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Well, hello there, and Happy Christmas Eve.

That's when this episode is dropping.

I am recording on Tuesday, est of us, right, so it's Grievance Day actually when I'm actually recording this, but you'll be hearing it for the informal start of the Christmas holiday season with Christmas Eve.

So I appreciate it.

I'm Chuck Todd another episode of the Chuck Podcast.

If I hadn't said that, get that away, I appreciate it.

It's been I have had a blast these last eight months.

We got started, I believe on April second was our first episode, and this has been just such a joy.

So I appreciate it.

And you know, I've scratched itches that I've always wanted to scratch in a semi public form, including all of the various sports updates that I enjoyed doing.

So let me give you a rundown of this episode, a little bit of reaction of some headlines over the last forty eight hours.

I want to get to a little bit on Epstein, a little bit on the CBS Mets with sixty minutes, but a sort of larger view of sort of taking a step back and what has changed in our politics and what actually hasn't changed in the last year, and I want to go through that a little bit.

I will do some questions, we will have more mail bag that you guys have just a lot of fun and smart questions, and then I'm going to do a little twist on my little sports page here, a little bit which is frankly, trying to help you have the conversation during the holidays with the person that you don't want to talk about current events with.

But you figure, I got to be a little smarter about sports, so you can have fun little storylines where you can just ask a question and let other people talk.

But if it's a way to sort of you know, how to change a conversation, how to look more fluent in a sports conversation that maybe you don't want to remember, we're going to be We're going to have some tremendous I mean, there's nothing I love more than these next two weeks because on a random Tuesday afternoon, you flip on ESPN and there's a bowl game.

So this is the part.

As much as these meaningless bowl games are becoming more meaningless all the time, when you're at home with relatives and you need that just traction of noise in your gatherings, there's nothing like throwing a football game on.

So even these bad Netflix games that the NFL for Netflix, right, they'd like to swap those out or get a refund for these, right, since they barely had any playoff teams eventually in their matchups.

But so that's how I will orchestrate that sports update.

But let me just kick off a little bit with this mess that is sixty minutes Barry Weiss and the controversy around it.

For me, this is a welcome to welcome to the NFL moment for Barry Weiss.

Look, she is not the first news executive brought in to run a television network who has no clue how television works.

And I say this not trying to take a shot at her being snarky, but this is her inexperience as a newsleader sort of to me shown through here from what we know, first of all, understanding sort of the intricacies of what it takes to put together a television piece.

I thought it was fascinating.

There was a little bit of snobbery news snobbery, which is something that I used to have until I got into the TV business.

But one of her critiques of the piece was that all of this was reported in the New York Times, as if if the New York Times reported it, you shouldn't bother sharing it with the rest of the world.

May mean the whole point of why she started the free press, right.

The whole point of you know, is sort of we're trying to broaden the aperture of news consumption in a news consumption in America, right, not narrow it down.

So, yes, New York Times readers might have known this story, what about everybody else?

No offense to New York Times readers.

I'm one of them.

I'm a subscriber.

But it's a very narrow set of Americans.

It's a it's an influential set of Americans.

The New York Times has influence, and there is a reminder that when The New York Times reports something, eventually other news organizations are going to do with their own version of the story and making a putting as putting a story that appeared in the New York Times, but put giving visual elements to it can be sometimes more powerful than the original story itself.

So that critique really struck me as her not understanding what her mission actually is at a news division.

Right, Is you there to broadly inform everybody that is there, or are you there to make an assumption that people already know certain things?

And that to me is a bit of a yellow flag on her news instincts.

Now, she may have just said that as part of an email that she knew was to go public.

Obviously, what doesn't look good for her on this is the fact that she missed four screenings of this piece and then weighed in very late, basically less than forty eight hours than when the piece was going to air.

So oh, she got a whole bunch of complaints from people inside the administration, and there were a few complaints that she thought rank pretty true, like hey, they didn't have a voice in the piece, or they didn't have this.

And I think she's right that it could use a voice.

It certainly would improve the piece.

But when you come in that late in the process, it certainly looks like you've let outsiders manipulate the process, whether or not that's true, and it's her timing of it.

Now, So I think a few things here.

Let's take her at face value.

I don't think she wants to be seen as a political pawn.

Okay, So I have some of you may have a very snarky view of her that she just wants to be an apparatic.

I don't believe that.

I believe she thinks she can do this better.

What I do believe is she does not understand how the television network works.

She may very well want to change how network television works and how news gathering work.

God bless her.

Okay, I've certainly had my share of inexperience.

I dealt with my share of inexperienced news executives.

The ones that came in and experienced, who wanted to who were good, actually spent time trying to get to know parts of the news division that they knew themselves they wanted to get rid of.

But you actually have to try to work and figure out how they were.

The bad news executives that I dealt with, and I had quite a few of them, I would say about half figured it out the right way and half figured it out the wrong way.

About half of them came in thinking they already knew how to do this, and they were going to come and they were there to break eggs, and they weren't going to bother worrying about institutional norms, etc.

But you're going to get pushback, right, You're going to get resistance when you have a lot of particularly at a broadcast news network where there's a lot of really smart, talented people who frankly probably would be more qualified to run the news division.

But they're on personalities, and you know, they're not just to be treated like actors in a sitcom.

And there's sort of two types of news executives I came across.

There was the news executive that assumed people that were on air just read the reporting of other people's work.

And then there were those that actually respected the fact that the people that could narrate a story could also work a story behind the scenes as well.

And so this rings of somebody who just didn't fully understand how the system worked.

Now, this is where you can't you have to you cannot discount the outside atmosphere that was developing over the last month.

You had President Trump twice complain about sixty minutes pieces that he didn't like, and he said the new owners haven't made a difference.

It was in some ways he when he said nice things about the Netflix bid to acquire Warner Brothers, it was almost implied he's mad at the Ellisons anyway, type of mindset.

So you have the fact that he's already complained about two specific pieces, the Marjorie Taylor Green one from a couple weeks ago, being the most prominent.

Then you have the situation where the Ellisons are desperate to see if they can get their hands on all of Warner Brothers.

They're trying to up their bid.

They're trying to make their access to government approval for their bid as a sweetener to the Warner Brothers shareholders in order to say, hey, look, Netflix is going to have a harder time with this.

Well, in order for that to happen, they've got to appease this administration.

So, whether this stuff is having an impact or not, there is a perception that it is going to and there's certainly that perception could turn into questions that come from Democrats in Congress.

The point is, a smart leader tries to get ahead of this somebody who and I think I have no doubt that Barry Wise is a smart person here, but she just how do you not you know, there's really only one program that CBS News is going to be judged on as far as anybody is concerned, right, Critics of CBS News, supporters of CBS News, critics of the President, supporters of the president.

It's sixty minutes, So how are you not more involved in understanding every piece that they're working on, so to weigh in as late as she did to kill the peace just screams of outside interference and the fact that she didn't see that coming.

Either maybe she did see that coming and she had no choice in the matter, or she didn't see that coming and she was a bit unprepared for the situation, which would tell me that's a bit naive.

Look, there's a few things that you that I think are going to be fair questions to Raith.

Can she run CBS News and the Free press at the same time?

Is is she over?

I mean, this news is not a large operation compared to NBC News.

CBS News is a lot a large operation compared to ABC News, it's a much smaller operation.

So, you know, so to me not being able to be on top of what they're producing.

They don't have a twenty four hour news channel.

Yes they have a CBS Digital.

But her not being on top of this, you have to ask, is she distracted by other stuff?

Why hasn't she figuring this out?

Why hasn't Why didn't she know what was happening inside these stories quickly and know the rhythm of it?

So I think it exposes Look, I think there's a there's plenty that we don't know, but she is, you know, she is now in a really rough position.

She's lost the trust of the journalists at the single most important institution inside of CBS News in that's sixty minutes.

Anything they do now is going to be seen through a political lens, no matter what that they're appeasing one side.

They're in the worst of all worlds now, And you know, I go back to to this simple inexperience, and that's what this screams up.

