Article I Spending Battles, Performative Oversight Memes, Midterm Campaign Realities, and Fiscal Federalism

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Atheists, agnostics, long-haired weirdos, short-haired weirdos, vandals, hooligans. Welcome to
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the Politics Guys.
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I'm Trey Warndorf, a political scientist at Oklahoma Christian University,
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and I am joined by Justin Holmes, a professor of
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political science at the University of Northern Iowa. And Justin, welcome.
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It's fun to get back to be on the show
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with you. Hey, it's good to see you, Trey.
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Well, it's one of those things where it's sad that
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we don't have Ken for a while, but it is
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fun that we get to hang out more on a
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regular basis. Or maybe you're getting tired of my bald face.
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I don't know. I'm going to miss you when Ken
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comes back. I like that. See, it's good.
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I like doing these shows with you as well. But
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So I do, before we get started on things, we
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got some fun things coming up. But before we do that,
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we do have a shout out for Brock. Thank you, Brock.
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Brock is a new trial supporter of the show on Patreon.
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And he's starting this trial at the right time. So Brock,
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thank you so much. Because this week, Justin and I
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start our new miniseries, taking a look at contemporary political
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events in depth at a time. And so we're going
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to be doing trios of shows on each of those events.
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And we'll be starting this month with the 2000 election. So, Barack,
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I'm excited for you. You're going to get to be
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a part of that for its whole go because we'll
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be done. And I hope that you find that a
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lot of fun. And if you aren't already a supporter
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of the show, it might be time. Why not become
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a trial supporter of the politics, guys, like Barack? Perfect timing.
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And start off this week with myself and with Justin
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as we dive in to the 2000 election and move
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forward from there. Okay, but I think that's enough of that.
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So Justin, why don't we get into the first set
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of our issues? And we start with a big, I
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don't know, this is kind of a power of the
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purse issue, maybe we want to call this. But it
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happened late enough that the last guys didn't get to
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cover it. So we get to cover it. Back on
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September 25th, President Trump sent Speaker Johnson an 810 million
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recession request, proposing 11 budgets cut Five days before the
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fiscal year ends, what is sometimes called a pocket rescission.
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There is really no technical term for that, by the way.
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And the whole idea was to let money expire unspent
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without congressional approval. And this is an idea that comes
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around a bunch. As a matter of fact, in my
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constitutional law class here, we were talking about the once
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upon a time found unconstitutional line item veto back in
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the Clinton days. That doesn't go anywhere, but that was
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a big push for Democrats and Republicans once upon a
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time back in the 90s. It doesn't seem as far
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away for us, though, Justin.
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But be that as it may. It was just last week,
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wasn't it?
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Yeah, exactly. 2026 is also like 1996. I was listening
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to Nirvana.
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Well, not exactly. Blind Adam Vito. Yeah. Yeah.
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I mean, we thought we had the worst president ever
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back in 1996.
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And, you know, now. Anyway. But this comes.
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Right as Trump sat down for a wide-ranging interview with
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Time magazine. I actually read that in full. where he
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vented in part about judicial checks on his executive power.
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And he held up a historical White House renovation photo,
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and he complained about his own federal judges halting his
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construction projects and exclaiming some things that I won't put
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on the air, like it's the blank we have to
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go through, and even his regret over the Supreme Court nominees,
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including Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett. But so I'm wondering about this.
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Is this just kind of, Justin, in your opinion, the
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flailing of an early lame duck? I mean, is this just,
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you know, executive trickery to try to bypass congressional spending,
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you know, openly criticize his own judicial appointments? It feels
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par for the course. Or is this an actual push
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for additional Article 2 power? What do you think? I mean,
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there's some different takes we can have here.
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I think there are a couple of different takes. You know,
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one thing that is striking to me that might lean
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towards the latter a little bit is that, you know,
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Russ Vought has been out speaking on behalf of this.
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And this feels like a very, you know, Heritage, Project 2025,
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increased executive power sort of thing. And so there's a
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part of me that thinks it is probably real to
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them on some level. There's another part of me that thinks, yeah,
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this is some of that flailing, you know, and this
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comes back in some ways to Trump's management style. There
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has always been very much, you know, he has made
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these offhand comments here and there about, you know, the
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other branches working for him. And, you know, those comments
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about the judges, the justices, you know, well, gosh, I
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put them in power. They owe me, you know, sort
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of thing. And, you know, some of that's a little gangster,
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but some of that is, you know, kind of CEO thing,
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like where he, I think, really sees himself as, you know,
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CEO of America. And that's just simply not how the
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office works.
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But I do think, I.
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Mean, you know, kind of a wing of the conservative
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movement found in Trump something they were looking for, I think,
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which is, you know, we've talked about before this unitary
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executive push. And, you know, certainly that line item veto,
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you know, the origins of that was very much a
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conservative thing with the idea of essentially cutting budgets. You know,
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so this is more of that, you know, 25 years
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later that, you know, It's cuttable. The president can cut
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anything he wants. It can't be fixed at that point.
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And to give it a positive spin, the idea was
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is you're going to get past pork barrel spending by saying,
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of course, Congress is going to put too much spending
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into it for all kinds of, we might call them
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Mayhewian reasons.
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Right.
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If we're going to be technical and political science, meaning
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that they're trying to get reelected. And so you need
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the executive. Here's a place where The executive power actually
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kind of minimizes government in a sense because they're going
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to be willing to go, nope, nope, nope, nope.
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Yeah, yeah.
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And that's why Democrats had once upon a time been
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on board with it. But this feels a little different
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than that in some ways. Yeah, I think it's the
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same problem.
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And I mean, the Supreme Court had this, you know,
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had this problem with it in that, you You know,
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it does their judgment in that case because it was
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struck down, I think, the first time Clinton used it,
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if I'm not mistaken. Yes.
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It versus New York because it violates the presentments clause.
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Yeah. You know, so it is you know, it's that
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commingling of power. It's kind of stepping on the toes
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of Congress. And again, you know, the big power that
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Congress has is the power of the purse. The other
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issue here, of course, is, you know, there is a
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lot of negotiation that goes into a lot of negotiation
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that goes into getting a budget done, getting bills passed,
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you know, et cetera. And it really undercuts the idea
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that Congress can negotiate with itself to pass a bill,
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if anything, that they, you know, they can promise anything
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and the president can just just lop it off. And
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so which is what that was the Supreme Court. That
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was the reason the Supreme Court took issue. It said, look,
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you either sign the bill or you don't sign the bill.
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And once you've signed it, you don't sign it. Now
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it's in effect.
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And this rescission is actually kind of even further because
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in the Trump line item veto, you would have done
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it as you were signing.
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You would have said, well, right. So this is this
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is stuff that he already signed, too. Yeah.
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So he said yes to this effectively through his signature.
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Yeah. So, yeah, I mean, I think this is highly problematic.
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You know, the the other thing that was sort of interesting,
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Vought had a statement yesterday and it was interesting the
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way it was phrased and, and he didn't explicitly make
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the connection, but, you know, talked about cutting, you know,
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wasteful and woke and harmful spending is, as they're calling it.
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Cause you know, this is civil rights stuff. That's the word.
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That's the word.
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Everything you don't like is woke. But then in the
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same breath mentions that, you know, but we're doing everything
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we can to shore up the department of war, which
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also makes me wonder if, you know, there's not some
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move here to, you know, rechannel some of the, you know,
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if this is step one and step two is to
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rechannel some of this into the Department of War, which
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I'm saying under duress, the Department of Defense is rightly known.
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It is in fact known, but continue, continue. Continue, continue.
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Well, I mean, I guess to go along with that,
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also this past week, the Governmental Accountability Office said this
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past Tuesday, as a matter of fact, that they viewed
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this quote-unquote pocket rescission as a violation of Congress's constitutional
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control over spending. And they pointed specifically to the Impoundment
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Control Act. That's a law that was passed in the
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aftermath of Watergate to try to rein in.
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Yes, exactly.
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And so you might say as a listener, okay, that's weird.
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Maybe I've never heard of the GAO before. The reason
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that's a big deal for listeners is The GAO actually
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can sue. It has the standing to sue things that
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the president does that's established elsewhere.
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Which is important because we've had this problem before in
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just in the last month and something that we talked about.
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Who has the right to sue this particular. Right. You know,
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it was clearly talked about it. This is clearly an
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unconstitutional act, but nobody has standing. So here, you know,
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with the GAO having standing, that's potentially much more much more.
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Yeah, because it was actually the two of us talking
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about it in terms of, because we were looking at
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the Supreme Court case where they dismissed the architectural complaint
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over the sensibility issue. And we talked about how, yeah,
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that was probably the right ruling technically on a certain ground.
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But then as we had talked about, But the fundamental
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issue is still unconstitutional.
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What do you do? But there's no... Could they have
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had a little bit more?
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Yeah, nobody has standing to sue over the White House ballroom.
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And so that is one of the reasons I bring
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this up. And so the other piece of this that
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makes it problematic is that the House is not in
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session right now and doesn't appear... A couple of acts matter.
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In fact, a former student of mine who now covers
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Congress as a reporter... I had a little bit of break.
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It doesn't even look like they're going to be back
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until at least a week to two weeks after the election.
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Right.
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Best case scenario, which puts this, I mean, it, it's
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almost a fait accompli in that sense, unless the House
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is willing to do something about it. And so that
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itself is worthy, I think, of a little bit of
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discussion because it seems like it's going to win. I don't,
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unless the GAO offers a suit, but of course that
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was on Tuesday. We're still not seeing any movement on it.
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I actually looked at it again today. I'm still not
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seeing any potential movement on it.
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No, I haven't seen the word injunction anywhere in regards
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to this. Yeah. Yeah. And I, you know, I think
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this is then, you know, kind of a broader concern,
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you know, that this is one of those things with,
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you know, so much of, you know, the presidential power
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is really made through precedent. You know, it is a,
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you know, Article Two is a relatively ill-defined, you know,
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section of the Constitution in a lot of ways. Been
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on my soapbox this week in class, but, you know,
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it's like what I wouldn't give for a footnote right there.
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And, and, Or maybe maybe out of the committee of style,
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we hadn't rephrased the vesting introductory clause would have also
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been a beautiful change there.
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Like, you know, when you have something like, you know, yeah,
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the executive power of the United States, like that seems
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like it needs a definition that is lacking. So but
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then I think the broader concern here is in terms
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of longer term, you know, harm to the the process.
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I mean, this is the kind of stuff that people get.
