LeBron James and NBA Free Agency

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I get it I mean, there's a federal lawsuit going on right now over exactly this, companies that branded themselves as unbiased while allegedly pointing people toward whatever would pay them the most as some sort of broker. So if your default is to distrust everyone in this space, honestly, I get it. I'm a bit distrustful these days myself That's the whole reason I want to tell you about chapter independent Medicare advisors whose entire model is that their advisors are not paid to push anyone plan They're just trying to help. Yes, there's compensation that goes with it, but it's across the board. is what they're trying to do. At the end of the day, they're advocating for you. They're not the insurance companies themselves. They're an actual person who actually goes through your doctors, your prescriptions, your needs and then compares them every single plan available to find the best one that will work for you and hopefully save you a couple dollars too And here's the part that sets chapter disappear once you've been enrolled. They will keep advocating for you. They're kind of like almost like a concierge service. You're just there. I need help. You're like customer service. You know, the plan, you know, help me navigate this again. so you ever get hit with a wrongful medical bill, They'll help you fight it. They they want to stay an advocate for you even after you've done this. So look, I get it I think there's all sorts of You see a lot of people are throwing themselves in this healthcare space. What I like about these chapter folks, I've spent time with them. This is a very transparent organization. It is Medicare and all of its affiliated stuff can be very confusing. The whole point of this is to make this easier and less confusing Okay, so look Take the skepticism you already have in all of this. pointint it at your own plan for twenty minutes. It's free, there's no pressure and then call chapter Today at nine eight zero seeven, three, four Three, nine, eight, five be Monday, dayay two days now after. th of July America's two hundred fiftieth birthday. And I'm going to have a lot more to say about sort of what the weekend delivered to us as a nation and the unfortunate divisiveness that the whole weekend felt and all of that. But as you know, here at the Chuck Tadcast, I'm just promising you politics for the rest of us This is not going to be some left wing screet or right wing screet. It is just an attempt to sort of Hey What about What does this all mean for the rest of us? Politics for the rest of us, is as I'm calling it these days. And of course And reminder that I cover politics as it is and then do my best to try to give you some ideas and how we can make it a little bit better. And let me give you the quick little rundown of today like I said, I will have a lot, particularly on the president's financial disclosure. I think the most remarkable thing is what he's fessed up to. And I want to get into that in for a few minutes. It is Monday which means we're going to go back into the into my Todcast time machine. and I'm going to take you back. to an era when politicians Use geography to cement political power Um ically it's not new But it is a reminder that how we tell our stories, how we tell our history can sometimes mask what the real intent of what happened actually was about. And so That is my one hint that I'm giving you, it is about the nineteenth century and it really rings true current situation that we're living in at the moment Um then I'm going to give you my hot takes on LeBron. I've got a lot of hot takes on LeBron. U and dashed Darn it I want to send out my a takes before LeBron signs with the team and makes all of us LeBron watchers feel silly or then some at that. I will talk about the one Nationational all star snub and then give you your complete. Remember we're doing two episodes for the month of July rather than three. So I'll have a drop todayod, Monday here and we'll have another drop on Thursday. So with that Um Let me get started. You know, one of the hallmarks of Donald Trump and one of the One of the worst set predictions there have been over during the Donald Trump era is, you know, some form of op. He'll never recover from this one And yet Donald Trump recovers from this one. But the fact of the matter is even somebody with as many political lives as Donald Trump A man who seems to use Teflon as sunscreen He's bathed in so much of it and stuff just slips off of him so easily that we somehow, many people may have convinced themselves, nothing's ever going to take this die down and sort of But I would say is, I do think we know the ending. We just don't know when the ending is going to happen, right? We know this is going to be notot a spectacular ending dumb ending. right? We know this is going to be the moment when you're just sort of trying to look away. You don't even want to remember the era. You don't want to look at the time period. You want to pretend it didn't happen. You just sort of you know, w it away, you know, sort of the way some want to wish away than what actually happened in the nineteenth century in American history versus what we want to tell ourselves of what happened in the nineteenth century And I think that In some ways we as a coping mechanodm and we like, geez, nothing's going to get Trump. But the fact is The Trump era is going to end and it's going to end in a whimper The Trump era is going to be is is going to be is not going to be something that survive that that somehow gets better with age, right? History is going to treat it in one of the most damning ways. They'll explain it History will explain it and will understand it This is not You're right? There is there's no There are going to be very few pieces of probably positive impact that you're going to be able to apply to the Trump presidency. And in fact, I kind of think it is going to be just simply less memorable Like I think, you know, we always have this recency bias that somehow, you know, what's happening now will be so memorable. But as I Think about one of the most bizarre things we had done in our history before Donald Trump did it himself, which is elect a president a second time A that president was voted out of office, like we did do Gorver Clevel I'm sure when it happened, there were people at the time going, boy, this is going to be one for the history books and that this is going to be an incredibly historic presidency and one that's remembered quite well O than this one factoid about Grover Cleveland. What the hell else is he known for? basasically other than being that the the Democrat that the only Democrat that could win a majority between U Lincoln Uh, and Hoover right? with apologies to mister Woodrow Wilson, who got to the presidency in a split decision. So Um point is that Id look at sort of how littleittle impact Grover, Cleveland had on history and how essentially it did it just sort of It was a classic fading away, right I know that that seems to be the least likely scenario because we can't help ourselves in the moment But hey, there was a time Dick Van Dyke was the most famous American on television type of thing, right? You know, the things things can come and go And it wouldn't shock me if a hundred years from now Trump is as memorable of a president as Grover, Cleveland or Polk Oh or Millard Silmore The likelihood that he is in the either now he could be memorable Allah Richard Nixon and Warren Harding are two most corrupt presidents that we've ever had U that is the likelihood of I think of his historical significance. So what is all this preamble about? Well done it myself, what I thought had been career killers for him haven't been But there's something about these last three weeks Donald Trumps behavior in and around everything having to do with America at two hundred fifty and the Uh just extraordinary financial disclosure form that he copped to, right? He admitted to profiting off the presidency in a government form that in some ways is shocking in its brazenness And the question is Like his entire career is filled with these moments where it's just it's just over. And sometimes he certainly doesn't know when it's over But eventually the public lets them know when it's over Um My generation gave this gave this phenomenon, the title Jump the Shark based on a happppy Days episode that actually didn't signify the end of happappy Days right away, but it's always been associated with this is when happay Days lost its way when they tried too hard to make fonts cool when he decided he was going to jump over a shark And so while I know that that phrase jump the shark has also jumped the shark, I actually think when you're talking about Donald Trump and you're doing And you're using references like Jump the Sark, it's actually very appropriate. He is somebody who in some ways That era is such a defining era for him and it's the era he lives in. I think in his world it is still nineteen seventy six, somewhere between nineteen seventy six and nineteen ninety. which was his peak period of relevance. And he has been trying to capture that glory Ever sincethones? My word, gototten quite a taste of it by hijacking a political party. So That's where I'm going with this this morning. At some point the act wears out it's welcome, right And it's been theory of Donald Trump's public life Not that there is one perfect scandal, not there is one magic headline. A, this is it, Not that the country wakes up morning one morning sees one new piece of evidence and says, o now we understand who this man is That isn't going to be how Trump collapses collapses when the product becomes too much. in and of itself When the gimmick becomes so obvious that even the people who wanted to believe in it, start to feel embarrassed for having believed in it And we saw this with the financial disclosure this last week the Wall Street Journal editorial page just eviscerating him over it as they should as any anybody who doesn't want to be accused of hypocrisy, right? If you've spent a minute criticizing the Bidens's for profiting Hunter Biden for profiting off his father, then you should be beyond outrage and probably introducing articles of impeachment given that