Look, I could there's a there's another part of me that's could easily be celebrating this moment once again, corporate owned, corporate owned media is going to let you down.

I did not think this was the case, but this is now the case in the Trump era, where these parent companies do not care whether their journalistic institutions have credibility with the whitest swath of Americans or not.

That they only want to cater to one side politically, and they want to be a part of essentially influencing the country rather than reflecting and reporting on the country.

So yeah, there's a part of me that would love to sit here and gloat and just say, look, this is yet another reason you're going to have some skepticism of this corporate owned media structure that we've seen.

I will be honest with you, I'm skeptical.

I'm mostly impressed with Washington Post reporting.

I'm very skeptical of its editorial page.

It feels like it's been it is not an honest editorial page, that it is essentially manipulated with a point of view that the owner that somebody wants to appease an owner or a piease somebody.

You now are going to have skepticism about what CBS News does.

I already know that there.

We've already seen Disney do what it did with the George Stephanoppolis situation, calling into question their support of ABC News.

We've seen what Comcast did with MSNBC, trying to spin it out and get rid of it and separating it out from NBC.

You can look at that through the prism of there just looking to a p's and playcate the current administration.

So we are we are in a situation where all of these stories have added to the public's distrust.

And it's frustrating to me because I many people look at me and still see me as a quote member of so called mainstream media.

I promise you I I tried really hard.

I spoke out when I thought it was necessary.

So I know that moment that Sharon ALFONSI, you know, you make that decision.

It's not an easy decision because you're never you know, her career is never going to be the same at CBS.

You know, we'll see does she out last Barry Weiss or does Berry Weis's outlast her?

On that front, I have no idea what her contract situation is or anything like that, but ultimately, executives don't like to be shown up by their employees, and so eventually that's you know, but at the end of the day, you feel the need to stick up for the journalists and the organization.

And this is what makes when you're a publicly traded company owning a journalist journalistic institution, you have a choice to make.

Right are you going to stand by?

Journalism is not meant to be popular.

I always say this, journalists are not meant to be if you are doing this to be popular.

And this is why this whole, in this whole algorithmic driven nature of our news consumption really bothers me because it it sort of fuses popularity with news consumption, which is a huge mistake for journalism.

If you're doing your journalism based on what you think is going to be popular, you're not going to do good journalism because you're going to be constantly worried about what an audience thinks, either an audience of one in the case of the White House, or a larger audience in the case if you're a partisan news channel MS NOW or Fox News, where you don't want to quote alienate your viewers and alienate that the audience that you have.

I think this is a huge concern with you to influences.

I think it's a huge concern with some substackers where you have essentially audienced capture on this front.

So, if you're going to be in the journalistic space and you want to be a journalist, grow a thick skin and don't worry about being popular or not.

Over time and honest, straightforward, no bullshit talking journalists is going to accumulate trust.

Trust is more important than popularity.

That I promise you trust is more important popular.

It's at the end of the day, that's what I think about.

I'd rather I'd rather tell you honest information that make you feel good when I don't think what you want to hear to feel good is actually accurate, you know, do I want to present it in such a way where it's easy to consume, where it isn't doesn't feel like your own personal points of view are being attacked when you're hearing information that runs counter to your beliefs.

Yes, I think there are better ways to present information.

I think there are more detached ways to present information.

I think one of the things that we collectively didn't do well and we let hey, look, Donald Trump can can make anybody emotionally, you know, go Jesus, you know that.

I don't know, but you got to do your best sometimes to check yourself and try to detach yourself from certain things, right if you really want to be a referee like journalist, where you're just calling it like you see it pure in something and at the end of the day, that's what I'm doing here.

So that's why I'm saying it.

In some ways.

If you're in the independent space, you know nothing nothing like the self destruction of more corporate owned media like CBS News as being helpful to the to the cause.

But I will tell you this, there's a reason why independent media is growing the way it is growing, because I think you have corporations that don't care about their news divisions anymore.

And at the end of the day, they will use them if it helps them for their business, and they will discard them the second they become they interfere with their business.

And look, I get it.

They have a fetis share responsibility their shareholders, not to you.

The American public Ultimately independent own journalistic operations.

I do think have more concern about the public as a whole than any donor any subscriber, any shareholder, And so in that sense, yesterday was just another bad day for legacy media and another good day for the rise of independent media.

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Speaking of the obsession of independent media, I would say the Epstein files are certainly falling into that category.

And look, we're seeing, as I outlined to you a couple of days ago.

You know, none of us should be shocked that the Justice Department front loaded all things build Clinton on day one and are going to release whatever it is that might be damning to Donald Trump much closer to Christmas.

Okay, but look, everybody's still pouring through it.

This is you know, I have my you know, I don't think I don't think this is going to somehow change minds and what people believe regarding Epstein, but I do think it what it has done to create division inside the Trunk Coalition certainly makes it extraordinarily politically relevant.

But the fact that on Tuesday, on Festivus Day, the airing of the grievance Day, the Justice Department put out the following statement after they released another, and I'm just going to read it to you as a whole, because it's the fact that the Department of Justice put out this statement is both laughable and notable here it is the Department of Justice is officially released nearly thirty thousand more pages of documents related to Jeffrey Epstein.

Some of these documents contain untrue and cessationalist claims made against President Trump that were submitted to the FBI right before the twenty twenty election.

To be clear that the claims are unfounded and false, and if they had a shred of credibility, they certainly would have been weaponized against President Trump already.

Nevertheless, out of our commitment to the law and transparency, the DOJ is releasing these documents with the legally required protections for Epstein's victims.

The year began with a huge opportunity for Trump on this runt Excuse me, No, that was one other line that I had written for myself.

So there you have it.

The Department of Justice put out a statement that sounded like it came from Trump's defense attorney.

Oh wait, Trump's former defense attorney?

Is it the Department of Justice as a deputy attorney general.

The point is there's a lot of today.

The release on Tuesday is a reminder that there's a lot more damaging allegations and innu window and unant, so we say unresolved what would you call them?

Sort of unclear rationales for why Donald Trump spent so much time with Jeffrey Epstein on his plane and things like this, and the various accusations that came with him.

But it's interesting because think about this.

In theory, everything in that's been released should fall under Hey, some of these documents contain untrue, in cessationalist claims that made against President Clinton, some of them made against Alan Dershowitz, against Prince Right.

Not every allegation made against any of these folks, not all of them have been proven, but it's notable that they only single out Donald Trump, which tells you it was a statement for an audience of one.

But in some ways the note itself actually perhaps and maybe this was by design, and maybe I'm naive on this one, but actually the statement oddly says, Okay, today's the day you're going to see a lot more Trump stuff, and it's not going to be a great day for Donald Trump.

But I do think this is one of those stories that is more of an obsession with people that are obsessed with this story, and it's hard to imagine it's going to change the larger narrative, but clearly it rattles Donald Trump.

And that brings me to before I get to the conversation with Mike Pesco, where we sort of talk about a lot of things that I've already mentioned now, future of journalism, independent media versus corporate owned media, things like that.

It sort of step back a little bit and think about how the year began and think about the opportunity, and it goes back to, you know, and why I think this has been such a di astros year politically for Donald Trump and the Republicans because it began with such an opportunity.

He came into office within some ways, more of a mandate than he had gotten in his first election in twenty sixteen.

He had extraordin there was an extraordinarily unpopular president he was following.

That's a big difference in twenty sixteen, right, Barack Obama was a popular president personally in some ways.

Probably you know, he left with a pretty high job rating and a pretty high personal rating.

This case, right, he's following a president with a pretty low job rating in a pretty low personal rating.

You know, the way Biden laughed really ugly.

Just a terrible last six months being pushed out of his office, just looking weak, and then of course the return of Donald Trump.

In some ways his fingerprints are as much on Trump's ability to get back here than any other.

So the point was Trump came in with a huge opportunity, sort of like Ronald Reagan in nineteen eighty.

You know, people just found the Jimmy Carter presidency unpopular.