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antsy about and they don't like spending money and, you know, blah, blah, blah,
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and Congress is too slow. But we have a system
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that is set up for a reason, you know, and
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we have the separation of powers for a reason. But
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then you have, you know, this scenario where once a
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president does something and isn't challenged on it, the future
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presidents are going to take that as a tacit permission
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to do that.
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Which they always historically have. Always historically have.
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I mean, that's, you know, the origins we take, you know,
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What is there, a thousand words an article to, if that?
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Well, I mean, just for a really pragmatic example for listeners, right?
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The reason that we vote on appointed nominees the way
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that we do in the Constitution, right? Why does advice
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and consent mean the president picks a name, sends it
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over to the Senate and the Senate votes? It can
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mean a lot of other things. Well, the answer is
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it means that because Washington decided that's how he was
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going to interpret it. And we move forward on it.
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And Adams doesn't have to then fight that battle anymore.
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Just take one pragmatic example.
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Yeah. So I think that's kind of the longer term,
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you know, for thinking of the significance of this. I mean,
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there's a part of me I've been feeling cynical this week.
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But I mean, you know, there are, I think, lots
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of ways that he could tank these programs, you know,
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more or less. And I don't have any any. naive
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notions that, you know, they were going to function well.
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But I think this is maybe the worst way to
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do it, because ultimately you're going to have other presidents
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then potentially using this. You know, I think even if
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people wave their hands and say Trump's a pariah and
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what have you, you get into that situation where once
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somebody has done it and gotten away with it, well,
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that's part of the power of the presidency.
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And not only that, and here's where I think sometimes
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it can be easy for people to go, well, that's evil,
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that's Trump. And the problem, though, is to forget that
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once your guy is in office, just wait. We saw
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this in the debates between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton
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in the primary, where Barack Obama is campaigning, Hillary, you're
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too much of a unitary executive. The president shouldn't be
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doing X, Y, and Z.
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Right. Absolutely.
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That's what President Obama does once he's President Obama.
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I got the phone, I got the pen, and I'm
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going to govern. Exactly.
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And so it is, I recognize there's going to be
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a cohort of people, but that cohort is always flipping.
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And the problem is, is that when you're the side
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that controls it, it becomes the appealing use because it's
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the way you get it done, as you noted a
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second ago. without having to engage in that sharing of powers,
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as Neustadt puts it, between the branches, what we call
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separation of powers and sharing of powers. Or just as
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I have to deal when I talk to students in
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presidency and Congress, our system is designed to be kind
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of slow and boring. And that is rarely what people want.
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And so when you're in office and you're worried about
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what's going to happen and slow and boring doesn't work
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so well, you go, well, couldn't we Right. Or whatever
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the item is. And that's problematic. Any last thoughts on
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the pocket rescission?
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I cannot wait until a few years from now when
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when I can just laugh and maybe cry a little
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bit when President AOC resents Space Force in front of
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a Republican Congress. Well, everybody's going to switch sides about
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whether this is a good idea or not.
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As always, as always, because we all hate executive power
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until the president is the party that we like and
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we want to get something done now. Right. And that's
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just the case. Well, I think we've been kind of
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sticking up for Congress. So maybe we take a look
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at some of the follies of Congress.
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And next, Justin. Yeah, I'm sticking up for this next
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part of Congress. I hope not.
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But before we get to that, let's take a brief break.
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So Justin, congressional oversight kind of delivered, I don't know,
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the viral moment of the year in a bit of
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a blunder this past week.
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It's my new favorite meme.
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There's more than one meme, though. It's the parent meme
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for so many children meme that exists underneath of it,
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I think. But what are we talking about? Well, it's
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not often that Senate Judiciary Testimony becomes any kinds of memes.
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But here we are. It's 2026.
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And Special Counsel Jack Smith's Senate Judiciary Testimony certainly was
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the memes of the week.
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Why?
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Well, Senator Eric Schmidt brought out poster boards. Well, I mean,
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for all of point five seconds that accused Smith of
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committing perjury by attending an Atlanta Hawks game. to coordinate
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with Trump prosecutions. Specifically, he thought he was down there
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in Atlanta getting into bed, either both physically or metaphorically,
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with the Trump prosecutions. The problem, though, is, as Smith
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would then point out, he was actually in Maryland at
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the University of Iowa Hawkeyes women's basketball game, specifically watching
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Kaitlyn Clark. And in case you don't want to take
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him seriously, there is, in fact, video of him in
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at the game. One ends and.
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There he is.
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But while Smith defended his independent probes, President Trump told
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Time magazine this week that he is actively weighing issuing
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preemptive pardons to his aides and associates before a future
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administration of Congress can pursue them, arguing that, quote, Sleepy
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Joe gave pardons to everybody.
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So.
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It is just so crazy here on this front, because
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in the aftermath, you think that Schmidt would have backed down,
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but that is precisely not what happened. In the aftermath
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of all this, he just said, well, I was asking questions.
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And of course, he's always lied. I guess we're going
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to believe that he wasn't in Atlanta, which again, he
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wasn't in Atlanta. I don't know what is being said here.
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And he has not doubled down once, twice, but thrice.
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That's right, you've learned a new word, listeners. He's doubled
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down thrice, including most recently on a podcast, where he
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argued that these are the kinds of questions that you
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gotta bring up because that's how you get this kind of,
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and I don't know what this kind is supposed to mean,
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but this kind of perjury. But the whole thing, Justin,
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I mean, it was so ham-handed from the setup to
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still calling him a dirtbag, even after it was obvious
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that he was wrong. Including to like holding up the
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text messages. I mean, again, if you take a look
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at the video for all of maybe 1.5 seconds, I'm not,
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I looked at this and then going, see, we've, we've
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got the evidence and having to have Smith go, well,
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could y'all hold it back up for a second so
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that I can see what you're talking about?
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Yeah.
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Which he's then able to say, well, I don't think so.
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I mean, there's just so many moments. I mean, again,
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so here's the deal. We've got a president signaling preemptive pardons,
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which again is actually in this case a move from
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Joe Biden. So that part is true. You got Congress
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trying to perform gotcha hearings, which in many ways is
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what they do, just generally not so hand-handedly as what
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we see here with Senator Schmidt. I mean, Is there
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any credibility left to even paying attention to some of
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these hearings anymore? I mean, what do you think about
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all this, Justin? I mean, it seems like a joke for,
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I think, the average person.
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It is. And, you know, I think on the one hand,
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certainly the Hawks-Hawkeyes thing definitely resonated with me sitting here
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in Iowa and our, you know, native daughter and whatnot.
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And I think my favorite comment was, I hope Caitlin
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Clark picked up another assist on this one. But I
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didn't see that. You know, I think that was sort
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of the headline. But But the rest of the hearing,
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I almost think, was worse. You know, that it feels very,
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you know, show trial kangaroo court. You know, I'm going
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to present this evidence to you that you can't see.
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And I also won't show it to anybody else on
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the committee. And I'm just going to yell accusations and
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so on and so forth. But even if all of
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this had been true, the fundamental point. The fundamental argument
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that Schmidt is making here is just so colossally stupid that,
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you know, if he was in Atlanta, clearly he was
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going to see Fannie Willis. Yes.
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And that's the start of the thing is the whole
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idea is that he's in a metro area of 4
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million people.
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Like, like even if you conceded that this other stuff
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was correct, like the, there is absolutely no nexus there,
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you know, at all. You know, he could, he could
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be anywhere in Atlanta and so could she, you know,
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at that point. I mean, there's no allegation that there's
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no evidence that they met. There's no allegations of a conversation,
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you know, et cetera. So the whole thing is just cockamamie. And,
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you know, I will say I have always been, for
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a long time, have been skeptical of congressional hearings. And
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I think in part because they let me down so,
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so much. You know, I am not necessarily a fan
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of Edmund Burke's politics, but I actually kind of like
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some of his writing on, you know, kind of what
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a good representative body is. It's this idea of a
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bunch of smart people coming together and reasoning together and
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debating and whatnot. And, you coming to the good of
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the country. And if there's any place that feels like
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that should be it, it should be a hearing. you know,
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where you bring in expert testimony and things like that.
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And then in grad school, I worked on a project
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where as an RA, I got sweet-talked into being an
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RA on this godforsaken thing. And I ended up reading
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like 1,500 pages of congressional testimony and content analyzing it
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for somebody for some book. Ooh, friend. It was rad.
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All you got to do is flatter me a little
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bit and I'll do stupid things like that. And then
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I figured out that, no, that's not good. Having gone through,
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you know, 1,500 pages of congressional testimony, it was abundantly
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clear that this is just all nonsense. You know, this
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was around some kind of environmental health issues. And, you know,
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Republicans bring in an expert that supports them. Democrats bring
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in an expert that supports them. Democrats bring in little
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Timmy who's got asthma because of air pollution. And then
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everybody goes home and votes the way that they would
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have in the first place.
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And 99 out of 100 Americans didn't even know that
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it happened.
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Exactly. You know, best case scenario for public awareness is
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that somebody pulls one line out of context and it
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goes into political ad somewhere and that's that. So, you know,
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I've always been pretty disappointed in those, but this is
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just beyond the pale. And, you know, it is, I
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think it's this ongoing, I mean, Trump and his supporters
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have just concluded that, you know, everyone is, everyone who's
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opposed him is a criminal of some sort. And basically
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we're going to find a way to prove that. And
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our level of proof is very, very low. And, you know,
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it's I don't think there are ever going to be
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prosecutions here because there's nothing. I mean, they've never produced
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anything that you could really prosecute. It really feels like
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this is mostly kind of red meat to the base that,
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you know, I'm going to yell at these people. And,
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you know, that's Ted Cruz out harping on this and,
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you know, others. You know, I just I it's the
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same way that Hillary Clinton is still not locked up,
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you know, 10 years later. So.
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I will say I think the one actual empirical takeaway
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from this is I do think it's evidence of a
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shifting in how the media. I mean, it's one it's
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one data point of evidence in the shifting of how
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the media environment is working, because I don't think that
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anywhere Senator Schmidt thinks that he was just asking a
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question in the aftermath of all this. Had I been there,
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I think my response would have been, is there a
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question in this? Well, what I mean, I mean, for
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Smith's point of view, yeah. I mean, in turn of
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Schmidt's point of view, though, I think this is. The
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meme didn't work his direction, but the goal overall today,
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and it's something I think we're still kind of figuring
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out in the political science space in the literature is
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to create these memes to move forward.
