Former Senate Staffer Explains the Chaos of Trump 2.0

Max and Dylan talked with Rotimi Adeoye. Rotimi was a Senate Staffer for the former Senator of PA, Bob Casey. Rotimi worked the ACLU and now, is an MSNBC Columnists. He is also lucky enough to be a Philidelphia Eagles fan in 2025.

Episode Transcript

(00:01):
You are listening to the Progressive Podcast.
I'm your host, Max Levin. I'm joined today by my Co host
Dylan Choppin. And we have the privilege of
interviewing Rotini Adioye. Rotini is a MSNBC columnist with
a Senate staffer for the SenatorBob Casey of Pennsylvania and a
communication strategist for theAmerican Civil Liberties Union.
He also has this privilege of being a Philadelphia Eagles fan,
getting to watch him go to the Super Bowl.
So let's get into it. All right, So Simia, how you

(00:24):
doing today? Obviously been a busy week.
Trump administration we're on. How is it only week two?
It felt like it's been like 2 1/2 years.
My hair is starting to go Gray. But I wanted to talk first and
foremost about the federal funding freeze.
Obviously you saw that whole debacle.
Any thoughts pressing on the? Yeah, No, thanks for having me,
guys. I look forward to having a great
conversation today and I really like your podcast that have been

(00:46):
listening to it a lot. So thank you so much for having
me on. I mean, yeah, I think the
federal freeze, hiring fees, that freeze that Trump has
carried out is a really just another example of kind of how
him and his team view of the government.
There's a really good memoir on Elon Musk that was written by
Walter Isaacson that I had the chance to read a couple weeks
ago, really before the administration started.

(01:08):
And there's this kind of mentality that Elon Musk views
with businesses called hardcore.It's really weird, kind of
stupid. It's basically this idea that
you can kind of go into institutions, businesses, excuse
me, and really just mass fire everyone, and that will help the
company run efficiently. And this is an idea that came

(01:29):
from the former CEO of General Electric, Jack Welch.
And what he used to do is go into General Electric and
basically fire a ton of people, and it led to General Electric
running smoothly. But the problem is the federal
government is not a business. A lot of people depend on the
federal government for their safety, for really vital
resources. So the way that they've treated

(01:49):
the government in this business way that you can just fire
everyone and that will ultimately help the government
run better. It's a disastrous way of
thinking. And it's really disappointing to
see because there are a lot of talented folks in the government
that have been there for years, have really important skills,
and we're going to ultimately bewaking making our government
weaker, and it's going to hurt alot of folks.

(02:09):
It really is something that's just hard to see until and I was
going to say, I thought you had some takes on obviously the
institutional chaos and all that, just hectic nature with
the obviously the federal firings.
Yeah, well, I I did want to ask.Obviously, this is connected to
Trump's messaging of draining the swamp, of getting rid of the
establishment. How do you think this feeds his

(02:30):
red meat to his, to the conservative base?
Does this actually, because frommy perspective, doesn't seem
like as it's as much of a drain the swamp kind of move tied to
Project 2025 as you might think.It seems more like asking the
swamp to leave. I wonder how you think this
motivates his base going forward?
Yeah. You know, I think, you know, he
ran on this campaign that, as you said, that he was going to
drain the swamp and kind of get rid of all of the extra kind of

(02:56):
nonsense the government had and kind of pull out the elites and
all these bad folks. So I do think for his base, this
is something they see and they're like, you're doing what
we wanted you to do. I mean, you know, I think that
you see it in a lot of differentthings.
I'm like I saw some recent reporting came out today that
like the Trump administration said that like certain

(03:17):
government officials can't have their pronouns in their BIOS.
Like they just care about like Lib owning and doing this.
Like, like we're owning the libs.
We're doing all this stuff, but they don't really care about
doing actual policy. I mean, I think it's really
something interesting about the Republican Party is the base
wants these like very symbolic things like cutting federal

(03:38):
employees, taking pronouns out of BIOS.
And on the other hand, the base of the Democratic Party wants
real structural changes on real policy.
And so, you know, sometimes I think a lot of people are always
like, why? How does Trump do all this stuff
and then Democrats can't do it? It's because I think the base of
the party and has a lot lower standards for their leadership.
And so you get this, the situation you're in, you know,

(04:02):
it's always harder to build and it's easier to destroy.
And I think Trump is showing that.
It's a really interesting perspective.
I was going to say so. So given that destroying Part 1
of the things that I've been is obviously, you know, Trump was
elected to be a Wrecking Ball, right?
Take a sledgehammer to the federal government.
It seems to me like all he's doing is creating chaos.
I don't see any actual substantive policy really coming

(04:23):
out of the White House. Any changes.
It's just hectic memos, you know, seizures of power, like
the birthright citizenship, executive orders.
How do you see all these things playing out with, I don't have
any clever way to put it, but like a rogue executive, someone
who's just clearly willing to throw out the norms.
Yeah. So there's this really
interesting constitutional law theory called the unitary
executive. I mean, it's basically this idea

(04:45):
that the executive branch has expanded in a way in which they
have control over certain thingsthe legislative branch does.
And this is not something that'sin practice now.
But what I think Trump is doing is by putting these executive
orders out, he's trying to push the conversation towards
embracing this concept of the unitary executive.

(05:07):
And I think what his plan is that he can send some of these
things to court and start to build a narrative in the legal
system that certain aspects of policy that limit the executive
branch should be changed. Great example of this is with
birthright citizenship. Birthright citizenship is in the
text of the 5th Amendment. I'm even conservative judges
that followed this idea called textualism, which is this idea

(05:30):
that when you read a law, the text of the law is the most in.
And that's an idea that conservatives been following for
a while. And so if you did a textualist
reading a conservative reading of the 14th Amendment, the text
says that if you are born in thecountry and subject to the laws
thereof, you become an American citizen.
Pretty simple, Pretty clear about what Trump is doing is by

(05:52):
putting an executive order banning birthright citizenship.
He obviously can't change the Constitution.
Presidents can't change the Constitution by executive order,
but I imagine the strategy is sending it to the lower courts
and starting to build this kind of narrative and story around
how the executive should have more power to overturn things
like that. So it's really dangerous.
It's really scary because he's trying to throw the country into

(06:14):
a constitutional crisis. And some of that concerns me on
this really is if the Supreme Court, which I think they will,
strikes down this law and he decides that he doesn't want to
follow it because the executive branch controls, they control
foreign policies. They have pretty wide latitude
on letting people into the country determining citizenship.