They were ready to turn the page.

So the opportunity for a honeymoon was big.

And if you look at sort of frankly, I think Joe Biden had the same opportunity.

And it is interesting to me that Donald Trump's second term and Joe Biden's one term in the first year of their presidency pretty much are mirror images of each other.

They both had sort of one issue that sort of quickly severed whatever mild hope voters, at least swing voters had that the presidency could be somewhat successful.

Right with Joe Biden, it was the Afghanistan withdrawal, and for Donald Trump, it was Liberation Day.

And there's no doubt Liberation Day was sort of the first hit.

And he ever recovered from Liberation Day because the economy didn't really the economy just kept getting sort of uneven, and those that were not doing well continued to not doing well.

Those that were doing well could continue to do well thanks to the superinvestments of AI.

So the opportunity Trump had at the start of his term versus what he where he is now, I think you should and at this point it becomes it becomes hard to recover without sort of an outsized event to sort of change the narrative.

Right.

And when I say outside event, you know, to me, it's it's outside even the broad brushes of what you might be predicting, right, it's just something you know, out of the ordinary.

The way the pandemic hit that it was not on anybody's bingo card, and it ended up exposing Trump's inability to be a leader in a moment of crisis.

And that, you know, it's it is why I think he he lost that first reelection.

So I think when you look at sort of the big picture here, he really he had an opportunity.

He had an opportunity to solidify his imprint on the conservative movement.

He had a chance to sort of keep Democrats sort of fraying.

He could have done some things that could have potentially splintered the Democratic coalition.

A good leader would have actually looked for Democrats.

You know, he had very small majorities, and he'd have tried to find some Democratic allies more as an attempt to try to splinter the party, you sort of break people off to try to work with him, and he chose not to do any of that right.

Instead, he came in a lot of retribution.

It's clear that that was much more front and center for him.

The pardons, the naming everything after himself, off, the bulldozing.

I mean, in that sense, he's he's made it really hard.

He's made it really hard to look at this as anything other than through the prism of his own narcissism.

And the irony is that had he been sort of a leader with a vision, had he cared about sort of building a Republican party that could last beyond his years, he would have, i think, be governed a lot differently.

In the first six months, how they you know, he was so anxious, and maybe this has to do with him feeling that he waited too long to do things in the first term, and maybe it's mortality getting to him and he's afraid that, you know, he doesn't have a full four years.

I don't know what it is, but how he's gone about this where he's obsessed with quickly putting his name on things, quickly being able to get notoriety, desk for a Nobel Peace Prize, desperate to see his name associated with some sort of legacy thing like putting you Right now, people are up in arms about the renaming of the Kennedy Center after him.

Remember he did this with the US Institute of Peace, a institute that he defunded and tried to get rid of, but instead slapped his name on it so that he could have the words peace and Donald Trump in the same sentence.

So when you look at this year in total, and you look at him with a job rating in the very low forties, rating on the economy and the load to mid thirties, it is a reminder that Donald Trump did not win the twenty twenty four election.

Kamala Harris and Joe Biden lost the twenty twenty four election, just like Joe Biden made the mistake of believing he won in twenty twenty when that was not the case.

Donald Trump lost in twenty twenty, just like Hillary Clinton lost in twenty sixteen.

All right, obviously, what do I mean by that?

Well, the voter knew who they didn't want as president, and the voters were willing to roll the dice with an unknown or roll the dice with what they thought was a known quantity the second time.

Right the first time, Hey, let's disrupt things.

We kind of know what a Hillary Clinton presidency is going to look like.

We have no idea what a Trump president's going to look like.

And we're kind of in a cranky, grumpy mood.

This economy kind of sucks.

I wish it were better.

I don't like this.

I don't like that.

I certainly don't want to return to some sort of Clinton status quo.

Okay, so you understood that.

Well, then incomes, you know, the pandemic happens.

You're like, oh my god, we're in a moment of crisis.

This guy can't make the trains run on time.

And it was just like, can you just give me a functional bureaucrat.

Joe Biden thirty plus years experience, seemed like that functional democrat to just make sure we can get some COVID shots, make sure we can, you know, keep our allies our allies, and go from there, and now we see that that was the case.

So I do I think when you see the political standing of the president, you see where Democrats look like a resurgent party, because remember, this is a party that's still very unpopular.

This is a party where swing voters don't really trust democratic leaders, don't really trust even some democratic stances, particularly on some social issues.

But they don't like the party in power, right, they don't like what they have, And so we have been voting, I would argue since twenty nine, right, the last time we voted for a president was Barack Obama in twenty oh eight.

Everything else has been more of a vote against type of election.

Twenty ten a vote against sort of Democrats expanding the size of governments.

Right, the Tea Party surge got fired up that wing of the party.

Republicans win the House, but it was a vote against, right, it was a vote against the Democrats.

Twenty twelve, many ways was not an easy re election for Barack Obama when you looked at the state of the economy, but they did a successful job saying oh, yeah, you're not going to want met Romney's economy.

You're not going to want Mett Romney deciding these policies, you're going to be better off with Barack Obama policies, and he will bet Romney policies.

And they painted him as an outsourcer, as a guy in the pocket of China, and that played well in the Midwest.

It's also the last time Democrats were able to carry Iowa, Ohio in addition to Michigan, Pennsylvania, in Wisconsin.

Not a small deal.

But again I look at twenty twelve, not necessarily as a vote for but really when you look at how he carried those Midwestern states, he was not promoting himself.

They were attack ads against Mett Romney twenty fourteen.

Another vote against election twenty sixteen, Another vote against election twenty eighteen, another vote against election right twenty twenty, another vote against election twenty twenty two is the weird one where it was mostly an electorate that wanted to put a check on Biden, but you had an awful sort of slate of Republican candidates that minimize the gains that they should have made.

And now it gave some false hope to Joe Biden.

You had a Biden White House that totally misinterpreted what happened in twenty twenty two and fully not appreciating that that was just a case of really bad, really bad Republican primary outcomes.

But it wasn't as if the country was saying no, no, no, no, no, we want more Biden cow Bell.

That was not what twenty twenty two was about.

And of course now we know twenty twenty four was a vote against elections.

So here we are again after one year of Trump where he had an opportunity and I would argue he had a you know, he you know, no honeymoon periods very long anymore in American politics.

The wear information ecosystem works.

But he had a good three months and Liberation Day in April just destroyed any hope he had.

And he's been he's not really recovered from that moment.

You know, even the good economic news that he gets, like the recent news about the GDP over the summer, when you look at the details, you realize, oh, most Americans aren't benefiting from that expanded GDP.

It is really about the investments in AI.

So look, it certainly sets up what appears to be another vote against election, which we could, you know, argue, now this will be we're going to hit what is nearly twenty years of this, right, our eighteenth year sort of our let's see here ten, twelve, fourteen, sixteen, eighteen, twenty, twenty two, twenty four be our ninth straight national election where basically the voters that decide who wins or loses, not about the two bases, but those of us that live in the messy middle.

You're going essentially to the polls with a with a vote against rather than something to vote for, and that our collective I understand some of you saying no, no, no, no, I always vote for an individual candidate.

Yeah, but it's binary choice.

Right, Ultimately we have a binary choice and that we're having our night straight election where we're we've been living in this a generation of a political recession.

And you know I would argue this, you know I can.

I can make the case this goes back really at least through even in two thousand, right, we were starting to see the first pieces of this.

So look, I want to spend a little bit of next week.

I'll have a I'm gonna have a podcast.

We're going to do another We're going to this week with also a special edition.

I'm gonna you know, if it's if you haven't heard it.

It's new to you, as I used to say an NBC.

But I'm gonna re up the Jasmine Crockett interview I did a few months ago with a little bit of a little bit of Texas introduction to it later this week.

But next week I'll have another new episode and we'll do a little bit of sort of where the two parters are going.

But I think, just briefly, what we're watching I touched on it before.

I do think we're seeing Trump's coalition.

