even less welcome. I say that meaning I
don't think we would want any foreign power there, but
I think I don't think Idaho would be a place
for that. If you did it, if you told me
Puerto Rico or why you know, one of our something
in the Pacific of the Atlantic, I guess you could
come up with a scenario. And certainly we've done stuff

(02:07:51):
with the UK and with sort of near you know,
sort of close in allies, but this would be something else.
So I have got to take a look at what
that's about, and I will get back to you. Appreciate
the question, and then finally do There's one more question
from Judd in Montreal.

Speaker 2 (02:08:09):
Oh. I just.

Speaker 1 (02:08:13):
My daughter and wife just took a trip to Montreal,
their first time there. Hello, check Love, you're on biased
historical perspective to the current political chaos. Well appreciate you
noticing and thank you. Would you please find a guest
to explore the paradox between the recent Supreme Court ruling
that the president is immune for prosecution on official acts
with the take care clause of the US Constitution, our
Article two, section three, clause four that the president quote

(02:08:34):
shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed versus
all the administration's federal court losses. Thanks, that's a very
good topic. I just that is that is a fair point.
I'm curious to see what some of my legal experts
would have to say on that. I have an interview

(02:08:55):
I did with one of my favorite legal experts, Sarah Eskert,
who works for The Dispatch. We didn't get into that
specific issue because I've already taped it. But if we hadn't,
I would have gotten into that. But I will, I
promise I will. I will get a better answer to
this question because I don't have Look, I just don't

(02:09:17):
think Trump really knows the Constitution.

Speaker 2 (02:09:21):
Okay, I'll be honest. I don't think he really knows it.
He certainly doesn't, you know.

Speaker 1 (02:09:27):
You know, give me a member of Congress that carries
around a pocket Constitution any day of the week. I
love those guys, whether they're the left or the right.
Because they look at it, they care, and it means
that they want everything to be seen as constitutional. Let's
just say, I don't think Donald Trump's ever been caught
with a pocket Constitution in his coat pocket, so.

Speaker 2 (02:09:48):
I don't think he views that at all.

Speaker 1 (02:09:52):
But let's remember there are I do think there's it
is it is still quite difficult. I go back to
something that the founders understood about prosecuting a president and
how you hold a president accountable.

Speaker 3 (02:10:07):
That the only.

Speaker 1 (02:10:08):
Place to do it was with a jury of his peers,
and that is the United States Senate. And if you're
frustrated by this decision, I would argue that your frustration
should be focused on one Mitch McConnell, because he made
the decision that somehow you couldn't convict somebody after they
were out of office. That was his rationale for not

(02:10:31):
voting to convict.

Speaker 2 (02:10:32):
He didn't.

Speaker 1 (02:10:33):
He implied that the case had been proven that Trump
had violated the Constitution, and certainly, certainly, and if he
were in office, would be he would have voted to convict.
But that's why we ended up with this ruling, and
that's why we ended up in this scenario is because
the US Senate, which was what the founder's thought was
the best possible place you could have this, because no

(02:10:54):
matter where you're going to do it, it was going to
be very difficult, as we've now learned. Ultimately, I give
the founder's credit. I think they're right. I think it
was the best venue, and it was the one venue
that all this belonged. And this is where I might
argue that the Biden Justice Apartment, uh, you know, probably
should have pursued cases against a whole bunch of other people,

(02:11:16):
but maybe had accepted the premise that when the impeachment
conviction didn't stick didn't happen, that there was no you know,
if you couldn't get it done in the Senate, where
where how you were expecting to get it done under
the normal rule of law. So it's easy to say now,
given the circumstances that we are in, but I think.

Speaker 3 (02:11:39):
That that that should have been that should have been.

Speaker 1 (02:11:43):
More of a of a of a warning to the
Biden Justice Department about how hard pursuing these cases were
going to be. All Right with that, I hope you
enjoy your Thanksgiving weekend. I hope you enjoy all the football.
If you don't care about football. I'm not going to
apologize because you can fast throw it through all my

(02:12:04):
football talk. I have been heartened by the folks that
say I never cared about college football, but you've made
me care. That makes me happy, because I do find
I just think college football.

Speaker 3 (02:12:17):
Look, I like the NFL.

Speaker 1 (02:12:18):
I love the NFL, but college football is different, right.
It just it's weirdly more personal. And because it's more personal,
it's more emotional, and you know, there's something about I
know that they're more professional now than they've ever been,
but there's still kids, and you know, no matter how
much money at twenty year old's making, there's still got

(02:12:39):
the you know, they still may overse you know, you
don't know what's going to happen. There's still an unpredictability
sometimes just based on how old these kids are. And
yes I'm because I'm a middle aged fifty something, I'm
going to call them kids. That add the volatility to it,
which is why the best team doesn't always win on

(02:12:59):
any given Saturday, or any given Friday, or any given Thursday,
as we're going to have this week. So anyway, there's
a reason why I love college football so much, and
it's because While it is weirdly predictable from sixty thousand
feet from week to week, it is incredibly unpredictable and

(02:13:19):
a blast to follow. So that enjoy the most quintessential
American holiday that there is, and the one that.

Speaker 2 (02:13:28):
I think we have made.

Speaker 1 (02:13:30):
A holiday that best represents what America wants to be.

Speaker 2 (02:13:34):
I'll see it in forty eight hours.

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Full Episode - The MAGA Movement May Be Hitting Its Expiration Date + Clay Travis On Politics, Playoffs & The Future Of Sports Media

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Full Episode - The MAGA Movement May Be Hitting Its Expiration Date + Clay Travis On Politics, Playoffs & The Future Of Sports Media