Full Episode - Nobody “Wins” A Shutdown + Israel’s Popularity With American Public + Scamming Grandma: The Corrupt World Of Political Fundraising - The Chuck ToddCast

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Hello there, Welcome to another episode of the Chuck Podcast.
Full disclosure because you're seeing that, Hey, you're not in
your normal studio. No, I am not. I'm on the
lovely campus of the University of Southern California, or as
my friends in Columbia, South Carolina would say, the USC
of the West. I am out here. I got to

(00:25):
participate in a meeting of the Big Ten government relations staff.
That's right, if you forgot the USC is in the
Big Ten, and so we got the host SUSPENI. It
was actually quite interesting, quite fun, and I got to
give a shout out to the Big Ten more so
than the other conferences. Though I'm not saying the other
conferences aren't trying to create non athletic sort of collaborative

(00:49):
efforts here, but the Big Ten does seem to be
more aggressive and better at having non athletic collaboration between
the schools and it only you know, it's sort of
if you're going to create these super conferences, you know,
figure out ways to take advantage. I mean, if you're
the ACC. Hey, guys, you got some incredible elite universities

(01:12):
from Duke to Miami to Georgia Tech to Stanford to
cal to SMU and ton in between. These are this
is an opportunity. Bcs are another rising school. Syracuse is great.
You know, take a page from how the Big ten
is operating. SEC could could benefit in the same way

(01:32):
I understanding the Big twelve is trying to figure out
how to how to create some sort of some sort
of collaboration. So, as many of you know, I teach
adjunct and the scholar in residence at the USC DC campus.
So it does afford me the opportunity to come out
to La once or twice a year for some of

(01:53):
my USC duties. And so that's where we're coming from today.
As you know, most Wednesdays, I want to lean more
into my campaign roots, my political junkie roots. I'll have
a later in this broadcast, the top five list on
the top five most likely governor seats to flip that
it's both twenty five and twenty six. It will include

(02:14):
the two races talking about now and I guess I
will have a lot more to say about Virginia like
I did on Monday there. I think there's definitely a
lot more to say there. My guest is actually very
campaign oriented, Adam Bonica is my guest today does a
substack called on data and Democracy, and he's from one
of the ACC's West Coast members, Sanford University. He did

(02:39):
our terrific deep dive on essentially exposing a octopus of
a scam fundraising scheme on the left and all these
and how it's essentially preying on elderly people. We've seen
this phenomenon as takes place on the right, but he
was able to identify the fact that a myriad of

(03:02):
these organizations, if you're in email inbox, if you're over
a certain age and you have noticed, you feel like,
trust me, my mother just goes, what are all these emails?
They tell me I've got to I don't contribute in
the next ten minutes. Democracy's going to fail. This is
kind of ridiculous, but this apparently works on some people.
And it's it's the crazy thing is all this money

(03:25):
that's been raised, none of it actually goes to the campaigns.
And that is what Adam exposed. Did some incredible investigative
sort of database work, you know, straight up data journalism,
and he thought it was going to be easy, and
he kept you know, it was kind of a murky area,
but he got to layer after layer. So that's my

(03:47):
extended conversation that will be coming up. Those of you
listening on the on the Uber podcast for this episode,
you have that to look forward to. But I'm going
to begin actually before I get to a bit of
a can Pain round up. It is the subject of
my substack sort of are the Democrats the party with
primary problems this cycle? After a decade of Republican primaries

(04:09):
creating massive headaches and Senate races, GOV races and House
races for Team read, it looks like twenty twenty six
is going to be the year where that phenomenon is
more on the left. I mean, outside of Texas. Republicans
have been impressive in their ability to clear primary fields,

(04:30):
not so on the left. And we'll discuss that in
a minute. But I thought, look, I want a few
words on what we're dealing with right now. The shutdown
is still here. I told you at the beginning of
this shutdown debate that perhaps the entity that had the
most power to end this shutdown might be the air
traffic controllers and TSA agents. And while already we're seeing

(04:54):
the impact of an increasing number of air traffic controllers,
whose next page check is in jeopardy on October fourteenth,
sickouts are already slightly up a bit at a faster pace.
I was out here in California. It was a big
breaking news alert on all the TVs when I was
in the wonderful Annenberg Journalism School newsroom. They have a

(05:14):
terrific sort of hub newsroom, looks like any major TV
network that you would walk into. And the big breaking
news on the local California news stations was the Burbank
Airport was suddenly going to have major flight delays due
to air traffic control issues. There's if you go on
social media now, you know that Nashville is experiencing this.
We've seen Newark, which seems to have constant issues with

(05:38):
that as well. So while I'm not going to sit
here and tell you the you know I was, I
was sort of ice. I'm going to stick to my
initial prediction that we wouldn't that this shutdown would likely
end by this weekend. But let's just say I'm not
sure I have a winning ticket on that bet right now,

(06:00):
because I do think both sides have convinced themselves thanks
mostly to their you know the fact that we have
a siloed information ecosystem that they're making that somehow they're
winning and somehow this is working for them and they're
not losing anything on this. So until there's real pain,
and I do think the air traffic controller issue is

(06:22):
something that likely will penetrate both information ecosystems, the left
wing one and the right wing one, because everybody travels.
And this gets back to my initial rant on how
this is a ridiculous feature of the US system. There
is no constitutional amendment that says appropriations no longer can
be used to pay people if Congress can't meet a deadline.

(06:47):
This is no way to run a company, let alone
a country. Okay, the fact that we are putting the
lives of thousands in danger travel around air let alone
being just simply just ruptive to their lives, screwing up
people's job interviews, screwing up people's emergency visits to sick relatives,

(07:08):
maybe they miss a funeral, all because of this political theater.
This stuff's important, what they're debating. I'm not going to
deny that, but the idea that we simply shut down
the government to have these debates is just ridiculous. It
shouldn't this is not about who triggered the shutdown. The

(07:30):
shutdown shouldn't be allowed to happen, and it is something
that only Congress can easily stop this. They have chosen,
both parties have chosen not to allow this to happen.
And once again, by the way, the power to open
up the government is actually solely in the hands of

(07:50):
Republican senators. They waive the filibuster. Government opens the second
they finished voting, So do keep that in mind now.
I think it's arguably potentially a good thing when it
comes to I think the filibuster not as it's used today,

(08:13):
but the idea of one is still something that that
should be a feature of the United States Senate. There's
a better way to use it, that's for sure. But again,
Republicans could open the government tomorrow. All they got to
do is get rid of the philibuster. They have the
votes on their own to do it. Obviously, the Democrats
also have the power with their with with just handing

(08:34):
over five five more Senate votes to do that. But
either way, I'm sorry, when you're disrupting people's lives, you're
not winning anything. I do think Democrats have certainly gotten
the attention of Republicans on the issue of healthcare. But
Republicans knew already that they were vulnerable on healthcare, and

(08:55):
you know it's possible. Uh, here's the irity to this.
If this shutdown a complic gives the Democrats the ability,
gives the Republicans the ability to say, oh, they fixed
healthcare in this compromise. The irony is that the Democrats
may have taken away one of their best issues to
use in the mid terms. But I digress. But before

(09:18):
I get to a campaign update, I do think I've
been talked about the potential final end. I'm taping on
October seventh, so it seemed to be a good time
to check in on There's a lot of polling that's
been out there on Israel, not just in the United States,
but it some polling in Israel, and it's the polling
in Israel, and I think a lot of people haven't
seen or heard about. So I thought I would get

(09:41):
there discuss a little bit of the polling on how
Israel has lost it's standing in the United States and
it's really starting Jewey rode across the board. It certainly
Israel still has more support on the right than the
left in this country, but it is eroding generally more.
It's really bb Well unpopularity is growing. He's never been
ap popular guy here, but his unpopularity is growing. But

(10:04):
what's striking is how unpopular he is in the state
of Israel. And I will get to that, but I
do think it's you know, what have we learned about
Israel over the last two years. What's been the sort
of fallout from all of this? And I think what's
interesting is on the US relationship with Israel. I want

(10:24):
to associate myself with some comments that Ian Bremer made
in his newsletter because I thought it was really smart.
You know, it's an interesting conundrum that Israel's in right now.
Israel under BB's leadership has never looked as powerful or
as alone. So many Western governments have embraced the idea

(10:47):
of Palestinian statehood, and there's in some ways, Israel has
one friend, the United States. That's it. It makes the
relationship with the United States that much more important to
any current or future Prime minister of Israel, and it
gives the United States more leverage and arguably more global

(11:07):
responsibility for managing, if you will, or influencing or however
you want to put it, or the belief that they
have influence over Israel. But the is the Israeli government
has never been more tied and more in need of

(11:28):
US support and more Lena, they have no other allies
like the United States nowhere even close. Not saying they
don't have other friends out there, but it's only due
to the United States that they have some Sunni Arab
states that are friends. But it's sort of like they're
friends because of the United States. Whether they'd be friends
with Israel on their own as a whole other story.

(11:51):
But I thought that was an interesting piece of analysis
by In. You know, I like to frequently bring onto
the podcast as my international expert, one of the just
smarter global political scientists that are out there. But it's
true because as a military power, Israel now is the
power of the Middle East. There's no there's no there's

(12:13):
no there's no close second. It's Israel and everybody else.
So they have power. They're feared in the Middle East,
and yet it's out of fear, there's not there's less
respect around the world because of BB's leadership too. Anyway,

(12:33):
let me get into some of the polling, because I
think some of this is interesting and worth taking a
look at. So look, there's still giant this is First,
let's talk about America's views of Israel in general, big
part of some split seventy percent. This is a Q
poll by the way, that I'm citing. Q came out
last week, and there's all this polling on this side.

(12:54):
This is just the Americans. The poll of Israeli citizens
is by the Israeli Democracy Institute, was conducted by the way,
in Arabic and in Hebrew, because they also man there's
a lot of Israeli Arabs in the Israe Israeli population
as well. It was a large minority in the State
of Israel. But let me start with the US public opinion.

(13:17):
So first, the sort of predictable the partisans split. Seventy
percent of Democrats or Democratic leaning independents view the Palestinian
people favorably. Just thirty seven percent of Republicans or Republican leaners.
All those same views, the Israeli government is viewed positively
by fifty five percent of Republicans. Only eighteen percent of
Democrats view the Israeli government positively. On the Israeli people,

(13:42):
Democrats or evenly divided forty eight to forty eight favorable
unfavorable on the Israeli people. Republicans a much higher favorable
view of the Israeli people. Sixty seven percent, eighty two
percent of Republicans and fifty six percent of Democrats view
the Palestinian authority unfavorably. So while there are fewer Democrats

(14:02):
that view an unfavorable majorities of both parties view the
Palestinian authority unfavorably, and eight and ten Republicans and eight
in ten Democrats view Amas unfavorably. But what's also interesting
is there is growing skepticism of Israel's operation in Gaza
over time. Thirty nine percent now say Israel has gone

(14:23):
too far in its military operation against Tamas. That's up
from thirty one percent at this same time in twenty
twenty four, and it was twenty seven percent in late
twenty twenty three just after Hamasque took those hostages on
October seven. And overall, the Israeli government, which really is

(14:44):
bbe right, but the Israeli government. Fifty nine percent of
America of Americans hold an unfavorable view of the Israeli government.
That is up from fifty one percent of last year Look,
you can't get to fifty nine percent of Americans on
anything without having essentially a piece of all three of
America's sort of political tribes right, the left, center and right,

(15:06):
and and that is definitely the case there. Now let
me move to what we learned about the Israeli people,
because I think some of these numbers will surprise people.
And I think it's I say this as an American Jew,
you know, we in some cases, I think folks that
are not familiar, you know, with there's plenty of diversity
of thought inside the American Jewish community, plenty of diversity

(15:28):
of thought among American Jews on BB the individual or
the Israeli government of the Palestinian people. That nuance gets lost,
frankly in a lot of the conversation that takes place online,
which is as an American Jew, very frustrating to many
of us, many of us. And look, we disagree amongst ourselves.

(15:50):
We have we have plenty of debates in the Jewish
community ourselves, but we're pretty good at debating. We like debating,
I will I will tell you that. But this did
I think won't surprise American Jews. But this will surprise
people who are not familiar as familiar. Sixty six percent
of Israelis say it's time to end the war in Gaza.

