Full Episode - Trump Suffers From “Obama Derangement Syndrome” + Voting On Your Phone Could Be The Future Of Democracy - The Chuck ToddCast

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
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(01:53):
episode of The Chuck Podcast. My apologies. The Chuck Podcast
headquarters had a traveled day that they had to deal with,
so that's why we are coming to you a day late.
My apologies for that but it's actually a good time
to remind you that, hey, guess what. Thanks to the
holidays and various issues, including the college football playoff, my

(02:14):
publishing schedule is going to be at tad shorter next week.
I am not going to drop a new episode on
Christmas Day, which would normally be the schedule we will have.
We will have two down two downloads next week, one
on Monday and one on Wednesday. Then we'll do the
super long weekend and go from there. But you will

(02:35):
have two new feeds for me next week, not just
It's not going to just be holiday reruns or anything
like that. But yes, I am here a day late,
so my apologies for that. But again, like I said,
the production headquarters of the Check podcast had to relocate
in preparation for the holidays, and it involved some road tripping,

(03:02):
and we'll just leave it at that. I also want
to promote what I have today. My interview is with
a gentleman by the name of Bradley Tusk. He is
a democratic, sort of a democratic operative of sorts. He
was a campaign manager for Michael Bloomberg's successful third term
run for New York City mayor back in two thousand

(03:23):
and nine, But he's really more in the investor space,
and he's actually focused when it comes to small d
democratic reforms on an effort to make mobile voting mainstream.
And in fact, the first experiment is going to take
place in Anchorage, Alaska, Alaska, considering how many people live

(03:45):
in very remote areas not the easiest to either vote
by mail, vote early, and so Bradley Tusk will make
the case that this is safe. If it's safe enough
for you to do transactions for the Internet, when it
comes to your bank accounts, buying and selling stock and
bitcoin and all that business, why shouldn't we have a

(04:09):
mobile voting Estonia actually is the one country in the world,
but it's been doing this the longest. Let's be realistic,
in thirty years this is going to be mainstream. The
question is how many generations is it going to take
for us to have to die off before there is

(04:29):
trust in this. I think we are in this current
moment very distrustful of each other, distrustful of big tech.
So it's hard to imagine mobile voting going mainstream in
the next two to five years. But considering everything you know,
how about you know, when's the last time you wrote
a check, a physical check these days. Right, I'm not

(04:52):
saying some of you don't do it.

Speaker 2 (04:53):
I do it.

Speaker 1 (04:54):
I at least write one check a month. So I'm
somebody who's still writing the occasional actctual paper check. But
I know I'm in the minority, and so we're going
to get there. The question is how long will adoption
take anyway we go through this and some other The
other interesting aspect by my conversation with Bradley Tusk is

(05:16):
I sort of challenge him to say, you know, give
advice to the Democrats. How can they be more friendly
towards business without sort of giving away the store if
you will? Right like, right now, you have a Trump
Republican party that is not interested in doing any regulating
with business. Basically, you know, it's regulate, it's regulation or

(05:37):
no regulation depending on what you want and how big
of a check you write. Very transactional. I think it's
easy to classify it as as as borderline corrupt. Some
of you may say, why did you use the why
did you use borderline? But it certainly is the process
itself these days when it comes to big business and

(05:59):
the Trumpet min isration, it's a corrupt bargain. Uh, and
it is you know, we're you know, capitalism itself needs
good regulation, We need some good guard rails. But the
Democratic Party is in a real trap on this because
if you if, if you're in a if you're trying
to woo a constituency and the person and the entity

(06:21):
you're running against says, hey, you know, go ahead, you know,
no rules, we don't want any Yeah, no, no, you don't
want ai regulation in the States, Sure we'll sign a moratorium,
you know, No matter how how much that maybe individually
some of these business groups may think, yeah, we there
probably ought to be some structured regulation. And you know what,

(06:44):
what the Democrats are asking for doesn't seem to be
totally unreasonable. How do you go to your shareholders if
you can get if you can actually have no guardrails
on your business, or you can have minimal guardrails on
your business. And one party is saying that. Now again,
I think at some point this is going to implode
on them, you know, the lack of regulation on social media.

(07:07):
Look what we have today, right, we destroyed the information ecosystem.
So but it's an interesting challenge they have, and it's
not easy. And obviously the party itself is not united
on this either. And I think it's fair to say
that mister Tuskett, I don't think he's you know, if
he if he if he qualifies as a Democrat. He's
very much in that center left portion of the Democratic Party.

(07:31):
And of course they're in in some ways in a
huge debate with the more progressive wing of the party
about the direction of when it comes to how accommodating
are you to business and how and how unaccommodating should
things be? So it is uh, I do think the
conversation is more than just about mobile voting. I want
to alert you to that, and I think it'll be

(07:53):
I think it'll be a worthy conversation for those of
you that are wondering where's the Democratic Party going and
what can the Can there be a constructive political relationship
with the business community in a way that doesn't essentially
turned business away from one party? Again, it's just not good.
It's never good if one party becomes a party of

(08:14):
one thing. And you know, it's like, you know, take
the issue of Israel. You know the damage that Benjamin
meant now, who has done to the pro Israel movement
in this country, is just incalculable. But he made it
a partisan issue. And the minute you take an issue
and turn it into a partisan issue, and you lose
all your allies on one side of the aisle because

(08:35):
you think, well, I've got more allies on this side
of the aisle, so I'm going to punish that party.
But over time, not having bipartisan supporters will bite you.
And then you know what, at some point, and Israel's
cause is being hurt because of what Yahu, how much
he's politicized. You know, he got involved in America's politics
as leader back during the Obama era, and that really

(08:56):
is now doing extraordinary damage to the relationship between the
West in general and Israel. So it's it's you know,
that's if you're ever wondering what's that's the downside, asked,
Look ask the gun rights movement. Right when the NRA
cared about being bipartisan, they had a lot more traction,

(09:20):
if you will, then when they gave up their decision
to be bipartisans. So it is it's all about how
devoted are you to your cause? Right, if you really
care about your cause, you should fear ever allowing yourself
to become to become sort of to side with just

(09:43):
one party, it'll eventually actually hurt the cause that you
care about. Israel to me is as good of example
as any of the point I'm trying to make there.
But before we get to my interview with Bradley Tuske,
look where I haven't talked, do you sits? The President
addressed the nation, and you know, look the way I

(10:08):
looked at this address was through the prism. You know,
I always look at these things. What are you trying
to accomplish? When you ask for time? When you want
to address the nation in primetime, presidents are usually doing
a couple of things. One Sometimes they're explaining a controversial decision.
I remember George W. Bush addressing the nation on his

(10:28):
decision about whether the government would fund stem cell research,
particularly embryonic stem cell research. Sometimes you're announcing a war,
you know, whether it's Iraq. I think some people, thanks
to Tucker Carlson rumor MANGERI thought that maybe he was
going to address the nation about what his plans were

(10:51):
for Venezuela. He did nothing about Venezuela. In fact, I'm
not saying I want a primetime address on that, but
he is ever made the case for what he's doing,
why he's doing it, what the point is all of
You know, it has been left to the rest of
us to sort of figure out what the agenda is
here with Venezuela. And sometimes you're trying to make a

(11:14):
case for a political argument. It's rare that the networks
will give you that. But the networks will be accommodating
if you haven't abused the privilege. And in this case,
in fairness to Donald Trump, he hadn't asked for prime
time from the networks. I don't think he had asked
for it yet, and if he did and was rejected,
it hadn't been reported upon. So and you know, I

(11:35):
think that he was going to be given some leeway.
So it was clear he was trying to fix his
politics a little bit, trying to address his bad poll writings,
particularly on the economy and in theory. I'm guessing the
whole plan about this and Donald Trump sort of as usual.
It's weird. He bullshits all the time, but he will

(11:58):
tell you the truth when it comes to like optic things.

Speaker 2 (12:01):
Right.

Speaker 1 (12:01):
So, after the speech is over, there were people in
the room that heard him. Wow, this was a SUSI idea,
you know, sort of he sort of admitted that this
wasn't his idea. Eighteen minutes is never his idea. You know,
it takes him an hour to clear his throat, right,
And that's why this speech was I've seen some people
describe it as taking a two hour Trump rally speech
and trying to turn it into eighteen minutes.

Speaker 2 (12:23):
It was that.

Speaker 1 (12:23):
That's not a bad description of what it was, because
in some ways it was just you know, it was
just it was Trump on speed, right, and it was
just rattat tat. Nothing was unfamiliar. If you've ever watched
a Trump rally speech or any sort of lengthy period
about Trump remarks, he has the crazy straw man arguments.

(12:46):
You know, it was the worst inflation in the history
of mankind. It was the best this, and it's the
best that, and so the worst that, all of which
are provably, you know, they're just it makes fact checking him, actually,
I think, and possible task, because yes, he does. You know,
he doesn't usually say anything that's factually true, but he

(13:08):
sometimes says things that are directionally accurate ish, you know,
like take gas prices, Yeah they're down, They're not down.
The way he said, they were down, but they're down
a little bit, okay, And certainly he was helped by
the news that the inflation numbers were a little cooler
than what was expected. By the way, still over two percent, right,

(13:31):
still above the line that the Federal Reserve says is good.
We're still sitting And by the way, you know, this
was a trap that the Biden administration found themselves in.
They say, hey, inflation is lowering. Yeah, but it's not
like prices are going down. Prices are still increasing. They're
just slowing in the rate of increase. And that's what's happening.

(13:54):
Now everything keeps going up. Okay, it's not going up
at three percent, but still I'm not only going up
two percent. It's now going up closer to three than
closer to two. But at least it's under three percent.
That is certainly progressed. It also could simply be statistical
noise because we had a government shutdown, we had some month,
you know, so really, let's let's let's see what the
numbers are in two months. That will tell you whether

(14:17):
this was a blip or whether this is the beginning
of a trend. And somehow the numbers might continue to
go down. So I'm going to judge this speech through
the prism of what I think what is clear that
they were trying to accomplish, which was he was trying
to essentially tell voters to give them more time. Hey,

(14:38):
things aren't you know, we know you're not happy. But
here's what I've done, and here's the progress we expect. Now,
he didn't give it to you in that way. Right,
he can't admit that things aren't working yet. He has
to say they're lying to you or things are so
bad it took us forever to turn around. And you

(15:00):
know so, I think if the goal was to reassure
the public that isn't a part of his political base
that things are going to be okay, I think he
did a terrible job at that. He instead used the
language of his right wing base. Right, it is, it is.
If you're addressing the nation, you're you're you're trying to
talk to voters you don't normally get to talk to. Right,

(15:23):
here's already talking to MAGA plenty. And he may have
some issues within his MAGA base that he's got to
deal with. There are better ways to deal with that
than doing an address to the nation. He'd be better
off going on Joe Rogan, he'd be better off talking,
you know, directly, you know, doing a sit down with
Sean Hannity, or doing a sit down with lor Ingram,

(15:44):
which which he's likely My guess is he probably gets
one of those in at the beginning of next year
in some form or another. But if you're going to
address the nation, then you actually need to speak to
the voters that are that are not totally tuning you out,
but they're never they're not huge fans of yours either,

(16:06):
And that's the part where there was just simply no
self awareness, and his lack of self awareness I think
is sort of ultimately his achilles heel. So he comes
comes across bloviating. He's bssing his way through crazy statistics.
He's saying things that aren't true easily prove that they
aren't true. But in some ways that's not the point.

(16:28):
You know, he's trying to make his weak case on
the economy look better in comparison, and that's truly the
problem he has. To me, he's got two giant issues
that are going to haunt Republicans in twenty twenty six.
One is healthcare, and you know, this was an opportunity
to deal with it, and he didn't do a good

(16:49):
job dealing with it. And the second is rising electric
bills that actually he made an attempt to deal with
better than he did on healthcare. So let me unpack
both of those. On healthcare, he you know, he's so
fixated on it being a Barack Obama situation. You know

(17:09):
that this is Barack Obama's legacy, and so in his head,
making that work is somehow him supporting Barack Obama. And
he doesn't want to get caught supporting Barack Obama. You know,
for a man who's assumes that everybody who doesn't like
him has Trump derangement syndrome, he clearly has Obama derangement syndrome.
And he has had Obama derangement syndrome. I can tell

(17:32):
you the specific moment that he got it. He got
it when the Obama White House didn't return his calls
on allowing him to take over the state dinner process.
This goes back to two thousand and nine. I've discussed
this those of you that are longtime listeners of mine,
I've discussed this before. It was actually in my Obama

(17:54):
book called the Stranger where my favorite chapter is the
cha do I write about sort of that that entire
sort of Trump burtherism, Bin laden right, that entire White
House correspondence weekend, which was the humiliation of Donald Trump
by Barack Obama combined with the capture in Killo of

(18:14):
Osama Bin laden right, It was just sort of an
extraordinary personal moment in some ways political triumph for Barack Obama.
But you know, all Trump viewed it as was a
personal humiliation, and so in his head, if he makes
a government entity work better, but that entity was created
by Barack Obama, then then he doesn't want to do it.

(18:39):
You know, this is to me one of the worst
viruses that's running through our politics right now, but particularly
on the Republican side of the aisle, which is they
only want to govern for those who support them. When
you get elected President of the United States, governor of
a state, a congressional representative, you've been asked to represent
the entire population. What's in the entire population's best interests

(19:02):
you obviously, you know, the good politicians figure out what's
in their constituent's best interest and what's politically helpful to them.
But he doesn't you know, this is a guy who
doesn't want to make government work well for those that
he thinks don't support him, so he views it this way.

