Full Episode - The U.S. Retreats From Being The Leader Of The Free World + Why The Biden Economy Felt Bad & Why Trump’s Is Even WORSE - The Chuck ToddCast

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
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(01:52):
another episode of the Chuck Podcast. Of course, I have
to open up to do a little representing here to
say I'm relieved and surprised at the committee's decision with
the University of Miami and football is an understatement. I
don't think any of the sins that I've been identifying
of this committee should somehow be washed away. What they

(02:15):
have done with the SEC in Alabama is as suspicious
as ever, and I do not blame anger out of
the folks at Notre Dame. I think the strangest decision
was including Alabama. Actually the strangest decision was including Oklahoma.
We can have a longer discussion about that, and I

(02:35):
have still have a bunch of stuff to say about this.
I love the fact that now all these ESPN personalities
at CURTA. Herdstreet are saying we should get rid of
this TV show. Good luck getting your bosses to agree
to do the TV show. But you are correct. The
college football ranking shows created this antagonism of fan bases, suspicion, conspiracy, theory, ease,

(03:00):
all of that, the behavior of the committee, the lack
of sort of consistency, the decision, all that business it.
You know, they have nobody to blame but themselves. I
had a friend of mine quickly text he said, well
all your whining worked, and I'm like, hey, don't encourage me.

(03:20):
There's a I hope that's not the case in a
weird way. I hope it wasn't outside agitators like myself
and others pointing out facts that they were unaware of.
I should hope they were. That they didn't need people
to point these things out, but to say that how
this went down and the it is going to do

(03:44):
nothing but encourage more activity like the activity a bunch
of US University of Miami partisans participate in over the
last few weeks. There will be more of that come
next year, until they finally get rid of this committee
and allow basics what happens on the field dictates everything
hard stop. But like I said, I'll have more to

(04:06):
say about college football. And for those of you who
don't care about sports or college football, or have written
off college football because you don't like how they've been
doing this for frankly one hundred years, they have never
gotten their postseason, right, I get it, I understand, and
I will put this at the end of this podcast.
Let me give you a rundown of what I got
going on today. We of course have got sort of

(04:29):
I want to go through a little bit of the
National of the of the new National Strategic Security Strategy
Memo that gets updated every year by whoever's in the presidency,
and to say there's a departure not surprising, but a
departure of of what role America should play in the

(04:50):
world is an understatement. Bottom line, the president of the
United States does not want to be the leader of
the free world, if you take the National Security Strategy
update seriously, I want to get into that a little
bit on this Trump pardon anger at Henry Quaar and

(05:11):
what it really tells us about how the pardon system works.
On the Trump White House, I have an interview with
Jared Bernstein. He was Joe Biden's chief economic advisor when
he was Vice president and essentially played the same role
when he was president. He's got some interesting takes on
what he thinks that FED will do and ought to do.
That decision is going to happen later this week, so

(05:32):
I think this is a very timely interview. But it's
not a partisan You will not hear he's got ideological
points of view on what to do about this economy.
But when you hear this interview, this is not a
partisan conversation. This is a conversation with an economist who
has a more liberal point of view and I think

(05:54):
if you're curious about what's happening in this economy, you
will enjoy this conversation. I'll do some Q and A
after the interview, and of course, what so many have
you been waiting for all of my hot, medium, well
medium and cold takes when it comes to college football,
and including maybe analyzing Miami's path to the national title game,

(06:19):
which shall we say, is extraordinarily difficult. But I want
to start with sort of the news that wasn't. That
wasn't the headline, but I think it's something that I
wanted to spend a few minutes focused on before I
get to some of the sort of you know, hot
take headlines that I know I want to dabble in.

(06:43):
I've got a few things, just sort of what I
would call a notebook item of news events that I
think folks need to be following more closely. But finally,
earlier this week, the Trump White House put out the
twenty twenty five National Security Strategy Memo, and here's what
it signals. Signaled to a significant and explicit departure from

(07:04):
the long standing US foreign policy goal of actively spreading
and supporting democracy abroad. Here on the eve you know,
of the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of our founding
as a small d democratic country as the sort of
beacon of democracy for the world. This is not the

(07:26):
role Donald Trump and the MAGA movement wants the United
States to play. The America First ideology is strewn all
through this document. It reorients US policy away from what's
been a values based interventionism and toward a more strictly
pragmatic America First approach, defining core national security interests as sovereignty,

(07:51):
homeland defense, economic strength, and self reliance. No longer do
we believe in spreading our value, supporting our values, supporting
small de democracy when it's necessary. In fact, non interventionism.
The strategy explicitly criticizes past efforts to impose quote democratic
or other social change that differs widely from their traditions

(08:13):
and histories. It's just a clear rejection of the post
Cold War consensus on democracy promotion in nation building. Right.
This is where there was a strong, sort of broad
bipartisan consensus that the United States should always first and
foremost support freedom, support democracy when it is obviously how

(08:35):
much do you use military to do it? Look, those
are fair debates but to no longer be in the
business of supporting it or promoting it seems to be
a big mistake. The strategy memo also generally favors accepting
countries as they are, which of course is a cherry
picked thing. I'll get to that in a minute. As
their leaders quote as they are in regions like the
Middle East, prioritizing stability and transactional cooperation over shared interests

(09:00):
on shared interest rather than talking about internal political reform.
Of course, we've seen the Vice President lecture Europe and
not accepting Europe at face value. We've seen the President
of United States lecture Brazil and how it decided to
deal with Bolsonaro, not accepting Brazil at face value. So

(09:20):
this is this is clearly a philosophy that they will
only sometimes follow depending on their personal relationships with said
country or said leader. But for the most part, real
politic is not something that you hear me criticize. I

(09:41):
think sometimes you have to deal with the countries that
you have. You have to deal with the leaders that
you have, not necessarily the leaders that you want. But
there's a fine line, right So, for as far as
this administration is concerned, they believe foreign policy to be
judged by what makes the United States more powerful and
prosperous period, not by the for of government of its partners.

(10:02):
So it means we'll have closer cooperation with essentially undemocratic
regimes dictators. It is there is no more value judgment
on who the United States does business with or allies with,
unless we've decided there's a value judgment on who the
US so right, it's like, under that scenario, why are

(10:23):
we why are we blockading Cuba?

Speaker 2 (10:26):
Right?

Speaker 1 (10:26):
Why why aren't we just dealing with Cuba as it is? Right?
It's great, we have select this is there's there's a
clearly not this is. This is a an aspirational document,
not one that they plan on following when it's inconvenient
to their own beliefs. On this one, what's interesting is

(10:50):
that the document also took a shot at Europe. It
criticizes European Union and e integration efforts, claiming they have
suppressed political liberty, prevented innovation, and fostered europe to clim Basically,
they're on the side of the Brigsteers and they're on
the side of everybody that and on mister Orbon, who's
all anti EU. This is a document even though these

(11:12):
many of these countries are choosing to do this. So
out of one mouth they're saying, we've got We've got
to judge by what the United States makes a more
powerful and prosperous not by the form of government of
its partners. And then the next prep hey, you Europe,
don't try to get together and have a powerful EU.

(11:33):
So obviously there is a political dynamic to this, which
is this administration is going to support other nationalist movements, right,
whether it's a nationalist movement with Nigel Faraj in the UK,
a nationalist movement in Hungary that is pretty clear, and
with the controversial political party and the political movement in
Germany that AfD. It explicitly signals support for quote patriotic

(11:57):
European parties often interpreted is far right nowtionallest parties calls
for the US to cultivate resistance to Europe's current trajectory.
So again on one side of their mouth, this National
Security Strategy memo says, hey, the United States is going
to accept countries as it is. Then in its next breath,
when it comes to Europe, they're saying, we're going to
get involved in the internal politics of European countries on

(12:19):
the side of nationalists. Sorry, if you were looking for consistency,
you know, the Trump administration is not a place to go.
This would be a dramatic intervention into the internal politics
of key allies, and we would be disrupting NATO, disrupting
the EU, essentially America's most important cultural as well as

(12:42):
sort of traditional allies for the last one hundred years.
I mean to do this to Europe feels like just frankly,
a little bit of a troll rather than anything that
is in the best interests of the national security of
the United States. Now, there's still some soft power that

(13:03):
this memo that this strategy memo does support. When discussing democracy,
the strategy member primarily focuses on defending and renewing American
principles at home, like limited government, the rule of law,
constitutional fidelity, and calling that the foundation of US strength.
And then it calls for respectful influence, stating that the

(13:23):
US will maintain its quote unrivaled soft power through which
we exercise positive influence throughout the world that furthers our interests,
but adds that the US will be quote respectful of
other countries, differing religions, cultures, and governing systems, apparently except
when it comes to Europe. In the EU, it's a
key line that minimizes the impetus to push for political
change abroad. But the bottom line is this, This twenty

(13:46):
twenty five National Security Strategy memo effectively ends the era
of America wanting to be the leader of the free world.
You know, I've always said the presidency of the United
States is really three jobs in one. When you're running
as a political candidate, you're running to be leader of
your party. You're running to be the actual president of

(14:09):
the United States and of the three hundred and thirty
million people. So that's sort of job too to essentially
actually execute the office. And then the third job is
leader of the free world. But as far as Donald
Trump's concerned, that is no longer a job. We know
he has never saw him See, he does not believe

(14:29):
he should be the promoter of democracy around the world,
the promoter of freedom around the world. He is. This
is not as if he says one thing and does
another on that issue. He has never said he wants
to do. That's what's been inconsistent is he says Hey,
we should be just dealing with countries as they are. Right,
this is what the decision we've made about China and Russia,

(14:52):
rather than hope we can make change subtly with soft
power or at times hard power, except of course, when
he decides he doesn't like somebody or he doesn't like
a political movement. So it is like many an ideological
declaration that Donald Trump has made. There are so many
holes that there is Swiss that it's sort of like

(15:15):
a declaration of Swiss cheese. And this National Security Strategy
memo in many ways does echo the broad sort of
definition of what somebody would describe as an isolationist of America,
first of sort of detaching the United States from the world,
very much articulating what the philosophy of the Republican Party

(15:38):
was before World War Two. The problem is that is
not how he actually executes the presidency, right. It is
really there is no ideologe. There is no Trump doctrine
beyond what's good for Trump. Right. He gets involved in
a country if somebody asks him to get involved, he
wants to be you know, if he thinks there's some
benefit to him, he'll get involved. I mean, you know,

(16:00):
there's when you look at the deal he cut with
Cutter to give them this NATO like defense agreement. Does
that happen without the airplane? I think we all know
the likely answer to that. And I just put that
out there because this is a huge departure, and I
know that there is This is not something that a
lot of people are going to vote on, but I

(16:21):
will tell you this, this makes us weaker, and this
makes us less safe. There's going to be a lot
of people who feel let down by the United States.
Feels as if the United States doesn't ever really care
about freedom and democracy, no longer cares about human rights.
And there's always been a look, we've we've always been

(16:43):
better on human rights rhetoric than we've been on trying
to use our influence to improve a situation. Because there's
you know, you know, just what should our military be
used for? Okay, I think those are those are bare debates,
but this is a total sort of washing our hands

(17:03):
of the debate about what, you know, should would the
world be better off if we all lived under a democracy?
And if you, as leader, as president of the United States,
don't believe that, I don't think you should represent America.
We're an idea. We are not an ethnic based anything.

(17:26):
I know that the president would like us to be,
but we are not. The whole point of this country
was an idea that anybody could be an American if
they believed in the idea of America, the idea of freedom,
the idea of democracy, didn't matter what ethnicity you were,
what religion you practiced. That ultimately, do you believe in

(17:48):
that core idea of individual liberty? And what this memo
sadly does is sort of reject that and isn't interested
in promoting it, which should make us, should make you
feel concerned that if we're not interested in promoting it,
then are we really interested in having it here at home?

(18:11):
So look, I'm not going to sit here and be
one of these folks that the democracy is about to crumble.
I don't think it is. I think our democracy is
pretty well embedded in society, and I just think it's
going to be a lot harder to destroy our democracy
than some fear. But this weekens the democracy, This erodes
our credibility around the world in ways that isn't going

(18:32):
to get repaired with the next president. This is generational damage,
and this retreat. And that's what make no mistake. This
National Security Strategy Memo is just a full retreat. Guess
who loves this memo? Vladimir Putin, He's ecstatic and in fact,

(18:55):
Donald Trump Junior was in Cutter along with his buddy
Tucker Carlson earlier this week. He was asked during an
event in Cutter Donald Trump Junior if the US president
could walk away from Ukraine, and Junior said, I think
he may, and then he adds this, what's good about
my father, and what's unique about my father is you
don't know what he's going to do. The fact that

(19:15):
he's not predictable forces everyone to actually deal in an
intellectually honest capacity. There's a few things where Trump's unpredictability
is helpful. In the Middle East it has been, and
I think in dealing with some of those countries that's
kind of the way it goes. But guess who was
happy about the new National security memom. The Kremlin lauded this,

(19:41):
saying that the new directive stopped calling Russia a direct
threat and calling that a positive step. According to Reuter's
so there you go, we now have a new national
security strategy philosophy. That's governing this executive branch and the
decisions that are going to be made at the State Departmartment,
at embassies around the world, the CIA, the Pentagon, that

(20:08):
make two countries happier above all others, Russia and China.
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I want to pivot a little bit here, and that
is too the fascinating anger of Donald Trump at Henry Quaar,
the Democratic congressman who last week decided who got a

(22:19):
pardon from President Trump? And I told you on that
last episode, boy, nothing is done for free. So the
question is where did this come from? And what is
what is Quaar going to be giving in return? Well,
apparently Donald Trump expected something in return. So let me
give you a quick summary of sort of everything you

(22:39):
need to know about this Trump Quayar pardon controversy, because
I actually think this shows that that basically Donald Trump
is confessing a crime right here, and it's and the
crime is that he is selling these pardons. Sometimes he's
selling them for actual money, and sometimes he's selling them
for some sort of political support. Well, let me go

(23:00):
through this. So here's the actual charges that Kuaire and
his wife were facing. They were indicted in twenty twenty
four on a dozen federal charges that included bribery, money laundering,
and conspiracy. The charges basically alleged that the couple accepted
six hundred thousand dollars in bribes from a Mexican bank

(23:20):
and an Azerbaijani oil and gas company in exchange for
advancing interests. So I told you that these are the
types of crimes Trump has been pardoning left and right right.
Anybody that's been accused of essentially using their having being
bought off for their influence is something Trump doesn't think
is a crime tells you something right there.

Speaker 2 (23:42):
Right.