(06:34):
And what if they choose not to follow the Supreme Court's order
on that? And that's something that
concerns me because JD Vance hasmany times quoted this line from
Andrew Jackson, former president, which says basically
of the Supreme Court made a law,so let them enforce it.
And which is kind of this like, OK, they made this decision, so
they should come in and force it.
And it's kind of a he's basically giving a middle finger

(06:54):
to Supreme Court saying like, you have no real power because a
lot of power comes from owning force, which is what Congress
owns because they own the milk, they help run the milk with the
president control going to war. So I really do think that just
shows that Trump is really slowly trying to erode some of
our constitutional foundations. Yeah.
And I think that's that's prettyclear just just by following the

(07:17):
news. I do think it's it's somewhat
harder to determine what the executive branch will do without
because it is very like a closedloop circle kind of group of
people that are determining you're my inferior, you're going
to do this. And if I tell you, but you did
mention something that I think was interesting was kind of the
idea of the unitary executive theory keeping into the reading

(07:39):
and the practice of law. Obviously we saw that introduced
and really carried out by Bush too and then Trump's first term.
But my question is, with so muchof A emphasis away from that,
from the Biden administration, from the Obama administration,
does Trump actually have enough time for that theory to seep

(08:02):
through to the legal system? I, I, my, my theory is that if
you have four years, you're not going to change the minds of the
Supreme Court and the, and the circuit judges and the reading
of the law, how it is carried out in practice.
Do you think there's enough time, Do you think he has enough
willpower to actually get this kind of centralized authority in
the executive branch over just the next four years?

(08:24):
Yeah, that. No, I think that's a very good
point in caveat. I mean, you know, obviously, you
know, time is limited. And with presidents, some say
that, you know, you really only have 100 days because of the
midterm starts. And then everything starts to
become like, should you do this?You got like people in swing
states that get nervous about signing on certain things.
I'm sorry. I do agree with that point.
But I think what they're trying to do, and this is something
that Republicans have been doingfor a long time on ideas and

(08:46):
issues, is building the argumentconsistently over time to change
public opinion. Something that I think folks
should always pay attention to is that when the concept of mass
deportation was pulled in 2015, 2016, that's somewhere around 20
to 30% of Americans on board, I think maybe even lower.
But now when you poll Americans about the concept of mass

(09:06):
deportation, you have high 50s. I mean, some polls even show low
60s of Americans supporting massdeportation.
I mean, so I think that really shows the conservative project
the way they think about public opinion is that they view it.
That's something that is shaped slowly over time, not really A1
election cycle or two election cycles with multiple years.
And so they believe that they can ultimately push the American

(09:29):
public towards accepting their views because they have a very
good and well built out conservative ecosystem that is
pumping out their ideas in the media, but then also in the
courts. And there's a group called the
Federal Society that kind of trains young lawyers to
basically go into the legal world and be come conservative
leaders serve his bastions of their ideas in judges, in

(09:52):
judges, in clerkships and in different ways.
So I think for the Conservative party, some of these strategies,
obviously, you know, they're notgoing to happen in four years,
but they hope, you know, Vance becomes president.
Then you have another four years.
Let's say Vance loses and you have another Democratic
president, but then the Republican comes back in four
years. You kind of able to control time

(10:13):
by slowly and just steadily pushing these same ideas.
And I do think there is a counterbalance to that, which is
how fast is too fast for issues like this.
Because I think for Trump 1, yousaw a good amount of his policy
being deeply unpopular with a majority of the country.
And only after there was a migrant crisis, there was a,

(10:34):
quote, UN quote, invasion of thecountry, did voters really turn
around on that issue. And we saw that in this last
election. But I don't think in 2020,
people had really turned around on the issues that Trump is
focusing on. So how fast would would it be?
How fast is too fast for the Trump administration and these
issues? Are they jumping the gun with
some of these things? No, I think that's a really good

(10:54):
point. And I think we have to see, you
know, I, I think it's going to come down to how the public
responds. You know, I think any time that
any like critical writer, like pun and goes like, oh, I know
exactly how people are going to think about this in a couple
years like that, you have no idea what they're saying.
So I try not to like do that toomuch because it's tempting and
you can try to feel like you can.
But, you know, I think that's going to be, you know, how far

(11:19):
do they go? And kind of what is a response,
one from the public, the media, but also the Democratic Party,
That's something of it that I don't think we've really hit on.
And I think that's a big shape of perception.
I was talking to someone that works for a really big legal
nonprofit in DC, and they do a lot of communications work.
And they mentioned this to me before Trump was sworn in, kind

(11:42):
of this idea that when mass deportations start, the Trump
administration is going to be watching as they are right now,
how the public responds. You know, will CNN put a ticker
up for tracking the amount of people that have been sent out
of the country? How does the media respond is
basically going to inform how hard they go.
And what you have seen in the last week is the public is

(12:05):
actually been like pretty OK with the way that they've talked
about deportations because they focused on going after violent
criminals. And, you know, they just
released that they want to startdoing deportation camps in
Guantanamo Bay, which I think isa huge moral catastrophe.
And there's some really good reporting, The New York Times
that they've been doing for probably the last 15 years or
so, tracking people that are going in and out of Guantanamo

(12:26):
Bay because the legal system, there is a military tribunal.
So it's very hard to track. What they showed is that place
has a lot of civil rights violations.
And so I think on that point, the Trump administration is very
much kind of trying and testing different things to see how
people respond. So to answer your question, I
think it's going to determine ona couple of different factors,
depends on how the Democratic Party, how much noise they make,

(12:47):
how the public responds, but also the media kind of
interprets and kind of spreads their actions.
So I want to hone in on something actually you're
hitting on. It's, it's those, those 3
pillars of how the opinions change in this public, right.
You mentioned the media, you know, CNN, obviously news
stations at the Democratic Party, but I'm seeing two issues
with those. And are people really getting

(13:08):
their opinions from CNN and mainstream news at this point?
Same thing with Democratic institutions.
Having had your background in communications, are people
really getting their opinions onpolicy issues from traditional
news sources? I mean, I really, I think it
hard to believe that if social media is our dominant factor,
you know? Yeah, no, I I don't think that
the majority of public is getting their media information

(13:31):
from mainstream media. I think what has happened over
time is that people just don't trust it anymore for a variety
of reasons. I think you can, you know,
there's a lot of debates about when this started.
There's a really interesting social scientist I read that
argues that this started actually in the Clinton era,
that Fox News was kind of the creation of conservative media.
The way that they covered the Clinton affairs kind of turned

(13:54):
conservative media into this like gossip rag.
And so, you know, there are a lot of theories about when it
started. And I it's tough for me even to
say, but I don't think that I'm a lot of Americans trust
traditional media. And So what has happened is that
I think you have a lot more conservative people in
independent media because mainstream media has very strict

(14:15):
rules and regulations about who joins the club.
An example of that is the White House Correspondents
Association. It's a very elite and
prestigious group of people thatdecide who gets White House
press passes. That has been a long practice
and a very strict process that they've created.
And they have said that is to ensure that the most legitimate

(14:37):
media sources are coming in the White House.
But what you are seeing with theTrump administration, which is
interesting, is they've actuallycompletely removed the White
House Correspondents Associationfrom that process.
And now they are doing the vetting.
I think what that shows is they are aware of how independent
media is becoming a place where people are getting their news,
so they wanna be in on controlling that because they're

(15:00):
aware that mainstream media is not what it used to be anymore.
So yeah, I don't think that a lot of people are getting their
information from a mainstream media, Yeah.
Do you wanna just time out on the recording?
Do you wanna switch to a different topic or Sorry I just
I. Didn't know if we wanted to
switch to something else No worries I'll put I put a time
stop the hands to 620 so or 1620but all right we'll give it 20

(15:24):
seconds yeah I was like let's I was just gonna pivot from that
to like your his work with ACLU but.
Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt, I was just curious.
No, I'll be OK. Cool.
Yeah, no worries. All right, 1650.
Cool. So given all this, you know, a,
a, a change in, in independent media and obviously these
changes to the White House presspasses given in pet media sub

(15:45):
stack, you know, even this podcast, How do you see that as
a communication factor? And, and in particular, I want
you to think of this through thelens of, you know, the ACLU and
these other institutions on the other side of the political
spectrum, right, these more liberal to left-leaning things.
How do you see this as a competition where we're fighting
for people's attention and how do you get there?
Yeah, I think that's really interesting.