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Right. Yes.
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And in the way that you best react to them.
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is not by doing what might seem the most sensible, right?
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The most sensible thing, if you're the senator, is to say,
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you know what? Oops, I thought that was what it was.
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But moving on, you still had some issues. Let's move
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on to the next thing, right? That would, in other words,
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try to downplay that. The fact that he's not downplaying
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that suggests to me that we're entering this new... I
477
00:23:56.369 --> 00:23:58.569
think we already did, but it's evidence of this new
478
00:23:58.630 --> 00:24:01.690
media environment we exist in, which is you don't ever
479
00:24:01.750 --> 00:24:05.430
back down. You don't ever shift. You just continue to
480
00:24:05.490 --> 00:24:08.539
hammer in until you get... You either get your memes
481
00:24:08.900 --> 00:24:10.640
or you fail to get your memes. And in this case,
482
00:24:10.680 --> 00:24:13.039
he failed to get them. They got against him. But
483
00:24:13.059 --> 00:24:14.440
he's not going to back down because what does he
484
00:24:14.480 --> 00:24:18.549
win by that? No one who's seeing his blunder is
485
00:24:18.569 --> 00:24:20.849
going to care if he's rational about it on the
486
00:24:20.890 --> 00:24:23.390
other side. And so he opts, therefore, to not be
487
00:24:23.450 --> 00:24:25.750
rational about it on the other side. I'm not saying
488
00:24:25.769 --> 00:24:27.390
that's what you ought to do. I'm just saying I
489
00:24:27.430 --> 00:24:28.390
think this is a new and pure.
490
00:24:28.410 --> 00:24:30.789
What we are doing. What we are doing.
491
00:24:31.380 --> 00:24:32.740
What do you think about that as at least an
492
00:24:32.799 --> 00:24:34.440
empirical media takeaway?
493
00:24:34.460 --> 00:24:36.339
I think that's a takeaway. I mean, I think the
494
00:24:36.480 --> 00:24:39.140
other thing, I think a point that I was trying
495
00:24:39.160 --> 00:24:42.539
to make earlier that was maybe not as clear as
496
00:24:42.579 --> 00:24:44.900
I want to make it right now is that... Yeah,
497
00:24:44.920 --> 00:24:47.819
make it for us. I think that, you know, this
498
00:24:47.859 --> 00:24:51.119
whole thing, it's funny. It's a distraction. Gosh, I love
499
00:24:51.799 --> 00:24:53.400
that picture of Katie Britt. I feel like I might
500
00:24:53.720 --> 00:24:55.109
print it out and put it on my office wall
501
00:24:55.140 --> 00:25:00.339
or something. The appalled look. Yeah, the jaw dropped. You
502
00:25:00.359 --> 00:25:03.200
just you could see like everything unraveling in real time.
503
00:25:03.299 --> 00:25:07.019
And it was gorgeous. But I think that the bigger
504
00:25:07.059 --> 00:25:09.720
concern that I have is that the substance of this
505
00:25:09.759 --> 00:25:14.440
stuff is very dangerous. I don't disagree. I don't disagree
506
00:25:14.460 --> 00:25:17.789
with you. To make the media point, nobody's talking about that.
507
00:25:18.230 --> 00:25:21.230
You know, everybody's talking about what a jackass Eric Schmidt is. And,
508
00:25:21.650 --> 00:25:23.390
you know, gosh. How do you not know the difference
509
00:25:23.410 --> 00:25:25.910
between the Hawks and the Hawkeyes? And they're 655 miles
510
00:25:25.950 --> 00:25:28.650
away and all of that. But I think the broader
511
00:25:28.690 --> 00:25:31.250
point here is that, you know, this is then not
512
00:25:31.269 --> 00:25:34.410
that the press has been good at having this conversation,
513
00:25:34.910 --> 00:25:38.490
but it really precludes any discussion. The only takeaway from
514
00:25:38.529 --> 00:25:43.309
this is, you know, haha, basketball. And because I think
515
00:25:43.349 --> 00:25:45.569
our points overlap. I think that is because.
516
00:25:46.160 --> 00:25:50.500
The outcome is all about the memes. And so the
517
00:25:50.599 --> 00:25:53.769
news does probably have a little bit of commentary the
518
00:25:53.789 --> 00:25:56.470
way you're thinking about, but that gets drowned and killed
519
00:25:56.630 --> 00:26:00.630
because then the news becomes about the news about the
520
00:26:00.670 --> 00:26:05.329
memes of what's going on, you know, from the, And
521
00:26:05.349 --> 00:26:08.869
so it's this little vicious circle. And you're right that
522
00:26:08.950 --> 00:26:12.509
then the substance of it is more lost than ever before.
523
00:26:12.529 --> 00:26:14.319
Not that they're doing a great job with the substance.
524
00:26:14.359 --> 00:26:16.259
But yeah, you know, so yeah, I think we've kind
525
00:26:16.299 --> 00:26:18.059
of got two sides of the same coins here. And
526
00:26:18.099 --> 00:26:20.000
I'm just thinking that Neil Postman is like rolling in
527
00:26:20.039 --> 00:26:21.700
his grave at this point.
528
00:26:23.359 --> 00:26:25.519
There are several people, Postman among them, where I just
529
00:26:25.539 --> 00:26:27.940
think if we brought them back today, what would they think?
530
00:26:28.569 --> 00:26:30.700
other last thoughts about this other than obviously, I think
531
00:26:30.740 --> 00:26:33.339
we're missing, you know, might be not you and myself,
532
00:26:34.160 --> 00:26:38.450
but the system itself, the media environment missing the actual stories.
533
00:26:39.039 --> 00:26:42.039
In part because nobody wants those kind of stories because, again,
534
00:26:42.119 --> 00:26:43.779
it's not the environment we live in.
535
00:26:43.799 --> 00:26:46.359
Yeah. I mean, I think just to kind of, you know,
536
00:26:46.579 --> 00:26:48.960
build on your point a little bit to end on
537
00:26:48.980 --> 00:26:52.380
my part is that, you know, I have some real
538
00:26:52.440 --> 00:26:56.410
concerns about kind of how people perceive politics in the
539
00:26:56.430 --> 00:26:59.910
wake of this. You know, I worry about my, you know,
540
00:26:59.930 --> 00:27:02.690
my students now have like no conscious memory of a
541
00:27:02.789 --> 00:27:07.829
non-Trump political world. And like, I try to communicate with
542
00:27:07.869 --> 00:27:11.269
them how messed up this particular moment is in so
543
00:27:11.289 --> 00:27:14.130
many ways. I often spell M messed with an F,
544
00:27:14.650 --> 00:27:17.049
you know, in talking about it in the class of
545
00:27:17.049 --> 00:27:20.109
18 year olds. But, you know, I think it is
546
00:27:20.170 --> 00:27:23.910
just sort of a further degradation of, you know, kind
547
00:27:23.930 --> 00:27:27.309
of people's perceptions. I think it potentially turns people off.
548
00:27:27.789 --> 00:27:29.910
It's more of this, you know, politics as a sport
549
00:27:29.950 --> 00:27:32.210
sort of thing that has always been there a little bit.
550
00:27:33.119 --> 00:27:35.759
And so I just think, I mean, this is corrosive
551
00:27:35.920 --> 00:27:40.920
on a number of. I agree. I agree. But again,
552
00:27:40.940 --> 00:27:43.500
you know, I'm a media scholar is one of my areas.
553
00:27:43.539 --> 00:27:44.700
And so likewise, likewise.
554
00:27:46.099 --> 00:27:48.470
Well, we picked the right things in a way, but,
555
00:27:48.519 --> 00:27:50.519
but okay. I think we're going to move on next
556
00:27:50.619 --> 00:27:53.400
to some of the midterm things that are happening, but
557
00:27:53.420 --> 00:27:55.789
we're going to take a brief break and we'll come
558
00:27:55.829 --> 00:28:06.369
back to talk midterm. So Justin, Congress has now adjourned early,
559
00:28:06.430 --> 00:28:09.769
as we've already talked about, because of the election and
560
00:28:09.809 --> 00:28:15.109
some other things. And we're deep into campaign time. And
561
00:28:15.170 --> 00:28:16.210
so we're going to spend a little bit of time
562
00:28:16.289 --> 00:28:19.680
talking about that national campaign strategy. And for Republicans, on
563
00:28:19.720 --> 00:28:22.200
my side, it really seems like they're hitting what you
564
00:28:22.220 --> 00:28:25.559
might call a wall of economic realities, right? The Fed
565
00:28:25.619 --> 00:28:28.799
just raised the interest rate to 4% due to a
566
00:28:28.880 --> 00:28:34.339
war-driven energy disruption. Just today, as a matter of fact,
567
00:28:34.759 --> 00:28:39.220
the labor market really just trudged along, as the Wall
568
00:28:39.240 --> 00:28:42.920
Street Journal put it, just added 29,000 jobs in September.
569
00:28:43.240 --> 00:28:48.309
That is well short of the Labor Department's expectations for 84,000 jobs.
570
00:28:48.950 --> 00:28:51.930
The unemployment rate edges up at the same time we
571
00:28:51.990 --> 00:28:57.349
have still historically high jobs. in long-term inflation. And while
572
00:28:57.410 --> 00:29:00.910
Trump is not in part wrong that he inherits some
573
00:29:00.950 --> 00:29:03.589
of that from a Biden administration, some of the things
574
00:29:03.630 --> 00:29:06.230
that seemingly helped, it also comes from the Biden administration.
575
00:29:06.250 --> 00:29:08.589
There's a lot of structural issues going on here. It's
576
00:29:08.630 --> 00:29:11.039
a little more complicated than just it's all Trump's fault
577
00:29:11.059 --> 00:29:14.180
or it's not just Trump's fault, but it's the midterm elections.
578
00:29:15.099 --> 00:29:18.960
And Trump is out pitching his $ 5, 000 Trump dividends still,
579
00:29:19.299 --> 00:29:22.079
which is in conflict with some of these economic realities
580
00:29:22.140 --> 00:29:25.160
we saw. Just yesterday, we had Trump here in my
581
00:29:25.200 --> 00:29:28.420
home state campaigning at two different places before he headed
582
00:29:28.460 --> 00:29:32.250
up to Nebraska. Just so that listeners recognize, that is
583
00:29:32.650 --> 00:29:38.089
historically crazy because generally you don't have presidents. I mean, look,
584
00:29:38.529 --> 00:29:41.720
Oklahoma couldn't be any more solid. red if you went
585
00:29:41.799 --> 00:29:43.619
out and you got some red paint and you just
586
00:29:43.680 --> 00:29:45.019
dumped it all on the ground. Like, I don't know
587
00:29:45.039 --> 00:29:46.420
what you would I don't even know what a better
588
00:29:46.460 --> 00:29:49.960
analogy would be. But he's here. And that suggests, unless
589
00:29:49.980 --> 00:29:53.019
you think he's crazy, that also the polling number.