Speaker 1 (23:43):
So on December third, he granted a full and unconditional
pardon to both Henry and Emmelda Kwar, both both the
congressman and his wife, and it effectively ended the federal
prosecution before the schedule April twenty, twenty sixth trial, which
could have been a huge problem for his reel lift.
And at the time, Trump justified his pardon by saying

(24:05):
he was reversing a quote politically motivated prosecution, he claimed,
and he claimed that the Justice Department and President Biden
had weaponized the system against Quaar simply because the congressman
had been a vocal critic of Biden's border policies. He
called Quaar beloved and said he was speaking the truth
against open borders. Well after receiving the pardon, Quaar publicly

(24:27):
thanked Trump but firmly stated he would not be switching
parties and he would run for reelection as a Democrat
in the twenty eighth congressional district in Texas. Well, that's
exactly what he did. Earlier or just before the weekend.
He filed the paperwork for his reelection bid as a
Democrat on the same day the pardon was announced, and
then Trump went off right. He was really angry. He

(24:51):
reacted to the strong public criticism just a few days
after the pardon, specifically lashing out at Quaar for running
as a Democrat. The core of his complaint was perceived
as a quote lack of loyalty. Let me read you
the full truth Social Post. Only a short time after
signing the pardon, This is Trump's truth, Social Post, Congressman
Henry Quair announced that he will be running for Congress again.

(25:12):
He put running in quotes in the great state of
Texas parenthesesis state where I received the highest number of
votes ever recorded. He loves to throw these sort of
sort of statistics that are kind of meaningless pretty much
because our population always grows, particularly in the Sunbelt. Whoever
wins these states each time is getting the most number
of votes that anybody's ever gotten. But anyway, but I digress.

(25:35):
He's complaining that Quaer fil for office as a Democrat,
continuing to work with the same radical left scum that
just weeks before wanted him and his wife to spend
the rest of their lives in prison. Such a lack
of loyalty. Loyalty is in all caps, something that Texas
voters and Henry's daughters will not like. Oh well, next time,
no more, mister nice guy. I never spoke to the congressman,
his wife, or his daughters, but felt very good about

(25:57):
fighting for a family that was tormented by very sick
and arrange p people. They were treated so badly. So
I don't This is clear to me that there's a
lot more reporting that we all need to do on
this one. Do we really think there was very little
conversation between members of Choir's family and the White House.

(26:22):
There was obviously some conversation. The President cited a letter
from his daughters. He said he was moved by the
letter from his daughters. But Trump, certainly it sounds like
thought he was doing this in exchange for something, and
he's angry when the something that he expected sounds like
he expected either Choir to switch parties, filed a run

(26:43):
as a Republican or whatever. Right, he did it just
before the filing deadline. So you know, if you're looking
for fishy smells here, that like, okay, is you know,
is there something here we're not being told?

Speaker 2 (26:57):
Right?

Speaker 1 (26:58):
The timing of the pardon is a tell, right, just
before the Texas filing deadline, and then he lashes out
after Quaar files as a Democrat. Methinks, we don't have
all the details of this story, but the most important
part of this is Trump's public reaction, because again we

(27:20):
sort of are shrugging our shoulders right now collectively about
what is happening nearly once a week, which is Trump
does a major pardon of somebody that has no business
getting a pardon, but who magically has a connection to
somebody close to the president former president of Honduras, magically
is close to Roger Stone, right, the guy with the

(27:42):
crypto binance. He's magically in business with the President's sons,
and we Quaar with somebody. You know, this is part
of Remember, he is already ordered Texas Republicans to do
the redistricting business. One of the places they think they're
going to make up ground is in South Texas. He
pardons Henry Quayar just days before the filing deadline. Quaar

(28:05):
decides to stick and run as a Democrat, perhaps looking
at the polls and realizing that being a Republican at
twenty twenty six might not be the best decision, even
in South Texas. Next cycle and Trump goes crazy. Let's
just say I think we know that he uses the

(28:26):
pardon power to try to get what he wants. Maybe
it's business deals for his kids, maybe it's political support,
maybe it's something else. Maybe it's just simply to help
a friend get a payday, whether it's a Pollmanniford or
Roger Stone or whatever. By the way, it's it's very
funny today Roger Stone has other people out there trying

(28:47):
to claim he didn't He didn't. They're not saying he
didn't make money off the pardon, but he wasn't paid
to represent the president. I have a feeling we know
that there's some specificity and these denials in order for
them to not look totally crooked in all of this.

(29:08):
But anyway, I am, I am just. I do not
get why there's not more outrage about the weekly sales
Weekly go look at this list of pardons, uh, and
it's it's it's uh. It ain't making America great again,

(29:30):
that's for sure, but it is making crime easy again,
and that especially white collar crime, that alarm a lot
of people. And if you're going to wonder why the
pitchforks may come out for Left and right. You know,
this is Donald Trump being on the side of the elites,
being on the side that rip off everyday.

Speaker 2 (29:50):
People.

Speaker 1 (29:50):
Just remember that, Just remember that of those that thought
Trump was going to be on your side, that he
was going to go get those elites, instead, he pardons
those elites. Few other things before we get to the
interview with Jared Bernstein. I am fascinated by the sixty

(30:11):
minutes interview that Marjorie Taylor Green gave on Sunday. I
think the quote that is making the rounds is fascinating,
which let me just read it. I watched many of
my colleagues go from making fun of him, making fun
of how he talks, making fun of me constantly for
supporting him, to when he won the primary in twenty
twenty four, they all started, excuse my language, Leslie referring

(30:33):
to Leslie Stall kissing his ass and decided to put
on a MAGA hat for the first time. Here's the thing,
I am convinced that Marjorie Taylor Green is coming about
all of this not as some sort of act or
as some sort of pivot. I think this is somebody
who was naive to how politics were. She owned a Jim,

(30:55):
she lived in her own world, didn't like what she saw,
got caught up in the Trump movement, maybe believed that
he wasn't a bullshitter, believed this bullshit, and then is
like realizing sort of it and it's taken. You know,
it's sort of a little bit at a time because
you know, she doesn't she does. You know, it's almost

(31:17):
as at first she thought, you know, this is where
I'm wondering. Did she think political theater was the way
you were supposed to do this? And then she realized,
you know, she just got the wrong introduction to what
politics was. She only got the introduction through the prism
of Trump. But she actually thought these folks believed in something,

(31:39):
and she's found out the hard way that they don't
really believe what they say. Let's just say I think
she's I think she is somebody that if she chooses
to run for something, like I said this before, John
as Suffer, should be relieved she's not running for the Senate.
But I you know, I don't know whether she has

(32:01):
this ambition. She may not. She may just view this
but maybe you don't do a sixty minutes interview if
you don't have if you're not trying to preserve yourself
a place in the future somewhere. But what if she's
the pure, the real MAGA candidate in twenty eight primary
vance and that becomes the split. Does it open the

(32:23):
door for a third item too? Anyway, just something to
think about a few other things that I wanted to
that I wanted, one other aspect that I wanted to
get to, and then we'll get to the interview with
Jed Burnstein. The other story that's sort of roiling Washington
is the shocking unpopularity of all four congressional leaders right now.

(32:45):
And we've been in periods like this before. After sort
of the fall of Jim Wright in the late eighties,
there was a period between sort of the Right speakership
and the Gingrit speakership where just felt like there was
just not a lot of uh, a lot of great
leadership on Capitol Hill and both parties were going through

(33:07):
a transition. And then you sort of got you know,
you got that's that's when sort of got parting. Gingridg
stepped in and then they created some stability and you
had Mitchell and Dole for a little bit. We went
through a period I think where when Dashel lost and
you had like a lot and frist and there was
a lot of unsteadiness congressional leadership there and sort of
the mid Ats and then you got uh sort of

(33:31):
some stability again, the rise of Pelosi on the left,
the rise of Bayner and the right, Mitch McConnell getting UH,
Mitch McConnell and Harry Reid, and they sort of created
and now I think we're in another one those right
where we're sort of the the Senate leaders have really
not you know, McConnell and and uh read have been replaced,
but they but they're but neither Schumer nor Thune has

(33:53):
the same level of credibility that either one of those
two leaders had. UH and Jeffreys and Johnson clearly don't
have the same level of credibility that their predecessors had
Pelosi or McCarthy. And I'm not sure any of these
four are going to gain it, right, I think we're
going to have to go through this cycle and you're
going to see, right, if Republicans lose the House, there's
going to be a new House leader. And I'll be honest,
I think it's going to be a free for all,

(34:14):
and that might be healthy they kind of need, you know,
they're sort of in some ways. Johnson was an outsider,
but he was an outsider sort of helped by insiders.
I think if you have a loss of control of
the House, that maybe you'll have a true ground swell
and it'll be interesting to see, you know, maybe there's
maybe it's an institutionalist like Tom Cole, who's sort of

(34:37):
of a transitional figure, kind of the way John Thune
is I think right now in center Republicans, but you
have House Democrats not crazy about you know, Jeffries really
feels very uncomfortable in this position right now. I mean,
I think what's happening with New York City politics has
him looking over his left shoulder constantly. Chuck Schumer seems

(34:58):
to be worried about his left shoulder all the time.
I'm as well. He feels like he's kind of lost
his touch as sort of that electability guy. The point is,
it's fascinating to see the reason. I think you have
such anger on Capitol Hill right now. And also I
think some unpredictability. I think this sort of weak leadership

(35:18):
that you have right now collectively means that there are
more potential free agents on issues out there than I
think folks realize. We'll see what happened. I mean, we've
already had We've already had more discharge petitions this House
that I've seen in I think the previous twenty years,
and that you know, the more discharge petitions you have,

(35:39):
the more you have a leader that doesn't have control
of their own party. So you know, if you told
me you get some strange bedfellows getting together on healthcare subsidies,
strange bedfellows getting together on tariff policy, I think all
of that is possible because you have right now Thune, Schumer, Jefferies,
and Johnson do not have. You know, they can't rule

(36:01):
by fear, right, none of them can. I guess Trump
can put some fear into some of these folks, but
I think the fear of Trump is starting to fade,
as we've seen with Marjorie Taylor Green and others. And
there isn't a lot of respect for the political acumen
of the quartet that I've just talked about. So it
is I'll just say, I feel like I haven't seen

(36:23):
this kind of collective congressional leader weakness really since that
sort of period in between Right and Gangridge and then
I think the period in between sort of the fall
of Hastert and delay before sort of Pelosi took over,
and that whole sort of period of lot and frist

(36:46):
really before McConnell took over. So we're in a we're
definitely in a transition. I will be if you told
me we have four brand new leaders in January twenty
twenty seven, I wouldn't fully be surprised, but I definitely
expect that the four we have today that I think
there's a good chance none of the four are there

(37:06):
by January of twenty twenty nine. Part of it is
I think the shelf life of congressional leader this day
is getting shorter and shorter, the impatience of political leaders,
especially if we're electing a different type of member of
Congress and a different type of senator who are more
worried about communicating with the base, communicating with the public
than they are with legislating. And if we sort of

(37:29):
are our Congress gets reoriented to more sort of media
savvy elected members rather than legislative savy members. It means
I think we're going to go through us You know,
we may cycle through quite a few congressional leaders, because
everybody's kind of their own political leader and a political
party at this point, right with how we're transitioning, particularly

(37:53):
this new generation of elected officials, and I think that's translated,
and it probably explains why the leaders themselves know that
they you know, they don't control the bully pulpit, They
don't really control the They don't they don't have that
much ability to prevent donors from giving money to some
of these folks, you know. The weakness of the political parties,

(38:15):
the weakness of the congressional leaders, it's all led to it.
It feels like a bit of instability in Congress right now.
And like I said, the possibility, I think we have
some we could see some strange runaway legislative compromises show
up in the next six months, simply due to this

(38:37):
weak leadership that we're all experiencing. All right, with that
good conversation, as we preview the I think the economy
is going to be the big news of the week
when we find out what is the Federal Reserve going
to do? What do they care about more stubborn inflation
or a weakening job market. And that's essentially how Jared

(38:58):
Bernstein and I start our conversation with what concerns him,
and you'll be surprised he's changed his mind about what
concerns him the most about this economy as we go forward.
So with that, we'll sneak at a break and we
come back my conversation with Jared Bernstein, and then on
the other side we'll sneak in some questions and then
of course my long awaited sports rant on all things

(39:20):
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(40:27):
So joining me now is the former chair of the
Council of Economic Advisors during the Biden presidency has been
he was part of the Obama presidency. He was sort
of correct me if I'm wrong, Jared, But you were
Vice President Biden's economic advisor during a period of time
in the Obama presidency.

Speaker 2 (40:47):
Right, exactly, right, Yeah.

Speaker 1 (40:49):
And you were in I mean, it's sort of like
you've been in this world, but you were. Were you
always more in Biden's world?

Speaker 2 (40:57):
Yeah? More so. I mean I was Biden's chief economist
whinning as vice president, basically moved over to that role
when he was president. I started as a member of
the Council of Economic Advisors and then I became chair
a couple of years in.

Speaker 1 (41:10):
What was your did you do anything in the Clinton presidency.

Speaker 2 (41:14):
Yes I did. I worked in the Labor Department in
the Chief Economist's office.

Speaker 1 (41:18):
Okay, so you've been on this sort of this in
this role of moving up the governmental ladders, if you will.

Speaker 2 (41:28):
For Frank, I think if you made a list of
Democrat economists in the DC area, I would be right.

Speaker 1 (41:37):
That's one hundred th'ts that you're very funny? And which
economist are you? Are you on the one hand or
are you on the other hand?

Speaker 2 (41:45):
I am, I am. I try not to be that
that economist. I'll tell you what kind of economists I am.
In that sense.

Speaker 3 (41:55):
The the most economists are problematic for politicians because they
explain to them why why they can't do what they
want to do.

Speaker 1 (42:06):
Right, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 (42:09):
The economist says, sir, I understand where you're coming from, ma'am,
I understand, but you can't do that for these reasons.
So I'm not that kind of economist. I try to
figure out, if not, you know, the optimal, let's look
at third, second, third, fourth, best ways to get where
we want to go.

Speaker 1 (42:28):
So it's sort of like you've got a north star,
how can you get Maybe this isn't the best way
to do it via economic policy. But you really want
to do it, well, here's the least damaging way to
do it is that do you sometimes see your job exactly?

Speaker 2 (42:41):
So you know, let's be concrete. You want to raise
the minimum wage, right, So there is a level to
which you could raise the minimum wage that would be
hugely problematic, and there's a level to which you could
raise it that would help low wage workers a lot
more than it would hurt them. So let's go to
the second level, not the first one.

Speaker 1 (43:01):
That's totally totally makes sense. Well, let's just start with
the near term and then we're going to go I
was intrigued. I obviously read your substack. I'm a subscriber.
I follow been reading what you've been writing lately, and
it is this. You noted that it seems like the

(43:21):
Trump white House is stumbling into the same problem you
guys had in the Biden White House, where you want
to focus on the positive data, but the feeling and
perception of the economy is not what the data shows.
And I guess what would you be doing if you
were in the Trump white House now asked to defend
this economy.