there actually is a constitutional provision here that that in theory Donald Trump has violated on this front. But when you had like the free press you know some, you know, who which which certainly is very Shall we say partarticular about how often it criticizes Trump, meaning they don't like to do it very often They want to be a bit right coodated they eviscerated him over this Wall Street Journal edorial page eviscerated him. And I think there is this There's a lot of people who have used their own political prestige to criticize the Bidens and the Clintons over the years for making money off of government And no one has done it like Donald Trump The man has perfected And so the idea that you do have a lot of people who voted for Donald Trump feeling embarrassed. by his behavior is not a surprise to me because It's when the sales pitch keeps Going after the room has changed It's just sort of When the gold lettering is still on the wall, the lights are still flashing. The Maitr D is still pretending that this place is exclusive of the carpet Smells old The money is gone and everybody has seen this episode before. Every era of Trump's public life has ended with a whimper like this And so this is why It's likely to end, you know, end with a whimper. And I've made it clear. I think he's already in lain duck territory We're just all heaven Just there isn't Um, Majority acceptance of this just yet. and it's hard to say, oh geez, he's a lame duck when he can still have influence on Republican primaries, right? So he's not He's not a lame duck without some power left. This is clear the question is Are we at the beginning of the end? or are we in the middle of the end? or are we starting to come to the end of the end But I definitely believe we're in the end The Atlantic City era ended this way for him. The casinos were supposed to be proof that he was some genius. a visionary, the master builder, the deal maker, the guy who could who was going to create an east Coast Vegas and if anything, it had more advantages than Las Vegas had And then the whole thing, thanks to Donald Trump, became debt bankruptcy, overreach right? Nobody has has had a bigger negative impact on a city on the east Coast Donald Trump in Atlantic. The inherited business myth ended this way The story is that Donald Trump was some self made billionaire When the more honest version is literally he inherited his place at third base gotot a fortune and if he had just invested that fortune would be wealthier today pre presidency because presidency has given him access to wealth beyond his own imagination But he had not if he had just taken his dad's fortune and just literally bought A D andT, he'd have more money than he did today and he had been a billionaire sooner But of course, he has spent the rest of his life trying to convince everyone. that wow. He was born on third base that somehow he hit his own grandsam onald Trp real estate mo. That act ended this way the branding deals, the licensing, the gold plated fantasy of wealth and taste, right? It works until people start noticing Brand is not proof of success The brand was the product, the image was an asset. and the illusion was the actual business. His television era ended this way. right? The apprentice worked until it didn't It was a hit until the trick got old. It made him look like the businessman he had spent decades pretending to be It put him behind a desk, surrounded him with glass and steel and fear and edited him into some executive genius that he had always fantasized that he was And then when the format started to fade He turned it into celebrity oppress which really is probably the single most revealing cultural artifact of the Trump age Donald Trump sitting across from Gary Bsey. pretretending this was still a high stakes boardroom and not a failing franchise trying to resuscitate itself through absurdity In some ways, Trump and Gary Busy together explain Trumpism Better than most political science came Celebrity without an excellence Drama without stakes, authority, without competence. if that's not Donald Trump, I don't know what it is. The aesthetics of power can feel of power Everything that is actually supposed to make power legitimate The only strange thing is that the Gary Busy phase of his celebrity era happened before the presidency and not after Pitics has been the exception In politics, Trump has had nine lives Things that would ordinarily end a public figure did not end him. Things that would have destroyed any other politician made him stronger with the people most invested in his brand So I'm going to start with a low humility on this prediction We've been here before. And yes, even before, I probably can be quoted as saying you can find a quote that saying, Wow, this time is different Insulting John McCain seemed like a bridge too far. A Republican candidate for president mocking a prisoner of war That was supposed to be impossible and certainly something that would have made somebody is Hollywood You can grab them by the, you know what? That should have been disqualified. How about his own confession The Fifth Avenue w. Trump said he could stand in the middle of fifth avenue shoot somebody and not lose voters And the shocking thing is not just that he said it The shocking thing is that it became a pretty decent description of his political immunity for a good six years about in his first term the Helsinki Summit seem like a bridge too far. standanding next to Vladimir Putin casting downout on American intelligence siding with the Russian propagandist That seemed like the kind of thing that would break the fever didn't do it This episode of the Chuck Todcast is brought to you by Quintince. Look, one thing I love about summer is anything that just makes everything feel easy, right? That's what you we all think of as a summer day. The days are a little more relaxed You find yourself reaching for maybe the same comfortable go anywhere clothes again and again. It's why I keep coming back to Quints because they have all these comfortable clothes. 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Full terms and wagering requirements at horseshoe onnlinecasino dot com slash promos If you or someone you know is a gambling problem, call one eight hundred gambler. Hey, it's Ry Reynold here from Mit Mobile. Now, I was looking for fun ways to tell you that Mint's offer of unlimited preremium wireless for fifteen dollars a month is back So I thought be fun if we made fifteen dollars bills, but it turns out That's very illegal. So there goes my big idea for the commercial. Give it a try at midmobile dot com slash swwitch Upront payment forty five dollars for months ninety dollars for six mons one hundredy dollars for twelveth, reired fifteen dollars for month equal to taxes extra. initial term only great than fifty gigytes be slow netork busya terms going to a foreign government begging them to help him in his reelection campaign. That was the Ukraine call It led to impeachment He was Then there's january sixth where he literally instigated a riot against the country trying to stop certification of a free and fair election I'm sure if you told people in twenty fifteen that a president would try to overturn an election, that a mob would storm the Capitol. President would be impeached for and that he would then return to power and pardon nearly everyone charged in connection with the attack. most people would have thought America had been lost and that somehow We were part of a first Reich of some sort Because that's how ridiculous that scenario would have sounded even to the ears of a political electorate in twenty fifteen All of that happenens haven't even brought up him stealing classified documents as a civilian. and former president or the felony conviction that he received in the Og. Then the pardons of the january six rioters. Just all of them across the board. Gar plane A foreign government literally bribes an American president with a luxury seven hundred and forty seven and the bribe works Qatar has got a security agreement with the United States signed by Donald Trump after they gifted this plane. The quQid, the pro and the quQuo is all right there staring us in the face And if somehow the official posture is why would anybody have a problem with this He just wants a plane And we're going to take care of Cotter. We we got a military base there. So what's wrong with that We might have done this anyway There's the UAE crypto investment God. Every time you think it can't get worse, it gets worse. a Trump linked crypto venture, a stablecoin, billions in foreign backed investment en up giving his sons. o wait Biden was criticized by some of Trump's supporters for making money off of his pays. These guys are selling. American foreign policy to the highest bidder in the golf Remember the UAE bought with this bribe of Trump's kids They got access to important chips onald Trump Is the UAE an important ally of the United States strategically in the region? Sure it is Do it mean you're justified going into business with them while you're also in charge of taxpayer decisions about how we imp with said government And yet here we So I'm not going to sit here or say very confidently, this is it Nobody should pretend the outrage itself is a strategy And we shouldn't pretend the country has some hidden emergency brake that automatically activates when a president crosses a moral line, right We have learned all too painfully that it does not I think all of us wish we had one, but there's not. But there is another lesson Imunity is not immortality And there's a difference between surviving a scandal keepeeping power, staying in office, and remaining compelling and remaining influential And that's really the argument. He has no ability to influence beyond his most devoted followers. And it's a shrinking and shrinking group of people. still drinking the Trump cooling because there is a difference between getting away with something and keeping the audience. And there's a difference between shocking people and boring And Trump' Eire theory of political powers is depended on his ability to turn misconduct into some larger spectacum He could make scandal feel like domination. He could make disgrace look like proof. He was just fighting the system