590
00:29:53.500 --> 00:29:56.700
Yeah, well, there's there's probably some problems going on. Right.
591
00:29:57.329 --> 00:29:59.430
They're seeing problems inside of their own.
592
00:30:00.170 --> 00:30:00.509
Base.
593
00:30:00.930 --> 00:30:02.509
As a matter of fact, again, I keep coming back
594
00:30:02.569 --> 00:30:04.049
to it because I think it was important. But the
595
00:30:04.069 --> 00:30:09.519
Time magazine, when talking to Trump about his low job
596
00:30:09.559 --> 00:30:14.339
approval ratings numbers, he just dismissed the debt entirely, calling it, quote,
597
00:30:14.720 --> 00:30:18.019
fake numbers and corrupt pollsters and claimed he would, quote,
598
00:30:18.059 --> 00:30:21.579
beat anybody running today by 20 points, end quote, in
599
00:30:21.619 --> 00:30:24.640
part because he keeps talking about his strong economy.
600
00:30:24.839 --> 00:30:28.259
So, yeah, I wish I was teasing. I'm laughing at
601
00:30:28.319 --> 00:30:29.099
every part of this.
602
00:30:31.470 --> 00:30:34.150
And so he keeps going on. As a matter of fact,
603
00:30:34.190 --> 00:30:36.869
here in Oklahoma, I was looking at the Oklahoman brand
604
00:30:36.890 --> 00:30:39.130
when he was talking about, and he keeps using this line,
605
00:30:39.549 --> 00:30:43.950
imagine you're voting for me, in part why, again, here
606
00:30:43.970 --> 00:30:47.259
in his rally in Oklahoma, he expands upon this, which is, again,
607
00:30:47.359 --> 00:30:49.740
is a repeat what he said before, because if we
608
00:30:49.779 --> 00:30:51.839
don't hold the House and the Senate, they're going to
609
00:30:51.859 --> 00:30:54.640
impeach me. They're going to get rid of me, the
610
00:30:54.680 --> 00:30:56.319
greatest president of all time, Donald J.
611
00:30:56.359 --> 00:30:56.619
Trump.
612
00:30:56.859 --> 00:31:01.140
And That seems to be the message that's coming around.
613
00:31:01.180 --> 00:31:07.359
But again, job approval ratings are down, way down. And
614
00:31:07.480 --> 00:31:10.619
whether they're fake numbers, I mean, just calling them fake numbers,
615
00:31:10.640 --> 00:31:14.069
it doesn't make them go away necessarily. And so just,
616
00:31:14.150 --> 00:31:16.450
I am curious, you know, you are, you do more
617
00:31:16.470 --> 00:31:19.230
of the behavioral stuff than I do. And so what
618
00:31:19.250 --> 00:31:22.859
do you think, I mean, right now, President Trump's messaging
619
00:31:22.930 --> 00:31:27.720
seems to rely on everything you feel and all the
620
00:31:27.779 --> 00:31:32.289
data that exists is fake, vote for me so that
621
00:31:32.329 --> 00:31:34.390
the good stuff that you can't see and you can't
622
00:31:34.430 --> 00:31:38.170
feel will keep happening. And that doesn't seem, again, I'm
623
00:31:38.230 --> 00:31:40.329
more on the media side. I don't do as much
624
00:31:40.369 --> 00:31:42.450
of what you do. That does not seem like a
625
00:31:42.470 --> 00:31:45.910
winning strategy to me, but maybe I'm wrong. What do
626
00:31:45.930 --> 00:31:46.490
you think about that?
627
00:31:47.130 --> 00:31:51.200
Well, I think he's massively miscalculated. I would agree wholeheartedly
628
00:31:51.240 --> 00:31:53.900
with you. You know, there is always a question in
629
00:31:53.980 --> 00:31:58.170
congressional races, do you sort of run as an individual
630
00:31:58.319 --> 00:32:03.150
or do you, nationalize the election. 1994 with the contract
631
00:32:03.170 --> 00:32:06.650
with America is maybe the greatest example of nationalizing an election,
632
00:32:07.039 --> 00:32:09.160
which also makes sense. And it went really well. Well,
633
00:32:09.240 --> 00:32:11.539
but also the dynamics are different because that's the out
634
00:32:11.579 --> 00:32:12.920
party running against....
635
00:32:14.319 --> 00:32:16.900
It would be more like what the Democrats could do
636
00:32:16.940 --> 00:32:21.369
today if they had a singular national message. Well, I
637
00:32:21.390 --> 00:32:23.990
wanted to get to that because I think the Democrats
638
00:32:24.029 --> 00:32:25.910
are screwing up pretty badly in an election.
639
00:32:25.930 --> 00:32:27.890
I've been down on their messaging for 15 years at
640
00:32:27.930 --> 00:32:28.589
this point, I think.
641
00:32:29.519 --> 00:32:31.619
Well, I think this particular cycle might be one of
642
00:32:31.700 --> 00:32:34.799
the worst they've ever had in an environment that's one.
643
00:32:34.759 --> 00:32:36.180
Of the easiest they've ever had. It's been handed to
644
00:32:36.200 --> 00:32:39.819
them on a flipping platter. And yeah, so, you know,
645
00:32:39.839 --> 00:32:43.390
I think there are, I get the sense that Trump
646
00:32:43.470 --> 00:32:46.630
probably believes some of this stuff. You know, he gets,
647
00:32:46.829 --> 00:32:49.730
you know, there's ample evidence that he's getting fed his
648
00:32:49.789 --> 00:32:52.970
own little weird information bubble and, you know, that I
649
00:32:53.029 --> 00:32:54.670
don't know that he's in touch with much of this.
650
00:32:56.059 --> 00:32:59.000
I have some skepticism about the state of polling these days.
651
00:32:59.960 --> 00:33:04.369
We'll get a referendum on that in a month. Just methodologically,
652
00:33:04.400 --> 00:33:07.509
it's not a conspiracy thing. I will point out that
653
00:33:08.349 --> 00:33:11.869
they dismissed the lawsuit against Ann Selzer last week, the
654
00:33:11.950 --> 00:33:18.650
Iowa pollster that Trump had sued. So that cuts some
655
00:33:18.670 --> 00:33:21.819
of the wind out of those sails. But when you
656
00:33:21.859 --> 00:33:25.109
have every poll that's saying basically the same thing, And
657
00:33:25.150 --> 00:33:27.250
when you have, you know, every.
658
00:33:27.529 --> 00:33:29.309
Well, can I put some teeth on that?
659
00:33:29.369 --> 00:33:29.589
Of course.
660
00:33:29.630 --> 00:33:32.359
Because I think sometimes listeners go, oh, you know, just
661
00:33:32.440 --> 00:33:34.259
a scissor pull. But let's take a look at one
662
00:33:34.299 --> 00:33:36.819
of the most conservative, one of the longest running.
663
00:33:36.839 --> 00:33:38.380
The Cook Political Report.
664
00:33:39.500 --> 00:33:42.000
I was going to say the Cook Political Report. And
665
00:33:42.279 --> 00:33:47.660
they just moved 15 more races to shift towards the
666
00:33:47.700 --> 00:33:52.309
Dems in the House as of today on Friday. And
667
00:33:52.450 --> 00:33:54.089
if you want to get even deeper into some of
668
00:33:54.130 --> 00:33:57.609
the data, it appears the Democrats are in a strong
669
00:33:57.640 --> 00:34:01.789
position to regain a majority of governors as two more
670
00:34:01.849 --> 00:34:04.450
ratings shift, including, I mean, it's not enough that I
671
00:34:04.490 --> 00:34:06.970
think she's going to win, but Cindy Munson here in
672
00:34:07.119 --> 00:34:12.219
Oklahoma has moved from like, it would take God intervening
673
00:34:12.320 --> 00:34:14.800
for it to be possible for her to win to, well,
674
00:34:14.840 --> 00:34:17.219
it's probably still not going to happen, but it's just
675
00:34:17.260 --> 00:34:18.260
probably not going to happen.
676
00:34:18.900 --> 00:34:22.400
Yeah. Yeah. J.D. Vance was fundraising in Ohio or in, sorry,
677
00:34:22.480 --> 00:34:24.739
Idaho this week. Fundraising in Ohio would not be weird.
678
00:34:24.760 --> 00:34:29.679
Fundraising in Idaho is bizarre. So I think, you know, Trump,
679
00:34:30.719 --> 00:34:33.519
I can only imagine the behind the scenes discussions happening
680
00:34:33.559 --> 00:34:38.460
in Republican campaigns because, you know, they are, trying to
681
00:34:38.519 --> 00:34:42.340
put distance between themselves and, you know, put distance between
682
00:34:42.360 --> 00:34:43.579
themselves and Trump.
683
00:34:44.199 --> 00:34:44.980
You need to do.
684
00:34:44.880 --> 00:34:47.519
That with an unpopular president. I mean, if you look at, say,
685
00:34:48.119 --> 00:34:53.110
you know, Republican candidates in 2008, you know, Bush wasn't
686
00:34:53.210 --> 00:34:56.369
on the ballot, but essentially they were uninviting him from
687
00:34:56.429 --> 00:34:59.730
events because he was so unpopular. You don't want that
688
00:34:59.889 --> 00:35:02.780
on you. Around here, we've got, you know, Ashley Hinson
689
00:35:02.820 --> 00:35:05.440
running ads about being bipartisan and, you know, all of this.
690
00:35:05.980 --> 00:35:08.179
not talking about Trump. Then she gets called in for that,
691
00:35:08.699 --> 00:35:12.119
you know, announcement about the steel factory earlier this week,
692
00:35:12.659 --> 00:35:15.219
has to stand there and, you know, kiss up to
693
00:35:15.280 --> 00:35:18.739
him and whatnot. And so I think, you know, this
694
00:35:18.820 --> 00:35:21.340
is a year that, you know, the Republican strategy would
695
00:35:21.380 --> 00:35:24.570
need to be like put some daylight between yourself and
696
00:35:24.590 --> 00:35:28.309
the president. And doing that in an honest kind of
697
00:35:28.369 --> 00:35:31.469
way is darn near impossible. But gosh, you know, from
698
00:35:31.489 --> 00:35:34.309
an electoral standpoint, you at least need to downplay it.