(16:06):
So, you know, before I was a contributor with MSNBC, I was at
the ACLU, a communications strategist and advisor for the
Voting Rights Project, but also on a lot of other civil rights
issues and kind of figuring out how do we tell the ACLU story of
protecting civil rights to the general public.
And I think that's something that the organization is doing
now really well. And a lot of other civil rights

(16:28):
groups and nonprofit Left the Line groups are doing.
And I think what, you know, if Iwas there, what I would say is
focusing on how can you reach people that aren't in
independent media? So that means talking to
influencers and talking to podcast, but then also building
your own infrastructure. And something I think that the
Republicans have done really well is they have built their
own information ecosystem. So instead of being like, we

(16:50):
need to give the New York Times,it's like we can just make a
podcast and we can have our guests on.
And, you know, the issue is thatthings like that, scaling it up
takes years. It's it's not going to be done
in like a year or two. It's not going to actually be
done by 2028. Like takes like almost 10 years
to scale something like that to the level that needs to be one

(17:10):
because you need size, you need correspondence, you need people
that are working in this machineof creating news.
But also the big thing is you need to have legitimacy and
people don't trust things like that only after they've been
listening to them for a long period of time and they feel
like, OK, I know this host, I know XYZ person, for example,

(17:32):
like maybe they've been listening to Venture Bureau for
so many years. Like, OK, like I trust him.
I've been listening to him sincelike 20/16/2020.
So it's like years of trust. You have to bill.
So you know, my advice to folks in those places, always just
start building right now. I mean, you really can't wait.
You can't. You can't until 2026 and say
we're going to like do it after the midterms and start building

(17:52):
now because we're already behind, so we just have to move
as quick as possible. So what he's saying is keep
listening to progressive podcastanywhere where you find your
podcast. Yes, keep listening to
Progressive, Yeah. What what role should in like
regarding that point that independent media and building
up that infrastructure is very important for having I, I, I
don't want to say our own echo chamber, but somebody to

(18:13):
represent us online and independent media.
How should and how does the establishment, whether that's
the mainstream media or the officials inside the Democratic
Party, contribute to that? I know there's been a lot of
talk about the DNC race and a lot of people have their own
ideas, but I do think that thereis also somewhat of a play it
safe mentality with a lot of DNCchair candidates.

(18:36):
I don't, I don't know if you feel the same way.
What? What would the biggest shake up
be to this whole system that we have up right now?
Yeah, definitely. You know, I think there is
definitely a played safe mentality amongst a lot of DNC
members and some of the folks that are running for leadership
positions. And I'll give you an example.
So before I was at the CEO's on Capitol Hill, work as a press
secretary for a member of Congress who's now retired, and

(18:57):
I would see all the times, the different Democratic offices.
The approval process for postingsomething online is like the
most complicated, convoluted process you'd ever see.
You'd have a tweet written and then you'd have like four people
sitting there and debating the tweet.
Whereas you have just like Donald Trump is just posting,

(19:17):
you know, he's like the best ship poster ever.
And I think, like, what that does is that, you know, people
feel like they trust him more even though he's a liar because
he's just able to kind of speak his mind.
And people are like, I like someone where I feel like I
connect with because politicianshave always been seen to be in
this ivory tower that are far away from people.
And they can't really people can't really interact with their

(19:39):
politicians. So I do think there is some that
played safe mentality in some ofthe folks running for DNC chair.
One of the folks that I think that have really interested me
the DNC race is Faye Shakur. He's running for a DNC chair.
And I think the way that he views independent media I think
is really insightful and interesting.
The reason why is because. He helped launch a page called

(20:01):
More Perfect Union, essentially the social media page I think a
lot of folks have seen that talks about labor issues in a
really interesting way that's digestible for the general
public. So, you know, I think you want
someone in that role that has actually scaled digital media
before because I think a lot of folks that are running for the
role are really smart and reallytalented and have done that work
on the ground. But times are changing.

(20:22):
You know, you're not going to win a campaign anymore by
knocking the most doors. We've seen that happen.
The Democrats knock the most doors, they talk to the most
voters and they still lost the election huge men.
So that's showing that there's just a different way to
communicate with people. There's a really good book about
this called The Medium is a Massage by the sociologist that

(20:43):
talks about kind of this idea ofhow and when communication media
changes, mediums change of the politicians that are successful
and will also change. There's a really good story
about in there about how Reagan really becomes a successful
politician because of TV and because of his ability to be
behind the the camera and smile and laugh.
Me, a former actor, makes him a more adept politician.

(21:05):
If you didn't have television during that time, it's pretty
good argument that he wouldn't be as successful as he was.
So I think at the end of the day, the Democratic Party on
folks that are in leadership, I hope don't play it safe.
And I think that means leaning on young advisors and just
letting them run with their ideas and seeing what happens
and not being so afraid of failing.

(21:25):
I think you really hit somethinggood.
This one's just personal to me. I mean, obviously I also was
obviously not the role you were press secretary, but I was a
capital L intern. And it's those layers of like
red tape for a tweet. And, and, and this is not to
dunk on how they, they do their things, but my time that I
remember writing a tweet and just for context, right, it was

(21:45):
a tweet about, I want to say Labor Day.
And I put something about like wishing folks a happy Labor Day
or it was moral Day, whatever itwas, but it was just folks,
happy Memorial Day, you know, stay safe.
Like have a good weekend. We had to get it right.
It went through five different people.
It took three days to get the approval for a tweet.
We had to interchange the word families to folks to families on

(22:08):
Main Street to all these, pardonmy friend, just bullshit things
of it's a God damn tweet about like it's a God damn tweet about
a holiday and it's going to be ignored.
It's going to be swipe past the feed.
And we're not winning that attention war.
But what I want to take with this is that you mentioned
something about letting younger people run with their ideas.
And of course, you know, DC chair fight Faiz Shakira saying

(22:31):
that, right? How exactly are we going to
bolster these young influencers?You know, I was thinking a lot
about those, those those two Democrat kids, Harry Sisson and
the other blonde kid who I actually have no clue what his
name is. But those guys, they're just
appearing everywhere. They're talking.
They're kind of annoying. I mean, look, I appreciate the
stick. I like what you guys are doing,
but you're just going in there and picking fights.
How are we actually going to engage these voters?
And like you said, this, this new medium, it's online.

(22:53):
Like, how do we actually engage these people with with stuff
that's going to stick? So an idea that I've seen that
I've really liked and I've kind of try to share with some folks,
I think the DNC needs to start aYouTube news page, something
kind of stationed like a Prager U page, where you kind of are
talking about Democratic values constantly, but also talking
about the strong, rich history of the Democratic Party.