like you are You know, and they're coming after him simply because he's standing in the way He could make every indictment, investigation and outrage condemnation part of the show what happens when the show gets old happens when you start to look like Gary Busy yourself, which lately Donald Trump What happens when scandal no longer feels like rebellion just looks like an invoice And what happens with the corruption iss not even hidden anymore Not even clever He's not even he's not even trying to spin his greed Just a nine hundred and twenty seven page government filing reads like a catalogue of impeachable offenses That's where we are now The last few weeks have been one of the most intense pressure tests of the Trump spell that we know much of the country is in That because one new fact is more shocking than january sixth Not because one new grrift is more corrupting than everything that came before it. Now the whole thing feels so undisguised He's not even trying to hide it anymore. He's not even trying to explain it away Raise it It's so strangely tired that that's why you can feel this act entering a late stage form Fancial disclosure basasically Because he has so warped the system. He's like, I'm going to disclose all the different ways that I am using my office to personally profit and no one's going to give a shit That's how little he thinks of you crypto money, the branded Bibles. I mean, it's so gross. this guy sells Bibles with his name on it Watches coins all to monetize whatever popularity he has within this presidency Then of course, a guy who political party that wants to ban stock trading All the guy does is trade off of policy in advance. I had already brought up the plane the UAE crypto story. Then there's the America two hundred fifty celebration. that he completely co opted and made it a Trump branded spectacle. literally driving people away Fewer people came to Washington, not the white supremacist, they felt welcome m, but fewer regular Americans decided to come because he just made it less He basically made it that if you showed up to an event in Washington, you were endorsing him. He tried to make the America two hundred fifty in endndorsement A And you know like plenty of people like I'mut I'm endorsing America The idea, I'm not celebrating your fatass. I gotta little bit it's just so insulting what he's done to us It's so insulting. He gets to insult us with small stupid playground and then the rest of us, if you fight back, you look like the smaller one, right I mean, the reflecting pool in itself has been so symbolically obvious. J just what a ridiculous presidency this is turning into. Again, maybe you survived all of this But when you're like monetizing Patriotism like this Literally selling the presidency to the highest bidder, selling pardons, selling policy literally is doing these things. This is not made up shit And yet it always is like, oh, Trump Trump Trump's critics are going over the top. No It's under the it's like literally under play That's what made, thank God for this government for me. actually filled it out By the way Do we think he's been one hundred percent honest? Imagine the stuff he's not copping to So look, he has survived more than enough for skepticism to be in an honest position The question is no longer whether Trump has done anything disqualifying sale that launch. The question is whether the public is finally beginning to experience him not as Just some sort of transgressive rebel N as entertaining and as strong, but as exhausting. and as an act that it's worn It's a fad at It's Morton Downey Jr. for those of you of a certain age, if you know, you know That is the junct to shharp theory Not the theory that the law finally catches up to him. Not the theory that Republicans suddenly recover a conscience not the theory that his strongest supporters instantly abandoned him realizing They're the mark Owning the libs? No, we know who he owns J look at that government form He owns his own supporters, he monetizes the Bibles, the watches, the gold coins, all sorts of gaudy stuff. The theoryist Every Trump act eventually wears out its welcome. He did so in Atlantic City and literally destyed the city All right, just it should have been East Coast Vegas Everything that Vegas is today. is because Donald Trump wasn't allowed in to smuck it. Literally the difference is one city wouldn't give him a a casino license to actually open a casino One day Which city would you rather be Las Vegas or Atlantic City? And this is why I think the moment where the political act is going to start this financial disclosure. It's not a rumor leak or opposition research. This wasn't like a whispering from an anonymous source, a leaked tax return. an official government ethics disclosure and what he admitted to impeachable offenses. We don't even know what's not on there. Now remember why we even have this document It's one of the few things still surviving the Watergate ethics reforms We decided in the late seventies that the public had a right to know whether people in power were using power to enrich themselves letting us know What's your wealth? You want to be you want to make public taxpayer decisions and public taxpayer money You've got to let us know about your financial situation. That's why financial disclosure exists It's a relic of an era when reform was still possible when scandal Dooed Ethhics laws when exposure would produce new garden And the country believes sunlight might actually disinfect Trump er is testing whether sunlight still has got any sort of impact any sort of ability to disinfect. becausecause the most shocking thing about the financial disclosure is not just the money or the scale It's so much of it sitting right there on paper The disclosure runs nine hundred and twenty seven pages comparison Obam's financial disclosure with eight Biden's was eleven Vance. Jie Vance is current one was seventeen Trump's is nine hundred and twenty So before you even have to you go through it page by page, the scale tells you something This is not a president with a few boring mutual funds. is not a president whose finances are simplified to avoid conflicts or have somehow put himself in a blind trust This is not somebody trying to build a wall between public office and private game This is a financial universe And it is a universe built around brand The filing shows hundreds of millions of dollars tied to that quote questionable crypto investment, mostly coming from UAE and the meme coins There's six hundred thirty five million dollars in royalties from a licensing deal tied to celebration coins Hundreds of millions tied to that World Liberty Financial token sale stablecoin related entities and other crypto link proceeds. and I know some of you are going with the hell Yes This is a part of the investment community that not everybody thinks is even legitimate yet And whether it is legitimate is a regulatory decision by Trump's administration So what did he do He put his policy position up for sale because originally Trump was anti crypto But then he realized there was money to be made. He sold his position to the highpid. Now, depending on how you categorize these entities, you are talking about well over a billion dollars just in these crypto related bries. And I'm sorry, I'm calling them bribes because again He literally believed one thing. he got all this money, and now he's doing another a sitting present, meme coins, token sales, stablecoin proceeds, all this stuff Then there's the other part, right? The licensing arrangements, the family brand, the office You know, it all creates this aura of power Of course, Trump justays, well, the market went up, please, this is not the market went up This is a presidency being converted into a new business for him in order to solidify wealth that he used to pretend he had And now he actually has it R? He was a fake billionaire and now Politics has let him become a real billion And then there's all the merchandise The disclosure shows money from selling Trump branded Bibles. The fact that there's no shame with that. R? This guy thinks he can sell a Bible and they we wonder why more people are questioning organized religion and certainly questioning certain Christian pastors, excuse me. I don't even want to they're not serious religious people just grifters using religion There's the brand Trump branded watches. The Trump sneakers, Trump fragrances, there's Trump guitars in there an entire retail universe of political devotion Oh. Yeah tied to revenue for him and his son And this part deserves the moral. focus as well as legal attention Because the saddest part of the Trump era has always been this, the people he owns are not the liberals or the left media He doesn't own the media, right? He doesn't own the elites. he claims to be humiliating He owns the people who send him money The people who buy the Bible with his name on it peopleeople who buy the cheap watch that's marked up The people who buy the meme coin that they know in their heart of hearts is worthless. peopleeople who buy the collectible. They're told if they purchase some little piece of Trump branded air It will become valuable because he is valuable Qite the con The people who think they are owning the libs are the people being monetized. they are the product. MGA is the product and it's financial disclosure. It's the biggest middle finger to you guys I don't get it. I don't understand. I I'd be pissed off to have been taken like this by somebody I trust it And he is literally stealing from you the MGa movement The people who think they are defending America are being directed to a merchandising table. I'm sorry. I know you think you're part of a movement But he simply is treating you like a customer would be taken advantage of. Not even a customer that he that he that he that he cares about You think you're a part of history 's trying to sell you a souvenir. You think you're buying into the future He's just selling you it You may think he's your champion He's monetizing your loyalty I know some people hey, well, he chose it. They chose it Adults make choices but leadership still has sort of moral contxt You know, You should still have some morality to this Baltic still has moral We should still have a moral Clauses in it There's still something rotten about a man who takes the faith and loyalty of his most devoted supporters and just simply converts them into a sales f It's not just monetizing the presidency, he's monetizing devotion, right? He's as bad as any one of those Jimmy Swagger era preachers. right? He really, I think he's Trump is best understood through the seventies and eighties televangelists Sters, right? Y swaggarts, your folks like that Franklin Graham is kind of one of those people. Billy was Billy wanted Billy Billy Graham always wanted to avoid being seen as a total hox Well, this episode of the Chuck Todcast is brought to you by Fandal. It's the biggest stage. in world soccer. Trust me, you got Americans caring about soccer. I'm sitting suddenly caring. Every goal changes everything. and now Fandal It's giving you a reason to root for every single goal that gets scored because they have something called every goal pace bet on a match and you get bonus bets for every goal scored in that match. So hey, you think France is rolling, right or Norway, think my friends in Mexico are going to keep kicking and win by two or three goals? No, you get a bonus bet, right? So you bet on a match, you get these bonus bets for every single goal scored in that match. 