Speaker 2 (43:43):
Well, first of all, I wouldn't be lying. And I
actually think that's really kind of foundational. I mean, the
way we used to talk about this when we were
in the White House, as we would say, correctly, we
just got a great GDP report. We just got a
great jobs report, two hundred thousand jobs, three percent growth.
That would be part one. Part two would be, but

(44:05):
we know you're still hurting and prices are too high.
Part three would be We're going to do everything we
can to help on that. Maybe a three part message
is way too complicated. Maybe all people cared about was
that part two. They're hurting, their prices are too high,
But we didn't tell them your prices aren't too high,
and that things are affordable, and that affordability is a

(44:27):
democratic con job, which is what Trump said yesterday. So
we tried to meet people where they were, I don't
think particularly successfully, and I do think we talked past them,
but we never gas lit them. And I would argue
that that's what these folks are doing. B they're making
affordability a lot worse with all the tariffs, and of

(44:49):
course we weren't doing that.

Speaker 1 (44:51):
So you know, one of my theories as to why
you guys and why the former president struggled to talk
about the economy and understand. And I'm curious what you
think of this thesis. Is that particularly Joe Biden, he
spent a majority of his professional career in politics believing
that for the American public, the barometer for a healthy

(45:14):
economy was the unemployment rate, right, And frankly, he you know,
it had been forty years since inflation was had bitten
us as a country, had bitten us as political leaders. Yes,
he was certainly was there at the early you know,
in his first term in the US Senate, during inflation,

(45:35):
during that horrible period of inflation. But that in some
ways when you're and I hate to say that that
you know, but we're all human beings, You're creatures of habit, right,
For the longest time, it is what the public saw
is the unemployment. Right. Is that fair to say that
that maybe there was just that there was that Biden

(45:57):
and maybe the wider world of Biden. And I'm curious
you're whether you've thought you might have fallen into this trap,
whether you were focused too much on the good news
on unemployment and not fully appreciating the inflation situation.

Speaker 2 (46:11):
Well, I there's a lot in there, so let's unpack it. So,
first of all, on President Biden, I think you're spot on.
I think he came up in terms of an economic
world where if the job market is strong and you're
at full employment, that is the most important thing you
can do for working class people because if the job

(46:35):
market is tight, they have bargaining cloud, bargaining power that
they wouldn't otherwise have, and they can Thereby, Unions are
obviously important to him too, but you know, unions are
a relatively small share of our workforce. If you get
the unemployment rate down, you know, below four percent, and
you hold it there, that's going to be fantastic for workers.
And that was absolutely the world he came up in.

(46:58):
And I believe he thought that if we have the jobs,
that if we have the tailwind of a strong job
market behind us, you know, economically, we should generally be
pretty fine, and especially if growth is strong as well.
Of course, we hadn't seen all that thinking evolved over
a period when the average inflation rate was you know,

(47:18):
between one and two percent, and so when the pandemic
came and you had the collision of constrained supply chains
and strong demand, partly juiced by fiscal policy. I will
admit that that led to an inflation we hadn't seen
in forty years. And yeah, sure, I mean I think
it's kind of acceptably not acceptable as the wrong way.

(47:40):
I think it's intellectually understandable that, you know, a forty
you might not be quite have a forty year problem
in your worldview relative to one that has been, you know,
really foundational fundamental to your to your understanding through most
of your career.

Speaker 1 (48:01):
Take me through your convers back when you were in
the administration about the inflation issue. I mean, you know,
we heard that phrase transitory a lot early on in
the first part. And you know, as a it's sort
of my own armchair, you know, economist, I would say,
I'm not a lawyer, I'm not an economist, but I've
had to play one on TV for a long time, right,

(48:22):
or certainly I've got to be just smart enough about
it to ask the right questions. I hope, and I
understood what you guys are trying to communicate, which is, hey, look,
this is a unique this is this inflation issue isn't
all just because we've handed out too much money. This
inflation issue we've kinked a hose, and all of a
sudden we unkink the hose, and here comes to supplies

(48:43):
and then and it's just doing all sorts of haywire things,
and it's like a bouncing ball. It's eventually going to
stop being hugely bouncing and eventually it's going to get there.
But it was pretty stubborn, and it's still been pretty stubborn.
And I guess I'm curious everything you guys applied to it.

(49:05):
Did you think the inflation rate would be better than
it is today, better than it was even before tariff
liberation day? I mean, I totally accept the premise that
once he put tariffs into the economy, we no longer
can talk about the Biden economy. It is his economy.
But pre tariff that inflation rate was still stubbornly high.
How long did you assume, discounting the tariff situation, that

(49:29):
we were going to have this stubborn high inflation rate?
Because I think about the seventies, Jared, and it's like, man,
Tariff's destroyed three presidencies. I could argue, right Nixon is
you know, he survives Watergate. If it's a better economy,
Ford wins if it's a better economy, Garter wins reelection.
If it's a better economy.

Speaker 2 (49:47):
You mean inflation, you said, teriff Yeah, No, I'm.

Speaker 1 (49:49):
At inflation, Yeah, inflation. What I'm trying to get at is,
you know, sort of disc I don't want to I know,
the minute he put all these tariffs on there, it
sort of it sort of could screw with forecasting. But
three April first there of this year, it was still
stubbornly high. How long do you think it's going to

(50:10):
take to get that inflation rate down? And again this
is assuming we had a normal tariff policy.

Speaker 2 (50:17):
Without tariff policy, I think inflation by the end of
this year, which we're now at the end of this year,
would instead of being I think the last scene the
core inflationary measures that the FED looks at were closer
to three than to two. I think they'd be a
lot closer to two than to three. I think you'd
be looking at inflation. I think the core was last

(50:39):
seen at two seven. I think it would be around
two to two two two.

Speaker 1 (50:43):
Think this is a half percentage point that's the teriffs
have at it.

Speaker 2 (50:46):
I know I've seen point seven, I've seen point five.
I think point five is a good conservative estimate. So frankly,
I actually think that inflation was behaving in a way
that made sense to me. Starting in twenty twenty three.
It was coming down. I mean, just if you look
at the graphic of year over year inflation, it goes
up a mountain, and that, you know, that was a

(51:07):
traumatic mountain for us. Let me tell you, I vividly
remember the night. You know, we get the data a
day before it comes out. I remember the night when
we got the inflation report. It was June of twenty two,
and it was nine percent, and you know, we lost
our you know what. But the other side of the
mountain it came down justice, justice, just as quickly. And

(51:27):
and really what you said earlier is completely accurate, which
is that it was the collision of a supply shortfall
and very strong demand, particularly for manufactured goods. I mean,
we were we were tracing numbers that showed that the
consumer spending share of manufacturing was higher than it had
ever been. And of course people weren't interacting with services.

(51:50):
They couldn't, so they wanted to build out the new
home office and get exercise equipment. At the same time,
all that stuff was jammed, and at the same time
they had both excess savings so they were flush, and
a lot of fiscal support so they were flush. So
by twenty twenty two, I would argue that I had
a very good understanding of where inflation was. I thought

(52:11):
it was transitory in the sense of long transitory. You know,
it wasn't going to come down as quickly as we
wanted it to. But I knew it was going to
come down. And one reason for that, which is very
distinctly different than the nineteen seventies, is that this mysterious
calculation called inflation expectations were well anchored. In the nineteen seventies,
key setters of prices and wages didn't believe inflation was

(52:35):
going to go back down, whereas in the COVID inflation
they did. Everybody saw that this was a shock. The
FED was still in charge, inflation expectations were still well anchored,
so I knew we'd get back down to target. At
least I thought we would before the tariffs came on.

Speaker 1 (52:51):
Well, that brings me to now in this decision of
the Fed, and you actually framed it pretty well in
one of your substecks, which is, you know, the FED
has a dual mandate, and it's in contradiction. Right, we
have a stubborn inflation rate, but we now have a
weakening jobs market. What should be the focus of the Fed?

Speaker 2 (53:11):
Well, when I wrote that piece about four days ago,
I said, I said, I think it's fifty two forty
eight inflation. That is the FED, I argued, very close call,
but that at their meeting in December ninth and tenth,
I'm a little more worried about how sticky and high
inflation is, in no small part because I'm looking at

(53:32):
services inflation, which is sticky and high, about a point
above where you'd like it to be, and that's not
really directly connected to the tariffs. And you know a
number of people are like, well, aren't you worried about
the job market and the fact that the unemployment rate
has climbed. It's a point above where it was in
April of twenty three. It's four point four percent. It

(53:53):
was three point four percent in April of twenty three.
People say, well, four point four isn't that high. Well,
it's pretty high. I but it used to be three
point four. So you know, this morning we learned that
the ADP the payroll processing, private payroll people. You know that,
according to them, payroll employment had a negative handle. In

(54:14):
November it fell by forty thousand. So now I'm really
at a coin flip. But you know, I think probably
i'd want to sit at that table and hear what
people said. I think I probably am a little more
worried about sticky inflation than the average person right now.

Speaker 1 (54:33):
It's interesting because you have, I mean, what is your
understanding of why we have a job market that is
that is potentially going negative? I mean, is it? I mean,
what it appears to me is you have a lot
of big companies who are trying to figure out what
kind of efficiencies AI is going to bring in. Right now,

(54:54):
they're not filling heads. They're not cutting jobs, but they're
not filling heads until they figure out how many heads
can they avoid having to fill? How good is this
AI transition? I am? I am? I sort of summarized.

Speaker 2 (55:07):
Here again, I think you're you're spat on And I'm
going to tell you something that I think is really
worrisome that I haven't had enough of a chance to
talk about. So I'll get into that in a second,
which is related to what you just said, Look, this
job market is often described as low high or low fire,
which is what you just said. We have a very
low hiring rate. It's very difficult for people coming into

(55:30):
the job market to get work. We're seeing unemployment to rate.

Speaker 1 (55:33):
I got a graduating senior in college. Trust me, she's
already stressed. She's got keep telling her you got another
six months relaxed. Yeah, pretty stressed out.

Speaker 2 (55:43):
Yeah, you should tell her that the you know, the
unemployment rate for college graduates is still you know, a
lot lower than for non college gradh although for the
newly minted ones it is. It is too high for
exactly the reasons we're saying. We haven't seen big layoffs yet,
and you can't have a recession with layoffs. So I
think that the uncertainty around both the tariffs, the impact

(56:06):
of AI, and also deportations are all one reason we're
stuck in a low, higher, low fire labor market. It
is the case that when you have fewer people coming
into the job market because of diminished immigration, you actually
don't need as many jobs to keep the unemployment rate
from going up. That's called the break even rate. And

(56:27):
when I was in the White House, the break even
rate was, you know, one hundred and fifty thousand. Now
it's half of that because the immigration impacts and aging
boomers are reducing labor supply, but we still have labor
demand weaker than labor supply, and that's why unemployment has
been going up. Now on the AI point, here's the

(56:48):
thing I wanted to say, because of exactly what you
just said, employers are trying to figure out how many
people they can reduce, what kind of their headcount they
can reduce because of the work that AI can do,
which they're confused about, and they haven't really been able
to figure it out. The worst thing that could happen
right now would be a recession with a lot of layoffs.

(57:11):
And the reason is is that when we've seen this
is an historical observation, when we've seen technology displacing workers
technology is that it's most disemploying when you're in a
downturn because because employers lay off a big chunk of

(57:32):
their workforce and the question becomes how few can I
hire back? Right right right now, they're stuck with what
they've got and they don't want to lay a bunch
of people off because they just don't know where it's going.
But man, if the demand falls out from this situation
and they're in a situation where they lay off twenty
five percent of the workforce, they're going to be thinking

(57:53):
I might only be to I might just be able
to bring back five percent. You know, just a few
of those workers and get a.

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percent off. Look, I'm pretty convinced that twenty twenty eight.
I don't think we're it's going to be. I think

(59:28):
we're going to see it percolate in twenty twenty six.
But I think twenty twenty eight as a campaign conversation,
as a narrative, is sort of what voters fear of
AI displacement is going to be A is going to
be a demand on candidates to have a plan. Look,

(59:48):
we can debate whether this is going to happen the
next three years or we're still ten years away from this.
And I devour every bit of forecasting I can find
on this. And you know, you have these different AI
you know, sort of doom, the doom, the doom and
gloom folks ais. You know, I sort of I'm pro

(01:00:10):
human race, meaning I think we are not going to
allow ourselves to be replaced by robots like we're we're
going to We're We're a pretty impressive species. We survive
a lot. You know, we're not going to let robots
displace us. But the fear of this, I think is going.
So Look, you probably already are talking to potential presidential candidates,

(01:00:33):
people wanting to just get your advice of you know,
what's a feasible way. I mean, what did we do
wrong during the transition to all these free trade agreements
in the in the late eighties and early nineties with
and all of them included promises of money for job
retraining and all of this. It didn't really work.

Speaker 2 (01:00:55):
I can answer this question for you. It's a great question.

Speaker 1 (01:00:58):
Is that where AI is going? I mean, yeah, I
assume you know I've already heard Mark Kelly went out
there and said recently, I guess we ought to have
a fund where these AI companies ought to be taxed.
Maybe you tax the data centers and there's a special
tax of the data centers that just goes to job
displacement issues. But what does this policy look like? What

(01:01:21):
do you think is feasible here?

Speaker 2 (01:01:22):
So I have an answer to question. I have an
answer to this question. First of all, let me say
the following, which you would know better than me. But
I'll bet I'm right about this. If you talk to
the average economists. I spend two months of the year
now at Stanford. So if you're out, if you're in
Silicon Valley, if you talk to a lot of people

(01:01:44):
in the Beltway about AI, they're a lot more excited
than the average voter is.

Speaker 1 (01:01:50):
So that's one assertion, Jared, It's remarkable. I find it
remark we as a country, we are the most negative
about AI collectively then other First world countries. I've watched this.
It's fascinating how negative we are about it. So I
think it's because social media destroyed us, and I think

(01:02:10):
people fear the same geniuses that brought us social media
are being allowed to run amuck on AI.

Speaker 2 (01:02:17):
Good luck, By the way you're speaking, to someone who
just finished watching the Netflix show Adolescens last night, So,
oh my god, talk about social media and its distortions.
But but I'm with you. So we are on you know,
we are. We are shoulder to shoulder on this. And
one of the things I tell people is UH members

(01:02:39):
who are thinking of working on the figuring out trying
to figure out how to run on this is precisely
that that. Don't think everybody out there thinks AI is
as cool as you do. They're threatened by it. And
you just mentioned two things. You mentioned the lack of
preparation for people who were hurt by expanded globalization in

(01:03:00):
the nineties when China and the two thousands, when China,
you know, at Bill Clinton's beets, China joins the WTO
and we get our buds kicked and no one was
ready for that. And then the ignoring of the impact
of social media to two incredibly portentious existential examples of

(01:03:23):
politicians failing to create guard rails to protect people from
a massive shock. And so you know, won't be tied
us if we make that mistake again.