(23:15):
I'm talking about the great things that FDR did, talking
about the great things that former past presidents Barack
Obama, JFK have done. And that's something that I
think that the Republicans have done really well is they've
created this narrative of the past Republicans on Prager U and
on these YouTube sites. So I think it's a place that I
would really like to see the Democratic Party engage with
because we don't really engage with YouTube platforms.

(23:38):
Another thing I think I'd like to see the Democratic Party do
this is for elected officials, senators and members of Congress
is more direct to camera videos.An elected official that has
done this really well after the election, and a Senator Chris
Murphy. I think he's taken really big
advantage of social media and speaking to people and letting
them know about the disastrous things that Donald Trump has

(23:58):
done and making sure that he's reaching them where they are.
Because Democrats always say after the election, it's been a
constant refrain that I've heardeverywhere.
We want to reach people where they are.
And I'm like, OK, if you really want to do that, you have to
invest in digital media. You have to invest in these
places where people are. And then the conversation just
goes, we need to knock more doors and invest in organizing.

(24:19):
So then I'm like, you actually don't want to invest in where
people are. I'm so I think we really need to
decide if we want to reach wherepeople are, because if you want
to reach where people are, the answer is going harder on
digital. You have to reach people who are
doomed scrolling on TikTok, Basically, Yeah, Basically,
Yeah, yeah, yeah. But how do you breakthrough
that? I mean, it's an algorithm and
and something I kind of want to tie into that is that whole

(24:41):
nonprofit like feedback loop of the like the word policing of
tone policing. How do you see that playing out?
I mean, it's, it's, it's social media.
You have to be quick. You have to be effective.
You know, I, I really believe that that whole federal funding
freeze, the fact that you didn'thave all, you know, 47
Democratic senators or whatever it was going on TikTok and just
holding the phone being like, take a look at this Trump shut
down like Meals on Wheels for veterans or like any number of

(25:04):
things. Why are we pretending like we
have to be some perfectly scripted, use every word
correctly, like it's let them goup and be them?
I one of my big gripes with especially the Biden
communications team was let Biden go up and be weird.
He's a little funky. He says strange things.
Let him go up and do that. Let him, instead of having him
sit there in scripts and read off a billboard, have him just
go up there and say crazy thingslike that's what he's good at.

(25:27):
Have him be a little weird. Make it.
Yeah, the president's a little weird, but we like him.
Like, why? Why that?
And how do you see that actuallytaking shape?
I mean, how do you, how do we break out of this, this perfect
little bubble of we have to say everything correctly, we have to
make sure everything's perfect? So I think the reason why this
happens a lot in Democratic circles is because a lot of
Democrats are smart. And I think what happens is when

(25:50):
you are smart and you're well read, you tend to overthink
every simple thing you do. I say this song that's in law
school right now, I'm literally being trained to overthink every
single thing. That's what the degree, it's
what I'm paying for them to teach me.
So I think you have a lot of people in the Democratic Party
that kind of have that mentality.

(26:11):
And I think it's ultimately Hanford us because the social
media environment, the environment that people are in
right now, they don't want politicians that are so uptight.
They want them to be relaxed. They want to see them in public.
They want to they want to feel like they can touch them and
relate to them. I mean, I think on your second
point on language, I think really I guess like PC culture,

(26:32):
I guess that's the word. I think something that has
become clear is that the Democratic Party for a long time
has had this strategy of how to talk about social issues and
they thought that it would bringout minority voters in droves.
There's a really good book aboutthis, two really good books
about this. The 1st is called the Expanding

(26:52):
the Democratic Majority by Routeto Share.
The second is called Elite Capture.
I mean, the first book, it talksabout this idea of really how in
the early 2000s, before Obama, alot of political theorists have
this idea that the country was becoming more diverse and all
you had to focus in on was racial diversity to turn out
minority voters and they would support you.
That is obviously not happened this past election.

(27:15):
We saw Latino voters and black voters go towards the Republican
Party in ways that we haven't seen in years.
I mean, what really concerns me is that if we stay attached to
this idea of just messaging and using these PC and diversity
lingo terms and not actually speaking to Black and Latinos,
real concerns about changing their lives and benefiting their

(27:37):
economic situation, we're going to keep losing these voters and
the bottom will actually fall out.
And I think that would be reallybad because right now, in this
election in 2024, you saw Latinovoters vote for Donald Trump, I
think 46 to 48% of the way. And if you're a Democrat, you're
not gonna win the presidency. If 48% of Latinos are voting for
a Republican, like you're just not gonna win.

(28:00):
So you really, I think we reallyhave to think about how we're
doing outreach to these groups because the theory for years
that we could essentially just speak in more diverse terms and
speak in this PC lingo, it'll reach these diverse voters.
It's not working. I mean, another point I think I
want to make on this, and it's in this book that we capture.
It's one of my favorite books isthe idea of really PC policing

(28:23):
is or PC culture and language. It's not really something that
is actually benefiting these minority groups tangibly.
In a lot of these programs that corporations are putting out,
they actually don't lead to higher minorities in these
executive roles. And this book kind of talks
about how a lot of PC language and all this, like, kind of

(28:46):
culture around this stuff actually doesn't lead to
reaching more minorities and bringing them in the political
process. So I think Democrats have to
really take a step back and think about their strategy that
they've been doing for the last 10 years and think about is it
actually reaching the voters that we need to keep in our
coalition. Yeah.
And I think I think it's also really interesting that the

(29:07):
Latino voter base that heavily shifted to the right for someone
who unlike the like you kind of mentioned the Democratic idea
that we need more focus on theseissues for POC's.
We need more people in Congress who represent these people.
Not saying that they you can't have those things and those
things are important. But 48% of Latinos, like you
said, voted for someone who is actively trying to deport a

(29:29):
large number of Latino people here and who is a really wealthy
rich old white guy who is just tweeting from his toilet.
And so it's, it's kind of an interesting like disconnect
there. Also, one thing that I also like
have heavily noticed is that beyond the background, like the
racial background of people in Congress, there is also a huge

(29:51):
disconnect between the career background that people had
before they came into Congress. For Democrats, it's I think it's
the vast majority, I don't remember the exact number, but a
large majority of Democratic people in Congress are had
careers as lawyers before they went into politics.
Is that also something that like, like you said, people in

(30:11):
Congress are overthinking their media strategy, don't exactly
know how to be more human and less robotic.
Is that also something that should play into the calculus is
like we need more people from medical backgrounds or education
backgrounds or maybe media, right?
You mentioned Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump.
Those are both great examples ofpeople who had large excess
because of their media background.
Is that something that Democratsalso should be focusing on, or

(30:34):
is it retooling the people that we already have there?
So I think it's both. I think it's, you know,
retooling the folks that we havethere and kind of letting people
know that the way to reach more people is to just be
authentically yourself. And something that I, you know,
advice I give to Democratic members of Congress right now is
your Twitter account. Put it on your phone and stop.

(30:55):
I mean, your staff can tweet from it now and then, but you
should be tweeting from it everycouple hours.
Don't talk about politics. Like, you know, that if you're
into TV, you're into sports, you're into, like, cooking,
you're into like whatever you'reinto, start tweeting about it
because you're going to build a community of people that are not
just interested you about politics, but interesting you
for what you're interested in, your passions of your hobbies.