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Must be twenty one plus and physically present in New Jersey. mininimum wagering within five days required to unlock bonuses. Full terms and wagering requirements at horseshoe onnlinecasino dot com slash promos. If you are someone you know is a gambling problem, call one eight hundred gambler to spend What's what's amazing here and this is why I can't this is why I think this is this careful saying that this time is different, but this is why I think this time is different. It's the lame spin. When Trump was asked about all of this, his answer was basically, well, the stock market is going up, everybody's profiting So that answer matters because one it is so weak Right? And two, it's oblivious to his to work with people in this country. You know, Trump so lives in the K shaped economy. he doesn't realize what's going on the on the down sllope of that K Right? Because he has money and because everybody he interacts with has money, he assumes everybody has money truly is a guy who lives in a gilded cage and has no idea what the rest of the world. You know, it is another thing to look at a filing full of crypto royalties. token sale proceeds, stablecoin money, branded watches and Bibles, foreign income and say everybody's making money. No, Ebody doesn't make money this way. this It's not even a good explanation I mean, he's literally like a magician pointing to his left hand after we all saw the card fall out of his sleeve. You know That's why this feels different Trump is not more corrupt than he was before. He's same corruption has been obvious for decades But what feels different is that the concealment is common and the salesmanship is worse becausecause in his own way, well, I keep he keeps, you know, how he's thinking. I keep getting away with it. So this is wor The old Trump would have made the Griff feel like a crusade, and the newew Trump seems to think the existence of the grrif is itself the argument He's robbing the bank in broad daylight and even filing a disclosure form to let you know what he robbed The portfolio shows and then you look at his stock trading. my goodness, tens of thousands of stocks traded. He's got stakes in company after company with government contracts, regulatory interests, national security connections, immigration connections, defense connections, AI and tech connections. And the problem is not that every trade proves a secret policy is attached to it, The problem is the system itself The problem is that this is a conflict of interest machine in the disclosure form just just screaming at neon signs. Right? He's invested in something called the GEO group He bought and sold shares of the GEO group, a private prison and detention contractor Well, immigration, enforcement and detention are central to his policy agenda The money and the policy occupy the same world That is the scandal. The money follows the power question canan you prove the corruption? My God, it's out in plain sight To me, the better question is what would non corruption even look like inside this arrangement? The president is financially tied to crypto, and the government takes a friendly turns toward crypto, what is the public supposed to conclude President's family business makes foreign deals with the countries that negotiate with the United States for treaties and other national security commitments, what else is the public supposed to conclude? You do not need to find the secret envelope in the lock drawer to understand this arrangement He's telling you He's showing you His simple appearance is the scandal And in a healthy political system, the appearance would be enough to force retreat In this political system, the appearance has become a business model Eethic. Why bother? Why bother with concealment, restraint, shame? Why bother with the norms that kept earlier presidents from doing the thing that might be technically possible but obviously corrodes public trust Bother the pretending the presidency is not a licensing opportunity. My goodness, do you know how much money the Reagans could have made? or the Obamas Have they done this Why bother pretending the office is not a set of keys And the country is not just simply a customer base for a new CEO That's where we are But every con does have an emotional expiration date Now with everyone, some people will never leave Some people will go down with the ship insisting that the water in the cabin is fake news as their draw roll a little al in the gurgles, right? Oh, this is not true Political movements are not sustained just by the true believers. They require the poor fld believers, right the ones that say, wow, I think he's kind of a I, you know, He's kind of an a hole but he's my a ho the soft supporters People who don't read every filing but have a general feeling, well, he seems to be strong or entertaining. He's always a fighter and they're always coming after him The question is whether those people begin to feel Not outrage, but embarrassment And that's what you sense Notice who wasn't with him in the fourth of July couldn't find many elected Republicans, certainly not anybody that is in a swing election These people are not going to be inviting Trump Right? Nobody wanted to be standing with him when he was monetizing the fourth of July on America's two hundred fiftieth birthday It's notable who didn't want to be with him outrage might be polarizing embarrassment That's corrosive embarrassment turns into distance And this is what happened to the previous Trump acts, right? The cinos not They didn't become morally worse than one day. They became bad bets. The TV show did not become fake one day, it just became stale The brand did not collapse because everyone suddenly discovered that the cy was full of shit It collapsed because the performance stopped producing the feeling it promised Trump's political danger right now is not that people discovered he's selfish. They knew that going in His danger is that the selfishness stops looking like a strength the con stops feeling like rebellion and starts feeling like a guy selling watches from the Oval Office And then of course, what he did did the two hundred fiftieth anniversary. It was the easiest assignment in American politics. You are the president of the United States. The country's turning two hundred and fifty. You don't have to be brilliant You don't have to solve every division. You don't have to give the Gettysburg address. You just have to make the holiday itself bigger than you That's it. That was the entire assignment Make it about the country and not yourself. Make it about the founding and but also about the founders. Make it about people who expanded the promise of the founding Make it about the soldiers, the abolitionists, the suffragetes, the immigrants, the inventors Think about a country that has failed often and endured anyway It was a layout And Trump could not help himself. He couldn't accept a bipartisan commission to run these things. He had to have his own structure his own t task force that turned into another slush fund Of course, his alternative organization was just doing ideas that revolved around his tastes. hisis politics And he made everything about his own political brain A normal president would have looked at America's two hundred fiftieth birthday and understood the assignment. Disappear into the office, let the country be the star, let the flag be bigger than the man standing in front of it. Gerald Ford did it at the Bicentennial This president couldn't do it. He saw a stage. And he believed the two hundred fiftieth birthday was his You know, what's funny is that Trump cared so little about his own people He did not heed warnings that people made about heat Washington's actual Independent Tay parade had to be canceled because of the heat Organized canceled that after the extreme heat warning. Temperatures are expected to push into dangerous territory and all those things The city made the obvious public safety decision. Don't put people in the pavement for a parade and danger seat That's what civic institutions do. They look out for the general public ides the celebration is not worth hurting people. What was Trump's response wasn't, let's be careful It was not, let's make this day about the people His response was, I'm going to talk longer. It's going to be approximately one hundred and seven degrees. I'm going to go and I'm going to make it a really long speech just to show that I can do anything Again, he's not even hide it just to show that I could do anything. notot to honor the country, unify the country celebrate the Declaration of Independence He just wants to use the event to show he can do anything he wants In some ways, it's a confession Trump presidency in one sentence. Public safety concern becomes a masculinity fake masculinity test. A national birthday becomes his endurance stunt country's feeling it The country wanted permission to celebrate itself. It wanted a moment and Trump gave it more Trump. And so people