(16:13):
Sixty six percent of Israelis folks. Okay, that is up
thirteen points from a year ago at this time, and
another the same essentially sixty six percent. Two thirds of
the country think Prime Minister Beating that YAHOO should take
responsibility for the security failures that led to the October
seventh attacks and resign. Okay, Now to split up that

(16:34):
number just so you know, it's about forty five percent
who believe he should resign immediately. Now there's a whole
chunk of Israelis that think that that BB, you know,
it was a security failure and he should take responsibility
for this. He's never taken responsibility for the lack of
smart security around October seventh. And then there's another fifteen

(16:57):
percent who believed that he should resign after the war
is over, finish the military operation and then resign. But
it's pretty clear two thirds sixty basically, sixty six percent
of the population thinks it is time for BB to
leave the stage. He's got to go. And I think
it's I think there is a belief and this happens

(17:17):
in any wartime situation. You know, this is not unique
to Israel. Zelenski is going to be facing the same thing.
There's going to be fatigue the population. There's going to
be a belief for population that in some ways there's
going to be too much scar tissue with that leader,
and they're never you know, and frankly, they may be
so warped that they see everything is something they got

(17:38):
to go to war to. And so just in general,
you'll see there'll be a similar situation in Ukraine where
there'll be people think it's time for Zillanski to go now.
They may say, let's wait till after the war, don't
change horses in midstream type of mindset, which is something
that many a democracy goes through. But I just think
in general, I think it's I know this. I knew

(18:02):
he was more unpopular than popular in Israel. I was
surprised that the number would be that high. This is
worth in a question again of the Israeli public, A
majority of the public believes that Israel standing in the
international arena is worse today than it was before October seventh.
Seventy three percent of the overall sample believes this and

(18:23):
this is across the board. Among Israeli Jews it's seventy
six percent, and among Israeli Arabs it is sixty percent.
This is also the view of the majority of each
of the three political camps within Israel. Those on the left.
Ninety five percent of those in the Israeli left believe
Israel's international standing is worse today, eighty seven percent in
the political center, and even sixty nine percent in the

(18:44):
political right. And what is the main goal of this war? Right,
there's been, frankly a debate inside Israel what should the goal?
Is the goal to get all the hostages home? Or
is the goal to eradicate Hamas? Well. We've heard what
Biebe says, and certainly what his right wing government says.
They want to make it about Hamas, but that is
not where a majority of the Israeli public is. Sixty

(19:05):
five percent of the Israeli public believe the main goal
of the war and Godza today should only be bringing
the hostages home. Heart stop, herd stop. And the share
by the way of people that are old those views
has actually grown since January of twenty twenty four among
both Israeli Jews and Israeli Arabs, and it's really not surprising.

(19:28):
There's fatigue, there's concern that they're frankly never going to
get home in time on that front. But it's I
just think here, on this October seventh, we should reflect.
Let's be hopeful that this is that we are potentially
at the end here. And you know, for all the

(19:49):
grief everybody, this is a case where Donald I don't
know if another American president could be putting BB in
his place on this a little bit. This is a
case where Trump's using his sort of unique ability to
bully for good. In a certain sense, this is not

(20:12):
very good politics in general. It's not very good diplomacy
in general. But sometimes you know, BB and Trump are
very similar guys. They're clinging to power to avoid accountability. Right,
they share a lot in common. They have gotten power
without having a majority support, which is easier to explain
in a parliamentary system, a little harder to explain in

(20:34):
our system. The two of them do have a lot
in common. But it also means Trump knows how to
Trump knows how to bully Bbe because he knows who
BB is. So at this point, let's just hope we
can turn the page, stop the killing, start the rebuilding,

(20:55):
and see if the page came truly get turned. In
the Middle East, there's a reason results matter more than promises,
just like there's a reason Morgan and Morgan is America's
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(22:00):
out Morgan and Morgan. Their fee is free unless they win. Look,
the issue of Israel whould still end up being a
huge player inside, particularly inside democratic primary politics, and I
do want to make note before I get it full
fledged in my sort of political briefing of the week.

(22:22):
There's already an attack ad against a presidential candidate twenty
twenty eight potential presidential candidate airing in the state of
New Hampshire. The pro Palestinian group i AM EU Policy
Project has a new ad on TV in New Hampshire
criticizing Kentucky Governor Andy Basher. The ad hits Bashir for

(22:46):
declining to tell Politico in August whether he would support
blocking certain weapons sales to Israel. This has become more
and more Democrats have gotten on board this idea of
essentially blocking the sale of military equipment in some arms
to Israel by the US government, and it also attacks
him for calling Israel a critical ally in a July

(23:07):
Vogue interview. For what it's worth, the Bashir, it was
interesting how Bashir is what Bashir's spokesperson until Politico, President
Trump can and should provide aid to address starvation and
suffering in Gaza, and he should do so in a
way that does not compromise the safety of the Israeli people.
I think what this is an interesting sort of shot,
political shot, if you will, where I do think there

(23:30):
are there is a movement on the left that wants
to make this a litmus test issue inside Democratic primary politics.
So they're going after This is the case where Bashir's
probably already seen as the most they've been gone after Shapiro,
but Basher and Shapiro probably the most pro Israel. They
had a they had they had a way to you know,

(23:51):
they had a specific news story to cling to on this,
and it I don't know how salient it will be
in a Democratic primary, right, there are certain issues and
this is where I think polling doesn't always tell you
the story. There are certain issues that will pull a

(24:11):
certain way, but it doesn't necessarily motivate a voter. And
the question is whether a stance on Israel is a
voting issue for a Democratic primary voting for president or
is it on the list of things you'd like? But
it is not a deal breaker. And I'm not going

(24:33):
to sit here and tell you I think I know
the answer of which way that leans. We're going to
learn a little something of Michigan Center primary is going
to be fascinating. I think on that issue, Abdul say
Ed clearly calls it genocide of what Israel does. Molly
mcmarrow has decided to also use that word genocide in there.
That is not something Hailey Stevens, the establishment favorite in

(24:54):
that primary, has used. So I think that's an open question.
How much of a voting issue is a Democrats position
on Israel? Is it a voting motivator? All right? We
know it can be a financial motivator, either to give
or not to give, et cetera. But is it an

(25:16):
activator when it comes to voting? Is it if you
agree with something on everything else? How many voters are
out there that are only voting on this issue? How
many single issue voters on it? You can probably tell.
I'm skeptical that there are many on this for what
it's worth. But this leads me into sort of my
briefing of the week, my twenty twenty six briefing that

(25:38):
I want to do in the focus I did on
my substack column, which is up and to be read
right now and always free on Substack I am not
charging a subscription there right now. I view it as
a way to bring some attention to this podcast and
vice versa. How the podcast bring some attention to the
column on this front. But it is we're seeing a

(25:59):
rollover or so between the two parties. Essentially, the Republicans
are clearing primary fields all over the country. I mean,
with the large exception of the lone Star state. And
we'll see what happens in the state of Louisiana although
primary hasn't popped up just yet for Bill Cassidy. But
outside of the John Cornyn mess with Ken Paxton and

(26:20):
now Wesley Hunt, and that is a mess, don't get
me wrong. And if you know, if Cornyn is the nominee,
you take the race off the map. If Ken Paxon
is the nominee, Democrats have a legitimate shot at winning
control of the US side. That's how That's what's at
stake in that primary. Because I don't have a fourth
I really don't see a viable path for four pickups

(26:42):
for the Democrats on their best stay. But if Ken
Paxson's a Republican nominee in Texas, then there's a viable
path for four suddenly you can see it. You know,
North Carolina, Maine, you know one, you know, one of
those Midwestern states maybe right, you know with Ohio shared Brown,
maybe an Iowa open seat. What's going on in Nebraska, Alaska? Okay?

(27:04):
Could you could see one of those coming in? Right,
It's hard to see two of those coming in, but
I could see one of those coming in. Then you
throw in Texas and you start that pot. But overall,
in general, there's no primary for the open seat in Iowa.
Republicans have successfully rallied everybody around Ashley Henson. You know,

(27:26):
we know in twenty twenty two, this would have been
there'd have been a mega candidate, a McConnell candidate, all
sorts of colorful characters jumping into that race in Iowa.
In Michigan, Mike Rodgers had to deal with the primary
last time. There is no primary. This time, primaries were
a problem in the Republican side, arguably cost them a

(27:46):
chance at a governor's at a governor's seat, certainly made
the Senate seat a bit harder. This time, they got
Mike Rogers without having a primary. Meanwhile, there's gonna be
a hugely messy and potentially nasty primary on the Democratic side.
On that front, they don't have a primary in North Carolina.
Now they do in Georgia, and we'll see if they

(28:07):
end up with a primary in New Hampshire. I think
if they get senter New and Trump probably leans on
Scott Brown successfully. And that's really what Republicans have done
is John Thune is working hand in hand with the
White House and they're doing their best to essentially agree
on tann It's McConnell kind of tried that, but there
was the disaster of herschel Walker, right, that was just

(28:29):
a debacle where everybody knew that was a bad idea,
but he chose to give the president that and well
that's why there are two Democratic senators in the state
of Georgia. But it is and in fact, Dune, according
to an article on Political Early this week, has done
has made a huge effort and has successfully convinced the

(28:49):
White House don't harass Susan Collins, don't find some maga
person to go primary her. And she is the only
person that can win that Senate seat if it's winnable,
and I don't know if it is this time. Not
going to have a rule out Susan Collins's ability to
win that race, but she does have the highest unfavorable
rating she's ever had going into going into one of

(29:10):
these reelections. But this, you know, contrasts that, right this
was the hallmark of the Democrats. Chuck Schumer was extraordinarily
and Harry Reid all throughout, sort of starting in late
Obama years, going through of avoiding messy ideological primary fights,
figuring out how to you know, settle on somebody early,

(29:32):
recruit him and clear the primary field. John Hickenlooper got
a Senate seat this way, Tim Kane got a Senate
seat this way. You know, Steve Bullock lost a Senate seat,
but he, you know, it was able to have a
clear primary field when he chose to run. Look, they
got that in shared Brown right now, but he still
actually is facing a primary. It looks like there will

(29:54):
won't be a significant primary in the New Hampshire open seat,
which is a small win there. That's going to be
a tough race either way. And certainly Roy Cooper has
has is sort of the model of you know, they
just not many Roy Hooper's out there. But look at
the state of main you know that it looks like
they've got the governor to run, but you've got all
these other candidates that keep jumping in and feel as

(30:17):
if and it's sort of understandable. I think you have
a you have a pent up set of you have
a pent up party, right, A party that's been told
to suck it up and support Hillary Clinton, suck it
up and support Joe Biden, suck it up and support
Kamala Harris without without going through a primary process. So
I do think there's fatigue with being told what to

(30:40):
do by an establishment that doesn't seem to have many
wins anymore to tout. And but look, as we saw
the Republican side, a primary goes the wrong way, the
ideology gets ugly. Somebody may win but be totally bruised.
Somebody may win but despite some awful opposition research that surfaces,

(31:02):
and while they can survive the primary, they can't survive
the general. That's what primaries, you know, Primaries. Primaries increase
the unexpected, right, they increase the unintended when you don't
have primaries. Now, look, I could argue primaries could be
healthy for the party. Democrats need to have a good

(31:25):
fight to figure out their direction because I think they
don't know. They're pretty paralyzed right now and where to go.
There's a there's a divide between progressives who think, hey,
emulate the Mega movement a little bit here right. You know,
a lot of the Establishment of Republicans said Mega is
a loser. What turns out Mega has given Republicans more

(31:45):
power than they've gotten in a generation. And I think
there are a lot of progressives who say, what's wrong
with emulating a model like that. Let's paint in brighter colors,
let's have more conviction, let's be bolder and lean out there.
I don't think that's where the swing voter is right.
And I've made the argument you've got the adult in
the room voter that I do think is leaned to

(32:05):
the left over the last in the Trump era, I
think the adult in the room voter vacillates. But I
think that that has been an important constituent. See it's
not a huge constituency, and it doesn't have much of
a constituency in a primary. These are mostly general election voters.

(32:27):
But I bring out the adult in the room party
when it comes to the situation in Virginia right now,
and let's be honest, if this. If these techs had
surfaced on J. Jones, the attorney general nominee for the Democrats,
a month ago, he'd be out already because they would
have had time to replace him as the nominee. It

(32:49):
really appears that the only reason they're not doing this
is they don't want to. They don't want to lose
the race. There's got to be other ways around this, right.
The one I've come up with, and why somebody hasn't suggested,
is if you convince him that if he if he
gets elected, he agrees to resign, he should not hold

(33:10):
an office, a law enforcement position. If he had been
a deputy AG as an appointee or a deputy US attorney,
an a DA or something, and that he'd have been fired.
No government, uh, legal entity would want that those text
message you know, have somebody prosecuting the case, who has

(33:30):
whose text messages saying, you know, making threats like that
to public official. You just you just couldn't do it. It
would it would get rid of you know, it would
cost you credibility in any case that person would prosecute.
So it's it's it looks like and I get it right.