(19:24):
They've had fifth, we're up to now sixteen years to
come up with an alternative to the Affordable Care Act.
And do recall that it was the Heritage Foundation that
provided the framework for the Affordable Care Act. Yes, the
same Heritage Foundation that has been turned into this empty
vessel of a think tank that is just blindly supporting

(19:47):
whatever Donald Trump asked them to support. But there was
a time that the Heritage Foundation employed public intellectuals, academics
that actually did real research. They had a conservative ideaology,
but it was it was out of the Heritage Foundation
who wanted to come up with an alternative to Bill
Clinton and Hillary Clinton's plans for health care. That essentially

(20:10):
created the mandate. The mandate that you know, if you
were going to try to at least level out the
cost of health insurance, you had to get more people
in the pool, including people who are healthier. If you're
going to cover those with pre existing conditions and not
gouge these people simply because of their genetics, because they
were born with something you had to get and you

(20:31):
want to and we're going to go with the insurance model, okay,
And this is the issue, right, we're going if you
want to get the insurance companies out of the equation,
then government has to guarantee healthcare. But I don't think
the Republican Party is ready to support Medicare for all. Ironically,
I think Donald Trump would support Medicare for all. But

(20:53):
I don't think even this magnified version of the Republican
Party is ready for Medicare for all. But I did
think they would be a little more creative in this
and perhaps do medicare adopt the buy into Medicare for
those fifty plus, which to me, is this simpler way
to do the quote public option. The people that are

(21:15):
most concerned and worried about the cost of health insurance
and access to health insurance are people in their middle
ages who are creeping closer to retirement but are nervous, right.
They're worried about getting laid off, They're worried about, you know,
losing their health insurance through that. So having that safety
net of Medicare or having that option to buy into
Medicare is pretty It's one of those that it's by

(21:37):
the way that that idea pulls super popular. You know,
could I I'd love to buy in a medica it is.
That's an eighty twenty issue when you set up the
idea and it is. You know, there are different ways
that I thought Trump was going to just essentially tweak something,
slap his name on it, kind of like what he's
doing with the Kennedy Center right, Slap his own name

(21:58):
on it and say, hey, look it's a brand new healthcare.
It's now Trump Care. I think there are Democrats that
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he seems to be stuck with a political grievance and
his inability to get out of his own way on grievances. Right,
we saw it. He humiliated the country with his behavior

(24:14):
with what he said about rob Ryan or first in
a tweet then doubling down on it. Just just horrendous, disgusting, sick,
you name it, all of those things, but it was
really just embarrassing, right, nobody. We wouldn't. I don't care
how pro Trump you are, you would not accept that
behavior from any family member. And I think that, And

(24:36):
it's pretty clear there are a lot of people that noticed.
There were no there's no normal people defending this. Okay,
there is not a single normal conservative defending Donald Trump
on this. But he's so consumed, right, this is the
part of the narcissism. This is the real question. Does
he have the you know, I don't know if he
ever had the temperament to be president, But now as
he's gotten older with less of a filter, is this

(24:59):
more of an acute problem? Right, and this you ask like,
how does this impact the day to day governing? Well,
he's so consumed with his hatred of Barack Obama that
he doesn't want to solve the health care problem. And
he's going to punish people that likely voted for him
in many places, which is the point Marjorie Taylor Green's
been making. He's going to punish some of his own

(25:20):
voters simply because he doesn't want to look like he's
helping the Affordable Care Act work better. How screwed up
is that?

Speaker 2 (25:28):
Thinking?

Speaker 1 (25:29):
How have we gotten so far off? You know, we
have lost the plot on what representative democracy is supposed
to be. Right, the inability to accept the premise that
there are some things that have been created in government
that were the idea of the other party. I know,

(25:49):
I'm shocked, shocked that this happens. And the idea that
you're going to punish Americans over a personal political grief,
which is what he's doing with healthcare, it is, it is.
It's amazing, And you're going to hear a conversation later
next week. I just you know, with a with a

(26:10):
Congression reporter who notes that there is you know, this
virus is actually there are some Republicans just so angry
about helping Barack Obama have an accomplishment that to this
day they don't want to support making this system work
despite what the country actually wants. Right, is anybody here
in the game of actually being representative of the constituents

(26:35):
that sent them here? And I think that that's so.
I don't think he solved the healthcare problem. His ranting
and raving about it didn't solve the problem, and so
I think that he's only set himself up to more problems.
I think that, you know, most of January, as far
as domestic conversation in Congress, is going to be consumed
by this issue of skyrocketing healthcare premium. I fully will

(27:02):
admit I whiffed on this one. I thought because it
was Tony Fabrizio, the President's poster, who's been sounding the
alarm on this healthcare problem. I thought, for sure in
House Republicans, don't you know, they're not going to go
out on a limb and do this, a majority of
them without backing of the president. And he just won't
do it. Is it is setting him, you know that alone.

(27:25):
Forget anything else about the economy, anything else about electric
bills that alone is going to cost him the House
control of the House. Why do I say that that's
exactly what happened in twenty eighteen on that exact on
this exact issue. Now, let me talk about the electric bills.
I thought at least they made an attempt to say, hey,

(27:47):
look at all the new energy, the new energy projects
we have all over the country whose goal is to
produce for electricity, which over time can bring down the
cost of electricity. At least they were trying to acknowledge
a problem that everybody is seeing.

Speaker 2 (28:09):
Right.

Speaker 1 (28:09):
You know, Look, it's easy. It's easy to sit here
and and troll him on this speech and own him. Look,
it was a terrible speech. He terrible at reading a teleprompter.
It was it was. It was not good under any levels.
But you know, I'm trying to look at it through. Okay,
what were you trying to accomplish? What were his aides
hoping he would do? And Lee, I see what they

(28:33):
were trying to do on the electricity issue. I don't
think it's going to work. And I think, in fact,
it is the President getting in bed with big tech
on AI is going to be an easy dot to
connect to go to higher electric bills. Hey, he's doing
this therefore, and it's this is who's doing it. It's

(28:54):
not creating any new job in your community at all.
And what's worse is it's all it's doing is ray
your electric bills. That's going to be a pretty potent
political argument, you know, it's always you know, a political
argument becomes more potent when when you've got somebody to
blame that more than just a partisan would agree that, yeah,

(29:14):
they have some responsibility there, And it is easy to
blame big tech for a lot of our problems. People
are already inclined to be negative on the tech world
these days because of what they've done to us with
social media, what they've done to our kids. So there's
there's like automatically that the tech business world is starting
with a deficit, and so pointing the finger at these

(29:37):
AI data centers is going to be it is going
to be quite believable to the public. In fact, I'll
be curious that we're already seeing I see metas out
there with trying to put a positive spin in Hey,
data centers are going to be good for your community, Okay.

Speaker 2 (29:54):
How it is.

Speaker 1 (29:57):
I think it's going to be. I think it's going
to be a difficult sales pin to say the least,
But I will say this, at least they had at
least they tried on that front. But look, overall, I
think that speech unfortunately reinforced. Look, if you didn't like Trump,
nothing in that speech was going to make you empathetic
or sympathetic. If you love Trump, I wonder how much

(30:21):
you like that speech. I noticed not a lot of people,
even as biggest supporters, aren't really supportive of the speech.
I think they wish he would have performed it better.
I mean, here's another exercise that you could do. How
would Jade Vance have delivered that speech?

Speaker 2 (30:39):
Right?

Speaker 1 (30:40):
Whatever you think of jd Vance, he's at least self
aware and knows how to read a room. And what
that speech felt like was a president who doesn't realize
how unpopular he is, doesn't realize how exhausted folks are
with his antics, and border delusional right about his current

(31:01):
political standing. He doesn't fully appreciate just you know, I
think he just you know, like anybody's just blaming well,
you know, it's going to be the media's fault that
they're not getting the word out or then it'll soon
be Congressional Republican's fault for not getting the word out,
or it'll soon to be some of his aids fault
for not getting or what not. But bottom line is,

(31:22):
I think what the speech was intended to do, I
think it's going to turn out to be an utter
complete failure. Now, in fairness, let's wait to see does
the public feel better about about his stewardship of the
economy in a week or two or are they going
to feel worse right that? I mean, he was the
whole point of that was to try to fix what
are just cratering numbers when it comes to his approval

(31:45):
rating on the economy, and if I don't think he
accomplished that task at all. A few other notes before
we get to my conversation with Bradley Tusk one, uh,
I just too get interest just to not servation about
the so called fallout from the Vanity fair piece Susie
Wiles and those that participated with that sort of deep dive.

(32:12):
I guess I guess that what Chris Whipple had was
in agreement to sort of check in, and he was
good for him that he always always tape your conversations
with with folks that are going to accuse you of
of of something not being true. But there were two
things I took away from sort of the fallout from
this fallout. One the fact that there was a rally

(32:33):
around Susie Wiles by sort of key people in the
administration that are also considered credible with Magaworld and Megamedia,
including Donald Trump Junior, Donald Trump himself. They didn't there
was they rallied around her with statements and social media

(32:54):
support because my guess is they were petrified that Megamedia
on their own would eviscerate her, would say, hey, she's
you know, she's she's not a real Trumper, She's not
real MAGA. And I think that the fact that they
were worried about it, and the fact that they wanted
to protect her from Maga media world just eviscerating her,

(33:16):
I think, does tell you how much credit they give
to her for resuscitating him politically. And let's remember, nobody
wanted to work for Donald Trump after January six, not
a single person. Susie Wilds was the first quote unquote
establishment person that was willing to do this. Perhaps her

(33:37):
motivation was to screw around DeSantis. We don't know for sure,
but either way, it's rare that the Trump show loyalty
to somebody that needs it, and the fact that that
family did is interesting and it's noteworthy. Second observation, Susie

(33:58):
Wiles wants Marco Rubiatovi air apparent. I think it's it's now.
Part of it is she knows Marco Rubio. She doesn't
know Jady Vance as well. Right, She's gotten to know JD.
Vance since the campaign. She's known Marco Rubio because of
her influence in her work inside the Florida Republican Party.
And so maybe we shouldn't be surprised, but just look

(34:20):
at how how she talked about you know, Rubio had
to get there, meaning, you know, he had to find
a principled way to become part of Team Trump. Jadie
Vance is a conspiracy theorist. It's just interesting that if
you're JD. Vance and you're already a little paranoid, right,

(34:40):
there's always been a little bit of paranoia. I think
in that world a little bit I would be I
would be worried that the president's chief of staff is looking,
you know, it's going to put her finger on the
scale to get Marco Rubio in a better position to
be the air parent than jd Vance Now, so maybe

(35:00):
that doesn't matter. And who knows if this is a
nomination worth having by twenty eight because who knows if
Trump even wants it or anything like that. But it's
it's sort of like one of the under the undercovered
pieces of fallout on this vanity fair thing. Is Marco
Rubio has got an ally in the West Wing? Does

(35:23):
jd Vance? Just something? Just something to think about, just
something to ask, just something to do and just something
to pon her all right, before we get to Bradley
Teskut to talk about I don't even know what we're
supposed to think of this the Trump narcissism, right, which
is this ridiculous walk of fame that he's created and

(35:46):
now he's got plaques of crazy truth social rants that
he has said about, you know, whether it's about George W. Bush,
Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Bill Clinton. I mean, his lack
of inst in honest American history, in being honest about
his predecessors is I know, we're not surprised that he

(36:10):
behaves this way. It's not shocking, but it should be.
It should bother it should bother you more than just
that's annoying. And you know, I know a lot of
folks are conditioned to believe that all politicians are self absorbed.
At least I know it. With him, you know, we
can I'm going to use the words of the of

(36:31):
the current First Lady of the United States, though I
have no idea whether she really cares or wants that role,
which is, let's be better. I think she called it
be best or whatever. Why can't we be better? Why
can't we demand better? It is it is really sort
of laughable, right, He's sort of It's both ugly and

(36:52):
sort of weirdly funny, like that he is so consumed
with denigrating his predecessors that he actually created a plaque
with crazy rants of how he describes Obama, how he
describes Biden, how he describes Bill Clinton, about Bill Clinton's
plaque is about beating Hillary Clinton in twenty sixteen, Right,

(37:13):
It's just all of it is sort of you're like, well,
of course, you know there's I know there's some of
you going, well, Donald Trump is who he is. We
know who he is, right in the immortal words of
the late great Dennis Green, he is who I thought
he was, and yet he always finds a way to
be a little uglier, to be a little He just

(37:36):
doesn't care about the country. He doesn't care about the
story of America. And that's the part of this. You know,
I am.

Speaker 2 (37:44):
I have been.

Speaker 1 (37:46):
Attacked for being an institutionalist right by the by the
hardcore left and the hardcore right at different times, guiltiest charged.
I you know, I am a I'm a constitutionalist. I
hold the Founding Fathers in high esteem, even as flawed

(38:06):
as they were, because they gave us a hell of
a blueprint to make a more perfect union. And we've
we That's what I hold in high esteem, our ability
to evolve, the fact that we've always had these building blocks,
We've had forty plus presidents who believe in the story
of America. That it is a you know, to borrow

(38:29):
the phrase from from Martin Luther King, that they the
arc of the arc of justice, bench, the arc of history,
bench towards justice, and that America has sort of been
on this path. And yes, it's it's not always a
straight line. We bounce back and forth, and every once
in a while we even have to take a step backwards.
But when our when when the president himself doesn't can't

(38:51):
even you know, accept history as it is and as
it was. It's just, you know, I I know, in
some ways it's like, hey, good gets better, bad gets worse.
You know, in some ways, you know, we kind of
see this coming. I think he's you know, the filter's
going away. I think that's pretty clear, you know whatever.

(39:14):
I'm not saying there was much of a filter there
in the first term, but there was more in the
first term than we're seeing now. He is his own
worst enemy, right, pick your cliche on this, but it's just,
you know, the fact that he used taxpayer dollars and
I'm sorry, even if he paid for the plaques, he's
using people that are being paid by the taxpayers to

(39:36):
instead of figuring out how to lower the cost of
health care for you, he's more consumed with creating plaques
for himself. Because it's not like the general public is
walking along the White House portico over the paved over
rose garden by the way that he's turned into a patio. Right,

(39:57):
and then now the absurdity of the board of directors
at the Kennedy Center pass a resolution to say we've
renamed the Kennedy Center, the Trump Kennedy Center. It only
sort of adds to the ridiculousness that is him.