As I've said for the last three or four months, it is the coalition is cracking.

The cracks are showing.

Now they're not just cracks anymore, right, They're chasms in some cases.

I think you're going to see more of this.

I think what we saw in Heritage this is sort of this is going to show itself up more in twenty eight than it is in twenty six.

I mean sure, I think you'll see some hints of this divide inside the right in the Texas Senate primary.

You'll see some of this perhaps in the Georgia Senate primary.

But for the most part, Republicans have avoided They're going to avoid some messy primary most of this infighting is going to continue to take place online, continue to take place in podcasts, and really start to ramp up as the presidential candidates of twenty eight start to start to rise, whether it's Cruise Pants Paul, all three of them very much sort of coming at the Mega coalition in different ways, each wanting a piece of it, but very critical to some parts of it.

Right, and how that continues to splinter, I think is going to be an animating force inside the Republican Party for the next easily for the next two years.

And I do think you see that the online MAGA world, right, this world of Eric Kirk, Megan Kelly, Ben Shapiro.

You know some of you that listen to this podcast, maybe you know these names are familiar, you may see them online.

It strikes me as this is as I said in an earlier podcast, that this is the right version of the groups.

Right, you have democratic politicians who were afraid to sort of connect with voters in the middle because they didn't want to alienate certain groups.

I think it's pretty clear the Biden White House in the first two years totally mismanaged the border, put restraints on Ali Mayorcis, and dhs from being able to do their job the way they did it may Orcus did with Jay Johnson during the second Trump second Obama term because they didn't want to offend the groups when the voters, you know, were the ones that were making this decision quote unquote, not the groups.

Right.

Well, I think now you're seeing something similar happen in magaworld, where they're where you have Republicans seem to be more concerned about what's being set online, who's saying it online, appeasing some online activists, rather than actually talking to the voters.

And I think that they are detaching themselves from the mainstream of political debate by being so consumed about what's being said at a turning Point convention or what's being said in a make podcast or any of this stuff.

And like how the I think the Democrats got consumed with appeasing progressive groups and social justice groups at the expense of alienating swing voters in the suburbs and the excerps.

I think you're seeing the same thing start to take place on the right.

But make no mistake, the Democrats also there's a chance they're having their own tea party moment.

And you know, the twenty ten midterms for Republicans were a huge success on the House side of things, but they came up shortened Senate races because of their own infighting.

They had primary challenges.

They had sort of this tea Party surge which sort of was sort of mega before we were calling it.

MAGA was challenging the establishment wing of the Republican Party, and it upset.

You know, you had the witch nominee, you know at one point, you had the bad nominee in Indiana, You had the bad nominee in Nevada against Harry Reid right now, and all those things both in the ten cycle and the twelve cycle, which held them back.

You can't help but wonder if the Democrats are going through the same thing that they have.

You know, the quote, is there a liberal tea party moment happening?

Right It's a little cliche to say it that way, but there's definitely something.

There's something happening here right The establishment of the Democratic Party doesn't have a lot of credibility with Democratic voters right now, doesn't have a lot of credibility with Democratic donors right now, and that's leading to what appears to be some terrible primaries that are probably going to nominate less electable nominees, whether it's Texas Senate, Michigan Senate, Main Senate, those would be catastrophic, right, And you could see Democrats end up in a similar scenario situation that Republicans were in twenty ten.

They win a ton of seats in the House and actually come up short in the Senate.

You know, they only win, you know, only they come up one or two seats short from winning the majority, just like Senate Republicans did in twenty ten.

So, you know, it's interesting.

Twenty twenty four, you know, sort of ended with a divided Democratic Party and a more united Republican Party than we'd seen since the beginning of the Trump era.

Twenty twenty five ends still with a divided Democratic Party, though with a unifying force that is Trump for the midterms, but the divisions are still pretty pretty out.

But you now have a pretty divided Republican Party, and that is what we're dealing with as we kick off for twenty twenty six.

There's actually a bunch of the other small things I wanted to get to here, but you know what, I've gone forty minutes here.

It's Christmas Eve, and as I'm sure some of you want to get back to your family, others of you are out for that walk, taking a few minutes with yourself going when is checking to get to his college football up day.

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There was some breaking news while I was taping my monologue that I missed, and he put out the following tweet, and he was very excited.

I was.

I was taping before the CBS heirs the Kennedy Center.

Excuse me, the Trump Kennedy Center Honors.

Right, I'm sure we'll hear plenty of jokes And in fact, Trump tweeted the following on Tuesday, on Festivus Day before Christmas Eve.

The Trump Kennedy Center Honors is what he called it.

The Trump Kennedy Center Honors will be broadcast tonight on CBS in stream on Paramount plus gen A at APM Eastern.

At the request of the board and just about everybody else in America, I am hosting the event.

Tell me what you think of my master of ceremony that's in quotes abilities If really good, would you like me to leave the presidency in order to make hosting a full time job.

We will be honoring true greats in the history of entertainment, So Wester Sloan, Michael Crawford, Kiss, George Straight, and Gloria Gainer.

So is this the soft launch for Trump's resignation strategy?

From the president?

You didn't get to kick me out.

I left on my own terms.

You know, here's the irony Donald Trump as dinner party host, Donald Trump as sort of the roast maaster, if you will, to take the place during those old Comedy Central rows.

That's kind of what America wanted out of Donald Trump.

I don't think.

I think now it's fair to say most of America did we really want this guy as president?

Or did we just want this guy to be sort of not even necessarily the MC of the Center Ring, of the three Ring circus.

We just kind of wanted to tune into him every once in a while because he was kind of amusing, and he was kind of strange, and he was kind of outlandish and sort of all of those things.

And a little bit of Donald Trump was amusing and a lot of Donald Trump is exhausting.

Right, So we know he's not totally serious about this, but you know, in his own weird way, he probably realizes even his haters are going to say yes, please go be a host, Go leave the presidency to be a host, and then he will take that and say people loved all of my hosting.

Any all right, let's get to some questions, ask Chuck.

And by the way, next week I'm gonna do I'm gonna do.

That's forty minutes of questions.

I'm gonna tackle that much of my mail bag to try to clear it out from the year.

But in the meantime, let's slip in a few.

All right, first question, it comes from Michael Dallas, Texas.

Helped you found some good barbecue in College Station.

When you're in Dallas for the Cotton Bowl.

Check up barbecue spotch Hutchins and PQ and Lodge.

I did do PQN Lodge and it is great.

That is great.

There's it is hard to find bad barbecue in Dallas.

I'm sure it exists.

But even the bad barbecue place is are good compared to almost any other city outside of Texas.

So but Peak and Lodge, I had forgotten the name of it.

Thank you for reminument.

And then he asked this.

This twenty twenty eight gets closer by the day.

As of late December twenty twenty five.

What wing of the party do you do you believe the Republican Party will lean towards Will it embrace someone from the Romney Bush era I e.

Rubio, or will it be a Trump air parent I advanced have a hold over the voter.

Keep up the good content.

Thanks Michael Dallas, Texas.

I think if you look look take the law, I just look at it.

Let's just look at sort of post World War Two history of two term presidents.

Right, Eisenhower's vice president was the Republican nominee in sixty You have lbj's vice president, Hubert Humphrey was the Democratic nominee in sixty eight.

Ronald Reagan's vice president was the nominee in nineteen eighty eight.

Now, the one time where the party literally went further away from the outgoing sitting president is arguably John McCain in Oa from George W.

Bush.

Right, there was nobody really running as the Bush air a parent.

Now, McCain was the guy that finished second to Bush in two thousand, so in some ways was following the traditional Republican pattern of who finished second get this nomination.

The next time we saw it with Bob Dole after Bush We saw it with Bush after Reagan, We saw it with Reagan after Ford.

You get my drift.

But you could argue that the nomination of McCain was a way of Republican primary voters going no, no, we're looking for something different too.

We want to we want to turn the page on on Bush.

I don't think with the with as much as I think that there is an appetite for it within a good chunk of the Republican Party.