(33:51):
Trump never apologizes, never surrenders. And I know that there's
some that think, hey, you know, well, if you know
they do it, why can't we do it? But the
honorable thing is to agree that if he if you're

(34:12):
if he's elected, he'll resign and then, according to the
the Virginia Constitution, the General Assembly would elect the would
essentially elect the replacement on this. And look, if you
want to just play partisan politics here, it's most likely
a general Assembly is going to be democratic. We'll see
what the final results are. But doing this dance of

(34:34):
condemning what he said, but agreeing to vote for him
and allow you know, I think the Democrats need to
be conducting what I refer to as civil war surgery,
where sometimes you had to cut off a limb to
save the body. There's a month. Do I think this
costs Abigail's Fanburg or the race? I do not. This

(34:56):
cost her three or four points, maybe could have cost
them the LG race. Good. Right, It's it feels like
this is that that there are that this is sort
of the what Trump has done. This is sort of

(35:19):
everybody's got Trump brain. And right, just because Trump survives
these things doesn't mean it's you know, it's the right
thing to do. And again I just sort of asked
the question. The results will tell me, the voters will
tell us the answer to this. But like I said,

(35:39):
I believe that that that Democrats have benefited being the
adult in the room. Party. You don't behave as the
adult in the room on this on this part of
the conversation, what do you lose long term? You know,
maybe maybe you end up maybe rallying around the troops here,
you know, and you get them elected. But what if

(35:59):
you do with him? Zach got to call him to
question all of his moves? Is he a paralyzed office
holder as it is? You know? I it is, this
is never going to go away with him, you know.
And it wasn't I tell you what sort of really
bothers me about this is? It's not the It's sort

(36:22):
of like the text themselves were Jesus, what what do you?
Why are you putting this in writing? But it was
the second part of the story where the lawmaker was like,
what are you saying this for? And he sort of
doubled down on it in a verbal conversation. Right, It
was more it wasn't you know you can you can

(36:44):
you could forgive somebody in a heat of the moment, right,
you know, nobody wants there. And if every thought that
went through all of our heads were broadcaster or or verbalized,
and by the way, these neurotransplants right could start doing that,
I don't think any of us would want that public. Okay,
everybody has a stray thought, even if it's a hypothetical whatever. Okay,

(37:10):
but good grief, we're not George Orwell. Right, So there's
a there's certainly lines here, but the fact that wasn't
heat of the moment. And again, it's the office he's
running for, turning general, right, that's a law enforcement office.
So anyway, I think the Democrats are playing with some
political fire here, and they'd probably be in a better

(37:34):
place if they were calling for his immediate resignation upon election.
You know, that could be the compromise, since it's too
late to get his name off the ballot. Anyway, we
shall see, all right, we'll sneak in a break coming up,
my interview with Adam Bonica on the elaborate sort of

(37:54):
scheme to essentially scam elderly liberals out of money. And
it's a it's a story he uncovered simply by doing
some good old fashioned database work. So with that, sneaking
a break, Adam Bonica on the other side, So joining

(38:22):
me now is somebody who did a deep dive in investigation.
Uh not a not a journalist that you know by name,
per se, but it's a political science professor from Stanford
University and he went deep on a topic frankly, that
many of us journalists have been assuming wanting to do.

(38:43):
But it's in some ways so resource heavy, so time,
so much of a time sucked that it's always something
you put off and every once in a while you
delve into it and you realize there's something that isn't
right here. But but you know, is this is this
what I need to be focused on in the moment
or not? And then if you're like me, and if

(39:04):
you're my age and you have parents of a certain age,
they always ask these questions. How come so and so
is always asking me for money? My mother says this
to me all the time. They claim if I don't
send them money in the next twenty four hours, you know,
the democracy is doomed. Who are these people? And I'm like, oh, mom,
it's a scam pact And that's all I usually say,

(39:27):
but my guest today Adam Bonica, political science professor at Stanford.
He did the hard work here, and he did this
substack post a couple months ago, showing his receipts of
a long dive into the murky waters of digital fundraising.
I'm going to read the first couple paragraphs of his
substacks so I can sort of set the scene, and
then I'm going to bring Adam in to explain his

(39:50):
work and explain his findings. He starts out this way.
The digital deluge is a familiar annoyance for anyone on
a democratic fundraising list. It's a relentless ca offity of
bizarre texts and emails, each one more urgent than the last,
promising that your immediate fifteen dollars donation is the only
thing standing between democracy and the abyss. The main rationale

(40:11):
offered for this fundraising frenzy is that it's a necessary evil,
that the tactics, while unpleasant, are brutally effective at raising
the money needed to win. But an analysis of the
official FEC filings tells a very different story. The fundraising
model is not a brutally effective tool for the party.
It's a financial vortex that consumes the vast majority of

(40:33):
every dollar it raises. And Adam, I think this is
the number that's going to shock people. For every one
hundred dollars that people have been sending to these various
democratic entities, and we'll get to the details of them
in a minute, for ever one hundred dollars you sent,
one dollar and sixty cents actually went to the cause,

(40:56):
ninety eight dollars and forty cents went to servicing services
rendered either to the consultants themselves or essentially a vicious
loop that just funded one pack or the other. I
am only giving you the top line, Adam. That's how
I thought we could try to begin to try to

(41:17):
lay the predicate there. What have I missed? What didn't
I mention that you feel like people need to understand
at the beginning in order to understand this really byzantine
digital fundraising scam.

Speaker 2 (41:35):
Yeah, I think I would start by saying, most people,
not just as I talked to, but just in the
sort of realm of democratic politics, have had a strong sense,
as you mentioned early on, that something here is awry,
that the tactics alone they are a bit bizarre, They

(41:56):
are bordering sometimes on deceptive, maybe even predatory in a
lot of ways they're set up. And one of the
things that I had been really stored by in the
run up to the twenty twenty four election was just
how bombarded I was with these types of messages, not
just on email, which was completely overflowing, but also in

(42:20):
my text messages.

Speaker 1 (42:21):
Because an email you can at least put it in
a spam folder. It's the text messages that become there
is no spam folder for text right now.

Speaker 2 (42:31):
And this was the main messaging I was getting from
the Democratic Party and the run up to a crucial election,
and it just felt wrong to me that this was
the way that the brand was being leveraged. You know,
as a local scientist, I think of, you know, parties,
like the most important thing they have is their brand.
That's what wins you elections. How people view your party,

(42:53):
and the way that the brand was being presented to
voters and especially to donors was really problematic to me,
and so that's why I started looking into it. And
I've been studying campaign finance for fifteen years now. That's
sort of an area that I have a lot of
expertise in, and so I know all the ins and
out out of it and sort of how you know

(43:14):
FEC or those schedule Election Commission records and that all
these public disloatures work. So I thought, I mean, I'll
just take a look and see if there's anything connecting
these types of messages.

Speaker 1 (43:26):
And let me pause you here because you note this
in your sub stack. You really thought, man, that I'm
just going to spend a couple of days and then
after a couple of days, I'll be able to unravel
this in a couple of days. Well, tell me how
long a couple of days do? Well?

Speaker 2 (43:43):
The first Insight book about five minutes, which was, Oh,
all of this is going back to like all these
messages that I'm getting that are of this type are
coming from basically one firm, Mothership Strategies.

Speaker 1 (43:59):
It's really called mother Ship, right, that's the actual name.
You know. There was a part of me that thought,
is this is this satire? Is this part of the barity? Right?
Like I mean, you know, I guess you could say
the founders of this scam a had a sense of humor.
So Mothership Strategies.

Speaker 2 (44:13):
Well, yeah, so it goes even deeper than that, and
I'll explain it a bit the Mothership strategy. So this is
a firm that is part of a larger sort of
digital fundraising UH industry that exists within both parties, but
focusing there on the Democratic side. This firm was started

(44:34):
by three former employees who had run the digital fundraising
operations for the dtrib C and the Democratic Congrettional Campaign
Committee that.

Speaker 1 (44:45):
House, Yeah, the House campaign arm yep.

Speaker 2 (44:48):
So like the official party committee, and it has spun
off and they had they had left and sort of
private tized a tactic that they had uh sort of
perfected while they were at the d triples And what.

Speaker 1 (45:01):
Cycle would they were they there? This is like twenty fourteen, right.

Speaker 2 (45:04):
Twenty fourteen. They didn't seem to get much traction early on.

Speaker 1 (45:08):
Yeah, well and then a certain orange haired man came
down the stairs elevator.

Speaker 2 (45:13):
Well it happened actually before that. So they didn't seem
to have many clients early on. And their first client
was a pack called end Citizens United. If you get
these messages you may be familiar with it. It turns
out that they had started this pack that three people
had started Mothership to be their first client, and so

(45:34):
they started.

Speaker 1 (45:35):
Basically, the consultant needed a client, So they invented the client.
Let's create a client, so they were immediately on both
sides of the transaction. Okay, got it.

Speaker 2 (45:45):
And in terms of fundraising, because of the types of
tactics that they were using, it happened to be very
effective at raising money and so just caught the attention
of a lot of people who were more were interested
in raising a lot of money for the campaign or
their cause, and it just sort of took off from there.

Speaker 1 (46:04):
Anything that makes fundraising easier a consultant is going or
a candidate would love to do. In a weird way,
I get why this was attractive at first. Oh my god.
You mean I don't have to dial for dollars or
I don't have to like show up to a fundraiser.
I don't have to travel to Martha's Vineyard or Napa
Valley and suck up to rich people that I really
don't have anything in common with. Boy, this would be

(46:26):
great if this really works as great as you tell
me it works, mothership.

Speaker 2 (46:30):
Yeah, I mean, this is the number one complaint camp.
Like Kennedy, it's give you all the time. It's like,
I am sick and tired of fundraising all the time.
And so if someone comes and says, I can raise
a ton of money for you through small donors, that's
going to be attractive. The problem is is once you
start seeing the types of messages they're sending and actually

(46:51):
who they are getting money from, it becomes a whole
different set of questions. It's really that's where the really
troubling aspect of this comes from, not just the damage
it does to the Democratic Party brand, but the more
and more I dug into this, it was this isn't really,
in my sort of like reading of the data, a

(47:11):
very predatory approach to fundraising.

Speaker 1 (47:16):
To the point where if you wanted to make a
criminal you might be able to look at this through
criminal statutes.

Speaker 2 (47:24):
I don't think so.

Speaker 1 (47:25):
I don't think so.

Speaker 2 (47:26):
I don't think there are any if it.

Speaker 1 (47:29):
Is predatory knowledge. Yeah, well I would use.

Speaker 2 (47:32):
The term predatory, not in the uh like illegal sense,
but in the like they are doing everything that I
believe from my reading of campaign finance law, I do
not see anything that they are doing that is technically illegal.

Speaker 1 (47:45):
So this is technically right, right right? So yeah, so
when they now, could this be under I mean, could
the FTC or could a state attorney general say you're
committing borderline fraud slash predator. You're you're, you're, you're, you're
using predatory practices to raise money.

Speaker 2 (48:05):
Yeah, So there was a CNN uh uh like in
depth reporting uh investigation on these thousands of different complaints
that had been sent by largely like children of people
who had been uh uh, the children of elderly parents,

(48:25):
right of elderly parents who had given hundreds of thousands
of dollars did these fundraising operations. Many of them were
suffering from dementia and other forms of cognitive decline, and
they were rightfully very upset about what had transpired. And
so the complaints are there, but there's not at this
moment anything you know, at the federal level that would

(48:48):
suggest that this is outright illegal. Now, should the Democratic
Party be engaging or condoning this type of activity, I
think that's an entirely different question, and they have no
obligation to say that this is okay. The problem is
the e trip. We'll see the d SEC, the official
campaign committees are engaging in these same tactics. They may

(49:09):
not be employing mothership, but there they're the way in
which their fundraising looks a lot like what we see
from these more unsavory packs.

Speaker 1 (49:23):
Let's go back to Mothership, because you ended up discovering
that I don't know what else to call this but
a form of money laundering, because it was moving money around.
Money would be in one place, then it would show
up in another pack. Then that pack would take the
money that it received from one pack and pay it
to another pack, and it all ended up back at mothership.

