0:03

Hello there, it's Chuck Todd, another episode

0:05

of the Chuck Todd cast, got

0:07

a interesting and fun one for

0:09

you today, fun interview with Maritza

0:11

Giorgio and John Tester. Maritz is

0:13

a long-time journalist based out of

0:15

Montana and she and John Tester

0:17

started their own podcast earlier this

0:19

year as she jokes. They both

0:21

were looking for work after the

0:24

election and both being Montana and

0:26

knowing each other for a while.

0:28

They've started a fascinating new podcast.

0:30

It tries to, you know. Take

0:32

advantage of the fact that too

0:34

much of political coverage is based out

0:36

of DC or New York and not

0:39

enough everywhere else. Well, they're both based

0:41

in Montana, different parts of Montana, as

0:43

you'll learn. But it allowed for a

0:46

fascinating conversation on the future of independent

0:48

media, the future of the democracy, the

0:50

future of the Democratic Party, given we

0:52

have John Tester there. So I think

0:55

you're going to enjoy the conversation, so

0:57

I urge you to stick around. But

0:59

look, I am coming to you, middle

1:02

of the week here. Washington is beginning

1:04

this weird situation over

1:06

the next 72 hours. It becomes,

1:08

some people call it nerd

1:11

prom. It's White House correspondence

1:13

weekend. There's all sorts of

1:16

people coming to town, all

1:18

sorts of entities, throwing parties.

1:20

So one thing is for sure,

1:22

gossip will be sort of lots

1:25

of gossip out there. But I'm not

1:27

here to tell you about the White

1:29

House correspondent's gossip. I'll just tell you

1:31

this about the dinner. The older I

1:33

get, the less interested I am in

1:35

the dinner. Of course, when you're young

1:37

and new to Washington, you can't wait

1:39

to get invited to these parties, and

1:41

you're always trying to sneak in. And

1:43

then, of course, you hit a certain

1:45

age that literally, it's like the old, I

1:47

think it's an old, I want to say, it's a

1:50

groucho marks expression. I don't know if it is or

1:52

not, but it's something like, if you're inviting me to

1:54

the party, it must not be good anymore. And it's

1:56

like, now that I'm invited to these things, you don't

1:58

want to go when you couldn't. be invited, you

2:00

couldn't wait to go. It kind

2:03

of is the attitude I have.