Right.

We've seen, you know, the move Mike Pence, pretty bold move Mike Pence made to sort of stake his claim.

And I think what I still think those I still think Mike pen sees himself as a person who can bridge the old Romney Bush wing of the party with the new Trump Maga wing of the party.

I still think Penn sees himself is a better bridge to that than say a Marco Rubio.

But the most likely result is Trump's heir, Trump's VP, and something nominee.

Right it is, It is very hard to deny a sitting vice president nomination.

Hubert Humphrey wasn't denied at al Gore wasn't denied at Kamala Harrison her own odd way wasn't denied at George H.

W.

Bush wasn't tonight.

It doesn't mean they don't have to work for it.

They got a Walter Mondale even as an ex VP, right, it gets it.

It is just very difficult.

They when you think about how state parties are sort of filled with loyalists, you know you're going to have you know, it's not like, you know, look who runs the state Republican parties right now.

There's not many people from the Romney Bush wing of the party sort of in charge anymore anywhere.

So I don't know where you would get a base of support to actually win a majority of Republican primary voters to pull this off.

You'd need it, you know.

McCain pulled it off because there really wasn't a consolidated conservative to stop him.

I mean, had Romney, had Romney been a more trusted conservative in OA, right, and he just wasn't yet he was the guy still four years frankly, only two years removed from from Romney Care, only two years removed from flipping on the abortion issue as he left the Massachusetts governorship, So he wasn't.

He couldn't solidate conservatives completely.

So there the sort of the social Conservatives were splintered.

The sort of or Bush Ryan wing of the party was kind of splintered, and it gave a room for McCain.

Look, it's possible, right, but the more probable outcome is that you know, Vance gets it, and you know, look, you I'd rather be the Democrats in twenty eight than Vance, but every nomination's worth having because the Democrats could end up nominating someone who's less selectable than Jade Vance's.

But I think Vance's it's interesting that what he did over the weekend in his decision not to you know, he he will not condemn hateful rhetoric on the right.

He goes out of his way to appease or apologize.

If somebody on the left says something hateful, they should be ostracized from their job society.

When some of the are right does it, Oh, they're just kids.

Nobody should be judged by one thing they do.

He is really and this is why I think he's going to be somebody who appears to spend too much time online and not enough time in the real world.

This is a guy that needs to touch Republican grass roots, not just Republican Internet grasstops.

So I'm skeptical of him, but he has to be considered the heavy favorite, and he already has some institutional advantages that others are just not going to have, and frankly having turning point as an organization, which right now will certainly be a financial juggernaut.

We'll see how influential it can remain if it is as influential in two years as it feels like it could be now.

But he's already beginning there.

It's hard to see another wing of the party winning in twenty eight.

Now.

If Vance does not when the presidency in twenty eight, then the twenty thirty midterms are going to be something else.

Then you're going to have they may look what we're watching with the Democrats right now in twenty six, which is we're getting a preview of the fight in twenty eight between essentially fighter unite.

You know, what kind of Democratic party should Democratic nominee?

Should they have a fighter or somebody that's going to try to bring the country together or a united Right now, the grassroots of the Democratic Party wants a fighter, right and I think that you'll have some of those same Well, you'll have some of this same sort of intra party fighting and thirty especially if fans loses.

All right, next question comes from Travis and see, hey Chuck, hope you're enjoying the holiday season.

I really say, had a VID dream where I dropped a college class only to run into you as the professor.

You gave me a our time, and it's stuck with me.

Oh good, Look, I will share the syllabates.

It's called how Washington Works, so I'll give you an idea of what.

So basically, it's the class called How Washington Works.

I have two assignments.

You know, everybody that participates in this class has a full time job, all right, so we meet once a week.

This is a special us USC program.

I highly recommend it.

Essentially, instead of spending a semester abroad at USC, you spend a semester in d C.

You get a full time job.

You work nine to five, and then at six o'clock you have a class Monday through Thursday.

I am the Thursday class, right, I am the last class before the start of their weekend.

Though they do have to work Friday, usually on Fridays.

So I say that, and I am I am mindful that this is they're there to they're there to learn.

I am not beating them up over assignments, though I do make them.

There are two assignments, a midterm and a final that I do expect them to do.

But essentially what I do is I have a variety of speakers.

You know, I've I've had John Kasik, I've had Mark Short, I've had Brendan buck on the Republican side, Jake Letturner, I've had Jeff Science, I've had near a Tandent, I've had Debbie Dingle.

So I try to have a good balance of I try to.

I want to have a couple of lobbyists, including those that lobby from the right for the excuse me, from industry and those that lobby from activist groups so people can get an understanding how both types of lobbying work.

Again, I view the classes actually, what the intent is, how Washington works, and my joke is doesn't work for everybody.

It's always working for somebody, and yes, this year it's going to change and how it works.

And then I you know the assignment I do.

I do this last time, I offered a choice of books to read during the midterm that I think best and in fact I posted some of those books, but I think that best sort of helped explain why we're in the political moment we're in, So you know, I had I've assigned the McKay coppin's book on Romney and sort of that campaign from twenty twelve and sort of Romney's view of sort of how the party went from his wing of the party to the Maga wing of the party.

I think it's an incredibly insightful book on that front.

The Wolves of k Street by Brody and Luke Mullins, their brothers, their investigative reporters.

I think it's the currently the new best sort of guide to how lobbying and Washington works these days?

Where have all the Democrats gone?

Which is a roy to share a book about sort of how the Democratic coalition shifted from the Obama era to what it is today.

All of it is designed so that I think these are books that best explain how we're in the situation that the current political electorate is in.

I am not do you actually stay away from assigning books that how to quote and make it better.

I want people to understand where we are, and then their final exam is their way of making one thing work better?

What what's a way to if there's something in Washington doesn't work right, how would you change it?

Is it through the power of Congress?

Is it through the power of the executive?

Is it through outside influence?

Is it through small d democratic reforms?

So it's a mix of guest speakers who have had real world experience, because everybody that's in this class is somebody that is that is animated about public service that's a little bit different than the average person.

I would say, in my two years of teaching this class, half of them want to run for office someday, and so I want to give them speakers that have done it themselves the ups.

I mean, John Ksa came in here and said, don't run for office in your twenties, which is exactly what John Kaysack did.

He basically admitted that for the first thirty first ten years of his political career he did not have enough life experience to be a good public servant.

And he said, I didn't know that then.

You know thirty five forty years later, you know that now.

It is the tyranny of wisdom of the middle aged.

We all realize once we hit our fifties and sixties, all the mistakes we made in our twenties and thirties, and we're desperate to convince others in their twenties and thirties not to make these mistakes, and most of you never listen.

We are at peak wisdom in our fifties and sixties, which is why probably all of our presidents should be in their fifties and sixties, and we shouldn't let anybody seventy plus be president.

That is, that's my age cutoff on there, because I do think peak wisdom is somewhere in your fifties and sixties.

And perhaps I say that out of necessity since I'm in my mid fifties.

But that is and discussing the current events, I always spend about It's a three hour class, so I spent about the first twenty or thirty minutes just discussing what happened that week and sort of I also explained the new cycle a little bit.

But they take a separate media class.

Mine is very much more of how the institutions within Washington wor was, with a little bit of the influence of the press.

But they have a separate class on that is that is fully devoted, fully devoted to that.

So I hope that gave you an idea of what class with me.

So come on over to USC Dornsife.

But it's anybody is eligible for this class if you take if you get involved in this DC program.

So there you go.

All right, next question, U.

I think I'm gonna make this the last question because I went long on that other one.

I'm gonna do three more.

These are all good because I can be quick.

All right.

First one comes from Dan Pinehurst, North Carolina.

Ah, I did a Pinehurst Boys trip once.

I loved it.

I loved it.

We did three courses.

It was amazing.

I don't think I've golf since then, but it was awesome.

Heinherst, what a great pace, Lieutenant Colonel retired Lieutenant Colonel Dan.