699
00:35:34.469 --> 00:35:37.599
And I think, you know, on the one I think
700
00:35:37.619 --> 00:35:40.699
there's two things afoot. I mean, one is that Trump,
701
00:35:41.099 --> 00:35:43.110
I think, truly believes some of this stuff. You know,
702
00:35:43.119 --> 00:35:45.570
I mean, I think he is getting fed sort of
703
00:35:45.610 --> 00:35:49.150
a rosy picture of the world to some extent. I
704
00:35:49.170 --> 00:35:51.489
think there is some flattery going on there. But I
705
00:35:51.530 --> 00:35:53.840
think the other part of this is he just cannot
706
00:35:54.039 --> 00:35:57.320
cannot stop being the center of political attention.
707
00:35:58.360 --> 00:36:00.579
Well, again, just just think here to his speech in Oklahoma.
708
00:36:00.880 --> 00:36:03.119
Imagine I'm on the ballot everywhere he goes.
709
00:36:03.440 --> 00:36:06.019
And I would imagine that every Republican officeholder in the
710
00:36:06.059 --> 00:36:09.960
room just, you know, collectively groaned inside. And when that happens,
711
00:36:10.039 --> 00:36:12.119
I'm sure because, you know, on some level, I mean,
712
00:36:12.159 --> 00:36:14.800
that's what a midterm typically is, you know, is you
713
00:36:14.820 --> 00:36:17.800
get a backlash, you know, to go to the behavior stuff.
714
00:36:17.860 --> 00:36:20.699
And this is stuff that you all know that, you know, but,
715
00:36:20.719 --> 00:36:24.420
you know, basically with three exceptions, every midterm in the
716
00:36:24.460 --> 00:36:28.460
last hundred years, the incumbent, the president's party loses seats
717
00:36:28.679 --> 00:36:30.760
in the Oval Office, the midterm elections.
718
00:36:30.880 --> 00:36:33.840
It's the second closest thing to Duvier's law there is
719
00:36:33.909 --> 00:36:36.210
as the law, which is president parties lose seats.
720
00:36:36.230 --> 00:36:38.090
When it comes to iron laws of the universe and
721
00:36:38.110 --> 00:36:41.570
political science, that's about as big as it gets. You know,
722
00:36:41.610 --> 00:36:44.889
and there's a couple of exceptions. The three exceptions, it's,
723
00:36:45.090 --> 00:36:47.750
you know, the first election after the New Deal is
724
00:36:48.170 --> 00:36:51.719
the kind of Clinton 98, where I think people were
725
00:36:51.739 --> 00:36:54.079
just fed up with the impeachment. And it's the first
726
00:36:54.119 --> 00:36:57.860
midterm after 9-11. So, you know, these are all things
727
00:36:57.960 --> 00:37:00.139
where it's like you have a president that is popular,
728
00:37:00.179 --> 00:37:01.619
you have a Congress that's unpopular.
729
00:37:01.719 --> 00:37:05.320
And you're just not going to pull that off here. No,
730
00:37:05.340 --> 00:37:07.780
because you have those all three of those are what
731
00:37:07.820 --> 00:37:13.539
we call weirdly externalities that result in that. it's not
732
00:37:13.579 --> 00:37:16.300
a result of the system. It's due to system shocks
733
00:37:16.340 --> 00:37:17.179
that we can look at.
734
00:37:17.260 --> 00:37:19.360
There is absolutely no shock to the system here that
735
00:37:19.400 --> 00:37:22.239
would push off a standard thing. And, you know, I
736
00:37:22.280 --> 00:37:25.369
think the general consensus of the behavior literature is that, yeah,
737
00:37:25.409 --> 00:37:28.010
you know, this is people venting their frustrations at the president,
738
00:37:28.489 --> 00:37:30.329
you know, typically even when he's not on the ballot.
739
00:37:30.730 --> 00:37:33.750
So implicitly, they're making that decision. But you know, gosh,
740
00:37:33.789 --> 00:37:35.889
at that point, you know, when you have an unpopular
741
00:37:35.909 --> 00:37:38.599
president saying, imagine that I'm on the ballot, like that's
742
00:37:38.719 --> 00:37:42.699
just making this explicit and it's just exacerbating a problem.
743
00:37:43.460 --> 00:37:45.800
George W. Bush had the good sense to recognize what
744
00:37:45.840 --> 00:37:48.920
was going on and steps back a little bit.
745
00:37:48.960 --> 00:37:51.420
You know, and Trump, I mean, this midterm convention, like,
746
00:37:51.460 --> 00:37:53.119
you know, none of the swing state people showed up
747
00:37:53.179 --> 00:37:57.289
for it. You know, they don't want any of this,
748
00:37:57.829 --> 00:38:00.710
you know, associated with them. So, I think, you know,
749
00:38:00.730 --> 00:38:02.250
he's making a giant mistake. You know, if I can
750
00:38:02.289 --> 00:38:04.750
pivot to the Democrats. I wanted to pivot to the
751
00:38:04.769 --> 00:38:07.070
Democrats because I have thoughts on this, but you start. OK,
752
00:38:07.090 --> 00:38:10.010
you know, the Democrats, I think, have been lousy at
753
00:38:10.090 --> 00:38:14.070
messaging really since about the first Obama after the first
754
00:38:14.130 --> 00:38:17.130
Obama election. Like, I really don't think the Democrats have
755
00:38:17.150 --> 00:38:19.309
had anything resembling good messaging since about 2008.
756
00:38:19.309 --> 00:38:23.510
Well, I agree with you. And for listeners, I want
757
00:38:23.530 --> 00:38:25.050
you I want I want you to picture this in
758
00:38:25.090 --> 00:38:30.199
your own heads. Without using the word Trump. So you
759
00:38:30.239 --> 00:38:34.199
can't use the word Trump. What is the one, two
760
00:38:34.599 --> 00:38:39.489
or three key things that Democrats are for in the
761
00:38:39.570 --> 00:38:40.510
upcoming election?
762
00:38:40.690 --> 00:38:41.349
I will wait.
763
00:38:42.590 --> 00:38:44.610
And you tell me what that is, because I don't
764
00:38:44.650 --> 00:38:45.909
think I'll take my answer off the air.
765
00:38:46.349 --> 00:38:49.130
So I would actually maybe disagree a little bit in that.
766
00:38:49.800 --> 00:38:52.050
it's even more muddled than that because frankly, I don't
767
00:38:52.070 --> 00:38:54.809
know that they're being anti-Trump enough on some level either.
768
00:38:54.889 --> 00:38:57.630
I mean, if you have, you know, I'm watching kind
769
00:38:57.650 --> 00:38:58.429
of the Iowa Democrats.
770
00:38:58.449 --> 00:39:01.309
But the answer is you're going to be anti-Trump on
771
00:39:01.449 --> 00:39:04.590
a thing. Like, why aren't you being like, so I
772
00:39:04.610 --> 00:39:07.619
would still want to say my number one item is,
773
00:39:08.139 --> 00:39:11.940
is inflation or it's affordability or is like pick your
774
00:39:11.980 --> 00:39:14.760
speed there's so there's so many items like fish in
775
00:39:14.780 --> 00:39:17.699
a barrel you just do yeah and then you just
776
00:39:17.900 --> 00:39:20.469
put trump there with it because he's the one who's
777
00:39:20.530 --> 00:39:23.250
holding that bag one way or the other right and
778
00:39:23.289 --> 00:39:26.110
so you go here's the thing that's pulling it importantly
779
00:39:26.329 --> 00:39:28.289
here's the thing i can feel we attach that to
780
00:39:28.329 --> 00:39:32.300
trump we move forward the The reason by taking out Trump,
781
00:39:32.380 --> 00:39:34.559
I don't mean that it can't be anti-Trump, but it
782
00:39:34.659 --> 00:39:37.610
can't be that it's just, I'm the not Trump, right?
783
00:39:37.639 --> 00:39:41.030
That's where you're going to lose. It has to be
784
00:39:41.130 --> 00:39:43.170
a Trump sucks at fill in the blank.
785
00:39:43.190 --> 00:39:45.090
But I would go so far as to say even
786
00:39:45.309 --> 00:39:48.429
like the Iowa Democrats at least are saying, Several of
787
00:39:48.469 --> 00:39:51.280
them are pitching bipartisanship. They're saying, I'll work with anybody,
788
00:39:51.320 --> 00:39:54.559
even Trump. They're even going right on immigration and things
789
00:39:54.579 --> 00:39:57.019
like that. Which again explains, why? Why would you run
790
00:39:57.059 --> 00:39:57.840
that way here?
791
00:39:58.739 --> 00:40:01.159
This is not the time. This is not the time.
792
00:40:01.179 --> 00:40:04.739
And so I can't speak for- you know, for, you know,
793
00:40:04.780 --> 00:40:08.469
all 435 races, obviously, but, you know, it's just a
794
00:40:08.510 --> 00:40:12.989
squandered opportunity. And, and, you know, I think Democrats have been,
795
00:40:13.010 --> 00:40:16.469
I think Republicans have been better on message discipline, setting
796
00:40:16.489 --> 00:40:18.949
aside Trump, which is a big setting aside, but, you know,
797
00:40:19.010 --> 00:40:21.559
in general, I think they have been better. And even there,
798
00:40:21.639 --> 00:40:24.460
I mean, you know, they are, it is all socialism
799
00:40:24.480 --> 00:40:24.920
all the time.
800
00:40:26.340 --> 00:40:27.820
Well, not only that, I mean, there are ways in
801
00:40:27.860 --> 00:40:30.820
which Trump is consistent. What's the problem? The fake news.
802
00:40:31.280 --> 00:40:34.099
What's the problem? The fake news. Fair enough. I think
803
00:40:34.119 --> 00:40:36.860
he used it like 50. The stuff he says is wacky,
804
00:40:36.880 --> 00:40:38.019
but he says it consistently.
805
00:40:38.880 --> 00:40:39.099
Yeah.
806
00:40:39.139 --> 00:40:42.000
So that's fair. I think in all honesty, this is
807
00:40:42.039 --> 00:40:44.920
one of those ones, Justin, you know, we both have PhDs.