(49:45):
Explain how that loop worked, because you found you'd find
one ENITYS and Citizens United would then be working with
and let me get my these other entities. You name
quite a few of them, and I do think people
want to know which names you had. The Restive turnout Projects,
Stop Republicans, National Democratic Training Committee, a couple of campaigns,

(50:06):
John Asoff's campaign for Senate and Jamie Harrison's campaign for Senate.
And it's interesting that Jamie, when I first read your piece,
the first campaign I thought about that I thought got
scammed by their own fundraising team was Jamie Harrison's. Because
here's a guy, how'd you raise one hundred million dollars
but not really have one hundred million dollars? And now
you've explained the story of how that happened? So how

(50:28):
did you connect n Citizen United and Progressive Turnout Project
for instance.

Speaker 2 (50:34):
So one of these structures that you see in these
pack islands, so everything needs to be disclosed to the FEC.
And they're usually come in these clusters of packs. So
for instance, there's is a cluster of seven packs including
Progressive Turnout Project and Stop Republicans and also Stopped Trump.
There's a number of pretty high fundary high raising packs

(50:59):
in this group. They're all by the same treasure, So
it's the.

Speaker 1 (51:02):
Same individual who signs the forms to the FPC basically okay, right,
and so you can see they share a KEO box too.

Speaker 2 (51:09):
I mean it's just the same person.

Speaker 1 (51:11):
So like you said, he he like reports.

Speaker 2 (51:16):
As being these pacts being affiliated too, So it's not
it's not some sort of like hidden secret.

Speaker 1 (51:23):
Now if they admit they're alternative to the fp as
far as the FBC is concerned, they're like, okay, these facts,
these packs are all affiliated, so it's not unusual. So
which which tells you Leathership isn't alone here by the way,
that this is a semi common tactic. Yes it is.

Speaker 2 (51:42):
And so what they'll do is though there. So, for instance,
Stop Republicans, which has raised a lot of money in
recent election cycles, it's spent nothing on campaigns or elections.
Most of the money that they raised went back to
like fund raising fees and consultants. What didn't was transferred
over to Aggressive Turnout Project, which seems to be an
operations hub, and Progressive Turnout Project does appear to employ

(52:06):
people for turnout operations. If, like I've done a really
deep dive into their campaigns, it is spending, and maybe
fifteen percent of what they spend goes towards actual like
turnout operation and independent expenditures, but otherwise the vast majority

(52:27):
is not. And so you see all these six packs,
only one of them is actually spending on campaigns and
the other ones will just raise money and then transfer
the money over. But if you're someone who's not wise
to what these packs are, which until I looked into it,
I wasn't either, you would think I'm getting, you know,
these text messages from six different operations, right, They're not connected.

(52:49):
There's no reason for me to think they are. This
is just a normal way for people to fundraise, But
really it's you know, you could unsubscribe from one still
get messages from the others and have no idea that
they're run by the same person is in the same
donor list.

Speaker 1 (53:05):
Look, if you get I'm somebody who I've signed up
for enough mailers that I get these fund raising emails
from both parties and from candidates of both parties. The
tactics are very similar on both sides. Now they've each
this this end of the world is coming tactic. I
don't know what else to call it, but it's some
form of that, like you know, and with the right,

(53:25):
with MAGA, it's Donald Trump personally is asking and if
he you know, he's keeping he's checking a list, he's
looking to see if your name's there. That's sort of
but it's it's it's very similar in tone, urgency, agitation
and all of this, which which is like you said,
it's it's not illegal, but maybe maybe it should be,

(53:46):
but it's certainly predatory. But it's been lucrative, and.

Speaker 2 (53:52):
He's been lucrative for the consultants. Right, The amount of mine,
going back to the actual things that that they are
claiming to hop support, is a very small fraction of
the overall total. So in terms of you know, being
a great thing for digital fundraising consultants. Yeah, the thing
about it, like the point you raised about that both

(54:12):
parties having very similar tactics. That's absolutely like an astute authoration.
Republicans are probably even worse on these types of tactics
and Democrats are. They seem to have more of the
money going directly back to Donald Trump. So I don't know, Oh,
it's even right, No, no, no, no, I mean there is right.

Speaker 1 (54:31):
In fact, there's some where he demands a piece if
you want to use his list, he's got to get
a He basically wants a licensing fee essentially to use
his name, name, image and likeness.

Speaker 2 (54:43):
And I like one of the things I pondered was,
you know, Chris, you know, I thought what was happening
was there was like, you know, these sophisticated algorithms that
they were employing that they were sending out and doing
av testing, so like some people would get one version
another a group of people would get another version message
and they just you know, overtime sort of landed on

(55:04):
these types of urgent, ridiculous like all caps messages that
you know, to most of us just seemed really off putting,
but at scale may have been somewhat effective at fundraising.
The more I looked into this, so now I don't
think that because the types of tactics that are used
looks like they just transferred directly directly from the tactics

(55:26):
that are used in elder financial fraud schemes. So I
did a bunch of reading through the FDC and the
ways in which they sort of manipulate people emotionally through
this urgency. They're like making people think they need to
make a decision immediately. These are all known tactics, and
it was really quite jarring when I started looking through

(55:47):
those and being like, oh, I can just categorize most
of these messages into one of these different like elder
financial fraud tactics, and that was that was a pretty
depressing moment, to be honest.

Speaker 1 (55:58):
You know, Adam, I have a sort of a friend
I've become more friendlier with over the years who was
a source of mine at the RNC and Quit, I
think I have this story right. Essentially, Quit when he
saw a piece of mail that they sent out that
got returned and either it was either the woman called

(56:22):
or she wrote in and said, hey, I know you
need this money. You know tomorrow I don't get my
social Security check for another week. I said, okay, if
I wait a week. Well, it was like and it
was like he was like, I'm out, and I mean
and that dude left politics. He was like he couldn't.
He is out of campaign politics altogether. D R you name.

(56:44):
It was just like sick to his stomach. Right, it
was just one of those hit him and he was out.
And and you know he's desperate to find any character
you know, left in politics. But it really does prey
on older people and parties are doing this.

Speaker 2 (57:02):
And let me give you a couple stats. So the
other aspect of it is, it's not like most of
this money is coming from people just getting five or
ten dollars and then being done with it. And the
way they describe the tactics, the Mothership has described it
themselves this way, I believe as burning churn. So this
idea that you're just burning through these donor lists and like,

(57:24):
you know, scraping up a little like a few people
like one out of ten thousand who might be donating.

Speaker 1 (57:28):
Yeah, they don't even care. And they're not even getting
a one percent return rate, are they It's less than
a one percent. It's not even close to that.

Speaker 2 (57:34):
But what I learned was that's not what's happening. So
here's some example. So I was looking through the types
of people who were giving this money. So the vast majority,
so five hundred and forty million of the dollars raisins
twenty twenty of these spam packs have come from individuals
who have donated at least ten times. But most of

(57:57):
that money is coming from a really small group of
what I would say like captivated donors. So fran instance,
there's an eighty nine year old woman in Indianapolis. She's
donated to these spam TACs seventy five hundred times, oh
my god, and she has given a total of sixty
eight thousand dollars. There's an eighty four year old retirement
in Ohio who's given two thousand times, totally, totally, not

(58:21):
two hundred thousand dollars almost. There's just I have lists
of people like this and you can see where they live.
They live in usually sort of middle class or rural
areas and not.

Speaker 1 (58:30):
These aren't wealthy people, and they're just oh my god,
so whatever I mean, they're just getting nickel and dime
the way the way somebody you know the way somebody
gets nickel and dime by in app purchases. Sometimes when
a kid, you know, with your five or six year old,
and all of a sudden you realize why am I
paying five dollars a week to what? And these elderly

(58:53):
and they also end up clicking the make it a
recurring payment? Right? Isn't that like they usually don't click
it often?

Speaker 2 (58:59):
So this is so like a dark patterns thing. They
often automatically put that on.

Speaker 1 (59:04):
You have to you have to uncheck it if you
don't want it. Yes, it's a negative check. Oh god,
this is just tragic. I imagine you almost want to
reach out to these people you've been scammed.

Speaker 2 (59:30):
Yes, So one good development that I've seen happening is
so act Blue. I believe they had been working on
this beforehand, but immediately after I published that piece, the
CEO from act Blue reached out to me and let's talk,
and they about a week later they implemented new rules

(59:52):
changes so that most of these tactics that I had
described would no longer be allowed on the platform.

Speaker 1 (59:59):
And we're the where mothership using back blue was at
their primary facilitator.

Speaker 2 (01:00:03):
Yes, and they the problem is they still are because
it's the problem for Act Blue is they're stuck in
this like hard place where they want to clean up
the fundraising like environment. That's that's uh they seem to
and they're like putting rules in place, but the party
leadership seems to be using these tactics too. This is

(01:00:25):
something that has been pretty problematic, or at least I
think in terms of like if they want to enforce
this stuff, they would have to kick off the d
Triple C. They would have to kick off the d SEC.
I literally just got a message from the d s
CC this weekend saying that they were going to four
x match my donation. And that's not a thing. You
can't do that.

Speaker 1 (01:00:44):
Yeah, it's illegal. That's actually if you did that, that
is a crime, by the.

Speaker 2 (01:00:50):
Ways, But it's extremely effective for a certain type of
bonner who believes that's happening. And you know, so where
does that leave you know? Act Blue? I think they
want a clean house, but it's politically yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:01:06):
Is it politically though? But I mean like this is
where you know. I mean, my friend Toning Cornizer likes
to say, they answered all your problems is money, And
sometimes the answer to all your Uh. The the solution
every problem is money, and the and and the diagnosis
for every problem sometimes is money. Right, how much do

(01:01:27):
they not want to give up? How much is being fun?
You know? They make money for anybody that raises money
off of their platform.

Speaker 2 (01:01:34):
Well, yeah, so they make some money for this tax so.

Speaker 1 (01:01:38):
The Mothership they in theory have made a lot of
money off of Mothership.

Speaker 2 (01:01:42):
Yeah. Oh Act Blue yes, yeah they have and act flues.

Speaker 1 (01:01:47):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (01:01:48):
So they just went under a sort of leadership change.
So I think that has something to do with this untolple.
They've been responsive to me and other people who have
worked in the space about trying to eliminate these tactics
from the platform. I'm hoping to see more progress in
the near future, and so at least that's a good

(01:02:08):
signal that something's being done. Now.

Speaker 1 (01:02:11):
I want you to do that. Big numbers, Yeah, tell
me how. I still I couldn't believe the number, the
amount of money that Mothership has raised through all of
these packs, and the amount of money that has actually
been spent on campaigns as they promised to do.

Speaker 2 (01:02:29):
So we can take the so they get the Mothership
has raised something like two hundred and eighty like directly
going to the firm as payments has been getting transferred.
About two hundred and eighty million dollars they have as.

Speaker 1 (01:02:50):
So much they've pocketed r yes, okay.

Speaker 2 (01:02:54):
My estimate is that this is based off of about
six hundred and eighty million dollars raised.

Speaker 1 (01:03:00):
Okay, So, and so where's the other four hundred million?

Speaker 2 (01:03:05):
Uh? The other four hundred million.

Speaker 1 (01:03:07):
So if they've pocketed eighty two, they've raised about six
hundred and eighty. So let'sick round abup two eighty six
eighty we're missing about four hundred million.

Speaker 2 (01:03:15):
Where So about of that another one hundred and thirty
two million I believe was spent on other consulting firms
like related in that space, you brought up a.

Speaker 1 (01:03:29):
Firm called Message Digital LLC.

Speaker 2 (01:03:31):
That's it's digital Yes, yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:03:32):
Did you ever who pocketed a twenty two million? Did
you ever figure out who they are? Orally?

Speaker 2 (01:03:38):
Just another they're another democratic fundraising operation. You can go
look at their website. They have clients like Chuck Schumer.
They're the ones. What their their Their service that they
sell or like they pitched to campaigns and candidates and consultants,
is that they can get around the like mobile carriers,

(01:03:58):
spam filters, so they know how to get around and
get those messages to us. That seems to be their
pitch if you read the website and you can get
a sense of why that would be a valuable for
you know, a spam fund raising firm like this.

Speaker 1 (01:04:13):
Other show, right, I got you, Okay, So there's there's that.
We got about another two hundred and fifty million here, Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:04:22):
So the other so another about fifteen million of that
goes to like campaign contributions and independent expenditures. Another like,
as far as I can tell, my best estimate is
another about one p eight million, and I've done like
much deeper digging into this more recently goes to what

(01:04:43):
could be classified is organizational or turnout efforts, okay. And
then another chunk of about ten million goes to refunds
to donors who said I didn't want to donate, Who's
bring back my money?

Speaker 1 (01:04:56):
And then the.

Speaker 2 (01:04:57):
Rest just sort of disappears into administrative costs and pay
and so it's hard, it's hard to get an exact
number where everything's going, but that from the disbursement data
that I have access to, those are my best estimates.