Lucky you that Pinehurst golf courses are your backyard, and he goes, hey, I really enjoyed your take on how we mismanaged the end of history after the fall of the Soviet Union.

Made me wonder how might things have played out differently At Bush forty wanted one a second term, with the administration's strong national security team and less political pressure to catch in the peace dividend.

Could a Marshall Plan style approach for Russia and Eastern Europe have worked better than the short term thinking we saw in the nineties.

Thanks for all the great programming, and go Clemson this weekend.

Yeah, it's a it's a good matchup on paper.

You're like, boy, that would be a better game, right, I think it's Clemson Penn State.

Be better if it were game one of the year and my recalibrated schedule of making all the bowl games happen actually as preseason game one of the following season.

You know, that's an interesting one.

If on George H.

W.

Bush, I think you're right.

I think it would have been a very foreign policy have second term where Bill Clinton won on domestic issue, so he did make it all that so it you know, in some ways though I don't think you know, remember Clinton kept a lot he kept Colin Powell's national security advisor.

No excuse me as chairman of the Joint Chiefs.

My mistake there and in and in some ways even though he had democratic you know, players from the foreign policy community, they were really of the Cold War uniparty, if you will, right, Warren Christopher, I would argue was that Tony Lake and then later Sandy Berger On the national security side, I would argue, was that Al Gore as a vice president.

Remember he was basically the Washington hand for for the inexperienced Arkansas in Bill Clinton.

So, I you know, I don't want to I don't know if our foreign policy would have changed that much, but I do agree with you the emphasis might have been different.

There may have been a more methodical approach that Bush and Baker would have had.

I mean, essentially, what you're saying is, what if Jim Baker had been running things here right in helping democracy in Eastern Europe.

Maybe it's not a it's it's an interesting what if that I'd like to put a little more of my own efforts into.

I need to familiar I need to go back.

And there's a great Jim Baker memoir not a memoir, excuse me, a biography that was written by my friends Peter Baker and Susan Glasser.

It had some cooperation from Baker.

It is a really look.

I think Jim Baker's Jim Baker and Leon Panetta are probably the two great equally the greatest Republican and greatest democratic public servants that weren't the best politicians, right.

I think Bakker ran and lost a state ag race in Texas.

Lean Panetta obviously was a member of Congress, wanted to run for governor, never could find a way to do it.

But boy, they were really good at they they they were They had a politician's eye with a with sort of CEO capabilities, kind of like Cheney, you know, I mean, they knew how not all all politicians want to run an institution, know how to actually have employees.

You get the sense of Panetta and Baker did, and this is why they were sort of the super staffers of their era.

One one on the D side, one on the R side.

But I almost needed we'd want to go back and reread the Baker books, both his and then the one he cooperated with with Glassner uh And and Peter Baker.

No relation by the way, to sort of answer that question fully.

But but there's no doubt they're needed.

We we we.

It is clear we rushed through the democratization of the former Soviet republ Blootz and really screwed and it was really divving up industry.

Is ended up creating the oligarchs and in that sense, I think you could say we had a hand in creating the oligarchy that now essentially runs too much of Russia and much of and many of the former Soviet republics on that front.

So great question.

Next one today comes from Gavin Brady.

Loved your deep dive and how post World War One decisions still shape global politics today.

Such an overlook part of history.

The way Western powers readrew borders in the Middle East continues to have serious repercussions, yet it's barely discussed.

You've talked a lot about media decline, but how do we address the erosion of historical education and understanding?

It feels essential for making sense of modern challenges.

Gavin Brady, Brisbane, Australia.

This is my frustration, right we look, I imagine you know Australia, world history is certainly taught through the prism of Australia, just like world history is taught through the prism of America in American schools, et cetera.

But I think we do There's no doubt we have done a poor We don't teach, we don't think about creating historical curriculums through the prism of today's issues.

Right, So if you were to create a curriculum on history, and I almost wonder if there's a class to be made which is current the history of current events.

Okay, I need to come up with a better class of that.

But so that Okay, the Middle East is in the news, let's teach history of the Middle East to understand that, right, And it seems like a simple thing to do.

Here's the context, uh, and we go, But that's really what's missing in our curriculum.

We probably would be in this and I think this is what's look the politicizing of of of education curriculums, particularly in middle schools and high schools, is a real problem when everybody wants their point of view reinforced in how history is taught, rather than just getting people more knowledgeable.

I mean, when you look at how many times we've been drawn into a hot conflict in the Middle East, and how little in high school we spend in history classes teaching how World War One created this mess in the fall of the Ottoman Empire, it seems to be kind of messed up when we you know, today sixteen and seventeen year olds may end up fighting a war in the Middle East.

May end up fighting a war in China.

What do we teach about Taiwan?

What do we teach about the rise of communist China?

You know, we're teroh you want to talk about you know, I complain about our lack of of how we just gloss over World War One and just teach it through the prison of War War two?

What kind of thing about your own For those of you, ask yourself how well you feel like you were educated about China?

Say pre mao, okay, And even then, you know, we we we do a little bit of mao, right, but it's really quickly there's a Nixon goes to China, YadA, YadA, YadA.

We kind of kind of fight China a little bit during the Korean War.

There's some normalization with then chaoping, YadA, YadA YadA.

Then there's the Olympics, and you know, we don't really teach the history of China and Asia in general.

And yet I could argue the twenty first you know, if the twentieth century was all about, uh, sort of the re it was all about sort of the I guess you could call it the dish, the de empiring of Europe, right, Europe was sort of nothing but a series of sort of of empires trying to control it in some form or another.

And the twentieth century was sort of an attempt to put an end to that, right, and it's sort of and it did.

I think the twenty first century is going to be all about sort of reshaping the power structures in Asia, and yet our education system does very little in making sure we're fairly informed about the history of Asian civilizations, of Asian governments of China in particular.

So yeah, we need to think about our history.

Curriculums should be tied to active current events, you know, and sort of within a ten year period in order because frankly, if students, I know, I got more animated about something, if I learned something and then I saw something related to it in the paper or you related to it in the current events, it actually sunk in more.

So it would just be better teaching.

Look, the best teachers figure this out.

Now.

I remember having a great government teacher who was who did this really well.

But the best teachers figure that out, all right, last question for today before I get to my sports viewing guide slash conversation starters for you, per your suggestion, I watched Death by Lightning.

I enjoyed it, but found it too short.

So I read the book.

I kept rolling my eyes at how often it mentioned national unity around Garfield.

Made me sad to realize, I can't imagine that kind of unity today.

Was the country really that united in grief and anger over his assassination?

Or did the author take some license loving the podcast?

So just a reminder there are other sports besides college football.

In baseball, Melanie, I hear you, and I've got plenty of baseball takes.

They're coming.

This is just the heart of college football season.

Trust me.

Pictures and catchers report, what do we act?

Like?

Less than ten weeks?

So I'm there, right, pictures and catchers are I think we're like eight weeks away?

I got you, Melanie, don't worry.

So can I Can I recommend another book that I think would because I, you know, do I think there was definitely real unity around Garfield?

Because think about this?

Okay, what I think?

What?

What the what?

The movie did a terrible with the mini series terrible.

I'm too strong.

I just I was glad it was done, and it's so disappointed in the execution.

Okay, because I thought it was short, gave short shrift to too many things.

But there were two aspects to the story that the Death by Lightning, as the mini series just never really did a good job of showcasing.

One was the fact that he gets shot, he lives for months.

So that's why there was this sort of national think about it.

Okay, there was.

This was what's the latest on the president?

You know, is he running the country or not?

Like, how does it?

So there was it did become a national obsession.

And while he's still alive, we have the trial of Gauteau, and the trial was the first trial of the century that everybody paid attention to and in d C.

Just to get a ticket to attend the trial was like a was a big deal in society.

People wanted to be able to say, oh, I was at the Gaito trial today, I saw him go crazy again today.

I don't think it captured sort of that aspect of it.

So it I think in the book and sort of Destiny of the Republic, which is what Death by Lightning's based on.