Speaker 1 (01:03:37):
Now I think Jared, we already have. I'm sorry, I
look at it. This hands off you know, I, you know,
we were, well, what you imagine can you imagine if
we had outsourced the Manhattan Project?

Speaker 2 (01:03:55):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (01:03:55):
But what this crazy woman?

Speaker 2 (01:03:57):
What do you said yourself minute ago? Correctly that we
do not yet know the extent to which AI is
going to displace people in the workforce. What you do
in that situation is you hope for the best and
you plan for the worst. Now, what we didn't do
in the globalization era when globalization was taking off. We

(01:04:18):
hoped for the best and we didn't plan for the worst.
And in fact, we did the thing that economists always do.
Here's a here's a curse word that economists use all
the time. Transition.

Speaker 1 (01:04:30):
They'll be a transition, well transitions to it a lot
of work there. Transition means mister pop are going to
lose their entire livelihood, but.

Speaker 2 (01:04:40):
They'll be a transition every period. But we'll be fun.
So when you hear an economist Blase talk about transition,
run for the hill. So so you don't so what
we need here in my So here's the policy that
I'm trying to get people interested in. It may sound
a little radical, but I don't think it is a
job's guarantee, a federal jobs guarantee if you were displaced

(01:05:04):
from your job because of AI. There's actually a lot
of stuff that needs to get done in this country,
and I can't do a lot of it. There's building infrastructure,
there's human care, there's helping in the healthcare sector. There
is a lot of work that needs to be done.
Many of these sectors are underfunded, in part because so
much is going into AI and data centers. We need

(01:05:27):
to have a job guarantee program wherein if you're displaced
to AI, we can quickly get you back up and
running with remunerative, dignity inducing employment. So it's easier said
than done. But we've had programs like that in the past.
We've just never really implemented them.

Speaker 1 (01:05:48):
It was just gonna well, I mean that was the
New Deal.

Speaker 2 (01:05:51):
No exactly, that was the New Deal, and that actually
worked out well. Now, we tried something in the eighties
called SITA that was a much scaleback version of that.
And you know, if you go to the Center. I'm
also a policy fellow at the Center for American Progress,
you know, numerous years ago they were talking about a
jobs guarantee and have documents about how to do it.
So it's not something no one's ever thought about before,

(01:06:13):
and I'd like to dust that policy off and to
get people thinking about it.

Speaker 1 (01:06:17):
Would you do a jobs guarantee before you would do
universal basic income?

Speaker 2 (01:06:21):
Yes? I think universal basic income pales beside a job
guarantee because people don't just want income. They want to
be productive, they want to work, they want to contribute.

Speaker 1 (01:06:32):
They want community. I mean, in some ways, work is
another community. And I think one of the things were
consistently and constantly crave is community. I want to tackle
something else that you spend.

Speaker 2 (01:06:46):
By the way, just aside, I think we're getting way
too much of our community online.

Speaker 1 (01:06:50):
Of course, well you know, it gets it something. You know,
it's funny to go back to the social media metaphor
that I was using about AI. You know, we don't
agree collectively on a lot of things in America these days,
but there is one issue that is united left and right.
It hasn't mattered if it was a very red state

(01:07:12):
legislature or a very blue state legislature. They have all
instituted the cell phone bandoned schools in some form or another. Right.
And you know, the Libertarians have been convinced right those
that are worried about, you know, single moms and single
parents having access to everybody's realizing, hey, this has been terrible,

(01:07:33):
and we don't often. So that tells me something here
that in some ways the public is wiser about this,
and they usually are. I always say, the electorate, the voters,
you know, voters have that voters are telling you something.
Listen to them. Just because you don't like the outcome,
they're telling you something, Listen to what they're saying. Of course,

(01:07:54):
so they it is. It makes me think that actually
getting tough on tech and putting guardrails on AI, I
think is going to be a necessity for any successful
candidate for office in twenty eight And I don't think
it's and I don't think it is. This is something

(01:08:15):
that's just a d side thing or an our side thing.
I think this the fact that you have this collective
concern about what phones and social media has done to
our kids means we realize these technological changes have huge
impacts on our lives. And I don't think we fully

(01:08:35):
you know, we as you said we in this case,
we're so excited about what's happening that we're you know,
and I guess this is exactly what life was like
in the nineteen teens, in the nineteen twenty.

Speaker 2 (01:08:48):
Yeah, I think all of that's correct. I mean, I
think there's another side of the issue that you have
to think about if you're advising politicians or you're thinking
about twenty six or twenty eight, which is that if
you talk to the companies themselves, even if you're saying, hey,
and you you mentioned Mark Kelly before, I'm in Virginia.

(01:09:09):
At this point, thirty nine percent of the energy in
Virginia that's being produced the electricity is being used by
data centers.

Speaker 1 (01:09:17):
Oh, and don't think that they're not going to get demonized,
yes on cost issues. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:09:22):
So you know the thing is, you go to the
AI companies, you go to the data centers, and you
tell them you're going to have to pair back, You're
going to have to have guardrails, You're going to have
to compensate the innocent bystanders who electricity bills are getting
whacked by you. And some of them are going to
say to you, fine, I'll go to Saudi Arabia. And
you know that's the political challenge that I was dealing

(01:09:43):
with in the White House. You know, we were we
were thinking about these issues, and you know, these companies
were threatening us with you know, with exits. Frankly, I'll
take that threat because of what you're describing is so
important to put those guardrails in place.

Speaker 1 (01:10:00):
Well, let's see. I mean, I keep you know, I
keep thinking there is a left right coalition here that
does want to put some guardrails on tech, right when
you get people like Lena Khan and Steve Bannon both
concerned about this concentration of power. But it hasn't translated.
I mean this, this is just such an effectless Congress,

(01:10:21):
and frankly it hasn't mattered the last ten years. Congress
has been hesitant to get into the regulatory Well, they'll
do oversight, but they won't do the regulatory change.

Speaker 2 (01:10:33):
I mean, Crypto is a good analogy. I mean, I
think crypto is largely an accident going out to happen
in terms of systemic risk to the economy. But what
did the crypto bros do? They lobbied up faster than
any industry I've ever seen. So, you know, these data
centers are the MAG seven. I just looked this up.
The market capitalization of the MAG seven is twenty two

(01:10:55):
trillion dollars, so you know, they have all the resources
they need to purchase all the all the deregulation they want.

Speaker 1 (01:11:06):
If you strip out the Magnificent Seven, it's the rest
of our is the is the rest of the publicly
traded companies. I mean, I've seen some analysis that say,
you know what, we're no companies. Companies aren't doing that well,
So I got but the Big seven is propping everything up.

Speaker 2 (01:11:24):
So I've got a great It's funny you should ask
that because I recently backed out a number that I
thought was really really compelling answer to that question, unless
it's too obscure, So I'll test it on you and
see if it works. Now this is a few days old,
but I'm sure it doesn't matter. If you look at
the year over year increase in the S and P

(01:11:45):
five hundred, it's eleven percent. If you then that's that
that's weighted, meaning that you waited by market capitalization. So
that's how the S and P is measured every day,
waited the.

Speaker 1 (01:11:59):
Biggest cap companies. I mean, you know, I have this
thesis that that the reason we've seen crypto prices plummet
is that you know, the crypto folks realize that this
is probably not a real asset, they hurry up and
sell it and then buy the Magnificent seven.

Speaker 2 (01:12:15):
Right, So the Magnificent seven get a huge weight. I
mean they're not old public like AI is obviously still
a private company. But all I'm saying is that that
eleven percent increase in the S and P is a
weighted measure weighted by market capitalization. You can also look
at an unweighted measure of the S and P that's
up point eight percent over the last year. Eleven percent weighted,

(01:12:39):
point eight unweighted. We have an S and P seven
and an SMB four ninety three, and the SNB four
ninety three is pretty flat.

Speaker 1 (01:12:48):
Well, that tells you it's flatter, actually negative.

Speaker 2 (01:12:52):
Yeah, I mean I think I think it's uh, I
think it's flat. I mean I've looked at the I've
actually looked at the four ninety three whatever it is,
because again not every one of the seven. But yeah,
it's flat. It's pretty flat.

Speaker 1 (01:13:07):
Let me get into a couple other issues. That one
that you wrote about and talks about healthcare, and look,
we this is such the weirdest issue because it's it's
not a private sector. You know, it's not a private enterprise.
It's a huge part of the economy, but it's it's

(01:13:29):
super regulated. But at the same time, it's this sort
of public private and it's a mess, right And you know,
I look yeah, I look at I'll just take my
little observation, which act actually is going to be through
the prism of college football. But the University of Miami
is able to spend a lot more money on football

(01:13:50):
now because they're making so much money. And they're not alone.
This is a lot of universities. A lot of universities
are funding some of their high priced outlays, whether it's sports, building,
new buildings, et cetera, because they have health systems that
are nonprofits, Jared, who are making money hand over fist.

(01:14:11):
Because it's a nonprofit, you got to immediately take whatever
profits you make and put it back into the institution.
In this case, it's in university athletics, the Longhorns, USC Miami.
There's quite a few that have done this. But what
it tells me is if we have a system and
our healthcare system, and if they just take hospitals where
there's more money to be made, being a nonprofit hospital system,

(01:14:34):
than it is to be a for profit hospital system.
What are we doing here? Like something seems off. This
is a jerry rigged economy. This isn't a real free
market exactly right.

Speaker 2 (01:14:49):
I mean the way I always say it. I mean,
your analogy is really interesting. It's fairly complex. Here's a
simple way to say, I think a similar thing. If
I show up to the supermarket hungry, they don't have
to feed me. If I show up to the hospital sick,
they have to treat me. That takes it out of
the market right away. And every single other advanced economy

(01:15:12):
has figured it out that this that trying to make
this a for profit or a kind of weirdly structured
nonprofit sector of the type you just described, is going
to mean an economy that spends you know, eighteen percent
of its GDP on healthcare. That's US versus ten or

(01:15:36):
eleven percent, which is the average for every other advanced economy.
And you might say, well, surely they have worst outcomes
than we do, given that they're spending eight percent nine
percent of GDP less they do not. They have as good,
if not better outcomes than we do. What they don't
have is you know, five miles from where I live,
massive houses on the Potomac that are owned by you know, lobbyists,

(01:16:00):
big pharma. So, by dint of making this an inelastically
demanded good, if you need health care, you need it.
It's not shoppable. You can't get in the hospital, you
can't go in the ambulance and say, wait a second,
I'm going to call a cheaper ambulance. You know, it's
not shoppable. It's inelastically demanded, and the prices are completely
non transparent. You never really know what you're paying for anything.

(01:16:23):
And you know, expect people not to have their hands
in the healthcare cookie jar, which of course they do.
So there is a ton of work to be done there.
You know, I myself, along with Neil Mahoney, just wrote
a piece on how to make health you know, ideas
that would make healthcare a lot more affordable. They're out there.
We've seen other other countries do them.

Speaker 1 (01:16:43):
We should do them too, because, look, I have empathy
for those members of Congress are going, why are we
subsidizing insurance companies?

Speaker 2 (01:16:50):
Right?

Speaker 1 (01:16:50):
So I have empathy for that. At the same time,
you know, look, we don't want to we don't have
time to transition, and these folks need mortable healthcare. So
it's it's one of those where you're like, boy, this
sub what are we doing this? You know, why don't
we reform the insurance industry, Why don't we reform hospital
payment systems? Why don't we reform you know, before we

(01:17:13):
figure out what the right right structure is to guarantee
healthcare access for the public. And it feels as if,
you know, because we can't do the one, we're almost
stuck just trying to well, let's limit the damage to
the average American, but we are only handing more money

(01:17:35):
to a couple of big industries.

Speaker 2 (01:17:38):
You're so right. I mean, I'll push back a little
bit on some of the things you said, but broadly speaking,
you're exactly right. And you know, I actually I think
like you when Republicans were saying during the shutdown debate
about you know, giving you know, tens of billions of
dollars to in these premium tax credits to people so
that they could buy so that they're premiums in the

(01:18:00):
affordable character exchanges, don't double Republics. Well, that's just throwing
good money after bad and I don't disagree with that. However,
if you don't do it. Those premiums are gonna double.

Speaker 1 (01:18:11):
No, right like it. It feels like we're being we're
all being held hostage here by the insurance companies.

Speaker 2 (01:18:16):
Okay, so so here's what I want to push back
a little bit.

Speaker 1 (01:18:20):
Okay, it's not.

Speaker 2 (01:18:21):
You know, the Affordable Care Act did more to control
health care spending than your wrap a second ago would
have you think. Now, if it solved the problem, we
wouldn't be having this conversation. Far from solved the problem,
but it did institute a number of things that led,
especially Medicare, costs to grow considerably more slowly, which actually

(01:18:45):
has helped us in the fiscal front. Some of those things,
and almost all of those had to do with controlling costs.
The problem is that there are, relative to all these
other economies that spend half of what we do on
healthcare as share of the economy, we have very few
cost controls. The ones that we do have actually work,

(01:19:05):
giving Medicare the ability to negotiate for lower drug prices.
That's worked, But there's fifteen drugs on that formulary, and
you need to have hundreds restricting what the insurance. Restricting
the profitability of insurance companies if they're not using enough
of their of their profits to pay out that that
was a cap that was put in in Obamacare. You know,

(01:19:27):
that's been helpful as well. So that's the way forward,
and it means a huge political fight, but that's the
fight we have to have.

Speaker 1 (01:19:43):
So I get Look, I get the fight part and
all this, but you know, let's let's say you get
a fresh administration and a fresh Congress. What's the simplest
thing we could do first as a as a as
a federal government to you know, chip away at this.

Speaker 2 (01:20:03):
Yeah, So the simplest thing is Medicare for more. If
you were talking to Bernie Sanders, it would be Medicare
for all, you know, but you're talking to me, and
so it's Medicare for more. And what that means is
is lowering the age of medicare.

Speaker 1 (01:20:18):
I've heard it fifty. Would you go down to fifty?
Has been the number I've always seen.

Speaker 2 (01:20:22):
Yeah, And so you know, because it's you might hear
people talk about a public option that's really very similar
to what I'm talking about. And this is the idea
that whether you're in your workplace looking at what you
can choose, or you're going into the Obamacare exchanges, you
can you know, if you're of a certain age, you
can choose Medicare, which is you know, a less expensive

(01:20:44):
form of care because of the kinds of cost controls
I mentioned earlier. And you know, as someone who's on
it now, it works well.

Speaker 1 (01:20:51):
Right, let me ask this why you know it's interesting.
Did did you expect when the Affordable Care Act happened
and the idea was there was there was a hope
that you'd have more insurance companies come into the marketplace.
Did you think we would have the big you know,
the progressives US A, A, Geico. I don't think they

(01:21:11):
really did get into the marketplace. Did you assume more
would have jumped into this?