Speaker 1 (01:05:11):
And again seventeen million total to the campaigns themselves well.

Speaker 2 (01:05:16):
And most of us going to the D Triple C
around healf of the account.

Speaker 1 (01:05:21):
Just the big chunk of cash that they just said
to the three big committees, this isn't necessarily to House.
You know, that special election House race that they may
have been talking about in the fundraising email may not
have gotten a dollar.

Speaker 2 (01:05:35):
Yeah, this is excluding the money they've raised for people
like Jamie Harrison. Like I consider that as a different category.
So I think they've raised another like four hundred million
in four campaign like anidates themselves. But I'm looking more
at the sort of spam pack and they no longer
have those types of clients as far as I can
tell that the candidates are no longer hiring mother There

(01:06:00):
are other firms that do the same thing, but they're
now hiring or they say peer to be all the
people who had been hired, that had hired Mothership now
have shifted over to other related Did Mothership try.

Speaker 1 (01:06:11):
To explain what they're doing? Did they push back? Did they? Yeah?
What did they? What did there? What is their explanation?

Speaker 2 (01:06:18):
They sort of make the argument and they put out
a public statement on medium. I can't find it anymore
than they have taken it down. But they basically made
the argument that what is necessary evil that you know,
we need to combat the Trump administration and our health
tactics are effective. Ah in like they did not like

(01:06:41):
they would not respond to like idiot my like questions,
uh in sort of response to their statements about like
what about these like predit like the why are all
your why is all your money coming from senior? But
why are your tactical look like elder financial fraud? They
have not addressed that at all. They basically fell back
on look where where you know fundraising because we need

(01:07:05):
to oppose a Trump administration and that's just a necessary evil.
And then they also sort of crought it out some
like candidates who had who had backed their efforts or
like putout statements. So like Cherry Bustos was one of them,
and like she came to their defense and said, look,
I've worked with Mothership and there's this great organization and

(01:07:26):
they you know, raise a bunch of money and so
you know, I'm proud of the work that they I've
done with them. She used to be the chair of
the DTRAC, right, So we sort of get the sense
that this is disconnect to the party in a way
that is really troubling.

Speaker 1 (01:07:41):
Well, you know, it's interesting, you're you're booking obviously you
put this out in August. You know, we were able
to finally get time for this for the podcast now
here at the end of September. But it's actually good
timing because I don't know if you've been paying attention
to the debate about the so called autopsy of the
twenty twenty five or campaign that the DNC was and

(01:08:02):
that there's this huge lobbying effort by consultants to basically,
you know, they don't want to be shame for how
much money they made off of a bad campaign essentially,
and they're afraid of their name showing up and essentially
having happened to them what I believe. Look, Mothership earned this,
this is what they did. So you're going to get scrutiny,

(01:08:23):
which you came up with. But I think frankly seeing
what happened with Mothership and realizing there's gonna be a
lot more people asking questions and if those firm names
get out there, there's going to be deeper dives and
trying to figure out you know, look, James Carvell sort
of threw it out there without name and names, but
he got angry one day in a rant and he said,
you know, if you're trying, you know, you can't be

(01:08:44):
worried about the carried interest lobby when you're trying to
save democracy. And he was referring to a couple of
close Harris consultants who were had clients that were worried
about carried interests going away, you know that tax code,
and you're just like, okay, you know what I mean.
You just your head goes right in your hand. You're like,

(01:09:05):
you know, you're telling us democracy is on the ballot,
but hey about carried interest. You know.

Speaker 2 (01:09:13):
I think this finally mentally feeds into some of the
weaknesses that Democrats have experienced in recent years. Right now
and then, like, there's this trend in polling data that
is just like sheltered out at you, which is when
people are asked what they're most concerned about corruptions, like
at the top of the list. You have just did
a poll about what percentage of like what percent of

(01:09:35):
people thought that like a member of Congress would accept
a bribe. It was like seventy one percent of people
there and they're.

Speaker 1 (01:09:43):
Well, you mean they're shocked that somebody might accept a
bribe in public service. When the former head of the
Border Patrol took fifty thousand dollars and they just they
didn't even charge them, they didn't deny it happened. Yeah,
well we don't have enough evidence to charge, but you
got your back of cash.

Speaker 2 (01:10:03):
Okay, they're not wrong. So the public is very concerned
about public corruption. It is, from what I can tell
right now in pulling data, issue number one that is
a massive opening for the Democratic Party. Anti corruption has
been probably, bar none, the most effective anti authoritarian strategy globally.

(01:10:26):
We see tons and tons of examples of it.

Speaker 1 (01:10:29):
It works at any time any parties, any party that's
out of power, who's trying to get rid of a party,
you know, beat back a party that's been in power,
say more than eight years, there's always a corruption angle
that usually succeeds, right, it says one party rule. We
all know after about year eight or nine, somebody's deciding
to make money off of this, and you start to

(01:10:49):
see it. It happens. We've experienced it in our lifetimes.
We've watched the parties do this it's effective in our democracy,
but you're right, it's times one hundred when it comes
to stopping authoritarian.

Speaker 2 (01:11:02):
Yeah, and so this is this is the opening democrats.
It's the type of coalition you build that doesn't have
the types of trade offs where you have to you know,
push people to left out of the way or tell
like moderates that they're no longer really important or anything
like that. You don't have those types of trade offs,
and it appeals to the working class. So like we're
on the same page of this. I think to the

(01:11:23):
problem is you look at the same polling data and
people think Democrats are just as corruptive Republicans. I would
personally take issue with that, even like the scale of things,
but I think people look at what happens in fundraising.
They look at the democratic parties insistence on the need
to raise money from billionaires and mega donors, and they

(01:11:45):
see that effectively as a type of corruption as well.
And for Democrats to effectively take on this anti corruption angle,
I think the first thing they need to do is
clean house, and that starts with their fundraising practices. This is,
you know, beyond the pale, the type of stuff you
see from these digital fundraising and consultants. But anyone involved
in this type of thing should have nothing to do

(01:12:07):
with an anti corruption party, right, Like these consultants who
are upset about this, they you know this, not all
consultants on the democratic side, but the most the most
successful consultants appear to be the ones engagement type of behavior.
And you know that's so bad.

Speaker 1 (01:12:23):
You know, it's interesting. The consultants you know by name
are not the corrupt ones because their name is out
there in some ways, they they're they're trading on their
own reputations. The most corrupt ones are always the people
that do this stuff that's like a layer or two
below that we all don't see. The digital guy, the
phone people. It's it's always in this arena where there's

(01:12:48):
only like a handful of vendors, and they they've become
the vendor for like it. It is the most corruptible
part of the political consulting world. I'm not saying they're
all those guys that do owns and do this are corrupt.
I'm not saying that. But there's a lot of evidence
of corruptibility there in the fundraising side because there's just

(01:13:08):
so much cash it and it's moving around all the time.
It really is. It's like any cash business. You know,
you you you know, we've all watched Ozark. It kind
of works that way. You hate to say it, but
it does.

Speaker 2 (01:13:23):
And the sad irony of this all So, as I mentioned,
I've been studying campaign finance for a lot of time,
like I know, but spend all my time in this
data and how it affects elections. It really matters in
a lot of ways for American politics, like who we
select to end for office, and like primaries, this like

(01:13:44):
mega donor fundraising or the type of fundraising that's coming
in from these like more corrupted channels. It's almost like
the evidence is it's basically not effective at all. So
like money going to a campaign so they can hire
staff and put together and is useful, money spent by
super PACs appears to have basically no effect on both sharinges,

(01:14:06):
like little to no effect, you know, maybe a tenth
of a percentage point if you double your opponents like
super pac fundraising, you know, just you know, tiny little
sliver of the population. But to do that, you're giving
up your credibility and a party that can fight corruption.
It's just I don't see the trade off as being
worth it. Consultants get very mad when I say that,

(01:14:29):
but they're the only ones who do so.

Speaker 1 (01:14:33):
All right, let me get you to answer this sort
of pushback about fundraising tactics, which is which I hear
all the time from my friends on the left. Well,
we don't want to tie one arm behind our back.

Speaker 2 (01:14:44):
Yeah, but tell you and so, first of all, you
didn't tie that arm behind your back. You cut it
off and give it to consultants. That's where we're at
if we just want to be realistic about it. But secondly,
the money you raise their just that's not what wins
contemporary elections. They're raising more money than your opponent. Having

(01:15:06):
a better party brand is going to win that battle.

Speaker 1 (01:15:08):
Every time Donald Trump has been outspent in twenty sixty,
in twenty twenty, and in twenty twenty four discuss.

Speaker 2 (01:15:20):
That is consistent with the empirical evidence that we have
that the ad campaign advertising has very small effects. There
was this really great study that came out recently that
was that has the highest quality standard of like experimental
study on campaign ads. They had Facebook like show ads
to some people but randomly have other people not then

(01:15:41):
they could track all their political behavior after like whether
they supported Tromp or or Biden because it was in
twenty twenty. They found zero effect. That's like the highest
level would be there's like a thirty thousand people involved
in the in the study, zero effect on their political behavior.
But this is where there's tons of money being spent.
And the other thing that I think is really tragic

(01:16:04):
here is that the Democrats have this massive built in
fundraising advantage right now that they are squandering.

Speaker 1 (01:16:11):
What's that advantage?

Speaker 2 (01:16:13):
So the young like they are out fundraising Republicans like
right now. Republicans in this last election cycle, for their
half of their money came from from one hundred donors,
one hundred mega donors, got it. Fifty six percent of
their money came from people giving over a million dollars.

Speaker 1 (01:16:31):
That's like the Adelson's and Elon Musk in that crowd. Yeah, okay,
got it.

Speaker 2 (01:16:35):
For Democrats, it's about eighteen percent. If you cut that
eighteen percent off, they still would have outfundraised Republicans.

Speaker 1 (01:16:42):
But so they have more upper middle Basically, they have
more upper middle class donors than the Republican valley, like
it used to be the other way We're like, this
is the law. This goes to the whole loss of
the suburban vote. The suburban vote which once lead Republican
and therefore they had a lot of the five dollar donors.
Now it's the Democrats that have the five thousand dollars donors.

Speaker 2 (01:17:04):
Yeah, and it's good to this. This advantage is just
going to continue to grow if they don't squander it.
With's eighty percent of people under forty who are donating
aoltics no, I mean federal elections or giving to Democrats,
exclusively to Democrats, they have won this entire sort of
young professional class that will be that's sort of you.

Speaker 1 (01:17:24):
Know, work money at speech, future money is speech. How
are you going to I mean this gets Yeah, I've
I've come. I've come around on on campaign finance. I
was a I always like to use the example and
I don't know if you've ever heard me use it
in some of my apologies if you have, but the

(01:17:46):
metaphor I would use was always a the Jeffrey Goldbloom
character in Jurassic Park. This is my issue with campaign
finance laws because every every time you try one, it
almost seems to create new loopholes, and so Jeffrey Goblum said,
when when the old man in Jurassic Park said, hey,
oh they're not going to breed, and Goldblum says, life

(01:18:07):
finds a way. Well, that would always been my attitude
about money and politics. No matter what you do, money
finds a way. Oh you're not going to let them
do soft money to the parties. Well, we're going to
create five ozho one ced threes, and then we're going
to do the Then you know, oh, you're not going
to let this. We're going to do the super pac
and then we're going to you know, there was always
a new tax gimmick, using the tax code to find

(01:18:30):
another way. Well, this money will only be able to
be spent on political organizing, but it's softer over here,
and then we have our hundred dollars over it. And
the point was it, money always found a way. But
we are getting to the point of absurdity right where
every candidate now has to have their own billionaire. And

(01:18:53):
if you don't have a sugar billionaire, sugar mommy or
sugar daddy, you can't run for state wide office in America.
And that that's when you realize, uh, oh, we have
a kleptocracy.

Speaker 2 (01:19:04):
Yes, I mean I think that's an excellent analogy. Do
but that that's my reading of the history of campaign
finance regulation that you do see this pressure. The Supreme
Court's mostly culpable in the recent vision.

Speaker 1 (01:19:19):
But is that the what was that what you'd like
to see? You know, I had this, there's this movement
to try to reinterpret Citizens United and reinterpret the campaign
finance all using mains a referendum that was passed in Maine.
We'll see what happens there.

Speaker 2 (01:19:41):
Yeah, I mean ideally in the long run. Yes, I
don't see that as a viable strategy in the near run.
And so, you know, as a pragmatist, I don't see
that as something the Democratic Party, like if they say
we want to constitutional amendment on two band systems United Fine,
I mean he's like eighty percent of the population supports that.