Technically, this other Garfield book is called Dark Horse, written by a Senate staffer some twenty five years ago, but very you know, I like the more detail it goes into the Republican Convention gives you a lot more on that, which is a political junkie.

I just love and I do always want to remind people, you know this, the mythology that just anybody could become the nominee at a convention is the Garfield story.

And it was sort of because it happened once it became the myth that sort of made politic conventions.

We've all dreamed of a convention taking over the process, when only time that happened was in the eighteen eighty Chicago Republican Convention.

So I think the book does a good job of that, But I do think the series gave short shrift to the fact that this was a that he was He was alive for months, and it was due to poor medical treatment that he died.

Right, The bullet didn't kill him, poor medical treatment killed him.

And then the second thing was the the circus that was the Godeau trial itself, and I think it didn't necessarily capture that what the public was feeling.

But there's a reason Chester Arthur flips.

There's a reason Chester Arthur right.

And oh, by the way, the public blamed Arthur at first as part of you know, sort of this that this was all due to Roscoll, Conkling and all of that.

So yeah, let's just say that I am That's why I was disappointed it because I think two of the more fascinating parts of it.

Look at they did an okay job at the convention, and they allowed that process to play out.

I want to I got I'm obsessed with I'm going to end with this here.

I'm obsessed with Pluribis.

And so during my during this long car trip I just took last week, I listened to a whole bunch of sort of companion Pluribis podcasts, not some with the official podcast, but but some on our friends the Ringer.

Love those guys.

The watch, Uh, their enthusiasm is a lot of fun.

And what what Vince Gilligan is known for is showing you methodical process.

Right, Like, if you watch Pluribus, every time she calls the phone spoiler lotle Art and she's calling you know, the hive mind for stuff in the show, you have to hear the entire message tape, recorded message play over and over.

Right.

He wants to show that process.

He doesn't give you short shrift.

He doesn't speed through it.

He wants you to absorb the process of living.

Having every time they have a conversation, she has to listen to that recording over and over again, and you have to do it too.

I think what Death by Lightning didn't do is it was so rushed in trying to put everything that should have been an eight to ten episode mini series into four episodes.

Because the folks that I don't know this, but I'm going to have an educated guest.

Folks at Netflix didn't think Garfield was going to be that interesting to people.

That he was not a known character, Guiteau was not a known assassin, all of those things.

So they said, let's do this it as an experiment.

It did well, and it shows it could have done eight not for they took eight to ten episodes of content and shoved it into four, and they rushed things.

They didn't show the process, show me the trial, show more of the medical care, show more of the convention.

That's what Vince Gilligan would have done with the content, and that's not what was done here.

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All right, let me get to a little bit of my weekend, of my week ahead.

In college football, we have no college football play.

I will be I will be uploading two more more drops before we get to the Miami Ohouse Skate game on December thirty first, so I will have a lot more to say about that game, I am.

What's funny is that, you know, we fans, we never forget the slights against teams.

We play like you know, Catholics versus Convicts.

When it comes to Notre Dame, we'll shoot.

That happened in nineteen eighty eight.

That's over thirty years ago, right, almost forty years ago.

Now on that front, I brought up the Penn State game.

I think that you know my frustration back during that national title game.

Well, that happened in nineteen eighty six, Okay, and now we have Miami winning eleven games this year.

It's the first time that's happened since before my daughter was born, and she's twenty one years old, so you know this, you know, So my bitterness about Ohio State feels very recent.

My bitterness about the Big twelve official who threw the unnecessary flag that handed Jim Tressel the controversial national time that year.

Terry Porter, is a name I'll never forget.

I'm sorry, mister Porter.

If you're a listener, you're you're you're probably tired of us Miami fans harassing you by name.

Let's just say be glad that that that the the bad flag didn't happen in the social media era, and that that had happened back in January of two thousand and three.

So, you know, Miami Ohio State is a quote unquote rivalry just lives in the minds of Miami fans twenty five years ago who were alive back then.

It is not with today's Miami fans even you know.

I have to explain it to my daughter, you know, and show it.

Okay, that's why it's not you know, it's it's not inherent on that front.

So, but needless to say, I'll have some interesting I'll have more to say about that game.

But look, we're there are a few things that I actually wanted to bring up in the sport world that are off the field that I think are worth having a conversation about.

First of all, are we suddenly moving?

You know?

One of the things in sports stadium developments was we've always go back and forth we go, and you can sort of see it in the landscape if you go to older major metropolitan areas.

Right.

So, when I first moved to Washington, all of the basketball games and hockey games were played in the suburbs.

It was called the Capital Center.

It was in Landover, Maryland.

And back then you had arenas in suburban locations because there was this movement out of the cities and the rise of the suburbs.

So sports owners thought they wanted to be where the people lived at night, not necessarily where the people worked in the day.

Well, then, of course, another generation happens, and then there's a movement to bring all of the arenas and football stadium back into cities, right, And we had this movement in the nineties and in the aughts where everything was being brought back into the cities.

Well, in Washington, we're still trying to bring a stadium back into the cities, but we're if you've noticed, we are kind of in a period now where there is as much movement out of cities again as there is in sports stadiums coming into the cities.

The first of this was Atlanta, where they decided they don't play in Atlanta anymore.

They play in Cobb County, right, They left the city of Atlanta, and it's weird.

It bums me that baseball is there, but it turns out it was the right business decision.

They did this based on where were the majority of their fan base, and they decided it was Cob County and it worked.

You've got certainly Dallas, all right, You've got the hockey and basketball are in downtown Dallas, but the baseball and football are in the suburbs, and they continue to be in the suburbs.

But then again, the sort of the Dallas metroplex.

Is there a suburb anymore?

Or is it just a series of cities.

Arlington is growing like crazy, Frisco and Denton is growing like crazy.

So it may be that those are forward looking things, but it is notable to me if the Chiefs made the decision to leave Kansas City, Missouri, and they're going to go to Kansas City, Kansas, which means I don't know how many of their fans are going to do that, but I'm guessing they got a better deal from Kansas to develop in Kansas than in Kansas City, Missouri.

You've got the Chicago Bears threatening to move to another state and to pull what the Washington then Redskins now commanders did by moving from the district to the suburbs.

Now they want to go back to the district because that's where their fans wanted them to be.

Meanwhile, the Bears, who have this incredible set up Soldier Field, in some ways is in the perfect location in a city on the lake.

I think it is should be a tremendous home field advantage.

Obviously, they want more luxury boxes, they want to make more money out of these things.

But now they're talking about moving into Indiana, to Northwest Indiana.

Is this really a good idea?

Do you really want all of this there?

This is a case where I bring this up because I think the NFL as a league does not get involved enough in these stadium decisions.

Right.

The most egregious thing that they let happen.

That I still think is a stain on the NFL is letting the Chargers leave San Diego.

I mean, we now have a zombie franchise in LA.

There is nobody that cares about the Chargers in LA.

Unfortunately, I wish there were more.

I know there's a handful of fans.

Don't get me wrong, all five LA Chargers fans my apologies, but the San Diego fan base was tremendous.

All Right, you had an owner that had no trust with the community, and you have a community that didn't believe in taxpayer funding the stadiums.

Okay, Well, then the NFL have stepped in what's in the best interest of the NFL keeping their fan base in San Diego, not diluting this mess in LA.

But instead, what did they really want, Well, they wanted to help an owner who couldn't afford a stadium.

He was building uh in so far and he wanted a second tenant in order to be able to have this magnificent stadium.

So the NFL prioritized having this incredible stadium.

God love it so FI.

It's a beautiful stadium.

It's a great, you know, host stadium for super Bowls, for National title games, for Taylor Swift concerts, you name it.

But without the guarantee of a second tenant, it was going to make it really hard for the owner to make that work.

And so and so the the NFL prioritized sort of an owner's needs over what was in the best interests of the fans.

And I be really careful here, NFL letting the If the Bears end up moving to Indiana, I would argue the move out of the Washington to Maryland was a mistake and that was a Jack can Cook.