Speaker 2 (40:09):
Right.

Speaker 1 (40:09):
There are times where I think he is the Onion presidency,
because you don't know whether you're reading The Onion or
you're reading the New York Times on any given day,
and he does so many absurd things. I had somebody
very recently, good friend of mine, asked me, wait, did
Trump really pave over the Rose Garden. I said, yeah,

(40:30):
he did.

Speaker 2 (40:30):
He goes when did he do that?

Speaker 1 (40:31):
And I said it was a few months ago they
had done that, and all this stuff. It was a
reminder that I think one a lot of this stuff
doesn't break through the general public right away, but it
does eventually. And I don't care where you are politically,
the fact that our president consistently wants to embarrass other presidents,

(40:52):
wants to demean dead people, wants to you know, make
memorials that are about dead presidents about himself is quite
something and I think it really does offend people. And
I think there's this middle of the look the end
of the day, people are going to vote their own

(41:13):
Most of these swing voters are voting what's in their
own best interests, okay, And I think ultimately that's politics
is ninety percent about appealing to that swing voter in
their best interest rather than in your best interests. But
this stuff does matter on the margins, and I think
it demoralizes supporters who have a harder and harder time

(41:35):
defending his behavior, and it motivates those that are on
the fence right like, well, I don't like the Democrats
on this, this, and this, but my god, at least
they don't do that. I think it does matter, and
I think it's one of those things. It's like I've
used this metaphor a lot over the years, which is
it's like watching a riverbed eroad. If you stand there,

(41:58):
you don't see it. You come back every six months
you can really see it. And I think this is
one of those where why I'm a big fan of
repeating my favorite Haley barberism, good gets better and bad
gets worse. And in this case, the president is in
a bad place and it is only getting worse. And
as I look, I've been chronicling this for the last

(42:20):
six weeks. Right, you can go back to the sub
stack where I said there's cracks in the coalition. This
is back in September October and pretty much everything that
I was trying to foreshadow here you're starting to see, right,
It's like crumble after crumble after crumble after crumble. By
the way, I do have a fun little dad pun

(42:40):
for you. You know what is the biggest cause of truth
decay in the Trump White House plaque? In this case
these plaques? Do you get it? Do you get it? Sorry?
I could. I tried it out on a radio hit
that I do with my friends of Boston and PR So, Marjorie,
if you're listening, see I'm even ry it with my listeners. Here,

(43:02):
truth decay, truth decay. Get it? Truth decay? And then
these bronze plaque right, terrible, right, nothing nothing is you
know what is bad for truth decay? Then made up plaques?

Speaker 2 (43:17):
Anyway?

Speaker 1 (43:18):
Yeah, I know, grown, grown away and on that. I'm
gonna sneak in a break and when we come back.
My conversation about mobile voting? Should we be voting on
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Don't forget that code. That's getsold dot Com promo code
toodcast for thirty percent off. My guest today as someone
who's been at the center of American politics business for
the better part of a couple of decades, and because
there's so much happening in the world of business that

(45:06):
is intersecting with the world of politics, and Washington in
some ways is becoming an epicenter of business in a
derivative way, because it's frankly about a whole bunch of
companies trying to figure out what it takes to keep
Washington out of their business. But that in itself is
a big business. So my guest is Bradley Tusk. He's

(45:29):
a political strategist turned investor. He lives in this world
in between in a political side. He was the campaign
manager for Michael Bloomberg. And when Michael Bloomberg decided he
wanted a third term, which I wonder if in hindsight
he ever, I want to tell anybody who wants a
third term, don't do it. Yeah, third terms never go.

Speaker 2 (45:50):
I'm trying. I was trying to sit here and think
of a good third term.

Speaker 1 (45:53):
There's none, Bradley, there's none. Ask Mario Cuomo whether he
should have run for a third term. Ask Eduobo whether
he should have been thinking about a third term. Third term.
I Tim Walls is running for a third term. I
want to say, don't do it.

Speaker 2 (46:09):
There's no good.

Speaker 1 (46:10):
That comes from it. If you've if you've succeeded enough
that a third term is viable, there's nowhere to go
but down.

Speaker 2 (46:17):
Yeah. I saw a study once it said that after
seven years, no matter who the chief executive is, people
are ready to move on. And that's like every tackleo system,
whether it's a dictator or a mayor or a governor
or anything else.

Speaker 1 (46:31):
Right, look at our own history. I mean, I'm a believer.
And this will get to a little bit of our
conversation here a little bit, but you know, I think
any Democrat that is still consumed with Trump is sort
of wasting their time. And I don't mean this. Look Trump,
there's a lot of things he's doing that that you
that you may that may impact your life, and you've
got to care about it. I get it, but I

(46:52):
don't think he's you know, we're about to have a
debate about what the post Trump world's going to look like.
And I got to think people need to be focused
on that because he's been in our lives for a decade.
And guess what, nobody ever lasts that long. We're at
the tail end, right, the Reagan Bush era basically ended
with the nineteen ninety tax deal, right, you know, Eisenhower
lasted you know, you know, his era was about a decade, Kennedy,

(47:16):
Johnson a decade, Nixon even less than that. I mean,
you know, Obama sort of you know, it just we
don't we sort of wear out. And if you look
at the modern air of our presidents going back since
World War Two, there's a reason that sort of a
movement sort of petered out right in that eight to
ten year mark in some form or another. We're ten

(47:37):
years with Trump.

Speaker 2 (47:38):
Yeah, yeah, man. I think the question is to me,
the things that he's doing that will go away when
he goes away, and the things that he's done that
will last, of which some might prove to be good,
but a lot of it might prove to be pretty
harmful long term. The area And maybe this is where

(48:00):
kind of my perspective from the business side is a
little different than the typical person in the political world
is I don't like all of the rule of law stuff,
but I think that that ends when he ends right.
That is very much a product of him specifically, Whereas
some of the steps he's taking around the economy really

(48:21):
do worry me from a much longer perspective as an investor,
because if I were China and I said I want
to put in the Manchurian candidate, and I want to
undermine the long term strength of the US, our economy,
one of the things you would really go after. So
what are the things to me that make our economy unique.

(48:42):
It's free trade, its intellectual property, it's rule of law,
it's independent markets, independent data. It is getting the very
best people through immigration. So a lot of the fundamental
things that make our economy truly unique. Thing in R
and D, investing in higher ed, all of that are

(49:04):
all things that Trump, for whatever reason, has really tried
to undermine. So I worry more about the impact of
just taking our strengths and undermining all of them than
whateverything he has said today that on truth social that
makes everyone upset. I don't care about that stuff.

Speaker 1 (49:22):
No, I mean, to me, the biggest I've always said
that there's the presidency. Actually there's three different jobs wrapped
up in one. You're being elected to lead your party.
You're being elected to command our armed forces as commander
in chief, and you're being elected to be leader of
the free world. And he has chosen not to be
leader of the free world. And that is something that

(49:45):
the public doesn't realize is a problem until it's gone.
It's a very hard in fact, when you tell people
you want to be leader of the free world. No,
we don't want that. We don't want to be the
beat cop. But as I always say, you know, I
always say when people say I don't want to be
the world's policeman, and I'm like, yeah, but somebody's going
to be. Would you rather be us or another country?
You may not want us to be the world's cop,

(50:07):
but you're not gonna like it if China is right, which.

Speaker 2 (50:10):
Then how do you explain the other day him sending
allowing the VIDIA to sell you know, the h two
hundred GPUs to China? Right like it? There are things
that I don't get. So for example, he says that,
and look, if you were a full free trade you know, absolutist, right,

(50:33):
But then the next day they issue an executive order saying, oh,
States can't regulate AI because it's a national security issue.
It can't be an ob security issue if you just
took the most valuable thing that your biggest rival would
want and allow the to go to the.

Speaker 1 (50:48):
Well, let's talk about This is actually at the heart
of the conversation I want to have, which is, you know,
the business community in general has been frustrated with the
last two Democratic administrations, sure for too much regula, too
much regulation, too much red tape, things like this. And

(51:11):
I get the appeal of, hey, isn't it great that
you don't have to have an army of lobbyists on
Capitol Hill. You just have to go into the Oval office,
write one check or rite you know, or make one
board seat change whatever. You only have to placate one
individual as a hell of a lot easier than placating
you know, thirty members of Congress or ten senators and

(51:33):
all of that stuff. So I understand the efficiency aspect
of this, But are we doomed here because business is
such as an easy relationship right now with Trump's version
of the Republican Party, that they're now going to expect
this kind of treatment from all politicians going forward, that
this is something that we can't put back in the bottle.

(51:56):
And I, you know, I'm sorry. I don't trust the
tech industry with AI without guardrails because I saw what
the tech industry did with social media, which totally destroyed
our information ecosystem. So, yeah, but this is the world
you live in, Yeah, and you're navigating, so you tell me.

Speaker 2 (52:14):
So I would say, for me, the efficiency argument probably
doesn't work because it's too risky and too variable. Right,
you were dealing just with winning the favor of one
very mercurial person and who seems to a lot of
the time agree with the last person he spoke to

(52:35):
about something, And so I don't like the notion of
basing an investment strategy or regulatory strategy around that. And
to me, the right analogy is when I have a
company that I'm investing in that has some sort of
new disruptive technology that either where taking on an entrenched

(52:56):
interest in there's a regulatory fight, or recruiting an entirely
new type of industry. AI crypto flying cars, whatever, and
you need to build a regulatory framework. There's often the
question of do you go federal or do you go state.
We usually choose to go state by state, which is
wildly inefficient. Right, we're talking about fifty different bills or

(53:16):
whatever it is that we rules, whatever it might be
that we have to create or pass. However, I can
get outcomes. So in twenty fifteen, the House Energy Subcommittee,
on a bipartisan basis, passed unanimously legislation to begin the
regulation of autonomous vehicles. So right now, the US federal

(53:36):
government has done nothing to figure out how to regulat
or deal with self driving cars or trucks or anything else.
The bill passed the subcommittee honesty and has never moved since,
nor has federal dot issued any sort of rules whatsoever
as to how this should work.

Speaker 1 (53:57):
This is for presidential administrations.

Speaker 2 (53:59):
Correct, right, and at the same time in states now,
you can like or not like any individual states rules
around autonomous vehicles, but they have them right, and you
can get to an outcome. And even if you don't
get the president you want in one state, you have
fifty bytes at the apple. So oftentimes we're looking at

(54:20):
something and saying, Okay, where do we think is the
right starting point to launch this thing? Based on partly
the economics, so the market, you know, and ever early
starts in California, in New York and Texas, but also
from a political standpoint, where can we win because you know,
one of the things that when when I invest in
an early stage tech startup, I genuinely believe that people

(54:43):
are going to really like the product or the service
or otherwise I'm not deploying the capital or make any
investment in the first place. And so like, for example,
the very first tech company I ever did was Uber,
starting in twenty eleven, and my view, which was the
same as Travis's view, was people are really gonna like this,
So we just need to get this thing up and

(55:05):
running wherever we can show people how much better it
is in the taxi system, and then they will fight
for it, and in every market where we prove it,
it gets that much easier in the next market. And
that basically it was a big fight, and it was
city by city in that case, but it turned out
to be right. So I generally think the right strategy

(55:25):
to legalize most technology actually occurs at the municipal or
state level, and not in Washington.

Speaker 1 (55:31):
It's always been the ke I mean, look at the
recreational marijuana movement, the medical marijuana movement, same sex marriage.
Right we've in some ways to create critical mass to
convince Congress that hey, you should get involved in this,
you know, having it emanate. I mean, that's the beauty
of federalism, right like that, that is supposed to be
the beauty of the system. Which is why I'm glad

(55:55):
to see there's bipartisan concern about a moratorium on state
regulations with it and it it is, you know that
this is I think this is where if I were,
if I were in this industry, I wouldn't want this.
I mean, look at the public right now. The public

(56:16):
approval ratings of AI are plummeting. Right we are, compared
to the rest of the world, more dystopian about AI
than most other civil societies. I would argue that has
a lot to do with how involved our polarizing president
is with the industry. I actually think if he were
less involved, there'd be fewer doom and gloomers about AI.

Speaker 2 (56:36):
With with two caddia, its one is I actually think
the political tsunami and AI hasn't even hate.

Speaker 1 (56:43):
I agree twenty eight is going to be that. I
think it's I think the fear I believe the single
biggest issue in twenty eight, and we'll see it a
little bit in twenty six, is going to be fear
of AI displacement, well.

Speaker 2 (56:55):
Displacement our jobs combined with so every data center requires
so much compute and so much energy that they're expecting
it to consumption to double. We're certainly that doubling supply,
which means consumers electric bills are going to skyrocket. We
already saw a little bit of this in Georgia.

Speaker 1 (57:14):
Virginia, I mean Louden County. Man, you know they were
making all this money lease and land on data centers.
It is now like you know, it's a they've declared
war on data centers.

Speaker 2 (57:25):
I think we're going to see laws passing states this
year that say that localities cannot issue permits and zoning
for data centers without proof that there will not be
a corresponding price increase for consumers and electric bills. And
so you're right, but we had a world where let's
say that unemployment and the job numbers today, I think

(57:47):
further to accept that they were valid. Further, you know,
support of this thesis that if job displacement keeps going up,
and unemployment keeps rising and rising gets even potentially double digits,
and electric prices keep going up, and because of Tariff's
other consumer prices keep going up, and you know, twenty
five thirty guys like Sam Altman become trillionaires, but the

(58:08):
rest of the world's you know, that's of the country
city of eighteen percent unemployment, that's the French revolution man.
And I don't think either party necessarily understands that or
sees it coming. I think one, you know, Trump, in
his view is like, doesn't matter. The only goal is
to get your hands on as much as you can
before you die. So therefore this at least fits with

(58:28):
his worldview. Democrats, I don't think have any plan at all.
From one I can tell.