808
00:40:44.960 --> 00:40:49.019
They're complimentary. Maybe somebody is listening. Dear Democrats, if you'd
809
00:40:49.059 --> 00:40:52.719
like to do better. fire your current team. I mean, listen,
810
00:40:52.739 --> 00:40:55.239
we are already academics. We work for pennies on the
811
00:40:55.280 --> 00:40:57.019
dollar as it is right now. Just make it nickels
812
00:40:57.059 --> 00:40:59.800
on the dollar and we'll come work on your campaign
813
00:40:59.840 --> 00:41:02.800
and then we'll podcast about it too.
814
00:41:03.300 --> 00:41:05.230
I'd probably do it for a sandwich at this point.
815
00:41:06.250 --> 00:41:14.469
Listen, Zoigberg, the hungry investor. Last thoughts, though, on this midterm,
816
00:41:14.510 --> 00:41:16.260
especially from the Democratic point of view.
817
00:41:18.070 --> 00:41:19.909
You know, I think we've pretty much said it. I
818
00:41:19.949 --> 00:41:22.909
think it's it's just really the extent that they may
819
00:41:23.110 --> 00:41:26.710
blow it. I think it's by not having a not
820
00:41:26.750 --> 00:41:29.690
having a clear set of messages and and, you know,
821
00:41:29.809 --> 00:41:33.130
really muddling, muddling whether what side are they on for
822
00:41:33.170 --> 00:41:35.130
any of this sort of concern.
823
00:41:35.230 --> 00:41:38.809
Who knows? Well, I think next, then we should move
824
00:41:39.210 --> 00:41:42.809
on to the court once again, blocking a White House
825
00:41:42.869 --> 00:41:45.110
issue over counterterrorism. And we're going to do that when
826
00:41:45.150 --> 00:41:54.469
we come back from this break. So, Justin, it's not
827
00:41:54.510 --> 00:41:56.489
often that you're going to say this, but federalism took
828
00:41:56.530 --> 00:41:59.840
center stage this past week when a federal judge blocked
829
00:41:59.880 --> 00:42:03.699
the White House from withholding counterterrorism and FEMA security grants
830
00:42:04.139 --> 00:42:08.920
from cities and counties that refused to adopt new election
831
00:42:08.960 --> 00:42:15.019
administration rules. So the Trump administration had told federal security
832
00:42:15.059 --> 00:42:19.389
fund put conditioned federal security funding on local election boards,
833
00:42:19.510 --> 00:42:23.429
verifying the citizenship status of of every registered voter and
834
00:42:23.550 --> 00:42:28.900
poll worker. Localities both in Nashville and Harris County began suing,
835
00:42:28.960 --> 00:42:33.539
and the judge ruled that executive agencies can't weaponize security
836
00:42:33.579 --> 00:42:37.820
grants to dictate local election mechanics. This actually goes to
837
00:42:37.860 --> 00:42:40.860
a whole series. I was covering, again, I mean, it
838
00:42:40.900 --> 00:42:43.000
all comes back to con law this year, or today,
839
00:42:43.019 --> 00:42:44.110
when we talk about my class.
840
00:42:44.340 --> 00:42:45.590
Are we going to hit the same case?
841
00:42:45.769 --> 00:42:46.369
This is one of the.
842
00:42:47.389 --> 00:42:48.550
Well, there's a couple. On three.
843
00:42:48.590 --> 00:42:51.940
Basically, the Supreme... Go for it. What are you going
844
00:42:51.960 --> 00:42:53.719
to say? One, two, three, South Dakota v.
845
00:42:53.739 --> 00:42:57.730
Dole. I wasn't thinking of it that way, but that
846
00:42:57.769 --> 00:42:58.469
way works.
847
00:42:59.329 --> 00:43:03.349
Basically, the Supreme Court has said that you can't be
848
00:43:03.590 --> 00:43:07.760
effectively coercive. The federal government can't coerce actions out of states.
849
00:43:08.590 --> 00:43:11.469
but they can regulate them in the course of normal.
850
00:43:11.489 --> 00:43:13.969
And that applies to the executive as well. So it's
851
00:43:14.010 --> 00:43:17.340
not a big surprise that the court would rule this way.
852
00:43:17.440 --> 00:43:20.900
It's broadly part of a 10th Amendment limit on kind
853
00:43:20.960 --> 00:43:25.340
of this Congress and the executive can't force states to
854
00:43:25.440 --> 00:43:26.139
pass laws.
855
00:43:26.159 --> 00:43:26.820
I mean, the first one.
856
00:43:26.760 --> 00:43:28.840
Actually deals with back in the 80s. It deals with
857
00:43:28.880 --> 00:43:31.199
a law where you had to deal with nuclear waste,
858
00:43:31.469 --> 00:43:33.030
no less. And I'm blanking on the name of that
859
00:43:33.070 --> 00:43:34.570
case now all of a sudden. But anyway, it doesn't matter.
860
00:43:34.989 --> 00:43:38.630
So I'm just curious, this goes into a larger finding.
861
00:43:38.650 --> 00:43:42.030
There's probably not as much quite here to talk about, Justin, overall,
862
00:43:42.070 --> 00:43:45.630
but it is a clear pattern. Courts, and this is
863
00:43:45.690 --> 00:43:49.739
another Trump appointee, consistently have ruled against the White House.
864
00:43:50.590 --> 00:43:52.269
And as we've seen, this seems to be a pretty
865
00:43:52.309 --> 00:43:56.010
big point of contention with President Trump. What's your thoughts
866
00:43:56.070 --> 00:44:00.369
about this instance specifically? And also, what do you think
867
00:44:00.429 --> 00:44:03.780
about the White House's problem with always getting struck down,
868
00:44:03.820 --> 00:44:05.340
maybe not unsurprisingly?
869
00:44:05.360 --> 00:44:06.880
It makes me wonder why they keep doing it on
870
00:44:06.920 --> 00:44:09.260
some level. I mean, because we have done, I mean,
871
00:44:09.300 --> 00:44:11.719
how many times has he cut off some kind of
872
00:44:11.780 --> 00:44:13.360
money to a city or a state over some policy?
873
00:44:13.380 --> 00:44:20.059
And You know, I think there is one of the
874
00:44:20.099 --> 00:44:23.599
challenges of federalism is, you know, how do you kind
875
00:44:23.619 --> 00:44:26.079
of do the interplay between the levels of government? And
876
00:44:26.280 --> 00:44:28.639
when there are, you know, I think there are some
877
00:44:28.659 --> 00:44:30.840
things that should be federal and obviously there are things
878
00:44:30.880 --> 00:44:32.940
that are clearly federal. I think there are other moments
879
00:44:32.960 --> 00:44:34.980
where the federal government, you know, if they can kind
880
00:44:35.019 --> 00:44:38.059
of get people to go along, that's fine. And, you know,
881
00:44:38.699 --> 00:44:43.059
lots of things that the federal government does, you know,
882
00:44:43.099 --> 00:44:46.380
essentially they get state compliance through conditioning some chunk of
883
00:44:46.480 --> 00:44:50.289
money You know, things like school lunch standards to take something,
884
00:44:50.329 --> 00:44:53.510
you know, completely unexciting. But, you know, there are federal
885
00:44:53.530 --> 00:44:56.420
standards as part of the school lunch program where, you know,
886
00:44:56.539 --> 00:44:58.519
it's a penny a kid a day if you do
887
00:44:58.960 --> 00:45:00.840
certain reporting and things like that.
888
00:45:00.960 --> 00:45:04.059
And in our literature for listeners, this is oftentimes called
889
00:45:04.199 --> 00:45:05.280
fiscal federalism.
890
00:45:05.599 --> 00:45:05.719
So.
891
00:45:06.139 --> 00:45:10.099
You do something, you get something, and that's always been
892
00:45:10.139 --> 00:45:11.989
considered constitutional.
893
00:45:12.090 --> 00:45:15.210
Right. And so, you know, where I kind of jumped
894
00:45:15.269 --> 00:45:16.929
on South Dakota v. Dole, which I think is very
895
00:45:16.969 --> 00:45:19.690
similar to the nuclear, you know, nuclear waste thing.
896
00:45:19.710 --> 00:45:22.010
It's New York versus the United States, 1992.
897
00:45:22.010 --> 00:45:26.170
Gotcha. So this one's 87, but it's kind of the
898
00:45:26.190 --> 00:45:29.769
same issue where basically, you know, they're trying to impose
899
00:45:29.829 --> 00:45:35.590
a nationwide 21-year-old drinking age. And, you know, essentially they,
900
00:45:35.769 --> 00:45:40.769
you know, Make make funding contingent on a portion of
901
00:45:40.789 --> 00:45:44.769
highway funding contingent on adopting a 21 drinking age. And
902
00:45:44.789 --> 00:45:47.110
South Dakota is very adamant about 18 year olds being
903
00:45:47.150 --> 00:45:49.030
able to drink. And if you spend time in South Dakota,
904
00:45:49.050 --> 00:45:52.280
I might agree. What else are you going to do?
905
00:45:52.320 --> 00:45:54.639
What else are you going to do? You're going to
906
00:45:54.659 --> 00:45:55.940
drink the same thing about Iowa.
907
00:45:55.980 --> 00:46:00.599
But I thought you were supposed to give Iowa a try.
908
00:46:01.579 --> 00:46:06.820
Provided you're contrary. Something, yeah. Sorry, Music Man might be
909
00:46:06.840 --> 00:46:08.860
one of my favorite musicals. I've been to the Music
910
00:46:08.900 --> 00:46:11.139
Man Museum up in Mason City, in fact, because that's
911
00:46:11.159 --> 00:46:13.449
what you're going to do. There's not federal authority to
912
00:46:13.510 --> 00:46:16.789
make that law, but ultimately the court held, so South
913
00:46:16.809 --> 00:46:20.090
Dakota sued and said, hey, this is coercive. And what
914
00:46:20.110 --> 00:46:23.070
was at stake there and kind of the ruling there,
915
00:46:23.110 --> 00:46:26.239
and I think they sided with federal government, but sort
916
00:46:26.260 --> 00:46:28.000
of the standard that they set is that it's not
917
00:46:28.039 --> 00:46:30.760
a large enough amount to be coercive. You know, it
918
00:46:30.820 --> 00:46:34.449
was five percent of your highway funding was up front.
919
00:46:34.510 --> 00:46:36.590
So you could take the deal or not. You know,
920
00:46:36.610 --> 00:46:38.809
it was not money. It was money for the future,
921
00:46:38.849 --> 00:46:42.409
whereas this is like withholding money that's already been presumably allocated.