Speaker 2 (01:21:19):
I did, and I do think that competition has been
somewhat insufficient, uh in that space.

Speaker 1 (01:21:29):
You know, every day is a United Healthcare buying up
another company.

Speaker 2 (01:21:33):
Exactly, there's vertical, there's vertical integration, there's horizontal vertical meaning
up and you know, up and down through the hospital systems,
and then there's far so so there's there's that kind
of integration, particularly in some of our larger cities, is
putting upward pressure on costs and in the piece that
Neil Mahoney and I just wrote. We went after that,

(01:21:55):
we said we have to we have to block that.
You know, you have a lot of investors supporting that
kind of integration. But on the insurance point, remember when
we did the ACA, we made a political because I
was in the Obama administration, that we made a political
calculation that we were going to go you know, through
the insurance companies, not around them. We were going to

(01:22:16):
adapt them as allies.

Speaker 3 (01:22:17):
No.

Speaker 1 (01:22:17):
I mean, that was the mistake that Clinton the Clinton's made, right,
which was trying to go after the insurance companies and
Thelman Leewe wasn't thelm and Louis, Harry and Louise, sorry
them and Louise was the movie. Harry and Louise became
the faces of the opposition, you know, and that it
I mean, I understood the you're right, you guys made
a political toa, hey, we're going to have Harry and
Louise on our side, which they if I remember they

(01:22:39):
actually re upped the ad and work correct.

Speaker 2 (01:22:42):
Well they we never would have legislated that if we had,
I think if we had gone with the you know,
trying to crowd them out and you know, I think
that's why Medicare for More is going to be a
tough sell, because they recognized that that kind of competition.
They don't want to compete with the government. They recognize
that Medicare can provide less expensive health care for people,

(01:23:05):
and you know, they kind of are resigned to assigning
that to seniors. But if you take that down to fifty,
they're going to fight you tooth and nail for those
mansion reasons I said before. But we still have to
go there.

Speaker 1 (01:23:17):
Well, it seems especially if we're living longer. I mean,
it just I guess that's got to be the fear.
I mean, that would be the argument against bringing the
age down. Medicare is only going to get more stressed
because people are going to be living longer and on
Medicare longer.

Speaker 2 (01:23:37):
Well, not necessarily because we're not getting into the policy weeds.
So it's not that this is going to be free
for people. I mean, Medicare is not free for anybody.
Now you're still you know, part B premiums and all that. No,
they would have to pay an actually fair premium rate
if you're on Medicare. It's not free. It's not like Medicaid,
which is, you know, kind of free healthcare, but that

(01:24:00):
premium is going to be considerably lower than what you're
paying to the private sector.

Speaker 1 (01:24:05):
Yeah. Future of work, not just AI, but the length
of the work week. Ye, there's been chatter about this
for multiple generations, right, and what the work week is
going to be. You're starting to see I think Bernie

(01:24:25):
Sanders is advocating a thirty two hour work week, but
it really all goes back to what's full time. And
because what full time, what the definition of full time is,
then of course triggers whether you get benefits or not.
And so that's why this is I think an important issue.
Where are you on that issue and is that something

(01:24:47):
that you think is coming.

Speaker 2 (01:24:51):
Well, First of all, the way Senator Sanders talks about
it is he wants people to work eight hours less
per week but not take a cut and pay. And
that strikes me as you know, unrealistic. I don't see
how that works. I think that leads to lots of
unintended consequences that would be detrimental to to workers. If

(01:25:16):
you wanted to have a for the option of a
four hour week, a four day week, and you know,
people could still be considered working full time and get
those same sorts of benefits. You know, that's the conversation
worth having. But you know output would go down and
so we you know, we'd have less we'd have less
growth presumably, and that's kind of a trade off. It's

(01:25:38):
interesting because for economists a lot of time, social welfare
well being is too easily analogized to GDP. But if
I told you we can have less GDP but we
can work less hard, you might say Europe, And.

Speaker 1 (01:25:52):
You know that is what somebody would say, Europe. Look
at them and you might say, that's right. And we
we we we drove right past them in our GDP
over the way we drove right past.

Speaker 2 (01:26:02):
From the GDP. But when it comes to if you
actually look at measures of happiness, you know they actually
kick our butts in a lot of ways, especially around
this issue of work. So the problem I have with
the conversation is when it sounds like there's no trade off.
If you accept that there's a growth trade off, but
maybe you improve social welfare, fine, I'd be willing to,
you know, entertain that idea. It's not something I think

(01:26:24):
about a lot though these days, And it's not even
really on my list of policy ideas. Why Because affordability
is such a huge issue right now, and I think
it's been for a while, it's going to be going forward,
and if you're working one day less, you're going to
make less and life is going to be you know,
presumably even less affordable. So I think that that's a

(01:26:44):
real challenge right now.

Speaker 1 (01:26:46):
No, in fact, I think the more like I think
the near term future of work, certainly for my kids
is I assume and frankly that I look at the
situation I've put together for myself, it's probably similar to
what you've put together. Is you don't have one job,
you have four or five jobs, and that that is
going there is going to be a larger and larger

(01:27:08):
segment of the population that is going to have multiple
income streams. How does what does federal how does federal
policy have to change to support uh an economy that's
going to have more essentially more people in the I
don't like to use gig work because I think people

(01:27:29):
immediately assume, oh, uber driver. I don't think that's going
to you know, you know, it could be just all
sorts of things could be part of the service economy
of professional economy, et cetera.

Speaker 2 (01:27:36):
Yeah, I think in two major ways. One we've actually
talked about, which is healthcare. Of course, most working age
people get their healthcare not just for them, but for
their family through their employer. So if we move to
a situation where you're not as connected to one employer
such that you have employer sponsored insurance, we're going to

(01:27:58):
need a system like Medicare for more. The Obamacare exchanges,
by the way, were invented to help solve that problem,
but they're you know, they're kind of clue gy, and
they're kind of expensive, and you and I already talked
about that. So we have to make sure that you know,
we have a very uniquely weird and kind of dumb
system in this country where we we have most working

(01:28:21):
age people getting their healthcare through work. You know, that's
a huge burden on companies that would rather make cars
and not provide health insurance. So breaking that asunder, you know,
it has historical roots that we can get into After
World War Two when there were wage freezes in place.
You have to figure out a way to give people
more benefits, but that would be a great place to start.

(01:28:41):
And secondly, labor standards the umbrella of labor standards, you know,
wage protections, unemployment insurance, over time pay. That's all connected
to traditional work at traditional schedules. So you'd want that
umbrella to be reshaped to protect people who didn't necessarily
have traditional work arrangements.

Speaker 1 (01:29:00):
Well, you're right. I remember that was one of the
art pro one of the arguments that the Obama administration
was using to sell the Affordable Care Act, that hey, portability,
you don't have to you know, you can, you can
work part time at a company without worrying that. You know,
you don't feel like you can leave. You know that
sort of thing. You're not stuck in a job, right
job because of healthcare. At the same time, I do

(01:29:25):
worry about companies offering a lot of contract work, which
is code for I ain't giving you any benefits.

Speaker 2 (01:29:31):
Absolutely, And you know that's another reason why healthcare form
is so vital. And again, those a lot of those
folks are getting healthcare in the exchanges right now, and
you know, it's better than it's better than not being covered,
but they don't love it.

Speaker 1 (01:29:47):
Let me ask you about two Trump policies and what
you make of them. In the If you were part
of the next administration, would you try to scrap it
or enhance it? One is no tax on tips. I
was amused the other day by an article that IRS
agents have to figure out, is this pornography? I saw?

(01:30:09):
Not pornography. I mean I just sort of like, oh wow, well,
you know, all of a sudden, a whole bunch of
sixteen year old boys might volunteer to work at the
I R S or intern Sorry, yeah, no, I.

Speaker 2 (01:30:20):
Think that's really about Do you want to say the
second one again? Well?

Speaker 1 (01:30:25):
The second The second one is that is the these
new essentially baby bonds that you know, they're calling them
Trump accounts. The but the Michael Dell, you know that,
who just actually added to to sort of expand the pool.
I want to get into that a minute, but let's
start with no tax on tips, because you know, my
joke has been I'd like to be paid all in tips, now,
please exactly.

Speaker 2 (01:30:46):
So, the first thing we worried about, Literally thirty seconds
after somebody told me about that, I said, you're gonna
have a lot of you know, stockbrokers who are saying,
you know, I tron a dollar a year and the
rest is tips. Now, they did try to structure the
policy to block that, and that just adds a level

(01:31:08):
of complexity that is really the antithesis of smart tax policy.
The minute you have eighty occupations that are okay and
a bunch that aren't, you can imagine what's going to
go on in tax court.

Speaker 1 (01:31:21):
And what's a good thing you're getting rid of IRS
agents because you know.

Speaker 2 (01:31:25):
Yeah, right, So the first problem is is that it's
easy to game, and I suspect that their guardrails are insufficient.
The second problem is that there are a lot of
low wage workers who get tips and don't pay any
federal income tax, so this doesn't help them at all.

(01:31:47):
You know, most lowage workers simply don't have a federal
tax liability, so it means nothing to them. And then
you know, the third problem is, you know, we actually
have a very significant revenue problem in this country, and
so tax cuts are one reason why we are looking

(01:32:09):
at a really unsustainable fiscal path. So I think it's complex,
I think it's poorly targeted, and I think it's a waste.

Speaker 1 (01:32:17):
But it was like I was just going to say,
the problem you have is it sort of strikes me
as what she said, like, look, well we had to
work through the insurance companies, even though we didn't want to.
This feels like a policy that that nobody's going to
be wanting to be the member of Congress that says no, no, no,
no no, let's bring taxing. Let's put dips back into

(01:32:38):
income taxable income.

Speaker 2 (01:32:39):
Yeah, you're probably right, and so you know the minute
you open it's so much easier to grant a tax
cut than to take it back. Obviously. I mean, I
think if we start seeing a lot of fraud, which
I predict we will, at least we might be in
a market where we can put up more guardrails.

Speaker 1 (01:32:59):
Let's talk about the the Trump baby bonds or you know,
the the the birth and I guess this is their
way of encouraging trying to encourage uh more families, let's
be you know which. And you guys were fighting for
the child the childcare tax credit. Yeah, I sort of

(01:33:20):
believe that. Frankly, I think you guys should have died
on that hill. And I don't know why you didn't politically,
but in terms of what do you mean like fight,
never have given it up on it. I mean, I
think that was that was something worth losing an election,
you know, taking it to the ballot box. I just
you know, never never giving up on it. I understand why.

(01:33:41):
You know, you thought, well, we have a bigger deal
to make here, and it's possible to do this, and
you certainly look that's the old legislator in Joe Biden.
I get it. But the childcare tax credit, that was
that was it mattered to people, it has bipartisan interest,
like it just felt like it felt like a political
It felt like a policy hill worth dying on because

(01:34:04):
there's going to be something for this, right it. You know,
right now it's baby bonds. I don't think this quite
cuts it, although I can imagine now people will say, hey,
you can use that money for childcare. Well you can't
use it so you can't use it for a team yet,
but you know it's coming.

Speaker 2 (01:34:20):
You can't. Yeah, maybe, But so on your childcare tax
credit point, you know, we didn't have the votes on
the Democratic caucus. You know, Mansion with against it. So
and I think Cinema is too, So you know, we
didn't have the votes. But I take you know, I
take your point. It was real. I think that many
of us were a little surprised by how little the

(01:34:41):
public seemed to fight for it. You know, a lot
of times when you get what I said a minute ago,
when you provide people with a benefit like that, a
lot of times taking it away.

Speaker 1 (01:34:49):
Is let me let me positive theory on that there. Sure,
the childcare tax credit came just when the government was
shoveling out other money too. Yeah, so people, and I
don't know if they fully appreciated what was it probably.

Speaker 2 (01:35:03):
Became viewed as like another pandemic era things. So you're yeh,
So look, I think giving one thousand dollars of seed
money for what really is like an IRA account is
a fine thing to do. I think the problem is
that it's not at all targeted and that it will

(01:35:26):
exacerbate intergenerational inequality. You're allowed to contribute, your family members
are allowed to contribute five thousand dollars a year, tax
free to to these funds. I think it's tax free. Obviously,
the seed money you don't pay taxes on until you
take it out. You can't touch it for eighteen years,

(01:35:46):
and so who's going to be able to make those
contributions Not low income people, high income people. So it's
going to exacerbate inequality over the long run. And I
think that's problematic. I would have targeted in a different way,
so that instead of giving money to savers who are
gonna save anyway, which you know, my kids are, your
kids probably are, I'm targeted to families that don't have

(01:36:09):
the resources to make that saving and add to it
over time so that it can build.

Speaker 3 (01:36:16):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (01:36:16):
Well, it's interesting to me. What the what the what
the Dells did? They concentrated the donation by zip code.

Speaker 2 (01:36:24):
Yeah, so that is a much more targeted approach, and
you know, I think a better one. I don't know
that we can kind of you know, philanthropy to get
us where we need to go on this.

Speaker 1 (01:36:32):
But well, and I'm curious of that. I find this
to be really I'm gonna I can't. I'm really uncomfortable
with the idea of government spending becoming a charitable gift.
And I don't know how else to put it. I'm
not I don't really. I can't sit here and say, well, jeezus,
it's bad what the Dells are doing, or it was bad?

(01:36:55):
What Who was it was it? Who who threw a
money to pay the pay the military or to help contribute. Yeah,
I think it was one of the melons. One of
the melons did that, and you're like, well, I appreciate
your patriotism, right, Like, I think that's great, But is

(01:37:15):
that a habit the government should get into that day? Well,
maybe they need a chair, they need a foundation to
raise money for.

Speaker 2 (01:37:22):
So I mean, this is why we have a progressive
income tax. So you can say, boy, cross my fingers.
I hope there's some really generous patriots out there who
will provide us help where we need it, like fund
the military. Or you can say we're going to progressively
tax people. If this economy delivered you billions hundreds of

(01:37:43):
billions trillions, we're gonna, you know, definitely take some of
that back and we're going to use it for things
that the electric decides are uh, you know, the electric
decides to they're elected officials, is what we want to
spend money on. And you know that's how democracy works.
So I don't like the idea of leaving it to
the kindness of strange of stranger trillionaires to make up

(01:38:08):
the difference. I think that's why we have taxes.

Speaker 1 (01:38:11):
Is if you're understanding that Dell's are going to get it,
is this tax free their charitable donation.

Speaker 2 (01:38:16):
Is charitable deduction. Yeah, so this is it's a deduction
that you deducted at your your time.

Speaker 1 (01:38:22):
Right fact, so how much? I mean, so that means
you and I are subsidizing this charitable giving already.