(31:16):
And I think that shows that a politician is reaching people.
And that's what people want to see.
They want to connect with their politicians.
I mean, so I think that's something we need to do is
retooling folks that are in office and letting them know
that there's a way to communicate with people better.
I think also at the same time, yeah, I think definitely
bringing in folks with more diverse backgrounds.
I see this as a law student bringing folks that are in the

(31:38):
medical field in business, because we want to show people
that we have a diverse elected official group that reaches
different parts of the American economy.
And so when they're voting, theyhave this special skill set, so
many different parts of our economy.
I did want to ask a follow up question real quick.
I think I, I agree with you, definitely Democratic

(32:00):
politicians should be more authentic in their
communications. But I also think a similar point
that people like, something similar argument that people
make is that we need like a Joe Rogan of the left.
I'm sure you've heard this wherewe need, we need to have someone
who has left-leaning values thatis fulfills a Joe Rogan type
role. And I think 1.11 argument
against that that I heard that was very interesting, was that

(32:21):
Joe Rogan's appeal to the right wing is not because he's someone
who talked about politics and then got into MMA and UFC and
things like that. He was somebody who started as
AUFC fighter, as a sitcom actor,whatever he was, and then he
started talking about politics. Is it possible to make that
jump? The connection that I'm trying
to make is make that jump from talking about politics to being

(32:43):
authentic. Or will people just kind of see
that as disingenuous? Yeah, no.
And I totally agree with everything you said.
And I think that's why when people say we need a liberal Joe
Rogan, it's kind of ridiculous because one Joe Rogan voted for
Bernie Sanders. He half of these liberal
positions. It just was when he decided not
to be liberal anymore, which I think is something that we could

(33:04):
probably protect for a long time.
As someone that I used to listen, I listen to Joe Rogan.
I've been listening for years and I think that happened when
his ideals changed. But also I think that happened
when I think Democrats just never took those places really
seriously. They always thought it was a
joke. They thought these were just
weird podcasts where people talkabout UFOs and conspiracy
theories and MMA and they weren't places that they really
wanted to go to talk to people. But after this election, they're

(33:27):
now realizing shit, we actually need to invest in those places.
So I think the idea of a liberalJoe Rogan is kind of just, it
shows that almost Democrats kindof don't understand what's going
on because the whole appeal again is that he was not a
political figure. He was an MMA fighter, he was a
stand up comedian and then latergot into politics.
So I think for Democrats, it's not really creating a liberal

(33:49):
Joe Rogan. It's going into the spaces that
already exist and talking about your values and understanding
that there may be some hostility.
What if 10% of people listen to a podcast episode or a kind of
maybe conversation of a conservative podcast and they
come away being more skeptical of Donald Trump's vision for the
country? You won.

(34:10):
You know, it's a really good point.
I was going to say. So when you say going into these
like hostile positions, right, obviously it's a different
strategy of broadening your yourtent.
You know, you don't win more voters, right, Appealing to your
base. You go out and you find new ones
to make it bigger. But I want to I want to pivot
this into, you know, your time as an aid for Senator Bob Casey.
Obviously he lost Pennsylvania. It was supposed to be a pretty

(34:31):
simple win for him. Obviously pulling out of my
head. But what happened?
Did he like not go in these spaces that?
Can you tell us a little about what happened and maybe filter
all these things you've been saying and through the lens of
Bob Casey's race in Pennsylvania?
Yeah. So, you know, I, I got to be in,
in full transparency, I wasn't working on the most recent
campaign. So I, you know, I, I didn't
really see what was happening and some of the decisions that

(34:53):
they were making. And Senator Casey is a great
boss of mine and it was obviously disappointing to see
him lose. But from my perspective, I think
something that happened this election that was clear to me is
that, you know, he was in officefor a while, a good amount of
time. And I think Pennsylvania voters
and voters around the country wanted someone new in general.
They're very much tired of the status quo.

(35:14):
And Bob Casey very much was attached to the status quo, not
only by his own election as a senator, but his family was also
in politics. His father was governor of
Pennsylvania. The case he named not only
carries the Biden legacy, his own legacy carries years of
prior Democratic politics. So, you know, I think he was

(35:35):
really running in a in a change election.
And when you're running in a change election where you're
representing the last like 40 years of Pennsylvania politics,
I don't think it's going to go well for you.
And then on top of that, everyone is angry with Democrats
for rising prices. So I think that's tough.
I think something that really stood out to me about
Mccormick's strategy was really using some of that messaging,

(35:57):
but also really reminding Pennsylvania voters that he's
just a normal Republican, which I thought was interesting.
And I say this is a Pennsylvaniavoter in Lithia right now.
The biggest issue that Pennsylvania Republicans have
had in the state for so long is candidate quality.
They recruit the jittiest candidates.
For example, Doug Mastrano that ran against Shapiro was this
conspiracy guy. He made no sense.

(36:19):
He was saying all this weird shit about chemtrails and he got
smoked by Shapiro of the election.
And Republicans in Pennsylvania have had that problem for a long
time. For the first time, what you saw
with McCormick was they actuallyjust ran a normal Republican
similar to the last Republican governor and last Republican
senator of Pennsylvania. Dave McCormick military
background, business background worked for George Bush.

(36:40):
You know, like he's not some maga lunatic.
He was literally a neo con for multiple years working in the
Bush administration. So he just was like I'm a normal
business guy Republican. I'm not going to like scrub your
taxes and not going to touch your health care like I'm
normal. And he won that election.
So I think you know, there are acouple of things there that
ultimately led to I think Bob Casey's ultimate loss in that

(37:02):
election. I do think the communication
stuff played a role. It's something that I honestly
haven't had a chance to dig intoin Pennsylvania too much because
I think in some of these states like Pennsylvania, where you
have rule voters and the Internet plays a lot more of a
kind of role. And I didn't see David McCormick
too much in some of these conservative spaces on the
Internet. But I do think his strategy of

(37:24):
really being a normal Republicanand a change agent really led to
him winning that race. Sorry.
Go ahead, Don. Now you go ahead, You go ahead.
No, no, I was just going to say,I mean, that's it's, it's an
interesting topic. Really.
I have all my thoughts, of course, on the candidate quality

(37:44):
and all these things, underperformances over
performances. We could always chalk it up to
to money. And I'm sure you saw the
discourse of, oh, he wasn't campaigning enough.
You thought it was a slam dunk. It's like, OK, like let's get
off Twitter. Let's just remember there are
actual people that do things, not just sit on this app and
filter whatever we see. But, but I think with the that
Dave McCormick strategy, right, of I'm a normal Republican, how

(38:08):
much of that do you think reallywould have worked better for
Democrats? I mean, you think Ruben Galleco
or or Elissa Slotkin, how many of them pulled the I'm just a
normal Democrat? And it's, it's, it's the
opposite side of the coin of instead of I'm a normal
Republican and I'm not going to like raise taxes and I'm not
going to cut your health care. It's I'm a normal Democrat.
I just want to make sure people have healthcare and make enough

(38:28):
money. And I want to make sure you
have, have the things you need. Like how much of that is just
being normal? Like I, I really, I do wonder,
are people just tired of, you know, Ivy League educated, you
know, I want to, I want to include this with this messaging
thing with the word policing, because this is the one that
kills me. I grew up in Southern
California, right? My town was 5050 of Dwight, 50

(38:49):
Latino. It was very clear to me that
it's like you speak Spanish, everyone understands things.
You do not use the word Latin A or Latin X because that is just
so. I mean, I've never seen like
hatred burn in someone's eyes when you refer to them as that
because that it's just, it's, it's just an insulting and, and
how much of that is just, well, we can just be normal.
Just talk to people, be like, no, I'm a normal Democrat.