Speaker 1 (58:35):
No, I don't think they do either, and I it
strikes me and I'm curious. Look, I take it you're
trying to help Democrats be more pro business. Yes, I
mean in part because that's how you would describe your
you know, your sort of your altruistic goals.

Speaker 2 (58:51):
Here often times, and I think you know, not counting
what I do out of my foundation, which is totally separate.
But yeah, and I think oftentimes I feel like and
you might appreciate this more than most people. Both sides
are so dug in that they miss the underlying point. Right.
So you have these Silicon Valley types who are now

(59:13):
very powerful Washington A Mark Injuries or someone like that, right,
and they hate regulation and their libertarians and that sort
of sounds great in theory, no rules, but in reality
you can't build multi multi billion dollar industries and the
absence of all structure. You need a certain amount of
rules and regulation. Crypto, right needs a certain amount of

(59:35):
regulation to separate the coin bases of the world, the
circles of the world, companies that I've invested in with
total scams, right, And because there's a lot of fraud
in the crypto world, and there's also a lot of
genuine companies that you can decide whether or not buying
crypto is a good idea. That's up to the individual.
But crypto itself only works because there is some level

(59:56):
of regulation that says this exchange is permissible, exchange is
not right, So you need that. But then on the
other hand, democrats by sort of playing to their extremes
that all capitalism and all wealth is inherently corrupt and
evil in some way totally missed the point because people
need to make a living, and people are aspirational and

(01:00:19):
want to do well, and so just vilifying everyone doesn't
work either. And the reality is regulation is neither inherently
good nor bad. It's how it's applied. Like, let me
give you an example. I was driving once from Santa
Barbara to Ally, and I'm going down the Pacific Coast
Highway and I'm appreciating how beautiful it is, because you'd

(01:00:39):
have to be something really wrong with you not to
do that right. And the thing that hit me was, Okay,
what I'm seeing is from my car window the ocean.
The reason why is that they are not gas stations
and you know, Chipolis and whatever else blocking the view
because of regulation. So in that case, I would say
a good regulation, and I didn't get to LA and

(01:01:01):
I run into all of these homeless encampments. Now again
that's the product of regulation. Bad regulation in that case,
those are regulations that make constructing affordable housing way too
expensive and difficult, and people don't have anywhere to live
as a result. So basically, zoning regulation on the same
street right resulted in a net positive at one part

(01:01:22):
of it and negative in the other. And anyone on
either side who just declares unilaterally that something is inherently
good or bad just doesn't understand what they're talking.

Speaker 1 (01:01:35):
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(01:02:18):
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Their fee is free unless they win. You know, it's funny,

(01:02:38):
I keep it feels as if the Democrats are looking
for the twenty first century version of Bill Clinton, who
was who struck this balance right now. He did it
out of necessity. Democrats had lost three straight presidential elections,
all of them were blowouts. It was sort of you
kind of had to have a Democrat who acknowledged at

(01:03:00):
that point in time. And I have a friend of
mine who we argue, is the country center right or
the institution center right right? The constitution sort of arguably
gives gives the minority a bit. You know, you could
our rules give the current structure the right side of
the spectrum has more advantages. I could argue fifty years
ago that same structure gave sort of the Democrats a

(01:03:23):
little bit more. But at some point that is the
structure that we live under. But Bill Clinton sort of,
you know, one, hey, we should have a rules based,
opportunity focused society, right like, you know, should be fair,
equal access and opportunity, and I remember responsibility and opportunity, right,

(01:03:45):
that balance between the two. I guess you know, I
could say Obama tried to get that messaging, and he
was better about it by twenty eleven, twenty twelve, frankly
out of necessity, right he was. He had a tough reelection,
and he borrowed more of the Bill Clinton language or
the Teddy Roosevelt language of the Square Deal things like that.
It seems as if we just haven't found the politician

(01:04:10):
to meet the moment that we're in. I think we
all know them. We want to be both aspirational but
with a I think we want a stronger safety net,
and we haven't figured out how to. Donald Trump said, hey,
I can do both, but he couldn't. Right, he doesn't
really have the He doesn't really have a political party
behind him that actually wants to do both. And I

(01:04:33):
think there are those in the business community that don't
believe the left wants to create what you said, a
society that allows for wealth. Right, Yes, they want the
strong social safety net. So when ultimately what we really
want is strong safety net and a realistic path thick
and look.

Speaker 2 (01:04:51):
It's hard to end the other the day, right, So
capitalism as a system, to me, I think almost just
incontrovertibly is the greatest system ever created because if you
look at the last eighty years since World War Two,
three billion people who were living in extreme poverty now
have clean drinking water and electricity and less infant mortality

(01:05:11):
and longer life expectancy, in higher literacy, you know, all
the status right, So unquestioning, none of that happens without
globalization and capitalism. Capitalism on's taken into its full logical extreme,
which is kind of what we tend to have here,
often results in a lot of unhappiness and a lot
of people who are frustrated with the system. Because if

(01:05:33):
the only ultimate goal to be successful and happy is
to accumulate as much status and wealth as possible by definition,
ninety nine percent of people can't be in the one percent,
and those ninety nine percent are upset. So then you
look at say, okay, well does Finland or someone have
it right, because it's capitalism, but with a much stronger
social safety net, Like you said, so yes, people there,

(01:05:56):
if you look at say the World Happiness Report, are
exponentially happy because both they feel compelled to need less
and they have more on the on the floor. But
when you look at the last thirty years or so
and look at all of the innovation in the world
that has emerged, basically none of it has come from
Europe right other than Spotify, and there's not a giant

(01:06:18):
tech company that's been invented. So if you were to say, Okay,
the US will be Scandinavia, as the left I think
would like to see the case, yes, you will have
a higher floor for people, and I believe in that.
But at the same time, there is something about our
system that is incredibly unique and that encourages the kind

(01:06:39):
of innovation that has lifted the billions of extremely poor
people that in theory the lefts you care about the
most out of poverty.

Speaker 1 (01:06:48):
Well, I do think I'm one of those who believes
it's because we're a nation and immigrants that we that
if we if we have I think what you're I
think we could we would already be Scandinavia if we
weren't continuing to have fairly open doors, meaning if we
weren't importing more people who want it, who are looking
for the American dream, like in some ways third and

(01:07:11):
fourth generation Americans are more satisfied than first and second
generation America.

Speaker 2 (01:07:15):
So would you say then that, let's say we have
so I would argue, weh have exponentially higher legal immigration,
right and a perfect world. You know who was set
that the quotas the Bureau of Labor Stistics, because they
would say, okay, the construction industry has this whole hospitality
this by the way.

Speaker 1 (01:07:34):
Along with the Social Security Administration, where because we need
more new workers to fund Social Security.

Speaker 2 (01:07:40):
Correct, right, you need tens of millions potentially of people.
And that's not at all exclusive with having strong borders.
But the question is if we said we're going to
keep bringing in the greatest talent from all over the world,
and if we do that, we're always going to have
the kind of innovation we need because those are I'm
a first generation American and I know I was braised
in an immigrant so I know exactly what this is like, right.

Speaker 1 (01:08:01):
Right, It's always like you were I mean education. First look,
I grew up in Miami, an immigrant community where it
was just you felt it all around everybody in that community,
even frankly, even the domestic you know, even those second
third generation Americans like myself. You moved to Miami for opportunity.
Nobody was a native of there. You were there for opportunities.

(01:08:22):
So it had an immigrant's mentality, which means they were hustlers.

Speaker 2 (01:08:25):
Everybody hustled. So let's say that we really increase that,
which again does not in any way have to me
not having.

Speaker 1 (01:08:31):
Strong border security.

Speaker 2 (01:08:32):
They're not mutually exclusive at all. But let's say that
we said we are going to radically increase legal immigration
so that the people who are the hustlers are constantly
coming in. If you did that, could you have the
kind of social safety net that Scandinavia has without deterring
the innovation that America has because that combination of the

(01:08:52):
new people constantly coming in takes care of that problem.

Speaker 1 (01:08:57):
Well, it depends on when you make them eligible for
the same fafty net. Now, right, Oh, fair point, And
I think you and I think this is what I'm
what we're talking about here. Some people would say is heartless.
What do you mean you wouldn't make the safety net
available for the immediate first gen family at the same
you know, But I think that would be a debate,

(01:09:18):
and I think that's a fair political debate. To have
is when should somebody be eligible for the social safety
net in the United States. You know, you certainly need
to become a citizen, right, I think that that's a
fair that's a fair bar. You have to do the
work to be a citizen. You have to probb. Now,
I'll tell you this. I remember this great George W.
Bush quote when he used to talk about people coming

(01:09:39):
over there. He goes, anybody that's going to go over
is going to fight the environmental elements to get across
the Rio Grande River. I want them in America. Yeah,
because they're going to be great workers.

Speaker 2 (01:09:51):
Yeah, that's totally well. Look, do you remember when Eric
Adams All these migrant showed up in New York City
and Eric Adams made the decision that New York City
would house and feed everyone. Even though I am wildly
promegration and a first generation American, I thought that was
crazy for two reasons. One, city didn't have the money

(01:10:13):
to do that. It came to the expense of sanitation
and police and schools and everything else. But two, my family,
your family. You know, millions of families have come here,
and what they're asking for is not free housing or
free food. What they're asking for is the opportunity to
work and to make a living. And I don't think

(01:10:33):
you needed to provide that, because I think people would
have gone to where the jobs were. Some might be
in New York City, a lot might be at me
packing plants and iore or something like that. That's fine, right,
But I don't think you even necessarily need to at
the beginning, because the truth is, most immigrants just want
to work, and the economy has a lot of holes
of jobs that are needed to be filled that most

(01:10:55):
Americans don't want to do. And so I think the
problem kind of solves itself if you just let it happen.

Speaker 1 (01:11:01):
No, I mean, it's by the way, it's been true
if you fought, you know before, if you look at
the immigration patterns at the border pre say twenty fifteen, okay,
and we've we've had some different surges for different reasons,
I would argue since then, but it usually went if
we had a lot of ope. But if our economy

(01:11:22):
was humming, there were more people at the border. If
our economy wasn't humming, there were fewer people at the border.
I mean, you know, if you thought you could find
work in the United states. You came if you didn't
think you could find work, you weren't going to risk
your life to.

Speaker 2 (01:11:35):
Come, right, right, Yeah, I think that that's I think
that that's right, and I think I mean, it seems
like it's a puzzle, right, which is, if you accept
that most people want others to do well right now,
some of us have easier some mentality were literally we
believe that if you win, that means that I lose,

(01:11:55):
and I think the President has that mentality quite frankly.
But overall, what we're really talking about is enough resources,
enough of a social stify, and enough opportunity and balancing
it so that it's fair so that people aren't starving,
and yet we are still innovating and creating.

Speaker 1 (01:12:13):
So let me go back to sort of the premise
that I that I really want you to deal with,
which is, is the business community going to see the
Trump way of doing things and not want a risk
of going back. And basically, look, you brought up crypto.
Whatever you think of crypto, the industry decided, hey man,

(01:12:35):
we're tired of waiting to convince the left on this.
We're just going to buy supporters, right. You know, Look,
they're not the first industry to decide to do that.
But it was kind of it's kind of gross just
looking at it from my perspective.

Speaker 2 (01:12:51):
You're like, sure, I don't.

Speaker 1 (01:12:53):
We're not making We didn't create that Genius Act didn't
pass because we thought it was a good idea. It
passed because they bought enough politicians. I could argue, okay,
and we can we can have a we can, we can.
You know, I I am pro blockchain, less convinced on

(01:13:13):
the value of of of of the of the coins themselves,
but I accept the pre tokenization. I get right like
I'm I find myself. I'm in I'm in the middle
on this. I worry that it's a it's a the
value scam on one hand, that get rich quick scheme
part of it, versus the blockchain and and all of that,

(01:13:34):
which is a different type of technology. But but if
I look at if I'm an upstart industry in any sort,
and I look at what crypto pulled off, why do
I want to risk a the other party coming in,
who is just at the end of the day going
to be more bureaucratic.

Speaker 2 (01:13:51):
Yeah, well, but flipping around depends on the industry, right,
So if you are the solar and wind energy industry,
you feel exactly the opposite. Right, You felt like under
the Democrats you had the kind of regulatory structure, the
kind of tax credits, the grants, everything else that you
wanted and needed, and Trump came away and came in
and through the big viewer. I hear you.

Speaker 1 (01:14:12):
But should any industry be basically at the whims of
which party wins?

Speaker 2 (01:14:17):
I mean, to a certain extent, that is the point
of democracy, right, I think the bigger question really becomes
who's making the decisions? And to me, the real problem
is a structure one in that if you accept that
in a world of gerrymandering, only the primary matters ninety
plus percent of the time, and Stat's proved that out.

(01:14:39):
And if you look at primary turnout, which is typically
about ten to fifteen percent, and those voters are typically
the extremes, either the far right or the far left,
or different special interests that can move money and votes,
whether it's fair shake doing crypto or the teachers' unions
or whoever it might be. And if you accept that
politicians will always do whatever it takes to get re elected,

(01:14:59):
then by definition they're governing for that ten percent on
each side to the exclusion of everyone else. And I
actually think, and you know, if you sat most people down,
you could get eighty percent of people to agree on
a framework to solve almost every single problem we have.
But those people don't vote in primary, so they're disenfranchised.
So one thing that I've been trying to do with

(01:15:22):
you know, I didn't I didn't grow up a lot
of money. I worked in government, I didn't make much money.
Then I went into tack and I did pretty well,
And so I've been given it away is to try
to make mobile voting happen, because to me, you're only
going to get primary turnout from ten to say thirty
or forty by meeting the people where they are. Will
people take off from work and line up to vote

(01:15:43):
for president, Yes, But will they do that for city council,
state rep, state Senate. No, they don't. And as a result,
and that's probably even congressional primaries have a ten percent primary,
you know, ten percent turnout, right, So, and yet close
to one hundred percent of us have phones. We live
our lives on our phones, are banking, our healthcare, our
love lives, all this other stuff. And if we were

(01:16:04):
able to allow people to vote securely on their phones.
We could get turned out from ten to say, thirty,
and then all of a sudden, I'm not sure that
any one industry is at much risk of the whims
of a party because it's not being decided just by
the extremes that either hate Crypto or hate Grant Energy
or whatever it is.