(01:20:03):
So you're not going out on the limb there. But
I think we're the real advantage that they could gain
right now is this is more of a they actually
don't need this money. If they went back to saying
we're only going to let people give us up to
the one hundred and thirty thousand dollars limit that was
in place before for Citizens United. And you know the

(01:20:24):
rest of that money you'll spend on pro democracy stuff,
but you can't give it to us because we don't
want that appearance of corruption. The Democratic Party did that,
they'd have more than enough money to fund their operations,
and they would as a party, gain a huge credibility
advantage against Republicans because they could say we're not the
corrupt ones, look what we did. I don't see that

(01:20:46):
as a realistic thing that the Democratic Party will do,
but my god, I think it's something that they would
absolutely be advantage from doing because that money, the amount
they can raise from traditional fundraising sources, will more than
make for what they lose from these mega donors.

Speaker 1 (01:21:11):
I think we're in a moment. Look, I would have
been more skeptical of that a couple of years ago,
because it does you know. My my issue is I
can't find an example of somebody losing over campaign finance issues, right,
you don't you know? Are you know? It's one of
those issues that when you ask a voter about it,
they're like, yeah, I don't like the system, But when

(01:21:34):
you ask them, what don't you like? In general? This
is it's like fifth or six on the list, right,
you know, And that's and it's like it is a
prodding issue. It's an issue if you tell the voter about,
you educate them about. Yeah, they are going to be
pretty they're not going to They're probably going to be
willing to come your way, but it is one of
those you're trying to get them to agree with you
on a problem. And in politics, you know, the party

(01:21:58):
that is able to agree with the voter and what
the voter thinks are the problems usually as the advantage.
And so that's where I've been a skeptic on this.
I say, all that this big, mega rich tech community
that is trying to buy up land all over the country,
take up the power grid, decide what you and I

(01:22:20):
get to see. You know, we're going to have four
families controlling all of media. Right that the consolidation the
Robber Baron type mindset that I think, you know, the
consolidation of wealth connecting it to the campaign finance issue
that I buy.

Speaker 2 (01:22:39):
Yeah, I mean it's it's a risk, but it's one
that I think is well justified given the moment. The
anti oligarchy angle is really important to consider now one
of my colleagues, Walter sneidel As is staper from few
years back showing that economic inequality in the US higher

(01:23:00):
than it was at the end of the Roman Republic
or during right before the French Revolution. Right, Like, we're
in pretty extreme territories and it's getting worse and worse
and worse in terms of what we're seeing. These these
are the types of things that are very you know,
destabilizing to democracies. And we've known that for a long time.

Speaker 1 (01:23:21):
Well, the greatest trick the billionaires ever pulled was convincing
the working class that they were on their side.

Speaker 2 (01:23:26):
Yeah, but even and like there's this Ken Martin on
the chair of the the DNC like that a few
months back, like, look, there are good billionaires and bad billionaires,
and we're going to continue raising money from the good billionaires.
I don't actually disagree with the claimant there are good
billionaires out there, but it just comes off as so

(01:23:47):
self serving.

Speaker 1 (01:23:48):
And remember what who he thinks is a good billionaire.
Half the country might think they're not that good, or
they're the son or daughter of somebody that made money
the wrong way? Like it is, is it going to
be as clean as you think it is, Ken Martin.

Speaker 2 (01:24:03):
And also the like. We just have to go back
to the twenty twenty four election, and if you remember
Mark Cuban, who was stumping for Kamala Harris, and at
one point the Harris campaign had come out pretty forcefully
with a we're going to tax unrealized games on fortunes
over one hundred million dollars, so affecting a tiny time

(01:24:24):
insights of the population. Very few people have that type
of money, and it was a pretty populist measure. It
had come out of the Biden campaign and it was
probably the strongest economic populist message that they had. Mark
Cuban went off script that it would destroy the economy
and like at one of the stub speeches instead that

(01:24:47):
if Harris had been elected and gone through with it,
he would can pain against her next time. Right. This
is back to James Carville's point that if you're really
chasing this money, their interests are just not a lot
with what a party like the Democrats probably need to
do to regain power, which is not to cater to
those who already have power, but to cater to a

(01:25:09):
working class. That these things is completely rigged against them.

Speaker 1 (01:25:14):
You know, in our closing a few minutes here, because
we've gone almost forty five on this topic, proof that
you can you can go along on campaign finance issues.
What you've been studying this for a long time, you've said,
You've said, were there other forks in the road that

(01:25:36):
if we'd not taken then we'd be in a better spot,
at least on the campaign finance was I look at
McCain fine Gold and think it was a h The
unintended consequences made it bad legislation, even though it was
it was attempting to do good. Let's say. Yeah, so.

Speaker 2 (01:25:57):
I tend to agree that it didn't achieve all its goals.
Part of that it was sort of decapped by what
this is pretty core did in response.

Speaker 1 (01:26:05):
Sure, we did get it for about ten years, and
I would argue it gutted the parties in a way
that I don't think we all saw it coming, and
it moved the money outside of the parties harder for
people like you and I to track.

Speaker 2 (01:26:18):
That's my because this is well, yeah, there's also something
Many political scientists say that the weakening of the parties
as a result in McCain fine Gold was a negative
consequence that was not expected. I tend to agree with
that that stronger parties tend to be a little more
I don't know, protective of their brands, and I think
we've saw that sort of fall off. The other thing

(01:26:39):
I just want to bring up is, you know, campaign finances.
We think of it as this like a US thing,
but the US is very like perceptional on how we
operate campaign fundraising, and compared to the democracies, it's just
not the same thing in Europe or even like even Japan,
even in South Korea, where it's a big problem, they

(01:27:01):
have much much stricter regulations on it that make it
look nothing like the US. And so I guess my
general point is, yes, there were like it's hard to
see where the missteps were. Is just sort of mad
starting point. The institutionally was always going to be very
difficult to fix, even for all meaning reformers because of

(01:27:21):
the hurdles there. But the truth is the way that
we have approached campaign finance, this notion that it like
money is speech that has nothing to do with how
democracy operates worldwide, and I think having that perspective or
moving forward should be helpful for when we do have
a moment to engage in actual institutional reform, which seems

(01:27:43):
like it. ABA, we will be coming around the corner
because it's hard to say. Our institutions are so unstable
right now.

Speaker 1 (01:27:50):
So in the two thousand election, both presidential nominees took
the took the federal matching funds, which meant they each
agreed to only spend about sixty five million dollars total
in their general election campaign. Twelve years later, Barack Obama
and Mitt Romney each spend a billion dollars. It's one

(01:28:10):
of the fast So if we hit the billion dollar
per campaign mark in twenty twelve, we just hit the
two billion. I mean we're going to have a five
I assume the twenty twenty eight to twenty thirty two
we're looking at a five billion dollar per party presidential election.

Speaker 2 (01:28:29):
Oh, we exceeded that in twenty twenty. The amount raised
the federal leven twenty twenty exceeded for both presidents and
congressional exceeded twenty billion.

Speaker 1 (01:28:39):
No, right, I knew that, But I'm just talking about
just for the presidency, right, Oh, yeah, that's that's very viable.

Speaker 2 (01:28:45):
And then I have to think, so what is like
advertising cannot be the most efficient way to spend that
at this point. The thirtieth AD you see in you
see in Pennsylvan, Well, the joke is just right.

Speaker 1 (01:28:57):
Just write a check to the voter that you need.
I mean, at this point right where you're fighting over
the last forty thousand swing voters in Michigan, you know,
buy them a new buy them a new fishing vote.
I mean, my goodness, I mean, I'm being facetious, but
where it there is an inefficiency about this right where
we have fewer swing voters than ever and more money

(01:29:21):
per swing voter to spend.

Speaker 2 (01:29:23):
Yeah, I mean the alternative is more of it spent
on mobilization. So that's where we see variation in elections.
As these turn out differentials and democratically like more motivate
and they turn out to high rates and Republicans. That
swamps any sort of who's winning the swing voters, and
in recent elections there's not It's not an easy thing
to do. So it's not clear that spending money on
that type of mobilization will yield the types of returns.

Speaker 1 (01:29:48):
But I don't know.

Speaker 2 (01:29:48):
I look at the New York City election, which is
not representative of the country. But the youth turnout that
Mandami saw was off the chart. I'd never se anything
like it in terms of like young people are turning
out at nearly the same rates as the old people
in the unit in a US election. It's just not
something you see. And so I you know, and his

(01:30:11):
schtity of using money is like he raised up to
the limit and said, stop sending me money. I don't
need it anymore, but I need volunteers. So maybe there's
a different model that is less reliant on what you
can spend money to do and more reliant on traditional
mobilizing and saying like I don't need your money, I
need your help, all right.

Speaker 1 (01:30:30):
But let me get you. Let me get a pep
peeve of mine that's into the state. You teach it.
The California referendum process feels like a system that only
gives political consultants a reason to live in the state
of California. That the amount of money that two entities

(01:30:50):
spend against each other. I mean, the fight over mobile
sports gambling is probably the best example where you had
each side was you know, there there was no good side.
It was we want to be the monopoly. No, we
want to be the monopoly, and we're going to just
we're going to make you, the voter, decide which side
is least evil to be your monopoly in sports gambling.

(01:31:14):
You're also going to see probably half a billion dollars
just on this redistricting initiative.

Speaker 2 (01:31:20):
Yeah, it is, you know, so in some ways it's
more democratic because it is broken away from sort of
the type of quidlock you can see in legislative institutions.

Speaker 1 (01:31:33):
No, I mean it's the one the one differ. Yeah,
the one thing I say that you can defend that
I'll defend. At least they're going to the voters with
this disenfranchising idea. But at least they're asking for the
voters to approve disenfranchisement. But there we go ahead.

Speaker 2 (01:31:46):
But if I could, but I completely share your uh
right with the way that it often operates. Often it's
just two special interests trying to get upper hand. It's
and there should I wish there was more editing of
that process and that we had an institution set up
so that that just wasn't you know, we actually asked
questions that were of relevance to the public. I was

(01:32:07):
voting on a ballot measure about what like like kidney
dialysis like regulations. So I have no blue about.

Speaker 1 (01:32:16):
Did you wonder, like, why the hell is this even
on the ballot for people, for lay people to decide
dialysis regulation? Right?

Speaker 2 (01:32:23):
Well I knew why because they didn't get what they
wanted out of the legislature, so they went to a consultant.
They figured out how to get it on the ballot.
So yes, I mean I think there's there's a lot
of craft that goes on in that process. You know,
it's and it's not necessary. Right, So again, like you,
as someone who's more of a reformer, I would absolutely

(01:32:44):
put much more limitations on the types of things that
should appear on ballots.

Speaker 1 (01:32:48):
Well, Adam, you're why your analysis and investigation and what's
your your subject is called on data democracy? Is that right? Yeah?
I highly recommend it. Check it out. It's it's uh,
it's methodical in all the right ways. And this is
sort of this is independent journalism at its best. Because

(01:33:10):
you're not it. I will tell you I tried to
do an audit. I was obsessed. After twenty twelve, I
tried to get NBC and partner with another news organization
because we always worry. We always worry about where money
comes from. Well we never actually do what you did,
which where does this money go? And I thought a
billion dollars. Look, I know some of it's going to
the TV stations, but not all of it. Right, who's

(01:33:34):
making you know, you know, besides you know Verizon cell
cell phones and att cell phones. Who's making so much
money off of the industry that is politics? But you know,
it's it's a it's a tough thing to get people
excited about and and it and yet it's you know,

(01:33:54):
it's arguably what's weakening the democracy more than anything else
we're dealing with. Yah.

Speaker 2 (01:34:01):
Yeah, well, thank you and I agree, and thanks for
having me on. I think it's to man, great conversation.
You really need to.

Speaker 1 (01:34:08):
Get it when you when people take your class, what
are they at Stanford? I'm just curious, what what what
do you spa What are your specific areas of political
science that you teach.

Speaker 2 (01:34:20):
I teach intro to American politics.

Speaker 1 (01:34:23):
The big big anybody that all the athletes, everybody gets into.

Speaker 2 (01:34:26):
That class, right, that was we titled in defense of Democracy.
So I teach that with my probably Kim Jefferson. I
teach Americans book constitutions, and I teach machine learning and
politics so institution and data big person.

Speaker 1 (01:34:41):
Yeah, and at a place like Stanford that's actually U
that's probably next level potentially the opportunity to be next
level stuff and understanding that that area, because I do
think I do think a lot of politicians get taken
by people coming in from the tech world saying, oh,

(01:35:01):
I can do all of this, and they sort of
like the way a mechanic can con somebody who doesn't
know anything about cars, Oh, you need a new Johnson
rod that you see sometimes the tech community. So it's
good to see political people getting a little bit of
tech education because I do think sometimes those people take
advantage of the lack of knowledge that say it Chuck

(01:35:23):
Schumer and his chief of staff have for this stuff.