(39:09):
I just want you to have a nice house to live in and have
healthcare, right? Yeah.
No, I think that's, I definitelyagree with that.
I think folks like Ruben Gallegoand Elissa Slotkin in Michigan,
I think the reason why they're so successful is they did that,
but also I think they really didn't run, and this is kind of
unfortunate. They didn't really like run

(39:31):
alongside the Harris campaign per SE.
They really ran their own distinct races as being like,
this race is about me, It's not about Kamala Harris.
I mean, I think there's some people that ran in 2024 very
much being like, I am like running to continue the Biden
Harris legacy. And when it was for them, it was
like, oh, I'm running because I care about people of Michigan

(39:52):
and this is my own race and my own ideas.
I may even sometimes be against the Democratic Party on some
stuff. I may disagree with the party,
but that'll that honestly shows that I have my own mind.
I mean, that's something that has really stood out.
Pennsylvania. I'm John Federman, senator here.
A lot of Democrats online don't like him for I think a lot of
different positions and I distribute the set on many
issues. But I think something that makes
him popular in Pennsylvania is that he has his own opinion.

(40:16):
And beliefs about things that are different from people.
And Pennsylvania voters like people that are independent
minded. And it's really been the way our
state is always gone. And our statewide officials,
folks that are independent minded, they're even willing to
buff their party a little bit, tend to do well.
For example, Dave McCormick cameout a couple days ago and was
like, oh, thankfully, thankfullythe Trump administration cleared

(40:38):
up the freeze. This was ridiculous.
Kind of showing that, you know, he understands kind of sees like
kind of the reality of Pennsylvania.
Like you have to be kind of thisindependent person.
He couldn't just be like the fake woke media has made-up the
spending freeze, which is like what, you know, if you're a MAGA
die hard or, you know, MAGA member of the House, that's what
you say. But he realized that, you know,

(40:59):
he's in Pennsylvania. This is swing state and
Pennsylvania voters like independent minded elected
officials. We have to be careful about how
we talk. And I think it's an it's an
interesting connection that you make that I think is kind of
counter intuitive, but it it makes sense for the political
reality we're in, which is that more main, more center leaning

(41:20):
people might be seen as more independent thinking.
Whereas if you were to think back maybe just even 1015 years
ago, it's like if someone was more independent thinking, if
you label them that way, they might have been seen as more
extreme. Why do you think that shift is?
Is it because the extremes of each party are more dogmatic
than they used to be? Or is it?
Is there another? Plays are another factor going

(41:41):
on. Yeah, no, I definitely agree
with that. I think the media is kind of
like hyped up both sides, like the extreme wings of both sides.
I by no means I don't think the same at all at all, but I think
the media is very much created this perception that they're
both the same. So when someone is not in either
camp and you're in a state that is purple, I think you do better

(42:02):
because you can speak to voters in the middle, right?
Yeah. And I also had a follow up
question to what you were sayingearlier, which is that Dave
McCormick was this centrist leaning more normal kind of
conservative that Pennsylvania'scould trust.
Do you think that from my perspective, it seems like
especially in swing states, it seems like that is not actually

(42:24):
the norm anymore. It's the exception.
And Dave McCormack is it is the exception, especially in this
circumstance when you have KerryLake running in Arizona or Dave
Mastriano running. Do you think after Trump is an
after Trump's party, does the status quo return?
Obviously, this is like a pie inthe sky kind of vision that
Democrats will have, oh, Trump will just leave and everything
will go back to normal. But is it?

(42:46):
Is that trend going to continue?Are people really going to be
loyal to Trump after his term ends?
If you don't have an answer, that's fine.
I'm just curious. So no, I think that's
interesting. You're now kind of, I guess I'll
think this through while I give my answer.
So I think this all predicates is all predicated on how the
next four years go. You know, if these tariffs

(43:06):
happen and they bankrupt the economy and we have another 2008
situation, which I think is actually very possible because
in combination with tariffs, I think the amount of money that
is being put into the AI crypto space, If that bubble burst and
there's not enough innovation tokeep up with the amount of
investment that has been made, you'll see another financial

(43:28):
crisis. You know, if you spend like
trillions of dollars on these AIservers and nothing gets built
and it ends up not producing at the level that you wanted to,
you'll see another financial crisis like in 2008 where the
housing bubble burst. So I think it depends really how
the administration goes. I think that pending COVID,

(43:48):
Donald Trump wins a second term in 2020.
I really do think that. And you know, I think if he
finishes this term, you have like some crises that happened,
but the economy is relatively stable.
We're not involved in a foreign war in Greenland or Panama or
wherever the hell they're tryingto else invade or go to.

(44:08):
I don't really can't keep up. I think.
I think you could see Donald Trump kind of being this father
like leadership figure of the party in the way that Obama is,
in the sense that, you know, if you're running in a competitive
statewide election, Obama comes and it's like this whole fanfare
and the base of the party gets really excited.
And I really do think that Trumpcould become that figure.

(44:31):
But it just depends on how this term goes.
Oh, I'm actually muted. So I was going to say I didn't
want to interrupt, but I'm like,that's sorry.
I'm just thinking about that as a logistical issue.
I I love data, that principle, right?
I mean, obviously you've seen itWhen Obama comes, we roll at the
red carpet and everyone was like, Oh my God, it's like 2008
again. But Trump's old.

(44:52):
I mean, he's going to be 82 whenhe leaves.
I mean, do you really think he'll still have that staying
power as he continues to get older and older and, you know,
instead of just talking about windmills and it's 2020 and he's
like, OK, serious, this is 45 minutes of it.
It's going to be, I've been off for like his Batman.
It's like, OK, that was 20 yearsago, Trump.
It's time to go back to the home.
Like do you see that at all as being different?

(45:15):
You know, I would say that, but just this guy and the way that
he's been able to be very resilient in the face of
challenges. I want to say like, no, But his
past like ability to bounce backvery quickly, to kind of use his
ramblings as a sign of competence in the sense that he

(45:37):
was able to say, I ramble so much.
And he said this on Joe Rogan's podcast, because I'm connecting
all these different issues together and Joe Rogan sat there
be like, Oh my God, you're so smart.
Like that's a really good. You're such a genius.
And then, you know, I obviously I was like, Oh my God, this is
bullshit. But I think that he has like
he's a very charismatic politician.
And so I, it's tough to say if that's going to happen.

(45:58):
I, I really think we have to seebecause there is a chance that
he could just really age rapidlyin a way that no one knows.
And he, you know, could be in a wheelchair and just couldn't be
very firm and cannot communicatein the way that he used to.
And this, this is really the golden age, as he said, for his
life. So we got to see.
I I think we just have to see. Yeah.