Speaker 1 (01:16:23):
Well, I just had somebody on as a guest who's
been advocating getting rid of partisan primaries, and I kind
of think that it's pretty clear it is. I put
it this way, I don't see how a taxpayer funded
primary is constitutional. The idea that I think it's actually
a poll tax.

Speaker 2 (01:16:42):
Right.

Speaker 1 (01:16:42):
If I tell you the only way you could to
participate in this primary is you join a private club, right,
and you could participate in this taxpayer funded election. That's
that seems you know, give, where the where are my
goddamn lawyers here?

Speaker 2 (01:16:55):
Come on, I'm an independent living in New York City
and my vote does not count.

Speaker 1 (01:16:59):
Well, that's just that doesn't make It's like, what are
we doing, especially when you look at this youngest generation
and they're registering as independent or no party at a
greater rate than either of the two major parties, So
I do think this might actually fix itself, meaning a
majority of people plurality would prefer a non party you know,

(01:17:22):
sort of, Hey, I want to I want to decide, right,
we're we're actually all libertarian, you know, the whole idea
of America's libertarian. You know, I would, I would, I
would argue. So I think we're getting there. But on
mobile voting, you know, when you look at mobile technology

(01:17:42):
through the prism of our banking system, yep, it's really
secure right now. The times that it's not, Like, there's
nothing I hate more than when a credit card company
tells me, hey, you've got to change your number. We're
doing this for your purposes.

Speaker 2 (01:17:57):
No, you're not.

Speaker 1 (01:17:57):
You're doing it for your person. Like I just hate
being lied to about that. Like it's like no, no, no, no.
And I even tell them, stop reading your script. You're
not doing it for my benefit. You're doing it for
your benefit. But let's you know, let's figure this out.
You have a You're going to have a hard time
convincing the public that because cyber criminal activity exists when

(01:18:22):
it comes to scamming people out of crypto or scamming
people based on you know, a text message they get
and they click the wrong link, that they're going to
have a hard time believing that the voting is going
to be secure. Yeah, I mean, I just think psychic
the psyche.

Speaker 2 (01:18:42):
Yeah, I mean, that's right. The polling doesn't quite show that.
What's interesting is so before twenty twenty, we polled nationally
and about seventy five percent of Republicans, Democrats, independence all said,
if mobile voting is secure, of course we should have it.
Right after twenty twenty, we pulled again, stayed in the
mid seventies with independents and Democrats fell to the forties

(01:19:05):
with Republicans because of all the doubt cast on the
twenty twenty election. So to me, the solution to that,
and this is what we're working on right now by
to start running legislation in seven states. To do this
is to allow start with local elections and let cities
choose to opt in to offer mobile voting as one
form of voting for council, school board, may or things

(01:19:28):
like that. So Anchorage is the first city that's going
to do this. They're going to do it in their
April municipal elections, and then if we pass our bills
in these different states. That would allow cities to choose
to opt in if they want to, to offer it
for local elections only, and then let's see how it goes.
If people use it and it works and they develop trust,

(01:19:49):
we can move up the ladder to state and then
maybe one day federal. If not, then we don't. But
I think we have enough. You can start locally enough
to sort of experiment a little bit.

Speaker 1 (01:20:00):
But you so give me some of the tech, the
security things.

Speaker 2 (01:20:03):
Is it. Here's how it would work. Location?

Speaker 1 (01:20:06):
What would it be?

Speaker 2 (01:20:07):
So you would go on the app store. You live
in Arlington. So let's just say for purposes, you would
download the Arlington Board of Elections app and the first
thing would say, Okay to someone, n ain't Chuck Todd
really live in Arlington? Who's a registered voter? Last four
digits of your social your address? Okay, now we know
that there is a voter named Chuck Todd in Arlington,
but are you really that person? So first thing is

(01:20:27):
multi factor authentications. That's like when you forget your password,
they send you a code, you put it in the app.
Then biometric screening so they matt scan your face match
it up against your driver's license or whatever idea you have.
Now we know this is really Chuck Todd. Ballot comes
up on your screen. Ballot is as simple and straightforward
as can be. Whenever you're done and you're ready to submit,

(01:20:48):
three things happen. Your ballots encrypted, your ballots anonymized, and
you get a tracking code. Goes back to the Board
of Elections. They air gap it, which just me They
take it offline once you're is you know, on a
flash drive and not connected to the internet. Then they
decrypt it. A paper copy of your ballot gets printed out,
that gets mixed in with all the other ballots. You

(01:21:09):
can see where your ballot stands because the tracking code
will show you it was received, tabulated, printed, and so on.
And then the underlying code itself is open source. So
we've spent the last five years building this thing out
of my foundation. We posted it to GitHub a couple
of weeks ago, so it is now public code. Anybody
can use it, anybody can download it. I don't even

(01:21:31):
known it anymore. It's just purely in the public domain,
and any government that wants to try to do it
now has the ability to do so. And I've already
and I've spent twenty million dollars my own money so far,
you know, working on all of this, I've already paid
for it. So I feel like given that we live
in a world where polarization seems to be the contributing

(01:21:53):
factor to so many of our problems, and polarization is
because not that people are polarized, because the only the
extremes vote in primaries, and that's where everything is decided.
If you could do something that could make it so
much easier to vote, especially in primaries, and you get
do you remember when Amazon wanted to put their second
headquarters in Queen So part of it went to where

(01:22:14):
you are, to Arlington, right, and then the other half
was supposed to go to Long Island City, So hundreds
of cities competed for this. New York want a little unexpectedly,
everyone's very excited the poland shows people are really into it.
Then AOC comes out against it, and look for her politics. Fine,
she's anti jobs, business, capitalism, whatever. Fine. So there's a
guy named Mike Gennaris who is a state senator in

(01:22:37):
Long Island City courts. And Mike is just a guy.
He's not good, he's not bad, he's not Conservatives at liberal.
He is just a political hack that wants to stay
in office, nothing else, and all things being equal. Of course,
it's exciting when your district is picked by Amazon to
be this thing. But now he says to himself, oh shit,
if I support this, I could get a primary from

(01:22:58):
the left to or not, I'll be around a eight
nine percent based on the data, and the voters in
that primary will be the most left wing voters of
my district. And if AOC supports the opponent, I could lose.
And he had a choice forty thousand, forty thousand new
jobs for New Yorkers that are good jobs for benefits,
or one job his own, and he picked himself. And

(01:23:22):
by the way, that's what politicians do. But if he
did the same analysis and turn out his primary was
going to be thirty seven instead of nine, not because
he cared anymore about the voters, the district, the job, whatever,
Nothing only changed, just the math. He would have done
the deal simply because he would have needed to get
re elected. So but if there were non partisan primaries

(01:23:44):
or open primaries, that would definitely help. But you know,
I still think if you look at places with the
open primaries and I'm a big supporter of open primaries
for local elections. You still just don't get people going
to submit in plays. With mail and voting, it's a
little easy, but in New York, where you have to go,
people just don't show up. But you know what, those

(01:24:05):
same people all have phones. So when they're sitting on
the subway or they're waiting for their coffee or wherever else,
if all they have to do is press a few buttons,
then you can go from nine to thirty seven. I
don't think you can do that when people have to
go show up somewhere.

Speaker 1 (01:24:27):
Let me introduce a counterintuitive point about voting. Yeah, and
I'm not I'm saying this. I'm not saying I agree
with it. So anybody listening that wants to try to, like,
you know, aggregate me and sort of say, oh, there
he goes he doesn't want.

Speaker 2 (01:24:44):
If you choose not, you know.

Speaker 1 (01:24:46):
It's sort of like I'm not for compulsory voting like
I think you should. I think you should feel comfortable made.
You know. In fact, I think it's been fascinating that
that voter turnout goes down, the more apathy goes up,
the more content and stable our governments are right, apathy

(01:25:08):
goes down a bit more unstable when our leadership is
a little bit more unstable. Maybe that's a good thing
that that people pay more attention, but it is is
more uninformed people voting a good thing.

Speaker 2 (01:25:23):
You know what, if more uninformed people is more, it's
still a better reflection of the mainstream and therefore democracy
than fewer. And you know, I just when I was
giving a talk on mobilevoting somewhere someone said, raise their hands, said, well,
under your as system, we're going to have a TikTok president.
We have a TikTok president, and in new have a

(01:25:44):
TikTok mayor, mayor.

Speaker 1 (01:25:45):
Right now, we're already living in the biggest in the
biggest markets. We're already living in that world.

Speaker 2 (01:25:50):
So we're we're already there. So to me, the thing
that I learned I worked in city government. I worked
in you know, I was in DC, I was sure
studing patients director, I was deputy governor of Illinois. I
saw it from really every angle. And to me, the
only thing you can count on is that politicians will
do whatever it takes to get reelected. And so even

(01:26:10):
if it's an uninformed thirty seven percent. A politician trying
to sell for an uninformed thirty seven percent is still
going to land much more in the mainstream than a
politician trying to solve for nine percent.

Speaker 1 (01:26:24):
Do you think you're gonna have an easier time selling
more rural states on mobile voting than urban state.

Speaker 2 (01:26:30):
So it's one of the reasons why Alaska's.

Speaker 1 (01:26:32):
Are Alaska is a perfect Yeah, a perfect.

Speaker 2 (01:26:34):
Example, if not for twenty twenty. Yes, the challenge I
have right now is that red states don't want to
do anything Trump doesn't like, and he hasn't said anything
about mobile voting. But if you are a paper only
in person thing, then clearly you're not gonna like mobile voting.
And so therefore in blue states you not only don't

(01:26:56):
have the concern about Trump, but you actually have the
incentive of sticking it to Trump. Right, So, in theory
what you said should have been the rollout plan, Trump
scrambled that. So now the rollout plan is much more partisan,
which I'd say again, I'm not even an m roll
party anymore, right, So it's not like i want one

(01:27:16):
party as opposed to another or one type of state,
but I'm going to have mobile voting. I want ever
want to have it. I think realistically, there's a world
that I live in for what I'm doing through twenty eight,
and then there's a new world that starts in twenty nine.

Speaker 1 (01:27:29):
That's interesting that you say it that way, when you
say there's just a new world, that's you're just are
you sort of plotting and living? I mean I want
more people to be thinking this way, which is, Look,
the Trump era is over, it just hasn't ended yet.

Speaker 2 (01:27:43):
Yeah, I mean He's gonna go away and norms will
be restored.

Speaker 1 (01:27:49):
So well, see that's the question. That's what I'm not
I'm now starting to become a skeptical So we never
go backwards, Bradley.

Speaker 2 (01:27:56):
So I've been asking people who know Dvance specifically this question, right,
because let's say it's any Democrat, we're probably going back
to a more normalized rule of law system, right. So
now on the Republican side, even someone like Rubio probably
goes back to that. So to me, Vance is the
biggest of the major contenders, the biggest variable. He might

(01:28:17):
not want to, but remember when Jordan retired and the
NBA kept turning to manufacture these errors to Jordan and
it never worked, right, you had great basketball players, but
until Lebron naturally came along, you just didn't have it. Right,
Vance and others will try to imitate Trump at every turn,
and it's not gonna work because Trump is an end

(01:28:40):
of one and for better or worse, he's just unique, right,
And if you try to imitate him, that will probably
look really inauthentic and actually fail. And so Vance would
be my biggest concern about continuation of the current approach
to rule of law. But I kind of think that

(01:29:01):
people are going to want change, and I think that
he is going to refer he has to run on
continuity to Trump.

Speaker 1 (01:29:07):
And Vance is discovering the same trap that that a
being vice president for an unpopular president is, like that
Kamala Harris discovered, You're never going to be judged on
your own merits, right.

Speaker 2 (01:29:20):
Right, Well, do you think he learned so? Harris clearly
regrets not distancing herself from Biden in any way. Do
you think Vance has learned from that? And if so,
when you're the city vice president and a candidate, how
do you distance yourself? You can't.

Speaker 1 (01:29:37):
I mean the point is just because you should doesn't
mean you can, right, yeah, right, you know look, Hubert
Humphrey couldn't do it, and he waited too long. Al
Gore to this day did the best version of it
that was possible. Right. He found he was trying to

(01:29:59):
figure a way to show distance on the things that
mattered the most, the concerns that people had, which was
the kind of the personal ickiness of Clinton. Right, and
Joe Lieberman was the tonic. And so you know what,

(01:30:20):
you know, had Kamala Harris picked Elon Musks are running
made I don't know, I'm like trying to think, like
who could have been the.

Speaker 2 (01:30:30):
I'm not sure anything. I don't know if anything.

Speaker 1 (01:30:32):
Could even al Gore couldn't outrun it. Right, he got closer.
I will always go to my grave believing that race
got competitive because he figured out a way to walk
the line of being, Hey, I'm going to be the
stuff you liked about Clinton, and I'm not going to
allow the stuff you didn't like to happen either, right,

(01:30:52):
which was but it was hard.

Speaker 2 (01:30:54):
Yeah, I bother one of the biggest what asks because
if you think about it, let's say, for a few
ballots got fully punched through instead of hanging had tats
or whatever. Right, and the outcome is different. It seems
to be there's two very radically different outcomes that we
said of what we had. One is, let's just see
nine to eleven still happens, because it probably would have.