Speaker 2 (01:38:27):
Correct, that's a great point, I mean, and you know
I don't. Yeah, it's a lot of savings there for them.
And look, you know a lot of people have come
after the charitable deduction as a way to raise more revenue,
and it never really seems to get anywhere. You know,
maybe for good reason.

Speaker 1 (01:38:48):
I mean, it's a lot of but I thought Obama
lowered it. Then he lowered the rate from down to
I thought he lowered how much. You definitely remember trying
to do so, okay, and it never happened. I didn't
think we got there, but I could be misrememory. For
some reason. I thought it went down from you know,
twenty went to twenty you know, twenty eight set of three.

Speaker 2 (01:39:07):
Whenever we used to have revenue meetings, which we had
all the time because we're desperately nu more, somebody would
say can we move that? And you know, the next
meeting higher up would come the answer, no, we can't.

Speaker 1 (01:39:19):
No, you can't. That's funny. Let me get you out
of here. On the Chobcare tax credit, what would it
take to make it permanent? And how would you pay
for it?

Speaker 2 (01:39:28):
It's not it's not cheap. I think, yeah, I think
if you're talking ten years, you're in the I think
in the seven eight hundred billion range. I I know
these numbers when I'm working on that stuff or not,
I'm not gonna We're not gonna hold it you. I
think that's the range. And when we obviously when we

(01:39:52):
did it, it was deficit financed. And I don't know
if you've seen any of my work on this, but
I am a pretty much such a lifetime fiscal dove
who's lately become a bit hawkish.

Speaker 1 (01:40:05):
Do you feel like you're like, Okay, now you've everybody
is that? You know, I've my entire adult life has
you know? The sky's been falling when it comes to
the debt. The guy's been falling. And it's people I trust,
not just ideologues. Right, the guy's been falling. And somehow
it turns out the Paul Krugman's of the world, and
you know, those the fiscal doves like yourself, Well, no,

(01:40:27):
our debt to GDP ratio can be higher, and we
can do this, and we can do that, but you
think we might be at the breaking point.

Speaker 2 (01:40:35):
I think I don't think we're at the breaking point,
but I think we're at a level bun sustainability that
is dangerously tempting a breaking point. And it's not even
clear what a breaking point is. We have a sovereign
currency that we print, so you know, it's not like
we're going to have a list trust moment because our
our our debt markets are so large and so liquid,

(01:40:56):
and we have the dominant global currency and all that
and the but the reason I flipped, and I've written
extensively about this, including a New York Times bed that
had a graphic in it that kind of explains this,
is because interest rates are higher now. And I think
the thing that people missed ol over all those years
where they had their hair on fire is they just
didn't recognize them. It's kind of right in front of you,

(01:41:19):
how the real interest rate was so low, even negative
in some cases, that we could HANDI le service our
debt without breaking a sweat. But now the interest rate
is higher, and my priors or that it's going to
stay up. You don't know. That's an impossible variable to forecast.
But this is again a hope for the best plan
for the worst moment. So I wouldn't support a full

(01:41:39):
out ten year expenditure six seven hundred billion for an
extended child tax credit without a pay for. But those
pay fors are readily available if you're willing to raise taxes,
especially at the higher end. And in fact, in our
budgets we did that, so you can actually go back
and read how we finance a prominent extension of the

(01:42:02):
childcare tax. And it may not have been quite as
generous as what we had in the in the pandemic recession,
but it was it was plenty generous.

Speaker 1 (01:42:10):
Is there any worry as an economist that, uh, that
in some ways that it in the same way that
the insurance companies, because they know as government subsidy is coming,
they kind of frankly mess with the prices so they're
able to, you know, make sure they get some profit
and they know people are going to have a certain
amount of money. Do you worry that that happens to

(01:42:31):
the to the that basically child childcare becomes an industry
if you will.

Speaker 2 (01:42:39):
Not so much with childcare. I just think that the
this is all get slightly technical. For a second, childcare
has a very high supply elasticity, meaning that if people
wanted and they have the resources to get it, you
start seeing childcare centers pop up. So the responsiveness of

(01:43:01):
childcare production to demand is quite strong. And you know,
so that flexible elasticity there is helpful such that if
we were able to provide people the subsidies they need,
and when we have in the past, we've seen this.
I don't think you see, you know, particularly even medium
term pressures on costs.

Speaker 1 (01:43:23):
Do you end up I'm going to get you out
of here, but do you end up imagining that instead
of a childcare tax credit, it becomes a what I
would call a home care tax credit, because maybe you're
taken care of an elderly parent.

Speaker 2 (01:43:36):
Well, that's certainly something Biden was interested in. You know.
I tend to like the idea of not even a
childcare tax credit, but a child tax credit. If you're
raising kids, your life is you've done this. I've done
If you're raising kids, even if you've got a decent income,
your life is a lot more expensive. Childcare can cost.
You know, twenty five hundred dollars a month easily. In

(01:43:58):
an area like this, you.

Speaker 1 (01:44:00):
Be in favor of a tax code that essentially played
favorites with for parents with kids at home.

Speaker 2 (01:44:06):
Yeah, and some of those parents probably are in a
Sandwich generation and if they want to use it for
childcare or elder care, they could. But you know, I
think a generous child tax credit that was targeted by
the Way, which also helps keep the price down. I
don't think we need to give it to you know,
millionaires and billionaires.

Speaker 1 (01:44:22):
Jared, I'm gonna let you go. Where can people find
your work? I know you've got a substack. Tell them
where you're also, I think you're involved in a couple
of things, so pitch away.

Speaker 2 (01:44:30):
Yeah, So I write. I write basically in three different places.
Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research seeper You can see
my work up there. So I think Center for American Progress.
We've recently put a housing report on housing affordability. You
can find that up there. It's called Build Baby Build.
But then almost you know, every couple of days, I
write something on my substack, which is called Jared substack,

(01:44:52):
and it's easy to find. So that's where you can
read my stuff.

Speaker 1 (01:44:56):
Excellent. It's great to catch up. I miss a. You know,
we're ah. We joked to we used to occasionally be
in the same pick up basketball game, but yeah, you know,
I think that's behind both of us. My friend, Yeah,
father time. Father time has scared us away on that.
That and you know, fear of middle aged injuries at
this point.

Speaker 2 (01:45:16):
Good to catch up.

Speaker 1 (01:45:16):
Theared appreciate it well. Of course, in promoting my Monday podcast,
I forgot about my favorite segment, which no, it's not
ranting about the college football playoff. My favorite segment every Mondays.
Of course, it's the podcast time Machine. My time machine

(01:45:45):
actually takes me. It's fascinating. This week in December is
the anniversary of two key events that triggered two things,
the growth of China and massive political realignment in the
United States. So let's go through it. We're gonna step
in the times that we're traveling through three different Decembers

(01:46:07):
nineteen seventy eight, two thousand and one, and the December
we're living in right now, December twenty twenty five. And
it's three moments that, when you take them all together,
tell the story of how the United States made a
monumental bet on China, and how we are now quietly
admitting that the bet didn't pay off the way we expected.
And believe it or not, it's a story that begins
with optimism, it passes through triumpolism, and ends with realism

(01:46:32):
and maybe even resignation. Let's start in December nineteen seventy eight,
this week where Jimmy Carter and Dng Chaoping announced the
normalization of diplomatic relations between the United States and the
People's Republic of China. The formal switch from Taipei to
Beijing became official on January first of that year, but
we announced it in this week in December nineteen seventy eight.

(01:46:57):
On paper, this was a Cold war realignment decision practice,
it was the moment the United States decided it could
shape China's future by opening the door. But it was
not some Kumbaya moment. The reactions at the time were
all over the political map. The Republican realists the kit
at that time. It was the Kissinger Scowcroft branch of

(01:47:17):
the Republican Party applauded the move. Kissinger called the normalization
quote an historic step toward a stable war. This wing
of the Republican Party sought as a three dimensional chess
play bring China closer to Washington as a way to
check Moscow. Meanwhile, the Conservative Hawks were furious. Barry Goldwater

(01:47:38):
said Carter had quote abandoned a trusted ally in Taiwan
with hardly a second thought. Ronald Reagan, who was not
yet the nominee for the Republican Party but already the
ideological leader of this part of the conservative movement, accused
Carter of quote selling out our friends for a theory
of diplomacy. Then you had the democratic left, especially the
human rights advocates, and Carter's own human rights chief privately

(01:48:02):
warned that the move sent a message that quote human
rights is negotiable when great powers are involved. The Congressional
Black Caucus publicly asked why human rights were the centerpiece
of US policy towards Latin America and South Africa, but
not Beijing. And then there was the business community. How
do you think they reacted? They were ecstatic. GM, Boeing
and ge all launched internal studies immediately. Executive memos from

(01:48:26):
the time read like prospectuses for the next gold rush.
One Fortune five hundred CEO told The Washington Post at
that time, China is the last great untapped market on Earth.
We need to be there before the Europeans get there again.
This was America December nineteen seventy eight, So in nineteen
seventy eight you can already see the outlines of the
emerging coalition foreign policy realists plus Wall Street plus ex

(01:48:49):
borders on one side, ideologues, human rights actiatists, activists and
manufacturing workers on the other. The beginning of a realignment
right normalization wasn't the beginning of a debate about China, though.
It was the beginning of an American consensus about China.
And this was the consensus that was wrong. We now
admit that we were wrong, but everybody seemed to believe

(01:49:11):
it at the time, and the consensus was that engagement
would moderate Beijing, reform its economy, and eventually soften its politics. Essentially,
democracy would come with economic freedom. It's a great theory,
and for a while it seemed like it could work.
Then let's fast forward to another December Anniversary, twenty three

(01:49:33):
years later. This is December eleventh, two thousand and one,
China officially joins the World Trade Organization. This is probably
the biggest hinge moment of modern globalization, and it's backed
by another wave of bipartisan optimism. Bill Clinton, who negotiated
the terms in his final year in office, had said
earlier about China joining the WTO. Quote. By joining the WTO,

(01:49:55):
China's agreed to play by the same global rules. This
is a win for America. George W. Bush, who inherited
the process, echoed the thought. He said, quote, A China
that plays by the rules is a China that contributes
to stability. So when you hear people talk about the uniparty,
it was on topics like this that there was kind

(01:50:16):
of a unified theory from the center left in the
center right on all things China. Even Al Gore made
the argument on the two thousand campaign trail. He said
trade with China encourages openess, transparency, and reform. Well, in retrospect,
what's striking isn't that Democrats and Republicans agreed on China
in two thousand and one. It's how completely they agreed.

(01:50:36):
There was really no there wasn't there was no debate
about this. This is were a lot of things Bush
and Gore agreed upon. Right, it was always the funniest election,
Like there was a reason I always thought that election
was essentially a tie because neither one of them made
the case for why the other was wrong, because they
kind of said, hey, I agree with him, so vote

(01:50:57):
for May anyway. There are still some politics over this.
The two thousand debate over Permanent Normal Trade Relations P
and TR was a pretty fierce domestic fight during the
Clinton years. A Flcio accused the administration of giving away
the future of American manufacturing. Pap Ucanan called the wto
vote the greatest surrender of American economic sovereignty in our history.

(01:51:18):
So again, it's almost like the Sanders wing and the
Trump wing. Right. Nancy Pelosi, she wasn't speaker at the
time she voted against China P and TR. Bertie Sanders
warned he was then just a house member, a socialist,
but a house member from Vermont. He said, corporate America
may profit, but American workers will suffer. He wasn't alone,

(01:51:38):
Dick Epart then the Congressional Democratic leader Jesse Jackson. Much
of the Democratic base did oppose it, so did a
chunk of the Republican populous wing, very much more of
the pap Buchanan crowd, But the corporate coalition was overwhelming
Silicon Valley, Wall Street, Big AG, big retail manufacturers were
looking for low cost labor. Everybody saw China as an

(01:51:58):
economic accelerate. And here's where hindsight is pretty clarifying. We
often talked about China Shock, the wave of job losses
that hit industrial communities into two thousands, But what we
don't talk about enough is how bipartisan this decision was
that allowed that shock to happen. It was left and right.
When China joined the WTO, the United States entered the

(01:52:18):
era of the China Price, the idea that everything steel, electronics, furniture, toys,
clothing would be cheaper if it came from China. Consumers
loved it, investors loved it, retailers loved it. But the
political bill that would come due about a decade later.
And this is where the two thousand election becomes such

(01:52:40):
an important pivot point. I think in this story because
it's the last time both presidential nominees fully embraced the
same form policy worldview. George W. Bush and al Gore.
They disagreed on taxes on the Social Security lock box.
That's the best Al Go or I can do in
a lock box. And they disagreed on a few other things,

(01:53:02):
but on China, they spoke with the same vocabulary. Bush
said during the campaign, the best way to encourage freedom
in China has to engaged China. Gore said, we benefit
when China follows global rules and trade. Both supported normalization,
both supported P and TR, both supported China and the
wto Now. Bush took a tougher rhetorical line on China,
called China quote a strategic competitor, not a strategic partner. Ah,

(01:53:25):
but that was tone now policy. Bush backed the same
trade approach that Clinton did, and Gore paid a political
price for embracing that consensus. Union leaders told them directly
China P and TR was the final betrayal of Clintonism.
Midwestern workers didn't hear rules based trade system. They simply
heard factory moving to Guangzhou. The irony is at the

(01:53:46):
political base that would later revolt against globalization. The Trump
burning populist alignment was warning about it in real time,
but in two thousand, neither movement was big enough in
either party to make either one of them. A little
bit of Nator talking about it as a third party candidate,
a little bit of Buchanan talking about it as a
third party candidate, but they got about one or two

(01:54:06):
percent total. So when China joined the WTO in December
twenty one, it wasn't a partisan victory. It was the
last gas, but the uniparty consensus unfeigned policy, the belief
that engaging China will liberalize China, not transform America. History,
of course, had other plans. So I this is the

(01:54:27):
point of our story where we ought to talk about
the thought experiment here, what if the United States had
blocked China's WTO and tree? Okay, Well, economists who studied
the counterfactor'll say two things. China still probably becomes a
manufacturing superpower, just more gradually and probably more dependent on
Europe and Japan. The United States still loses industrial jobs

(01:54:47):
because that trend began in the nineteen nineties, five years
before the WTO extension for China. So what probably changes
simply pace, not trajectory. I have twenty ten factory to
the world probably still exists. The political shockwaves in places
like Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania. Maybe they're softened a little, or

(01:55:08):
they're delayed, but they land, and maybe the populist backlash
arrives in say the midterms of twenty eighteen rather than
in twenty ten, or maybe the backlash happens anyway, because
globalization was going to be bigger than any single vote.
The point is is that it's probably not clear that

(01:55:30):
anything was going to stop the rise of China, which
is always the argument the realists make. So the question
was can we shape China? So here we are in
the present moment. I opened this podcast talking about the
National Security Strategy Memo that was just released by this administration.
And this is the first US government document that clearly

(01:55:55):
admits the fifty year bet on China didn't work out
as expected. Does not call for a new Cold War,
It does not frame China as an ideological enemy. It
does not talk about containing China or transforming China. Instead,
the through line of this Trump Security Strategy Memo is simple,
China's a permanent strategic rival. We are not trying to

(01:56:16):
hold China back anymore. We are going to try to
strengthen ourselves and compete with China. The seventy eight bet
was that opening China will shape China. The two thousand
and one bet was that integrating China will moderate China.
The twenty twenty five memo now basically says China is
now fully integrated, fully powerful, fully assertive, and the task

(01:56:38):
is now to compete with it, not to change it. Essentially,
we're surrendering. So you see these themes throughout the document itself.
Rebuilding the US industrial base, securing supply chains, investing in
American technology, the decoupling, if you will, stabilizing relations without illusions,
preparing for long term competition. It's not full disengagement. It

(01:56:59):
seems to be just simply acceptance, strategic acceptance. The United
States finally acknowledging the reality shaped by decisions made in
those two earlier decembers. Carter in nineteen seventy eight, which
of course was preceded by Nixon going to China right again,
a bipartisan move, and then China and the wto begun

(01:57:23):
by Clinton, executed and finished by Bush. So in seventy eight,
the US made a geopolitical bet that engaging China will
help win the Cold War and encourage reform in Beijing.
Arguably it might have done that right. We might have
helping separate China might have made Russia's the Soviets life

(01:57:44):
a little more challenging, so that we can't say That
bet didn't work, since we did win the Cold War
against the Soviets. But by two thousand and one, the
United States made an economic bet that integrating China into
the global trading system would expand global prosperity and lock
China in to a rules based world where they might

(01:58:06):
start to become small d democratic. Well, both bets did
reshape China, but boy did they reshape the United States.
They reshaped us economically, politically, and socially. And here we
are in December of twenty twenty five. The question now
is not how we are going to change China confront China.
It is simply, now, how do we compete with China?