922
00:46:42.630 --> 00:46:44.610
And it was stuff that was relatively germane to the
923
00:46:44.659 --> 00:46:48.619
policy area. You know, so like all of that kind
924
00:46:48.659 --> 00:46:51.000
of works together and none of that works together here.
925
00:46:51.659 --> 00:46:54.139
You know, so, I mean, this is. No, no. The
926
00:46:54.179 --> 00:46:58.489
timing is wrong. The amount is coercive. And it's not
927
00:46:58.750 --> 00:47:01.150
like what does FEMA have to do with voting? Like
928
00:47:01.210 --> 00:47:03.630
there's there's nothing. Yeah. And see there.
929
00:47:03.650 --> 00:47:06.269
That's going to be part of the key because of the. Yeah,
930
00:47:06.309 --> 00:47:08.949
because what you're talking about, of course, again, is fiscal federalism.
931
00:47:08.969 --> 00:47:11.059
But there's a whole for listeners. There's a whole nother
932
00:47:11.099 --> 00:47:14.320
set of cases. where what if you're just doing it directly? See,
933
00:47:14.360 --> 00:47:17.130
this one would be more direct even than that, because
934
00:47:17.150 --> 00:47:20.269
there's sort of a benefit, but the benefit is not
935
00:47:20.329 --> 00:47:23.010
directly tied to the thing that you're asking for. And
936
00:47:23.130 --> 00:47:27.110
so in Supreme Court case law, they break that down
937
00:47:27.130 --> 00:47:29.860
to kind of two versions. Matter of fact, Scalia's part
938
00:47:29.900 --> 00:47:33.380
of this. They have what's called unconstitutional commandeering, which is
939
00:47:33.400 --> 00:47:36.159
where you're forcing states to enact laws or enforce federal
940
00:47:36.219 --> 00:47:38.730
rules against private citizens. So in this case, The rule
941
00:47:38.750 --> 00:47:41.130
against federal private citizens.
942
00:47:40.869 --> 00:47:42.510
Would be, hey, you've got to go through all these books.
943
00:47:42.530 --> 00:47:43.260
You've got to do that.
944
00:47:43.340 --> 00:47:47.500
Constitutional regulation is a direct federal regulation where the activities
945
00:47:47.539 --> 00:47:51.059
in which the states themselves engage as a commercial actor
946
00:47:51.420 --> 00:47:53.829
or like some kind of database owner. So, for example,
947
00:47:53.849 --> 00:47:57.269
the famous case dealing with that is with there's this
948
00:47:57.329 --> 00:48:02.510
whole rule about requiring states to enforce minimum overtime standards
949
00:48:02.550 --> 00:48:05.739
for state employees. And so, yeah, you're absolutely right. On
950
00:48:05.760 --> 00:48:08.320
the one hand, you have the, yes, you can have
951
00:48:08.340 --> 00:48:12.599
fiscal federalism, and no, you can't commandeer what states are doing,
952
00:48:12.679 --> 00:48:15.539
either by Congress or the executive. There's cases that deal
953
00:48:15.579 --> 00:48:15.760
with both.
954
00:48:15.780 --> 00:48:17.360
So I think we're coming kind of at the same
955
00:48:17.409 --> 00:48:20.409
point from different directions. Different case laws.
956
00:48:21.250 --> 00:48:22.849
If Ken was here, he'd be like, well, see, here's
957
00:48:22.869 --> 00:48:25.090
how these two case laws all come together into this
958
00:48:25.679 --> 00:48:29.099
centerpiece of all case law. He'd be, he'd be con lawing.
959
00:48:28.860 --> 00:48:30.239
Us as we speak. And this is the part where I,
960
00:48:30.320 --> 00:48:32.550
once again, say I'm genetically a lawyer, but not actually
961
00:48:32.570 --> 00:48:34.150
a lawyer. So, you know, don't quote me on any
962
00:48:34.170 --> 00:48:34.309
of this.
963
00:48:34.329 --> 00:48:37.250
And I'm just an undergraduate pretend lawyer, which is where
964
00:48:37.289 --> 00:48:39.610
I teach con law and international law. And then I
965
00:48:39.690 --> 00:48:42.429
send them on to real lawyers to deal with the
966
00:48:42.449 --> 00:48:42.949
deeper things.
967
00:48:44.730 --> 00:48:47.769
But I think last. Yeah. Yeah. Please. Were you asking
968
00:48:47.789 --> 00:48:50.670
for last thoughts on this? Yeah. Yeah. So my, my
969
00:48:50.710 --> 00:48:54.000
last thought on this is, is just it, sort of
970
00:48:54.079 --> 00:48:56.559
boggles my mind that Trump has done this so many
971
00:48:56.599 --> 00:49:00.610
times and lost every time. You know, this has been
972
00:49:00.860 --> 00:49:05.230
kind of a theme of the second Trump administration and
973
00:49:05.289 --> 00:49:08.289
it gets shot down every time it goes into the courts. And,
974
00:49:08.449 --> 00:49:10.670
and so I'm not sure I'd be curious to see,
975
00:49:10.710 --> 00:49:13.630
you know, like, do you, do you think they think
976
00:49:13.650 --> 00:49:15.170
they're going to win one of these or is there
977
00:49:15.210 --> 00:49:18.269
some other strategy? Like I'm, I'm kind of scratching my
978
00:49:18.309 --> 00:49:20.960
head about why you would keep or if this is
979
00:49:21.000 --> 00:49:23.440
just more, if we've lapsed into our media stuff, you know,
980
00:49:23.539 --> 00:49:25.900
is this more just for the sound bites and more
981
00:49:25.920 --> 00:49:27.000
of a performative thing?
982
00:49:28.280 --> 00:49:30.519
My bet, I have thought about this and looked at the,
983
00:49:30.940 --> 00:49:33.119
on the empirical data on this pretty carefully, Justin. And
984
00:49:33.389 --> 00:49:38.550
my takeaway is that you've got some concurrent things happening, right?
985
00:49:39.190 --> 00:49:44.469
On the one hand, there appears to be a longer term.
986
00:49:44.489 --> 00:49:48.710
So even before President Trump is President Trump, he seems
987
00:49:48.750 --> 00:49:56.099
to have a pretty consistent legal strategy, which is overwhelm.
988
00:49:55.619 --> 00:49:56.760
And keep fighting.
989
00:49:57.239 --> 00:50:00.639
And so I think sometimes when we look at this
990
00:50:00.840 --> 00:50:04.619
through our point of view, it seems strange because we're like,
991
00:50:04.739 --> 00:50:09.269
you're going to lose this. But that, even before he's president,
992
00:50:09.329 --> 00:50:14.849
that doesn't appear to really always be even private citizen
993
00:50:14.949 --> 00:50:18.949
Trump's strategy. His strategy is, how long can I delay this?
994
00:50:20.150 --> 00:50:23.070
How much can I overwhelm this? Now, it doesn't always
995
00:50:23.250 --> 00:50:25.769
work as well when you're the president because of the
996
00:50:25.809 --> 00:50:28.449
nature of this. And so I think sometimes he's getting,
997
00:50:28.869 --> 00:50:33.369
he is bump, his ingrained strategy is bumping up against
998
00:50:33.469 --> 00:50:36.789
the unique legal position in which the president finds themselves.
999
00:50:37.260 --> 00:50:40.630
vis-a-vis where he found himself as a private citizen, right?
1000
00:50:40.909 --> 00:50:44.010
So I think part of it is the Trump strategy.
1001
00:50:44.829 --> 00:50:48.369
The second part is, yeah, yeah. That has a very
1002
00:50:48.550 --> 00:50:49.730
James David Barber feel.
1003
00:50:49.750 --> 00:50:53.420
If you're the presidential character, you know, so it talks
1004
00:50:53.460 --> 00:50:57.469
about kind of how presidents learn. You can see style
1005
00:50:57.570 --> 00:51:00.449
kind of from their past experiences. And I think, you know,
1006
00:51:00.530 --> 00:51:02.289
where the other thing I'd agree with you, part of
1007
00:51:02.329 --> 00:51:05.010
it's different that it's the president, but this is also
1008
00:51:05.070 --> 00:51:08.699
like not, you know, bankrupting a New York contractor by
1009
00:51:08.780 --> 00:51:12.019
not paying them and who can't fight back. You know,
1010
00:51:12.079 --> 00:51:14.579
you are messing, you're messing with states that have like, oh,
1011
00:51:14.639 --> 00:51:16.559
I don't know, a full-time attorney general, you know, who
1012
00:51:16.599 --> 00:51:19.820
does this stuff. So I think that's maybe where this
1013
00:51:19.860 --> 00:51:22.159
breaks out, but I hadn't really considered that point, but
1014
00:51:22.179 --> 00:51:23.800
I think that's a pretty good point is that, you know,
1015
00:51:23.820 --> 00:51:25.750
Trump has It goes back to kind of what I
1016
00:51:25.769 --> 00:51:27.969
was saying earlier about thinking of the new CEO of America,
1017
00:51:28.010 --> 00:51:30.050
you know, is I think that's kind of a theme
1018
00:51:30.070 --> 00:51:32.449
today a little bit is that, you know, he's built
1019
00:51:32.530 --> 00:51:35.230
on this experience that plays pretty well in that context
1020
00:51:35.349 --> 00:51:37.929
and doesn't play so well in this context.
1021
00:51:39.300 --> 00:51:41.860
And I'll say, you know, Barber, we don't use him
1022
00:51:41.920 --> 00:51:44.239
as much in political science today. I just ordered him
1023
00:51:44.260 --> 00:51:48.079
for next semester. But but here's but I'll say here's why.
1024
00:51:48.800 --> 00:51:51.420
It's not that he didn't have a good insight into.
1025
00:51:51.739 --> 00:51:55.420
into the idea of those preexisting psychological makeups for how
1026
00:51:55.460 --> 00:51:58.860
presidents work. His shortcoming was when he brought in his
1027
00:51:58.920 --> 00:52:01.900
particular normative framework to try to make a determination about
1028
00:52:01.940 --> 00:52:05.199
which of those empirical items make great presidents. And really
1029
00:52:05.239 --> 00:52:08.590
what he did was jimmy rake his own favorites into
1030
00:52:08.610 --> 00:52:09.730
the system post facto.
1031
00:52:10.349 --> 00:52:11.510
Had he left that part.