Speaker 1 (01:31:15):
Right, I've gone through this. What if I'm curious where
you're gonna go. I have an idea where this goes.

Speaker 2 (01:31:20):
See, you still get Afghanistan. That doesn't change, No, But
I don't.

Speaker 1 (01:31:23):
Think you realize Rack, it's not just that Bradley.

Speaker 2 (01:31:28):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:31:29):
If at nine to eleven happens under Al Gore, that's
the ninth the year of a democratic presidency. So while
George W. Bush was new and could claim the intelligence
was new, then all of a sudden, if Gore's president,
then the whole well, you knew this guy was a
problem because your administration tried to kill him once and missed.

(01:31:52):
You were on top of Bin Ludden, and you still
missed this. I think the politicizing of the intelligence failure
under a democratic administration, which is a continuation of eight
years of a democratic administration, becomes we are far more polarized.
The world we live in today is the world that

(01:32:12):
would have happened to us. September twelfth, ninth two thousand
and one, meaning I think we would have gone immediately
because it would have been this was the because he
would have had the same CIA chief probably maybe he
had had the same Secretary State maybe, but you know
what I mean. There would have been more continuation than difference,

(01:32:32):
and it wouldn't have been a new president. It would
have been right like. So that to me is the
is the dog that didn't mark right, which is, well,
we were we could have nine to eleven, could have
gotten politicized. It didn't, right, and it was a unique
set of circumstances for why it didn't.

Speaker 2 (01:32:48):
But could you have gotten away with the WMD stuff?

Speaker 1 (01:32:52):
Well, I don't think I rack ever happens, right, right, right?
I mean in that sense it doesn't happen, and we
probably still do Afghanistan. But what I'm saying is I
think we have a far more politicized world because this
wouldn't have been the failure of a new administration. It
would have been the failure of an administration that, in theory,
had been in power for nine years.

Speaker 2 (01:33:14):
Right. I think that's probably right. Can I throw one
crazy idea at you, because.

Speaker 1 (01:33:17):
Lady, that's what we do here at the Chuck podcast.

Speaker 2 (01:33:20):
So, okay, so if you look at sort of modern
political history for the president, let's just say since Reagan.
So there's been seven presidents, including Reagan's nineteen eighty five
of them, I would argue, were rock stars who were
definitely not the most qualified person. Two win so Reagan, Clinton,
w to some extent Obama Trump. The two that were

(01:33:43):
ultra qualified Biden and hw both only lasted one term.

Speaker 1 (01:33:48):
Right, so I call them nineteenth century presidents. They'd have
been better in the non media era.

Speaker 2 (01:33:53):
Right, at least for president. Americans want rock stars. And
my argument is the DNC or the RNC are the
least qualified entities to pick rock stars. And do you
remember that show? I think you were probably around the
same age. Battle of the Network Stars is like when
I was a kid, Right, So what if you did

(01:34:15):
that in say in twenty twenty seven, where you said, okay,
instead of a tug of war in the mud, go
to the waffle house of midnight, talk to the truckers,
talk to the cops, talk to the college kids, show
them all of America and see who comes and what
they talk to you about. Call inning of a Cardinals
game on the radio, whatever it is, and put candidates
in real world situations that are not totally scripted and

(01:34:38):
not totally packed with party faithful and just see how
they do. Because some will resonate, some will not. And
ultimately you got to pick the candidate that has that
intangible quality. And you're never going to get that through
the debates and the normal primary systems. You almost need
an alternate method. Well, you know, we have.

Speaker 1 (01:35:01):
You know, it's funny, what if I told you that
we had already had that system but we didn't like it,
and it's called the Iowa Caucuses. The single greatest aspect
of the Iowa Caucuses is what you just described, the
fact that candidates have to go into small venues. They
have to it's the only time in the presidential process

(01:35:23):
where you see more personal interactions, right, And you know,
I've always thought that what people don't understand that actually,
the two parties that stumbled on a really smart way
to do the presidential primary system. We start in a
super rural state that's very friendly, in the state of Iowa,
and you're being tested, can you organize ninety nine counties

(01:35:44):
like That's essentially what you're being told to do. You've
got to figure out how to organize. You can't just
win desmoins, You've actually got to show strength in ninety
nine counties. Then with the second test, we're going to
send you to a state that is cranky independence and
in fact they get to decide which party to vote
in and they vacillate like two thousand was fantastic. It

(01:36:07):
was really a fight between McCain and Bradley to see
who could convince more independence to pick the D ballot
or the R ballot. Well, McCain won that, and therefore
Gore won. Had Bradley won the debate with McCain, Bradley
wins the New Hampshire primary, and then the messages said, hey,
this guy is better at winning independence and it's a

(01:36:28):
test of that. Like I think the parties and we
didn't fully appreciate that the system that we had stumbled
into place you test or actually existed. And what you
have is you had a whole bunch of idiots at
the DNC who said, well, Iowa was too white, and
it is and they had it, and they applied a
DEI test to the state of Iowa mistakenly realized, not

(01:36:52):
realizing that by preventing their candidates from learning how to
speak to rural America in a friendly state like Iowa,
that they were going to fail in appealing to rural
America all over the country. So I absolutely agree with
what you're saying. And I'm like, we already had this
system because it tested Barack Obama, it tested Bill Clinton,

(01:37:14):
and in fact, it was in the small states and
their interactions in the small states that made the country
comfortable with what they what. We weren't sure whether these
were attributes that were going to work or not. So
we had the system, and we are now actually trying
to throw that system away, which I sort of am
frustrated them well.

Speaker 2 (01:37:33):
Because by throwing it, throwing it away and sort of
nationalizing it empowers the people inside the Beltway at the
expense of everyone else. But the problem is those people
like other people who went to Yale and write in
bullet points and that.

Speaker 1 (01:37:49):
Is not a rock star, right right, But let me
go back, let me throw somep at it chew, which
is which is? And I've I've been working with a
company that's basically popped up, that didn't exist for a
while but now exists as an entity to help corporations

(01:38:10):
communicate how to deal with tricky political situations, either with
their own employees or with the outside world. And it's
sort of it's a company now that it's thriving, and
there's a lot of Fortune five hundred companies that want
this research, this information, etc. And what I've come to
discover is that basically we're now looking for the same

(01:38:32):
attributes in our CEOs as we expect in our presidents
as you just defined, right, which is ultimately we're looking
for the best communicator. Right, we elect the best communicator.
We don't elect the best person. We're electing the best communicator.
The companies with good communicators probably are doing better on

(01:38:53):
Wall Street than the companies with bad communicators. And I
actually think now now we're communicating is so much more
important now to success in both the business world, the
political world, the entertainment world, frankly even the sports world.
That it is now a skill set that is as

(01:39:14):
important as learning how to type. It is a skill
set that it's important as understanding how to write. In fact,
you need to know how to do that then you
do right cursive right. I just think it's a skill
set that it's necessary now and.

Speaker 2 (01:39:27):
All walks away in my world investing in tech startups,
narrative is frequently more important than economic fundamentals, right, you know,
EVE and P and L and everything else oftentimes takes
a backseat to who has the narrative, the rhetoric, the
sort of you know flash that really gets investors excited,

(01:39:52):
and that's what drives evaluation. Look think about AI right now.
You take two companies and you call one of them
AI and one of them not. It could be the
same company. The II one has doubled evaluation immediately, right.
I mean, I would even argue that a lot of
the spending that the open aiyes and the Navidias are

(01:40:12):
doing on data centers and everything else is really short
term narrative and profit seeking disguise as long term planning.
So it looks like you're saying, oh, I'm thinking twenty
thirty years out, and the market loves that, and they
reward it with higher share prices or higher valuations if
you're still a private company, and in reality, we have

(01:40:35):
no idea what we're actually going to need to power
AI in twenty or thirty years, because the answer might
be that we don't need nearly this much compute, right,
Maybe the inference model works. I'm at a company that
is literally using rat brain stem cells to try to
power a compute. Whether it works, who knows, right, But like,
there's lots of different ways to go about it. And

(01:40:57):
I think that if your Jensen want you know, you say,
if I announced I'm going to spend a trillion dollars
on data centers, my valuation goes way up immediately. And
the truth is, by the time that the bill comes due,
I'm probably long gone. My shares became worth more and
more money in the short term, and even if all

(01:41:18):
that debt goes bad in people's four oh one k's
get wiped out as a result, not really your problem.
So yeah, narrative, you know, for better and for worse.
You know, it has overwhelming influence over everything else.

Speaker 1 (01:41:31):
No, and it's like, it's not just politics, it's it's
it's business. Let me get you out of here.

Speaker 2 (01:41:35):
On this.

Speaker 1 (01:41:38):
Is Is it better to be a public company or
a private company in twenty twenty five and in twenty
twenty six.

Speaker 2 (01:41:44):
That's a great, great question. I believe that tech startups
stay private for too long. And the reason they stay
private oftentimes is a it's easier you don't have all
the scrutiny of the market and analysts and investors, all
of that, and b oftentimes they're really overvalued and they're

(01:42:06):
afraid to go to the public markets because they're going
to face a steep cut in the share price. They
might have a good IPO day, but then you look
six months later and it's down seventy percent, and that's
because fundamentally the company was never worth what people like
me said it was in the first place. And we
tell me if this is a little too technical, but
in the venture world, we have gotten into a game

(01:42:29):
where the real way for people to make money is
have more AUM assets under management, because you get a
two percent fee. So if you can have billions of
dollars of AUM, it doesn't really matter what your investment
performance is because the management fee is worth tens of
millions of dollars and if you're you know, the main GP,
you can pocket that. And so as a result, if

(01:42:50):
you are raising much more money than you need to
get that two percent, you have to deploy it at
much higher evaluations to make the math work. And everyone's
in on the joke, from of the earliest stage you know,
investor to fidelity, whoever at the series A F for
G and then they know that it all works for
as long as they're not exposed. And what exposes it

(01:43:12):
is often the public markets. As I think tech companies
stay private for way too long as a result, and
that is really harmful to the employees, to consumers, to
a lot of other people. So I think that ultimately
I would really like to see the speed to market increase.

Speaker 1 (01:43:31):
How would you incentivize that? Because right now, I mean,
I'll be honest, is as much as look, I'm an
advocate of the public markets. I think the public markets
are for all the reasons you just said. Right, It's
a way to protect employee rights and all those things.

Speaker 2 (01:43:47):
You have.

Speaker 1 (01:43:47):
You know, it's having another set of eyes on everything.
But I think the incentive is to stay private and
attentive is But if you so, how do you incentivize
the public How do you incentivize driven.

Speaker 2 (01:44:00):
By the institutional capital allocators, meaning the giant pension funds,
the sovereign wealth funds, the endowments that give hundreds of
millions of dollars or billions of dollars to a private
equity fund of entricapital fund, whatever it is. Because ultimately,
every year that the company stays private, the RR of

(01:44:21):
the pension fund goes down. Right, So the people who
ultimately control the money are way too lax in the
requirements and pression that they put on the funds that
they invest in.

Speaker 1 (01:44:32):
And so you think the people running the pension funds
could put more pressure in these private companies. And you
want our if they want our crash, you need to
go public.

Speaker 2 (01:44:41):
Yeah, they said to Sequoia, if you don't get your
average company from your investment to an IPO down by
twenty five percent, we're not doing your next fund. At
the next board meeting, the person with Zaquoia on the
board is betting in the table saying we got to
get to the market faster. So that's where the power
lies in this situation, situation, And I really think that

(01:45:02):
in some ways because the public pension funds especially or
look when I was deputy governor of Illinois, like I
saw this, we would appoint people, but there are political
appointees right to the pension funds. They weren't business people
and as a result, they're often poorly run, and you know,
they are more eager to be able to say I'm
in Sequoia I'm an in grees and whatever it is KKR,

(01:45:24):
then it is demaining that the leaders of those funds
be accountable and provide really good returns. And so you know,
that's where it has to come from.

Speaker 1 (01:45:39):
Anybody, anybody getting grabbing your attention for twenty twenty eight
that you're excited about yet or.

Speaker 2 (01:45:44):
No, because in part, if you go back to the
conversation we had about twelve minutes ago, I would say
that I don't know who the rock star is yet,
and I know that if I just find the look,
you know, like you people come through New York and
they're rising money or whatever in the car.

Speaker 1 (01:46:01):
Yeah, you meet these people, right, They're smart, anyone's for
president smart, They're impressive. They're also super narcissist. I always
pay this like you run for president, You're like, boy,
you know you're you're a bit different than most of
us who don't think we should be right, But you're
good at this.

Speaker 2 (01:46:19):
And so I don't trust my own reaction in those meetings.
And I've spent a lifetime around politicians because I understand
what they're really good at, and that's what they're really
good at, and so I don't Maybe it's you know,
returns to the version of Iowa. But I would like
to see something that shows me because look, I'm a
rich guy in Manhattan, right. I am not an anyway

(01:46:41):
indicative of America, right you. I live in downtown, I
went to Ivy League schools. I'm everything that the that
the right hates right many ways, and I'm not a
good barometer for who's gonna win Iowa or New Hampshire.
And so for me, what I'm trying to do is
know what I don't know. And rather than saying, oh,

(01:47:04):
Josh Shapiro is the guy, Yeah he might. I don't
even know Josh Pierro, but he might resonate really well
with me in a one on one launch or whatever
it is. But so what right, So I would like
to try to figure out a way that who is
the candidate that can do what you talked about, which
is they figured out how to navigate the independence in

(01:47:25):
New Hampshire, they figured out how to organize ninety nine
counties in Iowa, and then through that you knew this
person has the intangible skill.