(01:58:28):
So we helped create China, we helped bring upon this competitor,
and now we're surrendering and hoping we can just stay
competitive with the new manufacturing King of a Hill, China.
There's your time machine time capsule of the week. All right,

(01:59:00):
let me sneak at a few questions before I get
to college football. Ask Chuck all right, first question comes
from Shane H from Des Moines. I always says, hey, Chuck,
congrats and Miami making the CFP head to head should
always count. I'm curious about the Iowa Democrats hesitancy to
push for first in the Nation status again, give them
the state's accessibility and engaged voters. Wouldn't it make more

(01:59:21):
sense for both parties to go along, go all in
together rather than play it safe. Also, could you someday
explain how Obama's influence reshaped or damaged the DNC beyond
just backing Hillary. Shane H. Des moines, Iowa, Look, it is,
there is this. I don't have a good answer on why. Well,

(01:59:43):
I could tell you why the National Democrats don't want
to be in Iowa. Right. There's first of all, one
is they don't they believe the base of the party
is not there's no parts of the base of the
party in Iowa. You know, Well, that's a choice, right,
choose to believe that. But there is a sense that

(02:00:03):
Iowa doesn't look like what Democratic leaders think the Democratic
Party looks like. But I would argue that's been part
of the problem is that the Democrats have been looking
at organizing their party through the through the prism of
identity rather than the prism of ideology or policy or

(02:00:24):
frankly realism. Given you know, if I were looking at
the problem the Democratic Party as it's communicating with rural America.
I'd look around and say, what's the best way to
do that. When's the last time Democrats did well in
the industrial Midwest and the agriculture Midwest. Oh, when Iowa
was first in the nation and a guy named Barack

(02:00:44):
Obama who was from the Midwest. Mind you always thought
that people underestimated the fact that being from the Midwest
was such an asset to him. You know, it's not
lost on me that the coastal nominees have been have
been the losers right right Delaware on the Atlantic coast.
You know, he won, but then it couldn't survive. Kamala

(02:01:06):
Harris coastal, John Kerry coastal. Hillary Clinton identifying as a
New Yorker coastal she'd have been better off going to
Illinois to run for office in which is her original
home state. So I think the whole coastal elite issue,
I think is a real issue. You know, you look

(02:01:27):
at Bill Clinton deep south Arkansas. You look at Barack
Obama right in the middle of the country in the
Midwest in Illinois. Look at a Jimmy Carter deep South Georgia.
I don't think those things are accidents. You look at
a guy like Pete Bootage getting traction again a Midwesterner.
So I don't if you don't want to do Iowa

(02:01:52):
because you don't like the caucus process. And I do
think this is a tactical and mechanical critique, if you will,
Because to psychic in a row, the Iowa Democrats couldn't
tell us who won the Iowa caucuses. So I do
think that was a fair demerit. But just abandoning the
Midwest as first in the nation, I think it's been
a mistake. So if you're not going to do Iowa, fine,
do Nebraska, do Kansas, but pick a small rural state

(02:02:15):
in the Midwest. Just if you can't figure that out,
you're not going to be competitive long term for the presidency.
I don't think rural southern voters are the way in.
I think you begin in the rural Midwest. That's where
you're not going to fully get rejected. And ask for
your question about the DNC. They didn't prop up the

(02:02:38):
DNC at all when they first came in. This is yes,
you are referring to what I think the original sin
of Obama endorsing Hillary in twenty fifteen and twenty sixteen,
which was sort of not realizing that that isn't where
half the party wanted to go. But when it comes
to the DNC and the sort of party in general,
you know, they refuse to sort of build the DNC

(02:02:58):
at first. They sort of built an alternative to the
DNC called Organizing for America, and you know, and I
think it was unfortunately. I think he was surrounded by
advisors who were who weren't big fans of the DNC,
and the DNC in O eight was quietly helping Hillary right,
she was sort of more of the party stalwart. Obama

(02:03:19):
and his team were the outsiders. And I think the
and I think the belief and the brand of outsider
that team Obama wanted to keep even while they got
to the White House, seemed to convince them that they
ought to build their own national political organization. And they

(02:03:43):
basically what was ofa right, what was Obama for America
became Organizing for America and it was housed within the DNC.
But all of the resources, all of the efforts went
to that it didn't really work, It didn't become the
powerful political organization to help support his agenda, which is
what it was pitched as that this was going to
be the continuation of the Obama movement and these people

(02:04:05):
would get engaged when he was trying to, you know,
do big things past big pieces of legislation, whether it's healthcare,
whether it has to do the environment, etc. That didn't
really work out so well. And then by the time,
you know, the problem was the DNC is just a vehicle.
They kind of starved that vehicle, and of course starving

(02:04:26):
that vehicle meant very few resources to the states. Well
what happened by twenty ten? They get wiped out of
the state legislatures by twenty What does that mean? Republicans
basically control redistricting for a decade and a half. Only
recently have Democrats started to make up ground back in
these state legislatures. So I do think that the Obama

(02:04:48):
folks that came into the first term of that Obama
White House were determined to build their own political structure,
their own organization sort of push aside the DNC, and
it just turned out to be a logistic mistake. Look,
the DNC, you make it whatever you are. But this
idea they thought they were going to be elected president
and be an outsider in the Democratic Party. Once you've
become president, you've become leader of the party. You need

(02:05:13):
to accept that role. And I would argue for a
couple of years they didn't accept that role. They accept
that they were leader of the free world. They accept
that they were president of the United States, and they
accepted that they were the biggest brand inside the Democratic coalition.
But there were a lot of people whispering in Obama's
ear that, hey, your brand and coalition's bigger than one party,
So don't get too caught up in the DNC politics.

(02:05:36):
And there's certainly some bureaucracy that comes with that, But
that's what I mean when I you know, and sort
of that attitude just sort of gutted the sort of
infrastructure of the Democratic Party, both on the state level
and on the national level, and it allowed it to
atrophy for a good cycle or two. And it really
you know, Hillary Clinton threw more money at it in sixteen,

(02:05:58):
Joe Biden tried to throw more money at it in twenty.
But I would argue that the reason it feels like
a weak link even today goes back to that initial
decision in twenty oh nine, when the team Obama came
in on this big frankly now looks like a landslide
compared to presidential elections. The couple we had before and
quite a few that we've had after, and they didn't

(02:06:21):
They didn't decide to build rebuild the Democratic Party in
their image. They instead wanted to build their own sort
of alternative independent committee in their own image. But by
doing that they starved the party itself of resources. All right,
let me sneak in. I give you it was not

(02:06:42):
a long question, but I gave you a couple of
long answers there. Next question comes from Patrick from the
Hague by way of Hertford, Connecticut. He says, and he says, Chuck,
really appreciate the clarity and sharp analysis you bring to
every episode. It's become my go to listen. Excellent. Hopefully
I've got you worried about college football, not too. I've
heard people say that Kamala Harris might actually make a
stronger Supreme Court justice than President. I've been one of

(02:07:03):
those people, and it got me thinking if one branch
of government could draft a member from another, who would
be the best fit, Which current justice would make a
great member of Congress and while plenty of members of
Congress move into the executive branch, what about the reverse
one are Elizabeth Warren's path to elected office? Curious to
hear your thoughts. I think that's a fun exercise of

(02:07:23):
who would be a good you know. I think John
Roberts might be a pretty good Senate leader. He seems
to be pretty good at sort of dealing with you know,
probably a Senate Republican leader, pretty good at dealing with
the ideological diversity of the rights, tries to create a consensus, right,

(02:07:44):
if you know. I think I think in some ways
he might be better as Senate Republican leader than he
is as Chief Justice on that front, but I think
he's definitely got a little bit of that skill set.
I think Sonya Sotomayor would be a pretty good party leader.
I don't know if she would be a good legislative leader.
I think there's a difference, right, but I think she

(02:08:06):
speaks with a lot of clarity, she speaks with a
lot of passion, So I think sort of almost as
a in that sense, I think you would see that
the reason I'll tell you my theory of why I've
always thought Kamala Harris won't. Frankly, probably, I think the
first dream job. You know, if you talk about you

(02:08:27):
get into politics, what are your dream jobs. I'm convinced
her first dream job was not president, that it was
either attorney general or Supreme Court. Why do I say
that because the first office she chose to run for
was prosecutor. You know, usually our want to be presidents.
They're running, they're trying to fast track their way to Congress.
Running for DA in San Francisco is not a fast

(02:08:48):
track to Congress. That wasn't somebody that was her where
whose first goal was to get to Washington. Usually my
presidential wanta be is their first goal is to kit
to Washington. However, long at Dates right, and that wasn't
her first goal, even as she went to school here
in DC at Howard Right. So I've always looked at
that and wondered, huh, I think and I buy it.

(02:09:10):
I mean, I don't think it's it's BS. I do
think she's animated by the law. I think she's animated
by these things. And I think somebody whispered in her
ear sometime, you know, when she got talked into it,
because look at the next office she runs for. It
from DA. She runs for attorney General, right, she doesn't
immediately go to US Senate or something like that, and
then she gets you know, she runs for the Senate

(02:09:31):
seat when it opens up, and somebody whispers in her ear,
you know, you could be the first woman president. And
I don't think, look, anybody, any human being, we all
have a little bit of ego. Somebody whispers that in
your ear, and it's plausible. Maybe you don't stop hearing it. Right,
So that's where I've always come down on that. But look,

(02:09:53):
I think I think James Langford would make a really
good you know, if you're looking at like and I'll
be honest, I think we need an a life that
somebody who's run for office before ought to be in
the Supreme Court, I think it's terrible that we haven't
had anybody. I think you need that diversity of understanding
that your rulings are going to play in the campaign trail.
Sandrade O'Connor, I believe the last Supreme Court justice that

(02:10:16):
ever ran that ever ran for office for anything, she
ran for a state Senate seat in Arizona. I think
that you know, what used to be fairly common for
elected officials to get appointed to the Supreme Court, Bill Clinton,
I think with semi serious in putting Mario Cuomo in
the Supreme Court, I think I don't. I think in

(02:10:38):
my guess is Mario Cuomo wished to see had said yes,
considering he said no, ran for re election and loss,
but that would have been interesting. Bruce Babbitt was another
one that he wanted to put there. The point is
is that there's only so much you understand about how
illegal ruling impacts their everyday lives of Americans. I think
too many of these justices go from law school to

(02:11:02):
a corporate you know, maybe law firm, maybe a clerkship,
a judge's chambers, but they don't sort of interact with
people as much. And I think having somebody on that
court that has done that, I think would be I'd
like more than just one person. But we don't even

(02:11:22):
have one person on that and that's something that I
think is missing. But I look at some of these
elected officials, like I said, on the conservative side of
the O, I think James Langford would make a fascinating
Supreme Court. But I look for I'm looking for people
who are intellects with a little bit of personal humility.
So I want people like Jack Reid, Jim Langford, right,

(02:11:43):
people like that, not the loud mouse. If you will,
like you wouldn't, I don't think. I think Ted Cruz
intellectually would be interesting on the Supreme Court, but I
think he would feel I think he would hate the
job because of his inability to speak out right. I
think that used to bother Skille a little bit. I
think to speak out more, I think it bothers so
to my or, she strikes me as somebody that would

(02:12:04):
love to be speaking out more, but feels that the
pageantry of the office itself doesn't call for I'd love
to do a little bit more on your question down
the road. Maybe you can come back with me with
a few more of the fantasy sort of fantasy football
politics questions like that. All right, one last question and
then we'll get to my college football round up. Long

(02:12:25):
time listener here in your podcast always reminds me of
how much I enjoyed political science classes. Well great In
New Jersey, the party controlled county line was eliminated in
twenty twenty four after a lawsuit by now Senator Andy Kim,
aiming to reduce the influence of party bosses. Given the
lack of an open Democratic primary in twenty twenty four,
do you think this could mark the beginning of a
broader shift towards fair, less party driven primary voting. Ghost
Scarlett Knights, John Feldman, Well, John, I have a conversation

(02:12:50):
coming up here with the a gentleman named Nick Troyano.
It's not this Episode's coming up in the next couple
of episodes, and he's working on essentially get he believes.
He wrote a book called The Primary Problem, and he
believes that partisan primaries are at the root or the
root cause of our polarization. They're the root cause of
our inability for Congress to get anything done, and that

(02:13:11):
if we can eliminate the partisan primary in general, forget
this counting line business and all this stuff, we would
be in better shape. I can. I am very empathetic
to this. I would love to get rid of partisan primaries.
I would like all party primaries. I'd like to see
that now I want to see I think parties should
still identify themselves. But I think it's weird that the

(02:13:33):
taxpayers pay for an election that the only way I
can participate in that election in a certain in some
states is to join some private organization that to me
strikes me as a poll tax and a violation of
equal protection. I'd like to see some better lawyering, if
you will, on some of these issues when it comes
to ballot access and these partisan primaries. But you know, given,

(02:13:57):
I do think we're headed in that direction, and I
think part of it is because millennials and gen z
do not like these old institutions that are called the
Republican Party and the Democratic Party. And so the more
those two sort of carcasses, if you will, semi dead
carcasses on the side of the road, the donkey and
the elephant there, the more they fight these changes to

(02:14:20):
the process, I think, the more you'll see growing support
to sort of blow up the party, the power of
the political parties wherever, wherever it still exists, like Alah,
New Jersey. All right, So with that's let's talk some

(02:14:44):
college football. Look, Minami got it. I think Miami deserved
to be it. But this entire process was a mess.
There's no doubt that there is there is it is
not clear what this This whole committee is so subjective.