(46:20):
Interesting. It's like in the same way like
Biden kind of, I don't want to say again, faltered, but as he
got older, he started to shuffle.
Oh, oh, I just I just want to point something out on the side.
You remember the did you see thearticle about like what caused
the shuffle of like how he walk his feet right with the
fractured foot? Did you happen?
To see yeah. So wasn't it because he had an
accident in the yeah, in the beginning of his term, and
essentially he didn't want to get it fixed, and then it ended

(46:42):
up to be this permanent infirmity, which is almost like
kind of shows you the way that he thinks.
There's a really good book, It'scalled The Last Politician
Franklin. It's about, yeah, it's about Joe
Biden. And I always recommend it to
people to read because once you read it, the whole election
makes total sense as to why it didn't drop out. 100% I mean,
like I was going to say if for any of the folks in the

(47:04):
audience, we'll link the Franklin Fors book and below,
but the whole thing is just he's, he's very a prideful,
proud, like doesn't like to takea no as an answer kind of guy.
And it's I, I don't know, I saidsomething about just reading
that like, I'm sorry, you, you fractured your foot playing with
your dog and you wouldn't treat it and now you have a shot.
I, I just saw that. And like, look, I, I, I've

(47:24):
worked as a personal trainer anda corrective exercise specialist
for four years now, right. It's everything I do.
The idea of someone being that prideful and just like
completely changing their ability to walk over, not want
to wear a boot for a couple months.
Like are you, I don't know how to say what are you fucking
kidding? Like.
No, exactly, exactly. And then, you know, I remember

(47:44):
he, I, you know, now looking back, it's almost like just like
this. This is the moments I remember
when he fell off the bike. That was like, I, I don't know
if you guys remember that whole moment.
It was a whole like, it was likea week long media cycle of just
him falling off that bike. And so it makes a little sense
why the American people didn't take him seriously.
And you know, of course. And now we're here.

(48:04):
Well, and it's insane because like, you ever seen those things
where it's like, oh, he has no aura and like, look, credit
where credit is true. Trump got shot in the ear and
his reaction was like, wait, wait, wait, wait.
This is a political moment. He went like that.
Look, you don't have to agree with him on anything, but
getting shot in the ear and thenpumping your fist like that,
that's badass. Like that picture.
Look, I know that. I mean, look, I, I, I fell for

(48:25):
it. I thought people weren't going
to care. Same thing with the McDonald's
thing, pardon my French, with that shit has aura, right?
That that was cool. People looked at that was like,
oh, that's cool. The whole thing of Biden's like,
oh, every clip you saw him was just the Medicare.
And it's like, OK, dude, get on there and talk about how you're
going to take Trump behind the bar and beat the shit out of
him. Bring back 2016, Joe, Say some
weird shit like, you know, have some personality.

(48:47):
Make us think you're alive. No, totally.
I remember the House actually like a Democratic fundraiser.
Funny enough, when the a really horrific shooting happened in
Butler and I remember someone showed me the photo of him with
his fist in there and I was like, oh man, I'm not going to
see the end of this till November.
Like, this is going to be on T-shirts because it was really
this historic moment. You know, kind of looking back,

(49:09):
it's almost like I'm a big reader of history, love reading
about American history, Americanpolitics, American presidents.
And like any time a president gets shot, they kind of become
like almost this messianic figure in American politics and
history. We've seen it with Lincoln, with
Reagan, especially after his shooting, the way that the
American public viewed Reagan, JFK especially, a horrific

(49:31):
tragedy. And I think that's kind of what
has happened to him. I mean, you know, knock on wood,
we got to see how this term goes.
And, you know, we got to see what happens.
And he's obviously starting off on a very bad but here.
But I do think that some of those instances during the
campaign, that shooting and the McDonald's moment, these like,

(49:51):
amiable, funny things really helped him out.
You can say that again, it's like I I did not see the like he
got shot and I have people who have never posted on Instagram
once before. It's like I'm opening my phone
me like it's just him getting shot, him getting shot.
I'm like, you don't care about what?
Why do you? Why are we?
Hey, but it's bad ass. But you know, given that, I
mean, obviously you said you live in Pennsylvania, right?

(50:13):
You're going to law school there.
Pray for me because I got to getin this cycle.
We're going to see what happens.But I hear the word law school
one more time. I'm just going to go live in the
forest. But I want to talk to you one
about Philadelphia as a whole, right?
You said something about the independent streak, but that's
not exactly what I'm interested.I'm interested about the
Philadelphia Eagles and what thehell happens if you guys win the
Super Bowl, right? Well, you know, if we win, the

(50:35):
city will probably be cratered oblivion.
It's going to be a shit show. So it's going to be interesting.
You know, I I'm a big eagles fan.
Gilbert is excited. I think this is a game that
we've been waiting for, especially getting the chiefs
again. I mean you know that sweet,
sweet revenge as they say, if wecan pull this off would be
great. We've really fixed our
backfield. We got some quantum Barkley in

(50:55):
the back that has added so much support for Jen Hertz.
We're great on the wings. We got A.J.
Brown Vonte like it's perfect. You know, it's really see
everything coming together. The things I'm concerned about
in that game. I guess just Mahomes is Mahomes.
You know, like there's sometimeswhere you watch Mahomes and he's
like practically on the ground and he throws a pass and it's

(51:15):
just healthy or someone else is there.
And we got to check out with thebackfield, very efficient
running back that is getting serious yardage.
So I guess my worry is that Jalen Hurts or some of the
Eagles make one or two mistakes and that leads our demise
because that's what happened last time.
A fumble basically screwed up the game and the Chiefs make no

(51:39):
mistakes ever. You know, they're really well
run team. They're very similar to the
Brady Patriots era where, you know, they they were just they
didn't they didn't make any mistakes.
Very disciplined team. So I think that's my worry is,
you know, I'm going to say to folks at home, if you're
watching the game and any time the Eagles don't, anytime the

(52:02):
Eagles turn over the ball, that is like a like 5% chance, 5%
more chance they lose the game because the Chiefs aren't going
to have any turnovers probably. So anytime the Eagles have a
turnover, like it's going to be trouble.
I was going to say that's what killed the Bills, not to be Mr.
Bill's Mafia here, but that's what killed us.
Was it last Sunday? Last Sunday?
Whatever it was, it's like, yeah.
Yeah. You have too many turnovers and

(52:23):
it's like they're so disciplined.
You're they're not on that slide.
It's not like you make a mistakeand you fumble it and then all
of a sudden they're going to ignore.
It's like, no, they're they see that and it's over.
Like you, you. Yeah, yeah, it's yeah.
I I got to say I was just sad. I I kept getting like Josh Allen
edits and I was like, man, I waspraying for.
We had the nation behind us and couldn't do.

(52:44):
It Yeah, I have to say, and maybe it's a question for you as
a Bills fan, do you want to change Q BS.
Are you kind of just like he's your guy?
But The thing is like, I don't know how is this like the fourth
loss against the Chiefs or the third?
Yeah. So like this is 4.
You have like if you're in like,you know, the management of the
bills, you probably are thinkinglike we got to change.