Speaker 2 (01:35:28):
Wow, absolutely, And I do. And that is sort of
one of the public services I'm trying to provide, is,
you know, bring data in empirical evidence in ways more
accessible so that people who are not just decision makers
but the public and sort of see through some of
the things that they sort of feel are wrong but

(01:35:48):
don't really have to have a As to the point too.

Speaker 1 (01:35:50):
Well, if the DNC is trying to turn the page
and rebrand. Embracing an investigation like this would probably be
a step in the right direction. I just don't know
if the leader. I don't know if the current leaders
that the party has right now are ready for that
kind of reform. I don't see evidence of it, do.

Speaker 2 (01:36:07):
You No, I'm quite so. Part of my analysis is
I've looked at the leadership and they tend to it.
So Keing Jefferies about eighty percent of his small donors,
So he's raised three million dollars from small donors the
selection cycle. Eighty percent of those donors have also given
to these fan packs. Then he uses many of the
same tactics, and you can look at his Facebook ads

(01:36:30):
and see who he's targeting, and his consultants are targeting
people who are sixty five plus almost exclusively. And so
I don't see that being a likely scenario. But you know,
I tell people, this is the year of the snake,
is the year where it get like in Chinese porterscope.
You know this that the skin sheds and there's renewal.
And the Democratic Party looks like it's going under a renewal,

(01:36:53):
and I think I think there's a lot of energy
in sort of reform.

Speaker 1 (01:36:57):
So I'm who knew that the year of this stake
would bring about newal rather than something more not various.
I like that the ear of the snake. We're shedding
our skin, we're shedding our brand. Anyway, Adam, this is terrific.
Appreciate your time.

Speaker 2 (01:37:14):
Well, thank you so much.

Speaker 1 (01:37:28):
All right. I don't know about you, but it's like
this entire I mean, that was just outrage. And I
think I shared the story about the source of mind
sort of what drove them away from leaving the r
n C when they got got that letter that this
panicked woman said, my social Security check doesn't come for
another week? Is it okay? If I wait? You know,

(01:37:50):
and if you think about it, how these the way
fundra the way this online fundraising world works, which again
I think, as Adam has put it, feels like glorified
you know, targeting of just you know, abusing the elderly here.
But in some ways it's it's it's the incentive structure

(01:38:10):
of our information ecosystem in general. Right, You've got to
have these sort of blaring, sort of urgent, urgent headlines
to grab the attention of readers. That sort of you know,
makes everything seem as if it's a it's you know,
you know, we started with cable news making everything breaking news, right,

(01:38:32):
and eventually if everything's breaking news, then what's just news? Right?
You know, what's just it? And it's in some ways
this is sort of what we've done to political fundraising,
what we've done to news consumption. How the algorithms prioritize
again the incentives, right, it prioritizes this, and it really

(01:38:53):
has warped our brains. Ten years of this kind of
of this kind of nonsense is is I think, you know,
helps explain why we're in the why we're in the
uncomfortable position we're in when it comes to our our
informationion ecosystem. All right, it is Wednesday. It's my top five,
top top five, top topest top. Last week was my

(01:39:19):
top five Senate seats for the month of most likely
to flip. Well, today I'm going to do my top
five governor seats most likely to flip between now and
November of twenty twenty six. Why do I say between
now and November of twenty twenty six, because we have
two governor's races coming up this November. One in Virginia
and one in New Jersey, and well one of them
is in my top five list. And what it is,
it's most likely to change parties. Right, This is why

(01:39:43):
it's doesn't mean I'm saying it's it's going to be
the closest race, the most top but it's most likely.
So the number one seat most likely to change parties, well,
right now, it's Virginia. Right, it's a Republican governor in
Glenn Youngkin, Abigail Spamberger's got anywhere from an eight to
twelve point lead depending on the polls. We haven't had
any good polling since the controversy involving the ag nominee

(01:40:04):
and those and those uh horrific texts that were made public.
I would imagine it only has a small if any.
I do feel like it is not. We'll see, all right,
I don't know. I think it does if they they
sort of continue this dance and allow it to sort
of dominate the next three or four weeks. It could

(01:40:25):
cost for a couple of points, but I don't think
it costs her a race, so I think she's definitely
number one. It's the number one most likely to flip
to change parties. Again, that's how my top five works.
So the next four and I will tell you look,
New Jersey is going to be close. I sort of

(01:40:46):
refer to New Jersey. It's sort of like the Miami
Florida State game. I knew that was going to get
close at the end no matter what happened, because the
Miami Floord State games, they always do if it is
it is a rivalry games, so they always both teams
have had a history of coming back from keep deficits
and making games close at the end. And so I

(01:41:09):
put New Jersey. I put Chittarelli in there as Florida State.
There's it's not a remote chance that he wins. There's
a pretty good chance. And in fact, if you created
a point spread and the point spread were three with
Mikey Cheryl, you know, basically being a three point favorite,
I'd take the underdog. I think this is going to

(01:41:30):
be a one or two point race. I think got
election night, we're waiting a little bit. It's not something
that gets called right away. We're gonna have to see
a lot of data all but various vote counting entities,
and we'll do that. So I think it's going to
be awfully close on that front, but it's not cracking
my top five just yet. And and and but it's

(01:41:52):
right there. You could say it's it's it's six. It's
really close. So it's gonna be a lot of competitive
governors races, That's really what it means. But I think
when you slotted in, you know, and I look at
it as sort of where I think the race will be,
not necessarily where the race is at, and then when
it's slotted in, so I still make sure all the

(01:42:12):
slight favored because I do think the overall political environment
favors Democrats right now because of the unpopularity of the president.
And I think that's probably the difference between winning and
losing in a state like New Jersey right now. But
we'll say, certainly going to be closer than Virginia, that's
for sure. But number two right there for me is Kansas.

(01:42:33):
Right you have Laura Kelly is not running again. She's
term limited. The democratic Democratic governor of Kansas. Kansas is
a Here's a couple of rules on governors, Okay. Number one,
the hardest thing to do is to deny a sitting
governor a second term. It is harder than denying a senator,
a second term, House member a second term, a president

(01:42:54):
a second term. The feeding and incumbent governor is very difficult.
It's a little bit easier when you trying to when
you're trying to if they're running for a third or
a fourth term. Some states allow it, some don't. Kansas
it is just two and that's it. They have a
two term limit there. And Kansas has shown a pattern,
I mean literally was you had eight years of Kathleen

(01:43:15):
Sibilius and you had eight years of Republican governor and
eight years of Lord Kelly. So there's a bit of
a pattern there. So you got to make the Republicans
a favor and I think overall is sort of the
same way. For you know, Virginia has been sitting in
this number one slot. If I had been doing it
for the last year, it had been sitting there the
whole time. Because again, with an open governor's race, it

(01:43:36):
is open seat races that are most likely to flip
party than sitting governors. Okay, defeating and here's a hint,
there's not going to be a single race in my
top five that features a sitting governor. I'll get to.
I think it's the most vulnerable sitting governor in the
country after I do my top five list. So number

(01:43:57):
one is Virginia, Number two is Kansas. Number three and
four could easily be could easily flip. And since I
was just at the Big ten government relations, it means
they're both Big ten states, and it actually is this
state or this state? Is it this state or is
this state? Do you see what I'm doing here? Anyway,
it's the hand thing. Michigan Wisconsin. I put Wisconsin number three,

(01:44:20):
Michigan number four. You told me it should be Michigan
number three, Wisconsin number four. You know I probably should.
You know, I could argue Michigan three because of the
three way race, you know, if you know dug In
certainly I think I think the path we're a Republican
for John James is probably slightly easier in Michigan than Wisconsin.

(01:44:41):
So Michigan, you could say, is three A and Wisconsin
would be just below that. So as I'm talking this out,
I'm realizing it's Michigan that's in the third slot. But
it's because of that three way race with the independent
dug In. It's it's the math. It may simply become
a math problem for for Democrats unless Dougan wins right,

(01:45:01):
unless Dougan gets you know, or or he fades hard right.
But the problem is if he's down as a five
to ten percent candidate, he most likely takes more from
the Democrat than the Republicans. So I think you have
to put John James uh As slightly ahead and put
Michigan three the open seat in Wisconsin. This is gonna

(01:45:22):
be an extraordinarily close race, Wiscott. Let's see how the
primary goes, Wiscott. You know, when when Wisconsin goes too
far to the right, that's when they struggle to win
statewide races. They've had more success with businessmen at times
in some of these primaries. We'll see, but I will

(01:45:45):
tell you this, I hope, I hope my man Tommy
Thompson gets into this race. Eighty five year old Tommy Thompson,
who was a four term governor back in the nineties,
indicated he'd like to run again. He ran for Senate
a cycle or so ago and got and got trounced
by Tammy Baldwin. He doesn't have his fastball, but he's
probably more with it than other eighty year old politicians.

(01:46:05):
I'll tell you that, and he certainly would be entertaining
UH in the primary and would make it an even
more fun race to cover. But overall, let's see how
that primary goes, which which really is another reason to
keep it in the fore slot. The Lieutenant Governor Tony
Evers is running mate is the most likely demonominee, but
we'll see. I think that's still early there. And then

(01:46:26):
the fifth slot. Right now, I put Iowa in Rob Sam.
This is a he's a he's been in the race
a while, He's accumulated a ton of money. The Republican
it is going to be a pretty competitive Republican primary.
There is no there is no nobody's been really coronated

(01:46:48):
just yet. That could happen. And I think Randy Finstrf,
he gets the nomination, is going to be a really
really strong Republican nominee. Sam's gonna have a ton of money.
He has been proven. He won even in a tough
Democratic year. He won re election as state auditor, so
his track record's pretty strong. He's been running a very

(01:47:09):
centrist campaign. Remember those of you that have been listening
to my podcast from the very beginning, know that Rob
Sam was on this race, and he was. He basically
said the only reason he's running as a Democrat has
said it's too hard to run as an independent. So
point is is you could see the type of race
he's tried to run. He is not he is not
going to want to get tagged as a national Democrat.

(01:47:31):
We'll see, We'll see if he's successful at that. If
he is, he's going to be there. Look, there's a
lot of other competitive governatorial races this year. I think
Ohio is going to be competitive, but I think Ramaswami's
going to be the favorite, so the Republicans therefore going
to be favorite. I think Tim Walls. I think Georgia,
the open zing in Georgia is going to be competitive there,

(01:47:53):
but I think it's got a long way to go
before we know which way that wind is blowing. And
it's been a long you know, it's been since Roy
Barnes want a term as governor in nineteen ninety eight,
since Democrats have been able to win a governor's race.
I think the most right now vulnerable incumbent in the
country is Katie Hobbs for the Democratic side in Arizona

(01:48:15):
and Dave Schweikert, a swing state member of Congress. There's
been swing district who's constantly had to deal with very
tough congressional races. The he's jumped in up primary that
already has two MAGA Trump endorsed candidates in it, Schwikert said, nominee,
I think Hobbs is in deep, deep trouble. Her best

(01:48:37):
way past the victory is if one of if it's
somebody that's a bit too conservative. That's sort of been
the pattern an Arizona politics for some time. Democratic success
goes hand in hand with Republicans nominating folks too far
from the center. You know, Arizona really is a sort
of center right but much more libertarian state, and I

(01:48:58):
think some of that MAGA st off doesn't quite play
as well there. There's a large Mormon population in Arizona
that doesn't like the low character style of mega politics either.
That is also provided an opening for moderate Democrats to
win statewide there as well. So, you know, she won
very narrowly against the second most unpopular or a second

(01:49:20):
arguably the second most unqualified person to run for governor
in Kerry Lake. And so I think I think anybody
that's slightly more mainstream than Kerry Lake, you've gotta you've
got to give. So she's probably the most vulnerable incumbent.
And then on the Republican side, it's it's Joe Lombardo Nevada.

(01:49:43):
It's probably the most vulnerable Democratic Republican incumbent. But again,
the hardest thing to do in politics is to deny
a governor second term. It just doesn't happen very often.
All right, here's my top five for the week. Now,
let's do a couple of questions. We'll get you out
of He lit the last, Chuck ass Chuck. All right,

(01:50:05):
it's question time. Let's start. We'll start with Aaron w.
He says, Hello, Chuck, I'm so sick of seeing money
and special interest ruling politicians. I fully believe they will
never vote to band stock trading of elected officials or
vote to fund their own healthcare out of pocket like
normal working people. However, would there ever be a snowballs
chance in hell of a constitutional amendment danning stock trading
or cutting off perks like top of the line healthcare.