(02:15:05):
The ridiculous TV show they put on every week, which
is which creates content.

Speaker 3 (02:15:10):
I know.

Speaker 1 (02:15:10):
I'm in the content creation business myself. It's created plenty
of content for me to be and moan about, right,
But it misled a lot of schools, That misled a
lot of coaches, and there's some anger there. I saw
that the athletic director of Notre Dame is really angry.
They've decided not to be in a bowl game over this.
I wonder if cooler heads will prevail after they get

(02:15:31):
a night's sleep. But we'll see. I'm tapping on Sunday evening,
so that's why I say a night's sleep. If you
tell me Notre Dame changes, it's mine in the next
twenty four hours. It wouldn't surprise me because remember, Notre
Dame gets to keep all that bowl money themselves. Are
they really going to leave a couple million dollars on
the table, even though you know a couple million pop tarts,
right is what they'd be leaving on the table, because
I guess it would have been Notre Dame in BYU

(02:15:52):
and the pop Tarts Bowl. So I'll be you know,
every dollar counts, right, every dollar matters. I know that's
a wealthy school, but in the days of nil everybody's
cash poor these days, so cooler heads could prevail there.
But I understand their frustration. They were led to believe
that that their metrics, you know, they were going to
be kept ahead of Miami. But this consistently. The real

(02:16:16):
outrage is how it's the bias that ESPN and this
committee has with the SEC. Now, my brother in law,
who's a big SEC fan, will say, it's not a bias.
The SEC is the best. They should have an advantage,
they should be able to call the shots. I have
no doubt that the SEC is going to have more

(02:16:36):
teams in the College Football Playoff this year than the
Big Ten or the a SEC of the Big twelve.
The problem is sort of this idea that a conference
game in the SEC is hard, but a conference game
anywhere else isn't. It's the sort of those lines of
arrogance that trigger me on this conversation. Right, Oh my god,
Alabama toughening it out in the Iron Bowl to a

(02:16:57):
five and seven Auburn team. Well, Miami had to go
to a thirty five year old, thirty five thirty five
degree weather in Pittsburgh, something that's always very difficult for Miami.
They go up there and open the can of you
know what on the pitt Panthers. The point is, and
wherever Miami goes on the road in the ACC, when
they beat Miami, they storm the field. The point being

(02:17:20):
is every conference road game for a big brand is difficult. Right.
It was difficult when Notre Dame went to Louisville and
Louisville beats them, and they storm the field for that, Right,
that same thing happens to Alabama, right when they lose
to one of their you know, to a Missouri or
anybody other than really Georgia or LSU, there's a storming
of the field, right. You know, you're to me, there's

(02:17:43):
too much storming of the field. You know, you should
preserve storming of the field for two things, winning a
title and knocking off number one. Period, Like we should
have a rule we will not find you if you
storm the court or the field when you knock off
number one in your home. Other than that, there's no
more storming of the courts. I mean, I've seen, you know,

(02:18:04):
when Miami was in its low period in the ACC,
there would still be these like storming of the fields,
and like you know Raleigh or Blacksburg or you know,
like oh, we beat Miami. It's like, come on, we
were down at the time. It's notable that every single

(02:18:25):
team that lost a conference championship game dropped in the
rankings except one, Alabama. What I don't get is Alabama
played eight quarters of football against Georgia. They played well
for the first quarter and a half of the first game,
and then they survived that game and were able to
eke out a win, and then they got pummeled and

(02:18:47):
the next time they played them. To me, you got
to look at all eight quarters. There was a pattern there, right.
They figured it out, you know, they as soon as
they figured out Alabama's game plan, they shut them down.
And how did Alibabama pivot the next time they played Georgia?
They didn't, and they and and then they lose two
of their last four. They accumulated a third loss. And

(02:19:10):
I'm sorry, I don't see it as punishment that getting
into the conference championship game and then losing. First of all,
Alabama had one had an easy way to get into
the playoff winning get in. That was not an option
for Notre Dame, that was not an option for Miami.
We can talk to the ACC and their ridiculous tiebreaker situations. Now,
as for Notre Dame, I see that there's some reporting

(02:19:31):
that indicates that that Notre Dame partisans think that this
was the Committee sending a message to Notre Dame that hey,
you're not a member of a conference, and look, uh,
I don't think Notre dames wins over Navy and Pitt
should should count as much as Miami's went over Pitt,
simply because Pitt said it wasn't taking that game as

(02:19:52):
seriously against Notre Dame because it didn't count. Navy said
the same thing, because it didn't count. They were fighting
for a potential spot in the in the AAC Conference
Championship Game, or don't call me the AAC, the American
Conference Championship Game. So I do think the resentment of
them not being a conference, them not having a face
a very tough schedule, was part of this, and at

(02:20:13):
some point they were going to send a message. As
much as I think that committee hates the ACC, I
think they hate Notre Dame in the special treatment that
they get more and in fact we end up discovering
Notre Dames. Now we've got to guarantee going forward if
they are in the top twelve no matter what number
they are. But if they're ranked in the top twelve
in a twelve team playoff, they get into the playoff

(02:20:34):
no matter what. They have to automatically get in. Apparently
they signed some memo understanding with the CFP. Are you
fing kidding me? They have their own legal side deal
to guarantee participation in the College Football Playoff in a
way that no other conference has. Come On, Notre Dame,
come join a conference, Come join the ACC. You'll still dominate,

(02:20:57):
and you literally will get into the College Football Playoff
every year. The extra gab will help you. You still
get to play Stanford every year. It's a conference game. Okay, Yes,
you're gonna be stuck playing Miami once in a while.
That's good, not bad for both schools. The fact of
the matter is the last time Notre Dame was truly
a power was when Miami was truly a power. Mimi,

(02:21:19):
Notre Dame are good for each other, and they ought to.
If I were Notre Dame, I'd embrace that. Come on in. Look,
I don't love the AEC myself. I think that the
leadership here they dodged a bullet. Do I think I
know that the the chair of this committee, the temporary
chair of this committee, the Arkansas d said that the

(02:21:41):
fact that the AEC could have been shut out was
not a factor in putting Miami over Notre Dame. I
think it was an intangible I'm not going to be
that naive I think they I think if I were
the CFP, i'd be worried about lawsuits. And if you're
wondering why the group of five gets this slot and
why they've worded it the way they did, why it's
top five conference champions that they don't specify which conferences

(02:22:04):
because they don't want an anti trust lawsuit. They don't
want a lawsuit coming from the non Power four conferences,
and so that's called lawsuit prevention. They're like, no, no, no, no,
We'll provide you a path to the playoff, and this
is the path that they created. Is there a better
way to do this? My god, there's probably seventy five
thousand better ways to do this. I could. You know.

(02:22:27):
There's a part of me that says, go to an
eighteen playoff, but let the power Let the Power four
conferences run their own four team tournaments. Have the group
of five have their own the top four champions play
and you know you get one representative there, but it's
kind of you play your way in, and you know
the Power four conferences, you play your way in, and

(02:22:49):
you just do this as playing your way in. You've
got to take the human beings out of this. You've
got to take ESPN executives out of this. You've got
to take athletic directors out of this. You've got to
take conference folks out of this. Is it is fraud.
There's too much money at stake and lawsuits glory coming,
and you know it'll come congressional. You're gonna have federal intervention,

(02:23:13):
and maybe there should be. But this is this committee
as it's structured. Now, you've got to get the human
element out of this. There is no committee to decide
who makes the NFL playoffs. There's no committee who decides
who makes the MLB playoffs. There's no committee who decides
who makes the NBA playoffs. There's no Yes, there's a

(02:23:33):
committee who decides the seating and the last sort of
couple of teams in a sixty eight soon to be
seventy six team thing. If you want to, you know,
I'm fine for a committee to decide seating. But I'm
not fine for a committee to decide who gets in
and who gets out. I will I have plenty of

(02:23:55):
complaints about how ESPN is a terrible business partner for
the ACC. I still think all of the issues at
the ACC. They dodged a bullet here. This would have
cost millions of dollars for everybody across the board without
getting any piece of the CFP PI. The leadership of
the ACEC still needs to be held account and university
presence in the ACC. Those that are serious about spending

(02:24:18):
all this money in football need to have a come
to you know what meeting about the leadership of the ACEC.
Because this was a debacle. They dodged a catastrophe, okay,
thanks to their own the other politics that sort of
were all over the map with this committee, but was
There's so many there's like seventeen thousand other ways to

(02:24:41):
do this, and yet they chose this way to do this, right,
I'd like to see Notre dame men. I honestly, I
think it's Oklahoma that doesn't belong if you were to
ask me which one of these teams doesn't belong Oklahoma.
But this is because of the stupid weekly rate rankings
show they came out and after Oklahoma beat Alabama, they

(02:25:02):
did this, But if you looked at Oklahoma's body of work,
I don't think you'd have Oklahoma in this in this
I think they'd have been left out certainly, would you know, Yes,
they've got the Alabama win. But that Alabama win is
I think way overvalued. And if you look at Alabama's
body of work, it's not the most impressive team. And

(02:25:23):
then what do they do for Alabama? They hand them
the rematch with Oklahoma and Norman. I'm sorry, what a
ridiculous gift. Now, let's quickly talk about the bracket. I'm
gonna be parochial here and talk about Miami's path. Uh,
it's let's just say Miami's got the Miami. This is

(02:25:44):
the way, you know, you talk to old school Miami
football players. I'm friends with a few of them, or
you know, sort of acquaintances with a few of them.
Let me let me not oversell it. And they would say, hey,
if you're gonna you know, be tested, be tested all
the way, tested by the best. Right, So they started
Texas A and M and if they win that, they

(02:26:05):
get to play Ohio State and the Cotton Bowl, and
if they win that, they likely play the winner of
Georgia and Ole Miss, with the assumption being that Old
Miss is going to play too Lane. So in theory,
Miami's path to a national championship game, which is would
be in their home stadium by the way, it's at
hard Rock, would be in their home stadium. It would

(02:26:27):
begin in College Station with Texas A and M. Then
it's Ohio State on December thirty first, then it would
be Georgia in the Fiesta Bowl. Miami is oh for
the State of Arizona. So once we get there, I'm
going to be really skeptical of our chances just because
for whatever reason, we're OH. Like I said, we're O
for the State of Arizona. But the reward if we

(02:26:50):
survive that would be a national title game against either
Indian or a Texas Tech. I would say this, man,
you look at the various paths. I think both Ohio
State and Georgia are jealous of Indiana and Texas Tech.
I think I think Texas Tech. Boy, did they get
a break? I'm not. I don't get a look. Oregon's

(02:27:12):
got a good record and they're in a good conference.
I don't buy it, and then they get the easy
game against James Madison. I think this is one it'll
be interesting if But I love Texas Tech. Here I
may or may not have taken a future in Texas Tech.
I think they are totally undervalued going through this. But

(02:27:34):
you gotta love the Texas Tech path for as tough
as the path is for Georgia and Ohio State, I think,
I mean, even Indiana didn't get the greatest path they
have to. They're going to get Alabama. Although if I'm
right about Alabama, then maybe Indiana's getting a catching a break.
But it is a the path for Georgia, Ohio State, yes,

(02:27:59):
Miami me in Texas, A and m that feels like
the brutal side of this bracket. Indiana, Texas Tech a
little a little less where you get sort of a
one dimensional Oklahoma team if you end up having to
play them, an Alabama team that just doesn't strike any
fear into anybody, and an Oregon team that does seems

(02:28:22):
a little bit softer. It just doesn't. I can't put
my finger on it, but there's doesn't quite Maybe I'm wrong.
Never mind, And by the way, one of the stats
that blew me away. It's apparently half of the college
football playoff teams have some have a coach either leaving,
either a head coach leaving or a coordinator leaving. That's astonishing.

(02:28:43):
That's going to have an impact. So hopefully that's another
thing that needs to happen here. Do they need to
fix this calendar if you will, sort of do what
the NFL does, try to not allow coaching change, you know,
try to create some gap between the playoff and coaching changes,
because this is uh, this, this part of it is

(02:29:03):
also kind of messy as well, and that's why you
gotta look. I think Miami's not gonna Miami has very
few changes in their coaching staff, so I feel pretty
good about that. I think Texas A and M has
very few changes. Did it with Georgia. But Ohio State,
I think they're losing an offensive coordinator to USF ole Miss,
you know, the ole Miss situation. So it's going to

(02:29:24):
be after all this drama. I'm excited that that Miami
if they if they whatever, however far they go, they'll
have had to earn it. Right. They do not have
a soft path to the national title game, but hey,
just four more games, guys, four more games. Look, I

(02:29:46):
think Miami will be competitive in every game they're in.
They will have a chance in the fourth quarter will
win the game. The real question is what kind of
fourth quarter decision making is going to be made by
the offensive coordinator Shannon Dawson, by the head coach Rio
Crystal Paul, and by the quarterback Carson Beck. If there
is a question mark about Miami, it is going to

(02:30:06):
be their decision making when a game is on the line,
all three of those gentlemen. So that they Miami goes
as far as their ability to make key decisions, timely
decisions in the fourth quarter. I'm looking forward to my
first trip to College Station. Yes, I'm figuring this out.

(02:30:30):
I'm looking forward to it. I've been wanting an excuse
to get the Bush forty ones library as well. So
it's a two for a political and sports junkie, right,
I get to go see the field that hosts the
so called twelfth Man. Sorry, Seattle, I think Texas, A
and M did it first. The Bush forty one library
down there is a nice little consolation prize too with

(02:30:53):
our visit. All right, with that, I will continue my
little sports updates. I promise you we got more college
for that'll be fun. I'll start to turn my focus
to my packers. That could start a knowing some of you,
especially if you're Bears fans or Cowboys fans. But we'll see.

(02:31:13):
And I'm weirdly really happy about a tiny little trade
that the Nats did for a prospect catcher who I
think is a really good prospect, a guy named Harry Ford.
So I might even sneak a little bit of a
hot stovely into some of these sports updates. So with that,
I'll see it forty eight hours. Thanks for listening, and

(02:31:35):
until I upload again

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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 U.S. Retreats From Being The Leader Of The Free World + Why The Biden Economy Felt Bad & Why Trump’s Is Even WORSE