walked away. That's why nobody showed up to this fair. That's why attendance was so poor You know, they've got to they should be thankful for all of these weather warnings because they can now hide the low attendance and the lack of interest behind that And that's the tragedy of this moment. You can't let anything just belong to the country Everything has to pass through hand Even the reflecting pool, right Sometimes history is too on the nose. Trump woned the Lincoln Memorial Relecting pool we resurfaced an American flag blue Not for a civic reason He just wanted it blom. He looked at the Lincoln Memorial Relecting pool and saaw swimming pool And of course, he knew a guy No big contract. I mean the whole thing, right? It's just an incredible metaphor And then he's trying to blame other people, you know, sabotage makes up all sorts of fake news, right It's the perfect little Trump story. A national monument gets treated like a backdrop The public space gets turned into a branding exercise. The job itself costs more than it's promised. the result looks worse than it was promised, and then he shifts the blame to somebody else This is not just an anecdote about a pool It's been his entire philosophy By the way, the reflecting pool exists to reflect. It's supposed to reflect Lincoln the Washington Monument It's supposed to reflect the national story Fawed, solemn, open to interpretation Trump looked at a reflecting pool and thought, H not blue enough likeike totally not even understanding Why? it's positioned where it's positioned And then he turns it into a no bid cost overrun blame shifting fiasto He sees an institution and all he thinks is how can I brand it I give it therump He never has an instinct to be a steward or a custodian So is how does this look on television But hey, the reflecting pool story works. The naked emperor is not just naked. He's standing next to a blue reflecting pool in dangerous heat, promising a really long speech just to show he could do anything. while the country's birthday party becomes another episode of his show And then because subtlety is completely dead A bunch of white supremacists from the Patriot front show up in Washington on july fourth I'm not saying Trump organized it. I'm not saying he invited them And I'm not implying there was any coordination. You don't need to say any of it point is simpler and more damning moveoments here and they hear signals and they hear permission and they knew Donald Trump was fine if they showed up. So when a white nationalist group shows up on America's two hundred fiftieth birthday It's not whether Trump sent them an invite question is why do they feel so at home Trump's Washington. And this is where I have very little patience for the Republican Party's sudden lectures about extremism in the Democratic. There's this whole cottage industry of worried conservatives who want to tell Democrats that they aren't fighting their own insurgency hard enough. They want to lecture Democrats about the dangers of a party being pull too far to its Extreme position are being captured by activists losing touch with the mainstream of America Parties can be captured, they get captured all the time Their vehicles they're not inherently good or bad But I'm old enough to remember when the political party with the elephant is its symbol faced an insurgency of its own. And how did that go? Did they stand up Did they defend the Constitution? Did they say no to a demagogue? Did they protect the country from a cult of personality Did they put institutional responsibility above short term power? They folded. They negotiated, they excused, they normalized then they became So careful of those lectures about what's happening on the left in the Democratic Party people who watch their own party become a vehicle for Donald Trump and now want to offer seminars on responsible gatekeeping. Just remember the Republican Party had a lot of chances to stop this The McCaine moment x Hollywood ball. Hsinimo The first impeachment january sixth. The second impeachment the criminal indictments The conviction The pardons. There were plenty of Republicans who knew better about every one of these things Some said it privately. Some leaked their concerns anonymously, someome wrote books after they left the Senate Some gave solemn speeches after it was too late to matter But institutionally, they chose power And that's why Trump' surviv is not just the story of Trump story about elite surrender A story of cowardice And a story about a party that decided the danger of losing its voters was worse than the danger of losing its soul And now that same party wants to warn everybody else about extremism Why might this time be different? And why are we, I think, in the end stages of the Trump era? There are three reasons One Trump is older. And old Trump had kind of a feral media instinct The older version of Trump Yes, he was cruel and reckless and all of those things, but he had a weird animal sense for the camera and what would work He knew how to manipulate the attention econy. The instinct is still there, but he's a lot less sharp rallies ramble more, the explanations are weaker. The spin is not as clean the answer to financial disclosure Everybody's profiting from it Vintage Trump would have turned the accusation into a slogan, right? Instead he just, you know Corruption now is less deniable because it's less hidden Literally it's he's admitting all of this right here. Look at how I've ripped off my own supporters by selling them Bibles and watches It's not a conspiracy theory if the form itself says it Third the country is simply top. And that's the hardest thing to quantify because you can feel it. and the numbers start to support it. retty clear the country was not in the mood for a Trump branded spectacle for the fourth It wanted it wanted some reassurance and steadiness and Trump gave him more Trump. And I think it's a huge mistake. I think this is going to linger Some people are angry he can use anger. And he can sometimes use revenge. But when people are exhausted, Trump is never the solution And the one thing And this is why I'm pretty convinced Donald Trump is not going to be remembered as a great. President unless America gives up on history Unless we become a country that literally erases memory, manufactures mythology, and treats the archives historical archives enemies. He will not be celebrated as a great leader He will simply be remembered as a warning Not because historians are liberal because the record is the record. To impeachments, january sixth, tried to overturn an election, monetize the public office, normalize political violence, constant war on truth There's no serious version of history in which that resume becomes a mount Rushmore resume And I think this is where Trump's fear really lies. He's not fearful of losing another election or legal economy. His biggest fear has always been exposure. He's got the worst foam of pure complex ever, right Exposure as in ridicule is what he fears It was always ridicule that motivated him supposedly to run for president in the first place. He didn't like that people were making fun of the guy. What a joke president. We only get to tell us, right? The strong man is not strong in the way he said it. The winner is not winning the way he said it The emperor has no clothes is not a legal argument So That's why I think we're here in this jump the shhark moment He's in a humili we're in the humiliation portion The audience is finally seeing the trick and feeling stupid for clapping I don't think this is going to end Painly It won't It's not going to end with a grand confession the strongest MAGAa believers are not going to wake up and say I have reviewed the Office of Government Ethhics Disclosure form and reconsidered my life But it does end with slliipperch. There's less energy, more distance, less laughter at his jokes More Republicans quietly calculating that he is a burden It's not a dramatic exit. It's people leaving before the Encore. We've seen this. People leave his rallies earlier. It's why the Gary Busy image is where I'm going here. And it's the one thing I want to leave you with is Gary Busy. It ends when the desperation becomes visible. when the guest stars get weirder. when the format gets louder When the producers keep adding spectacle because the core thing no longer works. That's why Trump is politically vulnerable in this moment He is suddenly doing things that are out of character It's not because he's doing things that are out of character. He's actually being more trrumpy than ever. The problem is they look like reruns. It's the version we always knew was there is all we're seeing We're not seeing the fun guy The good salesman, the interesting marketer it's just the grifter in all of its glory Now look, if you want to be skeptical Trust me,'ve all've earned that right We've all watched Trump survive things that should have ended any other political career ten times over But at some point every spell breaks At some point the audience stops mistaking shamelessness for strength Trump has spent ten years testing this electric fence touched it with McCain, notothing, Axis Hollywood, notothing. Russia, Ukraine, january sixth. get you get the point Maybe this time the shock is not going to be a dramatic bolt Maybe it is a buzz or a hump But it's the sound of people finally saying Because explaining the failure, the Trump years are going to be quite easy, explaining why it took so long is going to be harder How did a country this wealthy, this educated This historically mature fall for this not once but twice How did a republic built around suspicion of kings become so fascinated by a man who wanted to be treated like How did millions of people who said they hated elites turn themselves Over to a Glden penhouse salesman who sold them coins, watches, Bibles, and grievance And how did a political party that claimed to love the Constitution become a protection racket for a man who tried to overturn an election That's going to be the questions historians ask and the answers are not going to be Exhaustion. The audience is seing the trick, the brand is overextended. The con is just too visible So the jump the shark moment is not when Trump becomes someone else It is when everyone