(01:50:26):
Probably not, but one can dream, right, thanks, Aaron W. Well,
look here's where I do think. Look I am I
really do believe we're going to have some form of
a constitutional convention in the next decade or so. I
think we're much past too. And again, when you look
at other periods of tumults that are similar to the

(01:50:49):
period of political tumult that we're experiencing, it was followed
by a robust movement of adding important constitutional amendments. Right
if you look, we basically had three periods where we
as a country, you know, past quite a few constitutional medments.
One was, of course, you know, at the founding, the

(01:51:12):
second was after the Civil War and during the Civil war,
and the third was in this period. And then from
about you know, nineteen ten through about nineteen thirty five,
where we did quite a bit of amending you know,
direct election of senators, women's right to vote, they prohibition,
and then repealing prohibition, et cetera. So, and I think

(01:51:32):
it turns out that the emolument's clause for the presidency
wasn't enough, that we may have to be more direct
about elected office and business interests and financial interests. So
I am bullish that if we get to that point
of a content where there's some agreement about, hey, we
need to you know, we need to look at some

(01:51:54):
at some refreshing of our democracy, and we can't let
another president do that. In order to perhaps get a
broader coalition supportive of a constitutional amendment that it may,
I could see it being written in such a way
to impact all federal elected office holders, not just the

(01:52:14):
president and the vice president. So whether it's stock trading,
I don't know if you'd get to stock trading, but
it is certainly going to be an you know, to
put some constitutional guardrails in to prevent using office to
gain wealth and at least trying to minimize trying to

(01:52:36):
make it harder, trying to erect a real, actual constitutional
guardrail rather than a quote unquote norm or ethical guideline
or something something like that. And look, part of the
reason it's the separation of powers make it hard for
the legislative branch to put policies on the executive branch,

(01:52:56):
the elected leaders of that. So just you know, the
cleanest way to do this is via constitutional vendment. Our
next question comes from Chrispy. It's a check, longtime fan
from the Meat Press days and now your podcast. Thank you, Chris,
appreciate it. My question comment regarding the shutdown is that
it plays right into Trump's plan with the economy. Goverment
shutdown means no BLS reports, which will give Trump cover
for the increasingly vad economic numbers. You'll blame the Democrats

(01:53:19):
for the bad economic numbers once the shutdown end, because
you really think the American people will believe another liear misinformation, Chris,
I don't because I think, you know, lived experience always
trumps the misinformation. Right. Look, Joe Biden was out there
and the Democrats were telling, you know, the economy's fine,
and people said, well, that's not what I'm feeling. Right,

(01:53:40):
So if it didn't work for Biden, and perhaps they
weren't as good at it as Trump is at times,
I just don't think it's going to work for your
lived experience is what you're gonna vote on. Okay, you
know you're gonna believe me or you lie in eyes
right that uh, that expression. But in all seriousness, I
do think lived experienced Trump's Trump's anything. Trump will try

(01:54:03):
to spend on us, and so we'll say, look, there's
a lot of disagreement. I'm gonna market any comeback pretty soon.
There's a lot of disagreement here. I mean, I think
this is you know, I do think that we're going
to have another sort of messy interpretation of the economy.
You know, the stock market can continue to do gangbusters

(01:54:23):
while people feel like this economy sucks. Right, And I've
always said that you know the number, if you look
at the economic numbers, it's just you know, if you're not,
if you're not, it's just sort of like it takes
money to make money. But if you don't have the money,
you can't take advantage of the situation we're in with

(01:54:44):
the stock market. And then it feels like you can
never get ahead. They can never catch up, let alone
get ahead. So I think this is a really crappy
economy if you don't already have a savings or you
don't already have a house, and and so no amount
of numbers is going to mask the feeling people have
the inability to move up the economic ladder, the inability

(01:55:08):
to get out of one house and get into one
that's slightly bigger and sort of move up, you know,
you sort of participate in what the American dream is
supposed to be. So and I think twenty six, I
think we're going to have sort of a stock market
that may give one perception of the economy, and then

(01:55:32):
the cost to live, you know, higher healthcare premiums, higher,
you know, prices on every little good because of tariffs,
are electric bills, and I look, I think the the
anti data stuff, the AI data farms are going to
start becoming political targets and get blamed. In some places

(01:55:56):
it's fair. Some places it may not be fair for
increase the cost of power. It's possible Trump takes some
heat for not embracing in all of the above energy
policy which could lower our power bills over time instead
of increasing them. So I do think the cost to

(01:56:18):
live is not going away as an issue, even if
the sort of the numbers of the economy will look
pretty good if you look at it a certain way,
particularly if you have some wealth versus what the numbers
will look like to those that can't break into that
part of the economy. And so I have a feeling

(01:56:40):
that's what things are going to look like in twenty
six and that's that maybe the best case scenario for
our economic outlook. All right, next question comes from Roger L. Hey, Chuck,
I've been listening to your podcast for a year, all right,
and I appreciate your deep political insight. I have shallow
political insight too. I promise I can go to the
deep end, but I'll get shallow if you want. You

(01:57:01):
want to do some Paul fine Bob, I just have
one piece of advice for Paul finebomb by the way,
to do some shallow hot take political analysis that an
ESPN person will understand everybody who says they love you. Now,
just wait till you jump into politics. Brother, Okay, none
of your word. You think your words get scrutinized now

(01:57:22):
by SEC fans. You ain't see nothing yet, and he
already has sort of gotten a high hard one by
his you know where somebody dug up something he said
about Trump in twenty seventeen. Look, if Trump gets you
the endorsement, then you're right. You'll be able to skate
by and it makes everything you said about him forgivable

(01:57:42):
to the maga world. I'm not so convinced you're going
to get Trump on your side, mister finebamb, but we
shall say all right, sorry, just thought i'd provide you
a little shallow political analysis set up to the deep
political insight he goes. You've often noted the Democrats struggled
to find themselves beyond being not try. Even as you
discussed issues like democracy and equality and the rule of law.

(01:58:03):
Chruck me that while Republicans have Project twenty twenty five
as a roadmap, Democrats could use their own Project twenty
twenty eight or twenty twenty nine to outline concrete, broadly
supported reforms when I give voters a clear vision of change, Roger,
I am increasingly somebody else has written something similar to this,
and I'm increasingly thinking that it is something Democrats ought

(01:58:24):
to do, because you know what, it's actually been done before,
and it's worked. You know, the Contract with America ninety
four worked. I think the public, you know, a cynic
like me may say it's a bunch of hogwash, only
about two or three items and their real priorities. But
voters want to know you're going to get something done right.

(01:58:44):
And I think that and they're in some ways, you know,
like in the movie Tommy Boy, they want to guarantee
on the box. You know, he wants to right there
on the box. It's smiling at you, it's looking at you, right.
But in all seriousness, I think that there's something to it.
I think the lack of trust in politicians these days

(01:59:07):
means you got to put it in writing. So I
actually think if you if you, you know, we're all
so accustomed to believe that you can't really believe that
a politician isn't gonna do what they say and say
what they do, right, So I think it would be healthy.

(01:59:27):
I mean, look, the downside to it is what the
downside why the Trump campaign ran away from it, not
towards it, even though it was a governing blueprint. That's
because some of the things that we're gonna do and
we're gonna turn off swing voters, and that's the danger. Right.
It all depends on how big your coalition is. But
I think generally voters do want to see something in writing.

(01:59:50):
I do, so I think there's something to it. But
don't you know, I think the problem with Project twenty
twenty five that was written to a love letter to MAGA,
which is why it was politically unpopular with what they
were doing. If somebody has an agenda that is sort

(02:00:11):
of more of a broad agenda that's designed to benefit
as many Americans as possible, not just members of your side,
I think putting it in writing could be very very effective.
All right, I'm just thinking one more question here. This
one comes from Brian said, how would you handle the
bad faith arguments of misinformation that republics are using influence

(02:00:33):
government shutdown debate? Well, look, I guess I would. You know,
this is where I tactically think I would have I
go back. I don't think I would have made this
my moment of truth. I think I would have taken
the clean cr and taken this to November and then

(02:00:53):
made November the be all and all on healthcare. I
still think it's a good argument. I still think it's
a it's it's certainly look if this were just about healthcare,
they'd already have opened the government. It's obviously not just
about healthcare. I do think plenty of Democrats inside that's

(02:01:14):
inside those elected Senate and health conferences, say Jesus, he's
running rough shot over the constitution. We've got to show
some spine. You've got to stand up to him on somebody.
We've got to provide a road, if not a roadblock,
at least a speed bump, make it harder for him
to do these things, not easier. Right, So the problem

(02:01:35):
is that is not I don't think a lot of voters,
you know, the the democracy arguments haven't worked. They work
with the base, but they don't work with swing voters.
What does work with swing voters is stuff that impacts
them cost of living, health care subsidies. Right. That's so
I understand the choice of issue is correct politically, but

(02:02:01):
they're in a you know, they lost some high ground
and quote unquote clean cr I get it. Trump is
totally and completely an unreliable partner to negotiate with because
of what he did on recisions. But just look at
the word recisions. It is not something that is in
the everyday lexicon, and you're like, what the recisions? Seventy

(02:02:22):
percent of the country's going, wait, what are you recissoring?
What are you talking about? And so I think the
real motivation here is that, hey, this guy's running rough
shot and not following the Constitution. But that's been an
incredibly hard argument to get mass appeal for. You could

(02:02:42):
say maybe that that's the principle worth standing on it.
I don't disagree, but and I certainly think this. You know,
if you're asking me what I would do with this
undocumented you know, the idea of they want health care
for the undocumented, I would continue to ask the rhetorical
question so should emergency rooms reject anybody who is in

(02:03:07):
a citizen has anybody who heard of the hipocratic oath? Right,
no doctor is going to do that, And that is
not what America does. We're the United States of fucking America.
Pardon my French here, Actually, you know I'm speaking American here.
We don't do that. We don't leave people to die

(02:03:29):
in our country just because of what country they're from.
That's not what we supposedly are holding ourselves up for
as a role model for the world. So if you're
asking me how I would push back on that aspect
of the debate, I'd say, why do you want people
to die in emergency rooms? If you're there going to
be disingenuous? You fight back with you take a kernel

(02:03:52):
of truth? Do you want to rescind the law that
says emergency rooms do get reimbursed for treating anybody that
comes in, regardless of their nationality or their citizenship. I
promise you that wouldn't be popular. We're religious enough in
America to still think that we ought to take care
of somebody regardless, you know, no matter their hurt. Now, look,

(02:04:17):
if somebody committed a crime, we patch them up. Then
we arrest them, right. Mark Sanchez found out about that
in Indianapolis over the weekend for football fans at Paula
bet that story. If you need more on that, just
go google it. I'm not gonna I'm not gonna get
into it. But the point is, drask me about how

(02:04:38):
to deal with that. That's how we deal with it.
But I do think that the shutdown politics are complicated
because the real reason Democrats are drawing a line in
the same of the ear is not about healthcare, right,
It's about the entire process of working with Donald Trump
and how he has not you know, why should Democrats
provide sixty votes for appropriations when they will use fifty

(02:05:03):
votes on a parting line two to rescind some of
any repropriation they don't like, which they've already done. So
I think that that's the that's where this is. You know,
He's this is a you can't you can't trust the negotiation.
It's a fair gripe, and it's one that is It's

(02:05:26):
it's like, who's to say they would do this, They've
already done it, right, So, but that is a tough
one to galvanize the public on. That's the problem, the
specific issue of healthcare is something that the public will
galvanize about. And I have to say, I think Republicans
are fumbling this healthcare conversation right when Marjorie Taylor Green

(02:05:49):
is the one out there leading the charge of hey,
we got to get these healthcare stuff. What are we
doing to people? If you notice she went out there
and said that, Donald Trump started to say, hey, I
we're gonna We're going to provide good health care. You
can quite say, how right, But he's sensitive, he's nervous
about this issue. So in that sense, the Democrats have
made some gains on the shutdown simply getting that issue

(02:06:12):
more front center, because look, it is hard to break
through on anything these days in the world of Donald Trump.
All right, with that, I will call it a podcast.
Appreciate you listening. Thank you as always. You know, sometimes
I'm my old man yelling at cloud, and you guys,
I see by the numbers, I am not. So I
appreciate that there's a lot of a lot of people

(02:06:35):
joining me in yelling at the cloud. And with that,
I'll see it for twenty four hours until we upload again.

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