(53:06):
I got to change something. I don't know.
I don't know though. I don't know.
I don't know. Look, I, I, you know, full
transparency for many, many years I declared football as a a
complete time sink. But I've after 21 years at this
point, I was like, Nope, you know what?
I've decided despite being born and raised in Lai was like, I'm
taking up my mom, my grandfather, my uncles, all the
side of the family as a Bills fan.
And after that I was like, OK, it's, you know, it's supposed to

(53:28):
be a rebuild year. And Josh Allen's great.
I mean, here's the thing. We got to give him credit where
credit is due. He's great.
This was supposed to be a rebuild year.
One of those things where we're the team itself is on the UPS,
but it's the Chiefs. It's like you said, it's like,
it's like the Brady Patriots. Like you just can't, you don't
have room for error with that. And it makes you these just
undeniable underdogs, right? Like every time you go against
them, you're just kind of like, and it, it's hard because you

(53:50):
always want to have that hope ofmaybe we pull it through this
time. But they're disciplined.
I mean, they have like just nothing can go wrong.
And it's like, that's just not how it works, you know?
I mean, we pray for the best, but like, that's what they do,
you know? You're you're the 20 tens Raptor
versus LeBron James. It's just that undefeatable wall
that you can't get through, I think.
I think my prediction for for the Eagles is if if Saquon

(54:12):
Barkley is hovering around the 40 to 50 yard rushing range and
by the first half, I think I think that's a pretty good sign
that that everything might be going to shit.
If he's not able to get through the run game, if he's not able
to get through the the D line, which the Chiefs have insane
talent on that end. It's like you, you need him to

(54:32):
just lock in because the Eagles team to me, I don't, I don't
know, the depths are up and down, but it feels very much
like the same team as in 2022. So we'll see.
I don't know, maybe an Eagles fan will say.
We'll say differently. They've changed it up.
Yeah. You know, I I do agree that it
is kind of the same team from 2022.
But I think the backfield, I think, you know, Saquan and I

(54:53):
think the wide receivers now arejust a bit more mature.
I think in 2022, they come out of college and so they were
still kind of trying to find their footing in the NFL.
But I think, you know, A.J. Brown now is a lot more
efficient and gets open more quickly than before.
So I think they're going to haveAI think they're a better team.
But I do agree, like rushing yards, they are hitting those

(55:14):
numbers. It's going to be tough.
I think any turnover is basically like almost a death
wish. Like, yeah.
Yeah, you're a doomsayer, Rotini.
You know, I think, I mean, you know, knock on wood, I'm
knocking all over the place. I just think as an Eagles fan, I
just have so much anxiety about this because I think the last
like the last game, the city wasso excited and as an Eagles fan,

(55:37):
I was so excited and everyone was so excited and it just was
like it was a brutal loss. I just watching that bumble.
I mean, I think I watched that like play for weeks after.
And so this time I'm just tryingto not get my heart broken so
fast, you know? You're like cautiously holding
your breath, being like no fumbles, no fumbles, no fumbles,
like nothing, no fumbles. No turnovers, Yeah.

(55:59):
Yeah, Yeah. Well, with that, with football,
with Trump, is there anything else you wanted to bring up?
Any you, you mentioned a lot of books.
Any other book recommendations that you want to give to the
audience? That's a good question.
Yeah, No, I think for me, the big reason about two or three
years ago, I had this like real crisis, just like a personal
prize in my life where I felt like my I, I, you know, I'm on

(56:21):
Twitter, I'm on social media or I feel like I just like couldn't
pay attention to anything anymore.
I felt like my brain was like actually like being destroyed by
social media and I like couldn'tfocus on things.
I was in law school and it's really tough, like read long
like paragraphs of information. And I started talking to a
friend about it by the same issue.
And what they explained to me was like, you've really kind of

(56:43):
hurt your attention ability by being on social media because
that's how that's how it's designed.
So I've really spent the last couple of years trying to read a
lot. I've tried to read a book every
month just to really help with my attention and not be on my
phone, not be on Twitter and Instagram as much on TikTok.
And a really good book I just read that I want to recommend to
everyone is called A Sense of Power by Robert Caro.

(57:03):
It's part of this longer series about LBJ.
And it's kind of the like, if you're interested in politics or
any American history, like theseare the books you got to start
with, in my opinion, because youlearn about the Democratic Party
while reading this series of books, but you also learn about
the Great Depression, about the turn of World War 2, about FDR.

(57:26):
And you know, LBJ is this character in the back of it.
And the book does a good job of showing, especially in a Senate
to power, how he's this little guy in the background with all
these really big historical moments, just kind of waiting
for his moment to eventually actually grab power.
And so I just finished the firstbook last week.
It was really powerful, really interesting.
It's really funny, too. The writer, Robert Caro, is

(57:47):
really older, has been around for a while.
So I definitely would recommend that.
But it's long, but once you start it you'll be able to put
it down. That's a good wreck.
I was just. I love Robert Caro's obviously
this little LBJ series just it'syou can't beat it.
It's like it's it's top of the list.
What about sub stacks or like are you know, what about those?
I mean, obviously we have a lot of independent publications and
yeah, off the top that you've been a really big fan of.

(58:08):
So, you know, I've been really liking, I'm so John Gantz wrote
a really good book, When the Clock Broke, which is really
about the Republicans in the 80sand 90s and his sub stack.
I think it's Popular Front is really great.
And then a podcast I really enjoyed Know Your Enemy, the guy
up there, they're really progressive.

(58:30):
Of course, you know, love the progressive fellas.
But yeah, Know Your Enemies, a great podcast, really enjoying,
really enjoy that one. Popular Front sub stack, like
Madame Glacier sub stacks, really great.
Some nice, some hot takes in there.
You can sub stacks. I'm trying to think that's about

(58:50):
it. You know, I think I've been
doing a lot of book reading and a lot of like, you know, I have
a group chat with my friends andpeople are sharing articles in
there and so I kind of get my news with podcasts.
Oh, another good podcast. I'd recommend Breaking Points.
Fantastic. I love Sagar and Crystal.
I know I've met both of them before, fantastic reporters and

(59:10):
they do a really good job of showing the news through kind of
both sides of the political spectrum.
I think if you're a liberal thatis kind of curious about how
conservatives think about the news.
Sacker isn't a like MAGA guy, but he definitely voted for
Trump and he is somewhat that ismore on the centrist side of
things. And hearing him talk about news,

(59:30):
I disagree with it sometimes, but it's a refreshing
perspective that's different. So I really enjoy that podcast.
Great. And and one wrap more wrap up
question. Where can people find you
Rotimi? What Twitter, YouTube, anything
like that? Definitely.
So I'm on Twitter, Instagram, soit's at Rotimi dot A under score
and they're for my website and everything about me.

(59:53):
So give me a follow. Follow on Twitter, Instagram and
yeah, love to have you. Awesome.
We'll go ahead and tag you. We'll go ahead and place all his
information below. Same thing.
We'll be linking our sub stacks.These book recommendations
absolutely worth our time. I want to thank you again for
coming on today. This has been progressive and we
always see you next time. Thanks for having me.