can finally see that he has always been exactly this A man who confuses attention with love Money with somehow merit and dominance with greatness ry with himself And I have a feeling Every day, more people are starting to see the difference So is this the beginning of the end? No, I think that's already happened. Are we in the middle of the end That's probably the fairest look at this. But we are closer to the end than we are at begin Horseshoe Online Casino has a special offer for you, New Jersey. New users can get five hundred bonus spins in their first month on games like Huff and Ls of puff and more. It's simple and rewarding to play your casino favorites. Download and play today. Must be twenty one plus and physically present in New Jersey. minimum wagering within five days required to unlock bonuses. Full terms and wagering requirements at horseshoe onnlinecasino dot com slash promos. If you or someone you know is a gambling problem, call one eight hundred gambler Y Got got a good one and it involves expansion of the US center. july tenth, eighteeen nin That is the anniversary of Wyoming being brought into statehood So here's a fun little fact that many of you, I bet she didn't know Between November of eighteen eighty nine and July of eighteen ninety The United States admitted six new Western states or Dota, South Dota Montana, Washington, Idaho, Wyom Those six states immediately sent twelve new senators to Washington every single one of those twelve was a Republic. Now imagine if that happened today. Imagine Congress admitting six new states in eight months Imagine all twelve new senators belong to the same political party We'd spend the next ten years arguing about whether the system had been manipulated or corrupted That's exactly what happened in the late nineteenth century Now the funny thing is we almost never tell the story this way We call it westward expansion Manifest destiny. We tell the story through wagon trains and railroads and homesteaders All of that happened It's not untrue, but it's just one part of the story. So while settlers were building the American West, politicians building the United States Senate So understand why though, you have to understand the moment onight, the Civil warar was over The Union had won, which meant Republicans had won They preserved the Union. They ended slavery. They passed the Reconstruction amendments built a stronger national government created a national banking system funded the Trcontinental railroads American industry with high tariffs. That was the theory of the case of trade at the time, considering how slow shipping was around the world Whether you agree with all of those policies today is not the point By the eighteen eighties, Republicans had spent twenty years building this governing philosophy Then reconstruction began collapsing Federal troops that were stationed in the south were wrraong. You know, the eighteen seventy six ice rigged election, if you will, gave us this. One southern state after another returned to democratic control The solid South wasn't just becoming democratic It was becoming politically unreachable for the Republicans So put yourselves in the shoes of a Republican senator in eighteen eighty eight You've just watched the seouth completely slip away The region one your party once hoped to compete in is now almost entirely gone preventing All these new black voters from voting The coalition that won the Civil War is shrinking The question isn't whether you'll lose seats, The question is whether you're going to eventually lose the country. Where do you find replacement votes for all the lost votes in the South Where do you find replacement senators? The answer wasn't New England or the Midwest. they'd maxed out It was West The frontier wasn't simply America's future, it became the Republican Party's future. Now this is where the map becomes Really political. We tend to think of maps as geography. pololiticians think of maps as votes Every territory represented a choice Congress could leave it as a territory, or they could admit it as a state Congress controlled the timing And timing is one of the oldest political weapons in Washington. the Dakota territory Today, we assume there were always two tood us History says otherwise, Congress hadn' pllenty of options. onene territory could have become one state Instead, it became two, one territory, four new senators Now there were some legitimate reasons to divide it The territory was enormous. population centers have developed differently But we let Montana be an enormous land grab state And there were some administrative arguments, but politics doesn't require to invent opportunities. It rewards you for recognizing opportunities that already exist and Republicans understood exactly what two Dakotas meant, and Democrats understood it too. Nobody in Washington was confused about them And the admissions came quickly. North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, Washington, Idaho, Wyoming, eight months, six states, twelve new senators. All twelve are repels It wasn't the whole Republican coalition, but it became one of the strongest pillars. And boy did the timing matter becausecause these weren't just senators They were votes to preserve a governing philosophy votes for protective terror which Republicans believe would help American industry compete against cheaper foreign imports They were votes for continued railroad development They were votes for Western infrastructure. They were votes for veterans pensions They were votes for a much stronger national government than many of the southern Democrats of that era wanted So the Senate wasn't simply deciding legislation It was literally deciding what kind of economy the United States was going to build for the next fifty years And one thing that struck me while researching this story is how often we talk about manifest destiny as though it explains Wester alone, explains it. Western expansion It explains why Americans wanted the land sureure, but it doesn't explain why statehood happened when it did And that's a much different question. And it's a very political Institutions aren't built in a vacuum built in moments of political opportunity Republicans believe they had an opportunity. Just as importantly, many Northern voters believe they should take it Remember, this is only twenty five years after epimatx. Many people who fought the Civil War were still alive The memory of secession wasn't some distant chapter in a textbook was pretty recent. So aggressively admitting Western states, if that is what was going to help prevent the old Southern Democratic establishment from regaining power in Washington, many Republicans and many northern voters that was perfectly legitimate Even if the means were a little questionable And that context matters, right? You had basically, you had a popular mandate to get away with it So this wasn't simply partisan hardball, it was partisan hardball operating inside the long shadow of the bloody shirt of theivil So did it work Certainly helped. Republicans didn't win every presidential election. the next fifty years, but Grover, Cleveland interrupted them Woodrow Wilson interrupted them after Teddy Roosevelt split the Republican Party in twenty nineteen twelve But they were literally interruptions to a broader era of Republican dominance from Lincoln through Hoover Republicans built and largely maintained the governing coalition that defined the Gilded age and much of the Progressive era Now those Western states didn't create the coalition by themselves The industrialization actually mattered. immmigration mattered, Civil War mattered. all of that matered But a Western leaning Senate helps sustain it And that's the part of the story we don't tell with great emphasis Now fast forward to today Listen to the debates about Washington DC statehood and Puerto Rico. representation. The Senate. supppporters argue democracy opponents argue partisan advantage. Everybody insists they're motivated by principles. Everybody el also understands them. And that shouldn't surprise us. America hass been arguing over who gets to build the Senate for more than a century. The parties have changed The coalitions have changed, right? The solid Democratic south is now the solid Republican south The issues have changed, the incentives, though barely have changed at all. And that's the larger lesson We imagine our institutions sadly evolved The Constitution tells us every state gets two senators, but it says remarkably little on what it takes to become a state That's always been left to politics And politics asks the same question most of the time, not whether an opportunity exists, but how much of it can we legitimately take advantage of The question has never been whether politicians will seek the maximum political advantage They always will. The real question is how much of that advantage is the public willing to tolerate in that particular historical moment and in the late nineteenth century after a civil warar. And a collapsing reconstruction, the answer was quite a lot So we remember the pioneers. The railroads Michael Landon Remember manifest destiny? We spend much less time remembering that while Americans were settling the frontier politicians or settling something else. They were settling the future of the United States S more than a generation And once you see that, the map of America stops looking inevitable And it starts looking like what it has always been a series of political decisions made at very specific moments by people who understood that geography. could be c pololitical So the point is we're going to get two new states out of it DC and Puerto Rico are coming It's just a matter of wind does political will match the public's Appetite for acceptance Max political party who wants it being in power, having enough power to pull it off. So you need timing. You need some form of a popular mandate for it And you and you could see how this will happen We just haven't hit that moment yet. Horseshoe Online Casino has a special offer for you, New Jersey. New users can get five hundred bonus spins in their first month on games like huff and lots of puff and more. It's simple and rewarding to play your casino favorites. Download and play today. Must be twenty one