1032
00:52:11.349 --> 00:52:13.389
Off of his work, I think that he would be
1033
00:52:13.449 --> 00:52:17.469
nearly as influential as Neustadt or Howell or others who've.
1034
00:52:17.329 --> 00:52:18.869
Written in the presidency. I use that book in political
1035
00:52:18.889 --> 00:52:21.110
psychology because empirically it's kind of a hot mess.
1036
00:52:22.860 --> 00:52:26.780
It is because, again, he is retrofitting his own particular
1037
00:52:26.840 --> 00:52:32.380
normative framework into what could have been an interesting psychological framework. Again,
1038
00:52:32.480 --> 00:52:33.599
there's problems with it.
1039
00:52:33.719 --> 00:52:33.900
Right.
1040
00:52:34.059 --> 00:52:35.679
But there's problems with a lot of times when you're
1041
00:52:35.699 --> 00:52:37.599
measuring something for the first time. I think that would
1042
00:52:37.619 --> 00:52:40.300
have been more overlooked had he not wrapped all of
1043
00:52:40.360 --> 00:52:42.730
his normative outcomes into it and go, well, these have
1044
00:52:42.769 --> 00:52:44.650
to be the best presidents because I knew that they
1045
00:52:44.670 --> 00:52:46.190
were the best presidents. You could just kind of hear
1046
00:52:46.269 --> 00:52:50.849
that snarkiness coming in. And that's the fundamental issue. But no,
1047
00:52:50.929 --> 00:52:54.070
as you put it there, you're absolutely right. There is
1048
00:52:54.110 --> 00:52:56.550
an insight there. And I think Trump is an example
1049
00:52:56.610 --> 00:52:59.699
of how we can trace some of the strategies of
1050
00:52:59.800 --> 00:53:04.519
presidents to the tools and the makeup that they bring
1051
00:53:04.619 --> 00:53:05.400
to the office.
1052
00:53:05.579 --> 00:53:07.280
Again, as long as we don't take that too far
1053
00:53:07.360 --> 00:53:10.179
down a weird little rabbit hole on that front.
1054
00:53:10.679 --> 00:53:13.010
But I think to maybe finish then, I think the
1055
00:53:13.110 --> 00:53:16.710
other parallel track, and you were starting to even say this,
1056
00:53:16.849 --> 00:53:21.260
was It does make for good talking points. And Trump
1057
00:53:21.539 --> 00:53:27.309
is the, he is maybe the best exemplar of the
1058
00:53:27.409 --> 00:53:31.489
social media presidency. And you've, you've, I think you've really
1059
00:53:31.510 --> 00:53:36.289
got to frame everything that's going through that, that lens.
1060
00:53:36.750 --> 00:53:40.159
And to be frank for listeners, I be careful. It's
1061
00:53:40.260 --> 00:53:43.860
not as if Trump going away is going to change this, right?
1062
00:53:43.920 --> 00:53:47.610
Because the social media exists independently of Trump. And especially
1063
00:53:47.650 --> 00:53:49.369
for Democrats who listen to the show, I think a
1064
00:53:49.409 --> 00:53:50.730
lot of you think, oh, we're not going to be
1065
00:53:50.789 --> 00:53:53.190
looking through this lens anymore once we get rid of Trump.
1066
00:53:53.210 --> 00:53:55.340
And the answer is, friends, you are making a grave
1067
00:53:55.380 --> 00:53:59.059
empirical mistake if you think Trump is the causal. He's
1068
00:53:59.119 --> 00:54:01.780
just benefited from doing it this way. And I think
1069
00:54:01.800 --> 00:54:04.179
it's those two tracks, Justin, that lead to these kind
1070
00:54:04.199 --> 00:54:04.590
of cases.
1071
00:54:04.610 --> 00:54:05.769
I agree.
1072
00:54:07.219 --> 00:54:09.880
OK, well, I think probably then on that note, we'll
1073
00:54:09.900 --> 00:54:12.719
have to bring the show to an end. But that
1074
00:54:12.760 --> 00:54:15.840
doesn't mean we're done done, because we also have our
1075
00:54:15.900 --> 00:54:19.940
midweek supporters exclusive show. And Justin and I are starting
1076
00:54:20.059 --> 00:54:22.940
a brand new miniseries. I talked about it at the
1077
00:54:22.960 --> 00:54:24.960
beginning of the show. I'll bring it up again now.
1078
00:54:25.519 --> 00:54:27.820
We're going to be taking a look at the big
1079
00:54:27.980 --> 00:54:31.820
events in contemporary politics. And as we looked at it
1080
00:54:31.860 --> 00:54:34.460
and thought about it, we reached out and I chatted
1081
00:54:34.480 --> 00:54:38.059
with people on Discord, our listeners. And we decided that
1082
00:54:38.119 --> 00:54:40.820
the 2000 election was a good starting point. So what
1083
00:54:40.840 --> 00:54:42.380
we're going to do to kind of limit ourselves so
1084
00:54:42.400 --> 00:54:44.820
that we're not like talking about one event all the time,
1085
00:54:45.460 --> 00:54:47.780
we're going to limit each event to about two to
1086
00:54:47.840 --> 00:54:50.289
three shows so that we're going to touch an event,
1087
00:54:50.449 --> 00:54:51.969
we're going to get into it in a detail, and
1088
00:54:51.989 --> 00:54:53.449
then we're going to move on to the next one
1089
00:54:53.730 --> 00:54:55.489
so that we can move forward in time. And we're
1090
00:54:55.510 --> 00:54:58.349
going to be starting this week with episode one in
1091
00:54:58.369 --> 00:55:01.469
a three-part series on the two election. And we'd love
1092
00:55:01.510 --> 00:55:03.460
for you to join. And just like I mentioned that
1093
00:55:03.559 --> 00:55:07.389
earlier in the show with Brock, Don't forget, you can
1094
00:55:07.409 --> 00:55:11.050
become a trial supporter of the show on Patreon. And
1095
00:55:11.159 --> 00:55:12.639
now would be a great time to do that. So
1096
00:55:12.659 --> 00:55:14.619
you can kind of see at the outset what we
1097
00:55:14.639 --> 00:55:16.920
kind of do with these mini series. And I'd love
1098
00:55:16.960 --> 00:55:19.500
for you to join on and grab onto that. And
1099
00:55:19.539 --> 00:55:21.820
it's not just Justin and myself. When Ken gets back,
1100
00:55:22.099 --> 00:55:26.219
we'll be picking back up on our Federalist Papers mini series,
1101
00:55:26.260 --> 00:55:28.820
which was a lot of fun. We'll be getting back
1102
00:55:28.860 --> 00:55:30.789
to that as we move forward. So you get that
1103
00:55:30.949 --> 00:55:32.889
and so much more. You get things like access to
1104
00:55:32.929 --> 00:55:34.949
the Discord group I was just talking about. You'll get
1105
00:55:35.030 --> 00:55:37.010
input into the kind of shows and things that we do.
1106
00:55:37.389 --> 00:55:39.449
And you get all of that by becoming a supporter
1107
00:55:39.469 --> 00:55:41.159
of the show. So become a supporter of the show
1108
00:55:41.280 --> 00:55:43.420
right now. Head down to the show notes or if
1109
00:55:43.440 --> 00:55:45.980
you're old school, open up the browser on your phone
1110
00:55:46.039 --> 00:55:50.619
and head to politicsguys.com slash support. So again, head down
1111
00:55:50.639 --> 00:55:52.679
to the show notes and click on support or head
1112
00:55:52.699 --> 00:55:56.780
to politicsguys.com slash support and support the show there. You
1113
00:55:56.800 --> 00:55:59.260
can also hit us up directly on Patreon at patreon.com
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00:55:59.300 --> 00:56:02.929
slash Politics Guys. Now, don't forget, you can always email
1115
00:56:02.969 --> 00:56:06.289
us at mail at politicsguys.com. And one of the reasons
1116
00:56:06.329 --> 00:56:08.030
you might want to reach out is maybe you're not
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00:56:08.090 --> 00:56:10.730
in a financial position to support the show. And if
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00:56:10.769 --> 00:56:12.800
that's the case, you can reach out and we can
1119
00:56:12.820 --> 00:56:17.440
make things possible for you. So please do that. Now,
1120
00:56:17.539 --> 00:56:20.179
if you've loved this show, I would really appreciate if
1121
00:56:20.199 --> 00:56:24.460
you would subscribe, rate, and review. That's really important for
1122
00:56:24.500 --> 00:56:28.619
putting us up higher in the algorithms on Spotify, on Apple,
1123
00:56:28.929 --> 00:56:31.159
anywhere where you can rate and review us makes us
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00:56:31.300 --> 00:56:34.230
more visible and it allows other people like you to
1125
00:56:34.269 --> 00:56:36.110
be able to be a part of the politics, guys.
1126
00:56:36.130 --> 00:56:38.789
And I thank you in advance for doing that. Another
1127
00:56:38.809 --> 00:56:41.030
really important thing is maybe there's somebody out there that
1128
00:56:41.050 --> 00:56:44.650
you'd like to share episodes with. You can do that. Or,
1129
00:56:44.670 --> 00:56:47.889
I mean, listen, I know it's not quite Halloween, but
1130
00:56:48.110 --> 00:56:50.329
maybe as you're thinking about what do I do for
1131
00:56:50.349 --> 00:56:53.699
the politics lover in my life, maybe you gift them
1132
00:56:53.739 --> 00:56:56.400
a subscription to the show, right? It's time to start
1133
00:56:56.440 --> 00:56:59.719
thinking about that list. So anyway, however you're going to
1134
00:56:59.760 --> 00:57:02.920
do that, think about that now. I finished the show though,
1135
00:57:03.099 --> 00:57:05.480
as always, by giving a great big shout out to
1136
00:57:05.519 --> 00:57:09.429
some amazing supporters and they are our executive producers and
1137
00:57:09.449 --> 00:57:15.250
they are Wilmer Moreno, Daniel To, Ryan Beasley, Derek Schmidt,
1138
00:57:15.889 --> 00:57:22.840
Dakota Heath, Jason Chrysler, Dave Dean, Brian Matza, Jody Marie Miller,
1139
00:57:23.360 --> 00:57:26.449
and Sean Fugate. We'll be back with a new episode
1140
00:57:26.469 --> 00:57:30.309
this midweek for supporters and for everyone next weekend. I
1141
00:57:30.329 --> 00:57:31.130
hope you'll join us then.
1142
00:57:40.170 --> 00:57:42.670
This podcast is part of the Democracy Group.