Speaker 1 (01:47:35):
Well it goes back. You know, It's funny you brought
up the Battle of the Network Stars. By the way,
if you, if you ever want to entertain yourself, go
look at Go go watch highlight reels of that on YouTube,
because they haven't. Okay, oh my god, it's it's fantastic.
It's unbelievable, right you just see the You're like, how
much cocaine was being done behind the scenes, right, there
is no doubt, like you wouldn't have it if there

(01:47:57):
was it, like you know, the amount of like create
seventies coke that was taking place. But anyway, that ought
to be actually a pretty good Netflix limited series, like
behind the scenes and the battles of the network starts.

Speaker 2 (01:48:10):
I'm sure it'd be, you know, just hilarious investing, and
we're going to make the show.

Speaker 1 (01:48:16):
Let's make that show. It would be you know, tell
us the real story of Farah Faucet and Lee Majors,
you know, like those those sorts of things. But there
is a series of tests that we want these candidates
to go through. And while I don't think we want
it to look like Survivor or a game show, in

(01:48:36):
some ways I do. I do like that there are
all these weird obstacles in the primary calendar, or that
there used to be. Because while it doesn't test you
on whether how you're going to handle Putin. If you
can't handle you know, the person that you got to

(01:48:57):
deal with in Columbia, South Carolina that that in order
to navigate you know, precinct, why well, then how the
hell do we expect you to be able to handle
a tough moment with Putin? Right?

Speaker 2 (01:49:08):
So the modern version that actually is the candidates who
are truly adapt to new forms of technology, whether it
was Kennedy and television or Obama and text, or Trump
and Twitter or Mandani in short form video, they do
really well because that becomes the way to do it.

Speaker 1 (01:49:28):
No, it's a you're not wrong, it's like, how do
we how do we how do we sort of celebrate
that part of the prime because you know, there's plenty
of people who will criticize our conversation. You're trying to
gamify it is sort of. It's not gamify. It's simply
finding the person who's got the best attributes to handle
how the job is done today.

Speaker 2 (01:49:50):
Plus, a binary contest is a game by definition, right,
So like we're already in that construct.

Speaker 1 (01:49:59):
Yeah, well, mobile voting, when will we see the first votes.

Speaker 2 (01:50:04):
April in Anchorage? And then my hope would be a
whole bunch of cities in different states.

Speaker 1 (01:50:11):
What does success look like to you? Turnout, like huge
increases turnout.

Speaker 2 (01:50:15):
I'm not going to get that in year one. So
Estonia is the one country in the world that has
had internet voting for twenty years. I went over there
this summer to kind of meet with a lot of
people and learn more about it. So in year one
it was one point three percent of voters voted online.
Today it's well, it's a significant majority, right, And they

(01:50:35):
went from having higher national turnout and low local turnout
to sort of normalize it across the board, whereas now
even MS collections are getting fifty instead of five because
people just got used to it and it just became
so easy that there's no reason not to do it.
So that's what I'm going for.

Speaker 1 (01:50:53):
Hey, in nineteen ninety five, the state of Oregon ran
this interesting experiment for mail in voting. It was the
special election to replace Bob Packwood. The entire West Coast
now majority votes by mail. Yeah, you know, and that
was just thirty years ago.

Speaker 2 (01:51:10):
So that's that's what I'm hoping to do here.

Speaker 1 (01:51:12):
Yeah, Well, I'll be watching rather than great conversation and
this was super fun and yeah, absolutely love to meet
and we'll do it again. All right, thank you. Well,
then you get your phones out or you're ready to
vote on the internet mobile voting and all seriousness. I do.

(01:51:34):
I believe this is going to happen. The question is
is it going to happen in my lifetime? Are we
so negative on the tech community that this is going
to be something that we are later to adopt simply
because of our distrust of both government and the tech
companies these days? I think so. By the way, you

(01:51:56):
may be wondering nothing on the Epstein file, I think
this is one of those things where it's going to
be I think the it's hard to speculate what revelation
is necessary to change to change the conversation on this right.

Speaker 2 (01:52:18):
Is there.

Speaker 1 (01:52:20):
Is there a revelation that suddenly so troubles the right
that they walk away from him completely. That's an open question,
right I I think, you know. I think another fair
question that I've been asking before I get a question
here is I don't get his What does it? Why

(01:52:42):
is he afraid of Glene Maxwell? What is it? I
keep asking people that know him, why is he so
soft on her? What is with this? You know, and
we'll see does she get a you know, does she
get her verdict thrown out? Does she end up you know,
what does he end up doing there? I'm surprised he
hasn't gone the other way and gotten harsher on her.

Speaker 2 (01:53:02):
What does she know?

Speaker 1 (01:53:03):
What is he afraid of? The only answers I get
from people that know him is that it's because she's
known him, She's known Milania longer than him. Something with
that relationship. But that that origin story or whatever it is.
That that's you know, I want to I'm not going
to go any farther than that on that, on that
speculation front, but whatever it is, he fears her enough,

(01:53:29):
or maybe it goes back to a relationship with her father,
who was a famed conservative Canadian media mucule. So it is,
it is something there. And you know, he's also just
very empathetic to fellow rich people in trouble. That's you know,
just look at the people he pardons, right, So it
is it is. Unfortunately his behavior is so odd that

(01:53:51):
it only inspires more speculation, and that is on him.
All right, Let's get to a few questions in here.
Ask Chuck, Hey, Chuck, thanks for the great shows and
let Cheese read if you know you know. I've dabbled
in prediction markets for the first time this year and
appreciate betting against other participants instead of the House. But

(01:54:13):
political BECs do make me uneasy. Wagering on individual outcomes
feels especially right for corruption, and I worry at further
roads trust in our political system. I draw a line
at institutional based outcomes like FED decisions, and feel more
comfortable betting on foreign elections where influence seems less direct.
How easy would it be for Stafford to know, for example,
who the next FED chair will be then and then

(01:54:35):
have themselves or friends or family load up on the
prediction market positions. Keep up the great work things, Nick Smith,
ps bear down, all right, I see what you did there.

Speaker 2 (01:54:46):
You know.

Speaker 1 (01:54:48):
That's the issue I have. I go back to the
player prop market, and I appreciate the state of Virginia right.
The state of Virginia, for instance, doesn't let you bet
on awards. I can't bet on on who the NFL
MVP is going to be. You can't bet on the
Heisman Trophy, you can't bet you can bet on who's
going to win the national title. You can bet on
who's going to win the super Bowl, but they don't

(01:55:10):
allow on the individual awards. They don't let you bet
on the Oscars in Virginia, but you can bet on
the Oscars in DC. But different, like I said, different
states are regulating things a different way. But this is
something that perhaps this is where national regulation is probably
going to be. The corruptibility of the individual prop markets.

(01:55:30):
Whether it's about who's the next FED chair, who's the
first cabinet secretary to be fired, who's that? You know,
there is always a window in time where somebody knows
the actual answer. You know, it's you know, we call
it in the stock world insider trading. You know, there's
going to be an announcement. If you want to know
what we mean by this, go watch the movie Trading

(01:55:51):
Places with Eddie Murphy and Dan Ackroyd, which was about
cornering the frozen You know, they thought they had stolen
the report, right, that's the plot, and they thought they
had insider information, and they load up on buying un
buying frozen orange juice concentrate, which I don't think you
gotta you can do oranges, but I don't think you
can do orange juice concentrate. But whatever. The point is

(01:56:13):
is that the movie Trading Places actually is a pretty
good job of at least explaining showing an example of
how insider trading can work, how it is, it is,
how manipulative to a market it could be. And that's
the point, right Like that appears needs to probably be

(01:56:35):
the line, you know, and betting on American elections, it's
just I just worry about, you know, my god, political coverage.
It was interesting. I just had I appeared on newsbacks
recently and the one of the hosts, Rob Finnerty, said, oh,
he trusts the prediction markets more than polling, and I said,

(01:56:57):
I'm sorry, I don't. I'm not there because the prediction market,
it's follow the polling that I've noticed. Where there is polling,
the prediction markets basically allow the polling to influence the market.
It's not as if the mark you know, I'm not
saying that over time, if you have a lot of
numbers that maybe maybe that is a way to sort
of crowd source disparate information. But I'm skeptical that it

(01:57:23):
can be regulated against abuse. That's my that's my concern
on that Anyway, I appreciate the question. Next question, Chucks,
a fifty three year old Kine from Coral Gables. It's
a joy listening to you. Well, I'm a fifty three
year old Caine from Kendall.

Speaker 2 (01:57:39):
So there you go.

Speaker 1 (01:57:40):
We can keep up the great word.

Speaker 2 (01:57:42):
Thank you.

Speaker 1 (01:57:43):
I've been thinking about your interest in prediction markets like
Calcia and polling market, especially as a parent. I worry
these platforms are part of a larger wagering industrial complex
trying to hook young people, turning serious events and entertainment
and tempting people to manipulate outcomes. Some of the bets
feel straight out of idiocracy or worse, the hung games.
Gocain's hire them Los Angeles, California. Look, you said it

(01:58:04):
very well.

Speaker 2 (01:58:04):
Like it again.

Speaker 1 (01:58:06):
There are I like I enjoy sports gambling. I enjoyed
gambling on team sports. I struggle even an individual sports. Now,
bet on, I would be more comfortable knowing that everybody,
you know, I don't. I don't think there's golfers that
want to throw the Masters, and I don't think they're
tennis players that want to throw Wimbledon. But table tennis,

(01:58:30):
I don't know, right, you know, in some of the
biggest scandals have been the sort of more arcane sports
at times, and usually where you can just find one
person to essentially totally look. And I'm not saying you
can't corrupt team sports. We've had points shaving scandals and
all of that, and I do think in fairness in

(01:58:50):
the sports world, I think one of the reasons why
we've seen a hot we've seen these scandals is because
the casinos, these mobile betting companies are doing a good
job identifying and finding patterns and sort of you know,

(01:59:12):
it's certainly, at least in the iteration one point, oh,
I've done a pretty good job at identifying that. But
everything gets more sophisticated over time, and ultimately, if something
can be corrupted, it will be corrupted. And I don't
think a larger market can could correct this corruption. All right,

(01:59:33):
next question, Hey, Chuck, I haven't dug into prediction markets much,
but if I did, I might place a show bet
on Gavin Newsom for the Democratic nomination. I'm uneasy about
the potential for insider trading, and worse, the risk that
someone might try to influence political outcomes through violence for
financial gain. With sports betting already targeting young men heavily.

(01:59:53):
I'm wary of making high stakes wagering even more mainstream
hashtag Ashta five timer club Chase c from Little Rock Nice.
I think if that's the case, Kudos, congratulations, welcome to
the UH. Here's another one. I don't think I'm not
gonna have to answer. I'm just gonna this is mostly
from you guys. Here's Eric B on this issue. Dear Chuck,

(02:00:16):
thanks for all the great content. I especially enjoy the
long form interviews and your Monday pod with Melissa. As
a financial consultant, I find prediction markets like Calshi and
Pollymarket helpful for gauging consensus on elections and policy shifts.
That said, I'm concerned these platforms are increasingly gamifying investing,
especially for younger users, blurring the line between gambling and
financial decision making. But she's a read from Colorado. PS.

(02:00:39):
You share a fence with my brother in law and
sister in law, so your local references always make me
feel closer to my niece and nephew. Well, no kidding, Well,
nice to know, and I am one of those who
thinks good fences make good neighbors. I think all I
find all of my neighbors are good, but I have
a good fence because I'm the one with the dogs
and I'm the one with barking dogs. So know that

(02:01:00):
hopefully your your niece and nephew aren't anti dog on
that front. Look, I what you said is important, and
you know, it's interesting with the investing, right, we've seen
the meme stock trend and and this is you know,
as a concern with Robin hood right, the idea that
that suddenly, you know, memes can take off. But look,

(02:01:20):
you have run on stocks all the time. I hope
people are smarter about investing and look at things like, hey,
are you how many you know, what percentage are you
trading over your over over your over your essentially over
your profit?

Speaker 2 (02:01:37):
Right?

Speaker 1 (02:01:38):
You know, I think Google trades at eighteen times, but
I think pollunteer trades it's like six hundred decks. Well,
be careful of by owning stock of anything that's six
hundreds because that's overly speculative versus something that has more provable,
more more provable, provable, provable uh profit and things like that.

(02:02:01):
But yeah, the gamifying as stocks we've seen, you know,
imagine being on the wrong end of game. Stop for instance,
Here's another one from Michael. I'm a younger millennial who's
dabbled in betting markets but now mostly observes with concern,
interesting especially around their impact on young men. Alongside meme stocks.
They seem to turn everything into a game of instant

(02:02:22):
gratification with little lasting gain. Your Federal Reserve example is
spot on. Many now just trade events rather than invest
with long term thinking. With personal finances already shaky for
my generation, I wonder if policymakers are being too libertarian
and whether we're heading towards a future where safety nets
are strained by decades of unchecked gambling. Thanks Michael, you

(02:02:43):
know it's interesting this issue. You're the second person to
bring up the what this impact is doing for younger men,
this sort of this scenification of everything. You know, it's
sort of like how you know, how Instagram really sort
of screwed up a lot of younger women and on

(02:03:04):
looks and things like that, and worried about that issue
that this was, that this Instagram was was causing all
sorts of young women to have body shaming issue, body
image issues due to body shaming and all of this stuff.
I mean, is it is interesting that we've got two

(02:03:25):
fairly new technologies, and these mobile technologies, and they're really
having negative impacts on young women for different reasons and
on young men for different reasons. And so it is
I think you're we're hitting on something that ultimately, you know,
the big pushback that is coming against big tech and
against sort of all of this is going to be

(02:03:48):
the argument is going to be strongest when you do
it through the prism of what it is doing to
young girls, young boys, young men, young women. Finally, I'm
going to do one more question. It's not this one
is not about the Calshier polymarket. This one comes from

(02:04:09):
a UNBC fan. By the way, that UNBC Retrievers. You
might remember them. They're famous for being the loan sixteen
seat to defeat a one seat in the NCAA basketball tournament.
But Douglas writes this. He says, Hey, Chuck, you frequently
say that you trust the public, especially when it comes
to holding a constitutional convention.