plus and physically present in New Jersey. mininimum wagering within five days required to unlock bonuses. Full terms and wagering requirements at horseshoenlinecasino dot com slash promos. If you are someone you know is a gambling problem, call one eight hundred gambler Bast jk All right, let's do a little last check. We're gonna to start with Kevin from Spokane, Washington, longtime listener, firstirst time questioner. I've heard you advocate for expanding the house, but I'm curious about your thoughts on DC statehood. withith roughly seven hundred thousand residents and no full congressional representation. Do you support statehood? And is partisan politics the main obstacle? what would realistically need to happen to make it possible? Thank you for all you do. Kevin How great is it that I just did a Todcast time machine? U This week in history on this very topic about the last time We went through an aggressive expansion of the states. It was always done with political power in mind And I think that gets lost. The point is statehood is usually a political it is always a political question. It is not else entirely. And the fact of the matter is When you have a bunch of people without rights whose population is larger than neearly a dozen states or approximately a dozen states You got a problem, right I mean, you know, no taxation without representation seems like a pretty good slogan for statehood, which has been the Mantra of Washington, D.C for some thirty years now. it's been on the license plate. So It's going to happen. I still think DC and Puerto Rico coming together.ve done I've done if you want to go back into my archives, I've done had an interesting conversation with a DC politician and a Puerto Rican politician about You know, right now the two sides don't work with each other But there's real Republican support for Puerto Rican statehood Scott Markco Rubio both publicly are on the record for it And so the point is and Puerto G is currently as a Republican governor Both places deserve statehood If you can make the argument that might not necessarily upset the balance of power, but will make people more rep. I think that's how you would sell it in today's political environment But I will say this the next time Democrats if they can if they get to say they're not going to leave DC on the cutting room floor like they did during the Obama era when they had sixty Senate votes and in massive, you know, when they had the ability probably to for statehood They could have done it then and they chose not to because Obama didn't he feared this backlash. He really didn't want to become a polarizing president. certainly was less polarized than Donald Trump because he chose to avoid some of these fights over power. Now some base fors the Democratic Party look back and say, this and see the Obama era sometimes as a failure because he didn't aggressively use power when he had Right? when he had sixty senate seats, even it was brief or fifty nine even for a period of time that he could have He could have done some things that cemented certain certain parts of the system that over time might have favored the Democratic Party but would have been defensible as being an advancement for the country, right? So The point is is that I'm curious how you would have Kevin reorded your question after hearing my little history lesson for the week about aggressive expansion and the Republican power play of the late nineteenth century. All right, Mark writes, Hey, Colorado seeven here, I miss you at MTP, but really enjoy what you're able to do with this medium. I am a commercial pilot who can't hear His girlfriend, when she talks in a noisy restaurant or bar, but can hear a cricket around the corner. You need a WD forty spritz on that chair. haa. Oh, interesting. So I see what you're saying My question, given how third party voters votes can become counterproductive in presidential elections, what would actually have to change for America to have a viable third option with a real chance of winning in schemes we trust, Mark. So look, I think it's I go back to It's re prettyt simple what the third party needs or an independent needs is you need a charismatic leader A charismatic leader and you need and I also believe If you have a charismatic leader that gives people the independent or third party movement will be defined by the leader, whoever that is anyway So that's why you need a charismatic leader U you probably need a few converts, high profile converts. so well known political brands who choose to leave their party, either the Ds or the R's for this new movement or become independent So and I think you need both R? that gives it some legitimacy to you know, maybe those that want to be supportive but are skeptical if they see others willing to sort of change their partyegiance to get on board, then they might be more open minded to do it. So I think you need both, right. There's no doubt there's an opportunity. The conditions are there. It's like it's like talking about the conditions have never been greater for horrible storms to develop thanks to a warming Pacific Ocean and what's coming. That doesn't mean the storm develops, right? You still need a few other features for it to develop. In this case, there is a storm waiting to overthrow both parties. But you need a charismatic leader and you need a sort of a realistic belief that you can win And it's sort of like one doesn't happen without the other. they're both sort of combined. And I think the two necessary ingredients are the charismatic leader. U and high profile confvererets Basically Lee, right? who flipped you know, if you think about it, if you follow sports at all and you see You know when a when a program is trying to be U is trying to gain traction or maybe when a competing league, right, you need a few high prof like the USFL got off the ground because they had a few really high profile people willing to take the plunge. People that you knew would be stars in the NFL were willing to go to the USFL first. You saw it with the ABA you know, you need some of those, right, That's why you need that too. But I think you need both of those ingredients First and foremost. U and apologies for the squeaky chair you cracked me up. but it shows you, I very similar hearing And I've always wanted to understand this. I can hear An individual sound in the faintest way It is it is when there's multiple pieces of sound, right? It's discerning sound when, you know, the the Being on an airplane when you have sort of that constant white noise behind and then suddenly it covers up some things you can't I heard myself in your in your critique in your room Next question, Grant F in Minnesota He writes from a rare toss up district. so I'm guessing he's in the first or the I think the first, if that's the case Quick question about the proposed Trump arch in Washington, DC. It's actually in Arlington, Virginia, if you're keeping scored. If construction begins, but Democrats take control of Congress after the midterms, what would be their smartest move? Should they halt the project and risk leaving a half finished eyesore, scale up back and complete a less extravagant version politically, practically, which approach makes the most sense? Look, Gran F, the approach that makes the most sense is just taking the recommendation of the original architect This arch, this idea for an arch at that is not the craziest idea. It's been proposed by previous folks, it's the size of the arch. It's what you would call the arch So I think what you would do is make sure it's in its original size. so it's within reason Again This is not saying the idea it's with everything with Trump. Not every idea is bad. It's his execution that's horrendous You know, nobody wants the largest arch in of mankind and it's supposed to actually sort of convey something about where you're headed. onn your way to the Lincoln Memorial, on your way to the the nation's cap. You know, it's like, it's like it's a gateway As you go And there needs to be some humility because it's connecting Arlington Cemetery in the Lincoln Memorial. There needs to be real humility there. It's connecting Wh where Abbe Lincoln sits and where Robert. Lee's land was used to bury the Civil War dead, right So you know, it needs to have that. So I think in both I don't think you get rid of it. I just think you right size it and you make sure It is not named for any one individual So that would be I think the Not everything should be a culture war fight And I know the instinct of some will be just not to do it. but there was Had there been a Democratic president? this idea was there too. Okaykay. It was from a bipartisan. This was not invented. It was like he just saw something and said, I want that was like he was given a catalog of choices. Give me that and can I Can I dec it can I can I Trick it out with my brand on it and my name and d d. And it's a bummer because the whole idea now has been it's like Trump ruins everything, right? He can take something that generically would have been celebrated and seen as a fine idea. Maybe you turn it into a fountain or you turn it into something else too, but it's like the whole now the whole idea of an arch, like there willll be some people who can't even vote for an arch. But again It was originally An idea of sort of of historians and So that's why my instinct would be let's make it work and make sure Trumps fingerprints are not on it All right, Andre in LA, right. Fth time longt time. All right, proud member of the Four Timers Club All right, I think I don't know I don't know if we have merged for four timers yet, but we'll get there. My question is about the Ohio governor'sates. Vika Ramaswami has Trump's endorsement and has seemingly been running for years, yet he continues to trail slightly in several polls in a Republican leaning state like Ohio. What do you think of is holding him back regards So I think there are some obvious things holding him back and then I think there's One issue that we shouldn't pretend isn't there I think the big thing is he's a national Republican a national conservative. and he's really sort of an outlier in Ohio Republican politics compared to your Mike the Wine, your John Houstead, even JD Vance, right Um I think Doge itself was