Can't blame that one on Dan Schneider, all right, that was a Jack can Cook situation that turned out to be a bad business decision.

Not just a bad fan decision, but bad fan decisions are bad business decisions.

And in this case, I think the NFL needs to be smarter.

Look, I know the only way owners can make money outside of the socialistic enterprise that is the National Football League, where you sort of have a salary cap and use all the shared revenue, et cetera.

Right that the only the differentiator for individual owners are the luxury boxes, are the season tickets, is the stadium experience, is parking, is concessions, et cetera.

And I get that, but at the end of the day, the owners, to me are not you know, these are not small businessmen.

These are not the many of them are not the best in Brice when it comes to business decisions, and they're not always looking out for the interest of the NFL or the interests of the NFL fan base, and the league I think needs to get more involved in these stadium decisions because these are NFL facilities as well as team facilities.

And considering you are a socialistic enterprise, this is not a free market system.

It just isn't.

Don't pretend it is every once in a while when it comes to stadium development, and I do think the NFL, you know, needs to preserve you know, it's it's kind of embarrassing that the New York teams don't play in New York.

I think it would be embarrassing that the Chicago team didn't play in Chicago.

And is it going to matter?

Maybe in the grand scheme of things, maybe it doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things, but you sort of tear away at the fabric and at the culture of a town, and so you know, whether it's you know, making sure that Kansas City move isn't going to alienate a big chunk of the fan base, making sure the Bears going to Gary, Indiana isn't going to alienate the fan base, making sure that you don't abandon and basically lose out on a bunch of fans in San Diego that should still be its own fan.

I mean, you have the Chargers are having a tremendous season and no one cares right, and you know, look, you barely can get Angelina's to care that much about the Rams.

But at least the Rams have some sort of identity and history in LA.

And I do think I've got friends in LA whose kids have adopted the Rams.

You have not seen the same adoption of the Chargers.

Look, the Clippers shouldn't be in LA sharing a market with the Lakers.

They should also probably be in San Diego, and the Chargers shouldn't be in that market because you realize the Chargers are the third team in that market.

The Rams are one, The Raiders in Las Vegas are two because of their old ties to Los Angeles when they're good.

USC is three, and then you finally get to the the LA Chargers.

But That is something that needs to go in there very quickly.

Your weekend guide to viewing and conversations you want to have to change to look like you're on top of things in the sports world.

One thing you can mock and make fun of is how Netflix did a terrible job of guessing which games would be relevant uh and which which ones, which ones weren't.

So other than gamblers, there really is no reason to watch the Christmas games.

Our Christmas get Cowboys Commanders, totally meaningless Commanders.

Maybe with a third string quarterback, we won't even have Thailand Tyler Hennike Heinike to to root for or enjoy.

Lions Vikings.

Lions need a lot of help.

They got to win two games and hope the Packers lose two games on that front.

In Broncos Chiefs, Broncos are playing for a piece of the one seed and they should annihilate the Chiefs given the Chiefs are now going to be on a third string quarterback on this front, So you know what that means.

It means and I can't believe I'm saying this, but the Christmas Day NBA games are more watchable than the Christmas Day NFL games.

Look the NFL tried to basically bully the NBA, and it really did ruin NBA last year, the NBA Christmas Day games last year.

But guess what karma is a you know what?

And the NFL thought, we're putting on the Cowboys and Patrick Mahomes, we're gonna be great.

Whoops, not so much, right, not so fast.

So instead you get what I think is that I'll give you three games.

All.

Look, the five games are good, but I would argue three stand apart, and you could say four of the five are worth watching.

But they're even opening game Cavs Nicks.

I love watching Jalen Brunson play basketball, and if you haven't seen him play this year, this isn't a waste your time.

But the best game is the one, hopefully that starts before you eat your Christmas dinner, and that is Spurs Thunder Wemby Baby, the best team in the league against the best player in the league or the most unstoppable player in the league.

I don't know if he's the best yet, but my god, when it is, just he does things you don't see other ordinary human beings do.

He's the alien, right, He's the one of one whatever you want to call it.

It is amazing.

Go watch some Wemby.

If you haven't been a fan of the NBA, watch Wemby.

This is the future Oklahoma City as a team and Wemby as an individual.

This is the future of basketball being played on heights.

We've never seen the game played.

Go watch it.

The next game Mavericks Warriors.

You get to see a little bit of Cooper Fly.

This dude is for real, a lot of fun to watch.

Plus you get Steph Curry, so you get old and new, young and old.

Steph Curry I think technically old enough to beat Cooper Flag's father, that's the age difference between the two.

But it was like, you know, getting to watch the brief period.

We got to watch the overlap between Kobe and Lebron.

You get to see this overlap between Cooper Flag and Steph Curry.

Rockets Lakers.

Hey, it's Luca versus the All Star team that is that is the Rockets with Kevin Durant and all these new young players that are absolutely worth watching on that front.

And then the nightcap is Nuggets Timberwolves, and there's nobody that There are two people I really enjoy watching play basketball these days.

One is Victor One Banyama and the other is NICOLEA Jokic and Nuggets Timberwolves.

And I'm a I've got a soft spot for Anthony Edwards, so I think this is a day and I'm normally you don't hear me as a big proponent of regular season NBA, but good for the NBA.

This is a great showcase.

The NFL blew it thought they were showcasing some of their some of their best teams and some of their most marketable teams, and it imploded in their face.

They get that as far as bulls over the next few days that are worth you disrupting things.

Take a look at the Cal Hawaii game.

Hawaii's been sneaky good this year.

It's not going to look good for the ACC, but this will be a semi home game for Hawaii.

That'll be a fascinating fun day after Christmas.

I'm gonna be honest, none of the games are worth watching.

There's no If you're saying I've got to watch college football the day after Christmas on the twenty six, you're either an alum of Central Michigan in Northwestern that's the noon game.

You're an alum of Minnesota New Mexico, although watching New Mexico beat Minnesota would be a lot of fun seeing the Big Ten lose to a team like New Mexico.

And then there's you know, the Fighting pit Bulls aka F in its first Bowl game in a while playing the football program that was created by a former University MIMI head coach, Larry Coker UT San Antonio.

But let's be honest, none of those are worth it.

I will say this.

The Saturday games are a lot of fun.

You've got Penn State Clemson would be a lot more fun as a meaningful game, but still not a bad game that's going to be played in Yankee Stadium.

You've got Georgia Tech BYU.

This should be Notre Dame BYU, but we're going to get Notre Dame BYU is a series which, by the way, what a great series the Mormons versus the Catholics, Right, that'll be a lot of fun.

Sorry, USC that you guys are afraid of your playing nine Big Ten games and you don't want to play Notre Dame every year, God bless you, But you know what, BYU.

Notre Dame feels like a pretty good series.

But BYU.

Georgia Tech isn't a bad second place, and I think both teams will care never bet on the grown ass men of BYU.

Remember they're all in their early twenties because they've all done their missions.

So there's you don't have the misspent youth if you will.

And then the other game that I'm mildly interested in is whoever's suiting up for LSU playing the Houston Cougars.

Houston's a school that I have a feeling is only going to become more of a player in college athletics.

They already are in college basketball.

There's real money down there at that campus.

There's real enthusiasm, it's a growing alumni base.

I just have a feeling Houston has a chance to be to be interesting there.

So there's your weekend guide, a little bit of a few little nuggets to have fun conversations with about sports, to make it look like you have an athletic subscription.

But be careful.

Trying to use some of these games is an excuse to to avoid relatives, because honestly, there's the NBA is really the only thing that's worth worth saying.

Hey, let's set let's let's set the snacks down a minute and let's check this out.

So enjoy, enjoy your holiday.

Like I said, I will have one more feed drop this week.

It's sort of a repackage of an interview I do with Jasmine Crockett, but I do have some new information at the top of that, so it is worth your time there.

And with that I will I'll see you next week after the Christmas holidays.

I hope you have a safe, happy and healthy long Reachain