Speaker 2 (02:04:24):
I am hesitant.

Speaker 1 (02:04:25):
I first voted in the twenty oh four presidential election,
where voters in eleven states enacted state constitutional amendments prohibiting
gay marriage. I just came out to my family in
February of that year, and I felt like an outsider
in both my house and my republic. Yes, through later
grassroots efforts in Supreme Court cases, I gained the right
to marry ten years later in Maryland, but it is
still a reminder that civil rights is always a struggle

(02:04:46):
in the country. How can we trust the public when
the public isn't always protective of minorities. You're not wrong
on that, but I would argue that the Constitution that
ultimately the way what it takes to get a constitutional
amendment passed is not just a simple majority, and so

(02:05:09):
you don't have to fear sort of mob rule, and right,
that was kind of kind of mob rule, right, It
was a little bit of of I don't know how
else to put it. Those those things were worded in
such a way to be negative and all of that.
To get thirty eight states to sign on to something

(02:05:31):
that is prejudicial, I just think is really assuming the
worst about us as a as a country. So I
just think that because of what it takes to get
a constitutional amendment at it, thirty eight states, you know,
plus you know, super majorities when it comes to Congress,

(02:05:54):
I think those are that that I I think provides
the buffer right those referendum that you're referring to, know,
for we're all fifty percent right. It was all fifty
percent plus one, which is why I'm always a little concerned.
You know, I have some empathy for those that want
to raise the threshold on state constitutional amendments to sixty

(02:06:18):
rather than fifty.

Speaker 2 (02:06:18):
Now.

Speaker 1 (02:06:19):
I think the motivation for it is very political and
very ideological, but I think the principle of it I
sort of, like I said, I'm I empathize with it.
I think that when you're trying to put something sort
of in legal cement right, which is what a constitutional
amendment is putting in an either state level or at

(02:06:41):
a federal level, that that shouldn't be a simple majority.
So that I take your point. It's a very fair example,
but it also look at how public sentiment. I think
if public sentiment had been negative towards same sex marriage,
I don't know. If the Supreme Court does what it

(02:07:01):
does right, the shift in acceptance mattered too in that,
which means public opinion did end up end up in
the right place.

Speaker 2 (02:07:12):
On that.

Speaker 1 (02:07:16):
Reminder, next week, I am going to empty the mailbag.
So if you've got questions, if you want to do races,
if you want to do individual Senate House battleground stage,
college football, constitutional conventions, more poly market. I'd love if
you guys get some reaction everything was one sided. I'd
love to hear from those that are pro betting markets.

(02:07:39):
Give me your best tastes. Why you think I'm clutching
my pearls too much on this one. For those of
you that think that, I would love to hear the
best arguments in favor of being able to bet on
who the next VET chair is and why that is
a good thing, So please send me that stuff as well.

(02:08:08):
All right, well that I can't not do an update
on college football. I am going to the Texas A
and M game. I'm looking forward. I'm going to be
tailgating with my friend Chris Alissa, who is married into
an Aggie family, so I will hear a lot of Gigham.
I guess what I'm really hoping for is the only

(02:08:28):
thing I want to experience that's positive in college station
is tailgate barbecue. So if any of you Aggie fans
out there, if you want to be generous to a
Hurricane fan before the game, give me some thoughts on
getting some good tailgate barbecue Texas barbecue while I'm down there.

(02:08:49):
That's what That's what my daughter and I I think
we would both be interested in on that front. So
I'm looking forward to that's my first. I will be
my fourth hundred thousand plus college stadium that I've been
to and experienced a game at. So I've been to

(02:09:09):
the Rose Bowl for four. Rose Bowl Miami's only appearance
in the Rose Bowl, they won a national title. I
believe that was over one hundred thousand. I've been to
a Miami Tennessee game that Miami won that was over
one hundred thousand. And I've been to a Biay Penn
State game that Miami won. So hopefully that streak will
continue because we're you know as well, so hopefully that'll happen. Look,

(02:09:30):
I'm I'm very I want to be bullish about my Hurricanes,
both as a fan and you know, Miami is always
better in an underdog role when they're better. I think
Mario crystalbal is a better underdog than he is as
a favorite in that sense. I like our chances. I
like the fact that we're not playing a night game

(02:09:51):
down there with the twelfth Man that we're playing a
day game. It's just going to be you know, I
don't know how early Aggie fans are going to get
up to start getting moved up for that game, but
my goodness, you're gonna I think by the eleven am
local kickoff it won't be as loud and crazy as
it would be if it had been a seven pm
local kickoff. So I think the I think the the

(02:10:16):
the programmers at ESPN that they chose not to make
probably the best game of the first round of the
College Football Playoff. The fact they didn't put that sucker
in primetime is or make that the Friday night game
is a bit of a head scratcher. I don't think
the Alabama Oklahoma game is going to be all that interesting.
Well you know, I think it'll be an ugly, low

(02:10:37):
scoring affair where for where very where Alabama is in
almost the same spot Ohio State was in last year,
where had Ohio State lost to Tennessee, Ryan Day would
have been fired. Instead, he beats Tennessee and wins the
national title, and now he's got some job security for
a few years. I'm not saying Alabama will fight Kaylen

(02:11:00):
de boor if he gets a fourth loss here, but
it would be what third loss? Three losses out of
in the last five games if they end up and
twice to Oklahoma team that barely registered on offense. And
I will say this, I thought, Kaylen de Bor's I'm
not going I'm going to be the coach of Alabama

(02:11:22):
explanation took him way too long to get to that conclusion.
During that press conference. It was Paul Feinbaum seemed to
have noted this because there was a lot of world
salad when he simply could have said, no, I'm not
Why would I ever leave Alabama? This is the best
job in college football. Why was that not the easiest
answer to say? The fact that that wasn't instinctively his

(02:11:42):
first answer tells me someone is not somebody's not loving
having to be the heir apparent to Nick Saban, because
as somebody who knows the little things about air parents
or not, Let's say, you don't want to follow immediately
follow a legend like Nicksaban. You want to be the
guy after the guy. And I think my guess is

(02:12:04):
that calein de Boor. He strikes me as a guy
who's all of his experiences in the Midwest or the
northern tier. Right, all of his small college experience was
up there. He's not a guy of the South, didn't
have as much experience recruiting in the South and all
of that. So I I wonder if he's just culturally
not been the right fit, and I would I remember

(02:12:26):
being surprised that they he was certainly the hottest coach
to hire, But in hindsight, you know, the smarter hire
would have been a former somebody who had been on
Saban's staff. Oh, I don't know, somebody named Kurt Signetti.
Well easy to say that now.

Speaker 2 (02:12:41):
Isn't it.

Speaker 1 (02:12:43):
But anyway, I look, I'm weirdly bullish. And if Miami
gets through this, they would play Ohio State. And what
I love about Miami's path is it's the single hardest
path to win a national title. And and for Miami's purposes,
I wouldn't want it no other way. Right, there is
a lot of question marks about the ACC, a lot
of question marks about Mario Crystabal. Well, the best way

(02:13:04):
to erase those question marks beat A and M on
the road, and then beat Ohio State, and then after
that everything is gravy.

Speaker 2 (02:13:10):
You know.

Speaker 1 (02:13:10):
For me, my expectations are I'm extraordinarily disappointed if we
can't win one game. I expect to win one game.
I will be disappointed if we don't win two. I
will be happy if we can get to the Semis.
And then it's Carson Beck versus his old team in Georgia.
That would be a fun one, right, great storyline. There's

(02:13:32):
some fun storylines for Miami in various right being able
to play Ohio State a nemesis. You know, the last
time Miami played for a national title, Ohio State, with
the assistance of a referee, stole that national title from him.
So we got a little bit of there. Georgia. It's
Carson Beck versus his old team. How about a Miami
Oregon matchup Mario crystal ball coaching against his old team.

(02:13:53):
So some fun, interesting storylines that could develop. But if
there is any pressure, I you know, it's interesting. I
think both Miami and A and M have unique pressure. Right.
A and M doesn't want to have to lost like
two of its last three, you know, when they could
have almost lost three in a row, right, they lost
to Texas, almost lost to South Carolina. All you know,

(02:14:15):
A and M has always had this, They're always really
close to being a top tier college football program, but
for some reason they stumble right, and this would fit
a pattern for them ever since Miami's tried to come back.
Right is the U back?

Speaker 2 (02:14:30):
Is the U back?

Speaker 1 (02:14:30):
And it looks like we get there and then we
stub our toe not beating Texas A and m Right,
that would just add to the lore. Can Mario Crystal
Ball win big games?

Speaker 2 (02:14:39):
Right?

Speaker 1 (02:14:39):
So there's a little bit of pressure there, and plus
we have the we're carrying the load for a mismanaged
conference called the ACC. So that interesting and I am
curious to see does the pressure that I think both
Elco and Crystal Ball have in this game? How how
conservative are they in the first half. I expect a

(02:15:00):
super low scoring first half and then we'll see the
playbooks open up as the as sort of desperation kicks
in in the third and fourth quarter. But if you
told me this was seven to three at halftime, ten
to seven, three to three, six to three, right, these
are two really good defenses, and you know defenses always travel.

(02:15:23):
Carson Beck on the road has not always been the greatest.
The last time he was in the state of Texas,
he threw perhaps what would have been the single most
important interception that he threw all year, the last one
against SMU in overtime. So you know, Beck has something
to prove as well. But I'm just happy Miami seems

(02:15:43):
healthy and the quarterback that needs to prove something because
he's got a draft coming up, So all the incentives
are aligned. We don't win, it's gonna it's gonna be painful.
I guess I could accept losing by three or less,
but losing is gonna sting this one. You know, it's

(02:16:08):
really proved that Miami is back and belongs in its
rightful but what I believe should be the rightful place
in the top consistent, top ten program. They gotta win one.
They gotta win one in this playoff run at a minimum,
and of course my expectation at a minimum is too
a few other things on the weekend, Like I said,

(02:16:30):
very curious what happens how Alabama fans react if Alabama
loses this game. By the way, at the start of
this season, there was some chatter that Brett Vvennables was
on the hot seat at Oklahoma. I think it's fair
to say that he's bought himself another year or two.
Is this offense going to be any better though. This
offense has been a it is. And you know, I

(02:16:52):
will say this, Mattier has had more time to get healthy,
and I think that's why you're seeing a lot of
momentum if a lot of the experts, a lot of
people feel better about Oklahoma going into this game, Materiar
getting healthier, having more time off. Alabama seems less healthy
and they have this sort of this stuff hanging over

(02:17:13):
their head. In fact, I think Oklahoma has like the
least amount of turnover that they have to do with.
Only Miami I think has less turnover. They don't have
coaches going to other jobs or anything like that. Orgon's
got two assistants that are beginning that will be beginning
head coaching stints. So you know that also could be
a factor of the two long shot ones. Right, we
have our group of five playoff games, right, you have

(02:17:34):
two lane oh miss. I will say this, the fact
that Tulane's played them once, that's got to matter for something.
And obviously you'll have a different I smell a lower
scoring game in that one, particularly a lower scoring first half.
As for Oregon, that's one of those where't be surprised

(02:18:01):
if James Madison JMU tries all sorts of crazy things
in the first quarter. You'll see fake punts, You'll see
trick plays, fleet flickers, all of these things, and it's
one of those can they get a shock early touchdown?
Right like you know I it would if you told me, wow,

(02:18:21):
jmu's up ten to three. Wow JMU lost forty one
to ten, right like that, if you told me we
had a sort of pattern like that, Because I do
think you'll see, like the what should be fun about
watching JMU is they talk about playing with house money.
They got nothing to lose. It is not about just

(02:18:42):
you know, trying to cover the spread. I think you're
going to see some innovation and at least a lot
of trick plays, which could make at least fun. I'll
be I wonder if we have it as much of
that with Tulane or not. Look Tulane, they're the you
know as a program, they're you know them South Florida,

(02:19:04):
ut SA maybe to North Texas like they're the they're
the group of five teams that in their head think
that you know, if the power four expands by another
four or six schools, right, or if the ACC. You know,
if the best teams from the ACC go end up
in the Big ten in the SEC, then the ACC

(02:19:26):
replaces those teams with North Texas, South Florida, ut SA,
and Tulane. I think they're the they're the first. They're
among the first four programs that could get the call
up to the ACC. In particular, if the ACC loses,
UH loses a bunch of folks there. So look for

(02:19:47):
those of you that know me really well, know that
Saturday is probably the biggest single day, UH in my
personal football fandom that I've had in a long time,
because my Packers have to play the Bears on Saturday
night in Chicago, and it is for the division winner
is likely going to win the division. Loser is going
to be stuck going on the road playing either Tampa

(02:20:09):
Carolina whoever wins that South Division, or maybe having to
play the Eagles, a beating up Eagles team, but either
way having to start the playoff. You if the Packers
want to host a playoff game, they got to win
Saturday night. So I got my Hurricanes at lunch and
my Packers for dinner. I'm just hoping that the Aggies

(02:20:32):
don't have my Hurricanes for lunch and the Bears don't
have my packers for dinner. All right, with that, there's
my college football finat. Remember fan is short for fanatic,
and I fully accept that I am fanatical about my
Packers and about my Hurricanes. By the way, I'm also
in my fantasy football playoffs, in case you're wondering there,

(02:20:52):
I was seven and seven, I got the last spot,
and I'm already in my semi finals. That's how you
do it, That's how you get lucky. Is all honesty.
Thank you, mister Etn for getting more than one touchdown
last week. Okay, so with that, I'm gonna enjoy your weekend,
enjoy college football. If you like this podcast at all,

(02:21:13):
send some good vibes down to College Station on behalf
of my Mind Hurricanes, and from there I'll see I'm
my mone

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