unpopular. I think he's kind of a He's always been kind of a polarizing name. I he's actually proposed one idea he's proposed. It's been absolutely terrible response, which is he wanted to consolidate, you know, some of the state's universities, like Ohio is a ton of state universities And the original goal was that somebody was no more than thirty minutes away from a college education And that was the theory That's why That's why the MAC exists, right? The Mid American Conerence and why it's almost entirely Ohio schools, not all, right? There's a handful of Michigan schools in there, but there's a lot of little Ohio towns that have their own universities Guess what? people have a lot of pride in those local universities. And so Ramaswami wanted to consolidate some, get rid of a few It's like getting rid of a military base, right? Everybody agrees that the military bases that are wasteful spending ought to go, but the one in my community is never about wasteful spending. It's an important part of my community, and that's how people feel about their universities. It's somebody else's university that's a waste of money Not the one in my community, right? So I think all of that explains why he's had trouble I don't think we should assume race is playing some role here possible to you know, and and look Oh is going to make history eith way, right? They're going to elect a non white guy governor or they're going to elect a woman goveror The only person that served as governor only woman that served as goveror, Ohio, somebody who assumed office out Governor Georgeoronovich won a sency and left office early. But the point is is that So either way, it's. there's a small ide It's a I don't know how to me, these things are are not always pullable. U by I do I do think there's a little There's it's just sits there, right? Again, unpolable, but he's not doing as well with Republican voters as he should be. So you have to ask yourself, what are we missing So I think it's a lot of little things, right. I think he is sort of Branding himself as rich guy tech entrepreneur. I think not everybody sees him as a local Cincinnati kid So I think you put all those things together and it's, you know, I'm I'm a u been on the Amy Acton like keep an eye on her before it was cool that bandwagon I still believe in it. The two doctor, the two women doctors running Any act in Ohio and any Andrews against Lindsey Graham. South Carola I think one of the two ws And I think the one that doesn't win is going to F that sucker. All right, nexte question comes from Julie, who lives in Oregon's sixth congressional district and Julie writes. I'm not sure I fully understand the birthright citizenship ruling. If a constitutional amendment requires broad approval and ratification, how can five Supreme Court justices effectively overturn or reinterpret it. you do they really have that power? or is there some nuance in the ruling I'm missing? Thank you so much. Julie, who lives in Oraso? Well, that's the thing with the Supreme Court is that, you know, you You know we sit here and think that there are certain specific rules of law, and ultimately, the Supreme Court decides how we interpret the so called rule of law, right? So it's certainly an interpretation. In this case, the interpretation is whether the executive branch gets to decide the definition of birthright citizenship. And To me, that was a glaring no that if you were gonna to change how you interpret birthright citizenship, you needed to start in the legislative branch. You were never going to see this court, a John Roberts' court the executive branch had this kind ofp interpretive power. to it Um But again, I guess I, you know, I know I understand why so many people want to foocus on the dissent But in these polarizing times, the fact that that the court said what it said Um, and it was By the way, only If you want to do it by the Trump numbers Trump appointees voted two point a hal to a half in favor of birthright citizenship, right man, I guess it was one and a half to one and a half, right? Gorsich was on one side Barrettss on the another and Kavanaugh split the difference. So the fact that he didn't have unanimity for his own position with his own people his own appointees, I think should We should see that as a positive and not You know, sometometimes I do think coverage can be so focused on the negative. fact is we're not going to have somebody try this from the executive branch again Um But I do think when you, you know, Congress try to put some limitations on it It would probably go back to the court. And is it birth tourism I you know, no one I think that that's the question in if againgain, like with with everything Trump does, right? If he really wanted voter ID for for elections, he could have just gotten voter ID passed. But that isn't what he wanted. He wanted to essentially changed the election rules so dramatically that his side had an early advantage. He wasn't interested in the longer term. And I think the same thing here he focused on birth tourism and just focused on that, try to get a law passed. probably get a pretty in Congress passed the law that he signs, you might have had a court that would have accepted the premise that someome limitations can be around it around some form, maybe it's of if, you know, you know, whether anybody attempts to reside in the country or whatever it is. If you're just showing up to get birth and leaving, just so that your kid can have the option Right? that Is there is there is there legislation you could pass around that? That's that's something that I think is is if you care about this issue, that's worth trying to deal with U, And I think that's and at that point this court might be more open to that Final question, Robbie S. in Charleston, South Carolina writes, hey, I caught your political anassysis on CN the other day and couldn't help but notice the Mi Hurricane sum in the background as Miy native now living in Charleston seeing the U always feels like a little piece of home. Just wanted to say thanks for proudly displaying it. Definitely didn't go unnoticed Appreciate it, Robbie. And by the way, man, I love Charleston, South Carolina. I have a good friend of mine kid is going to be getting married there next year and I can't wait to go have a great weekend in the in the spring in Charleston, South Carolina But yes, It's not just any U helmet It is autographed none other than Jimmy Jhson The one place that when he is on his death bed he's going to say My greatest time coaching was not being a Dallas Cow that you All right, with that Thanks for letting me show off my memorability there Appreciate that, Robby And with that. see in seventy two hours Oh, should I do my Leron thing real quick Yeah Yeah, I did. I tased it Let me just do it. Yep I'll keep it going through, two one. All right, just I told you I had some LeBron hot takes. First of all I want to sign on, you know as a signer of the Declaration of Independence, I' have been me too in it. and I' been like let me sign too I'm gonna to sign on to piece of pure speculation from Bill Simmons Where his theory is it is that LeBron James could pull a Roger Clements and just decide not to sign until esssentially January and just make the quote unquote playoff run God I hope LeBron doesn't listen to him on this. God I hope Bill Simmons isn't getting insider access to Rich Paul, who is a contributor to the r and that this is like this is informed speculation, not just idle speculation. I hope this isn't true, but gosh, I hate how much sense it made I have my own personal hack takes on this. I love that Rich. by the way I The fact that Rich Paul gave the entire NBA basketball community like a bunch of content to just pour over. like we were like we're looking for We're watching the movie, National Treasure, and we're looking for all these hidden clues, right? So we have this entire whiteboard that Rich Paul did What I love about it is the stuff, I can tell you what I took away from it He's not going to Cleveland. He didn't say he wasn't going to Cleveland. But he's not going to Cleveland because no way he's going to play with James Harden Now why did he say that? Because very quietly in the corner, even though Cleveland's clearly one of the five teams they're considering where LeBrones addition would add something They're like, Oh, no, no Dariious Gcarland Do we really think that LeBron James said, Now I've always wanted to play with Arius Gcarland, orr is that code for NFW is he playing with James Hart I'm going to choose the James Harden Motivation. Um as a bandwagon heat fan I am glad that there was no sort of subtext and I actually think he makes a a lot of sense for the heat. In fact, I think the heat is one of there are two teams where If he joins, he makes them title contenders, but without them, they're not. O is Denver and the other is the Heat. and I'm a believer that he's going to look east Here's the thing. we don't know for sure Does LeBron want to maximize his impact on the attention economy Or is he really chasing a fifth rank? becausecause I will say this Right now He doesn't get a he doesn't have a place at that five ring tape Kobe has a place at the five ring table. Magic is a place at the five ring table. Karem has a place at the five ring table Michael has a place at the five ring table. He's got a place at the six ring table, right? You know, he's a he's in a separate table with Bill Russell, right Um, the point is Bronze got four So How bad is this about looking for a fifth title Is it about maximizing the attention economy? Is he trying to have his cake and eat it too Miami could be a cake and eat it two scenario Glden state he goes to Glden state and he'saged to winning ait. He's just interested in maximizing the attention economy and having a good time while he does his farewell to us. You go to Miami, you go to Denver, you're making a. you want to a show that Like if he's truly ring chasing its, please San Aonio, I'll sign for literally the leak minute So he's not purely there. He wants to be peace, right? It's not just the Robert Hory ring chase. It's something a little bit different And you look at these different scenarios Um I could see LeBron being probably has a A friendship with Alex Rodriguez that makes Minnesota