2:05

And I think it's, we've discussed

2:07

this, I don't, you guys, hopefully,

2:09

remember the conversation Terrapal Mary and

2:11

I had about this and just

2:13

sort of how this whole weekend

2:15

has gotten messed up in so

2:17

many ways. But it is worth noting that

2:20

you're going to see, so you'll probably

2:22

see a lot of... one source gossip

2:24

making the rounds over the next 72

2:26

hours about this or that. But I

2:28

want to kick things off today with

2:30

sort of a bit of a report

2:32

card for Donald Trump because the first

2:34

decent poll, and let me just put

2:36

this out there, decent poll, meaning for

2:38

me, it means it's a poll that

2:41

I'm going to care about the cross

2:43

tabs and care about. The Pew Research

2:45

Center. brought out there. They're the first

2:47

one out of the gates, at least

2:49

the first legitimate poster out of the

2:51

gates, with a 100-day check-in. Yes, we're

2:53

not quite at 100 days, but they're

2:56

essentially there. It's coming up, and

2:58

this will be the first of

3:00

a lot of polls. The big

3:02

headline is that Donald Trump's already

3:04

dropped from the start of his

3:06

presidency. They have been at 47

3:08

percent. So that's a pretty low

3:10

approval. It's a lower approval rating

3:12

than any president at this point

3:14

in time in their term since

3:17

they've been polling. Bill Clinton was

3:19

close to being this low. He

3:21

had a really rough start. He's

3:23

one of those. His approval rating

3:25

got better as his first term

3:27

went along and got stronger going

3:29

into the second term until he

3:31

ran into a personal scandal. The

3:33

only person that he's rivaling right

3:36

now, Donald Trump that is with

3:38

a low... first hundred days approval

3:40

rating as himself. Essentially in 2017

3:43

he sat there and had a

3:45

first a lower a few things about

3:47

the cross tabs what you see in

3:49

this poll. I'm not surprised by the

3:51

40 I think I predicted that I

3:54

don't expect him to get north of

3:56

45 for the rest of his term

3:58

barring some unforeseen event. that gets people

4:00

to rally around him. Because when

4:02

you look at the cross tabs

4:04

of this poll, all of the,

4:06

you know, he's got, still got

4:08

strong support among his voters. And

4:10

that's always important. But he's already

4:13

lost independence and he certainly has

4:15

lost Democrats. And in fact, this is

4:17

a number that I find fascinating

4:19

at an important point here. Trump's

4:21

job performance among those who did

4:23

not vote in 2024. We know

4:25

a lot of people didn't want

4:27

to vote for either candidate. We

4:29

heard about it from the voters.

4:32

So people that self-identified is not

4:34

voting in 2024. Well, in February,

4:36

he had an approval rating of

4:38

44% among those voters. So a

4:40

little bit below where he was,

4:42

but within a reasonable, this is

4:44

clear, basically polarized view. Now,

4:47

among non-voters, 31%. Now look you

4:49

may say well who cares about

4:51

non-voters, but in many ways they're

4:53

a leading indicator, right? This is

4:55

sort of the non-voters usually are

4:57

also fairly low information, meaning they're

4:59

just focused on their lives. They're

5:01

not paying a lot of attention

5:04

to politics. So whatever is seeping

5:06

into non-voters is super negative. Or

5:08

he wouldn't be sitting at this

5:10

horrendous 31%. It tells you if

5:12

he doesn't change course soon, and

5:14

if the perception of the economy

5:16

doesn't improve soon, he's going to

5:18

look at a job approval rating

5:20

that's going to be sitting in.

5:22

I think I said this before,

5:24

he's got a floor of about

5:26

35%. hard for any president to

5:28

drop below 35% you do usually

5:31

have a fairly strong base of

5:33

supporters that can keep you there

5:35

but it is he's not in

5:37

a great place basically the only

5:39

issue where there's high confidence in

5:41

his way of doing things as

5:43

immigration and if you're just judging

5:45

his immigration policy by are people

5:47

coming over the border or not well

5:49

There are plenty of people out there

5:51

that aren't going to question the methods

5:53

that their ends justify the means voters.

5:55

And so they're looking at it and

5:58

they say, okay, he was going to.

6:00

tighten up the border and he's

6:02

tightened up the border. But that's

6:04

really about it. Everything else is

6:06

pretty negative on this front and

6:09

it's a it's a tough spot

6:11

for him to be from and

6:13

it explains why he's trying frankly

6:15

so desperately you know he's in

6:18

this trap now with his tariff

6:20

plan. He in order for his long-term

6:22

goal to work he's got to

6:24

essentially be able to handle a

6:26

little bit of political pain short

6:29

term and he's got to convince

6:31

the country that that's worth it.

6:33

I've gone through this before. He's

6:35

got ideas that the public wants

6:37

him to pursue. The execution of

6:39

those ideas have been a complete

6:41

disaster. This is why I believe,

6:43

and I've said it twice this

6:45

week, and I'll say it again,

6:47

the biggest political problem he has

6:50

is competency or a lack thereof.

6:52

It's an incompetency issue. when it

6:54

comes to how he implemented this

6:56

tariff thing and now he's going

6:58

back and forth. He's now negotiating

7:00

against himself. First it's get tough

7:02

on China, make them come to

7:04

the table. Now he's already backing

7:06

away from those sort of those

7:08

threats. All of that just creates

7:10

this massive uncertainty and that's you

7:12

see this in these poll numbers.

7:14

His confidence in the economy is

7:17

dropping and it is something that

7:19

is dropping rapidly because this was

7:21

a core competency of him. This

7:23

is why voters who were reluctant

7:25

to support him went ahead and

7:27

did it because they said, you know

7:29

what, his economy was better

7:31

than Biden's economy. And that's

7:33

what they remember. And if he

7:35

doesn't figure out, and so he's sitting

7:38

there now trying to manage the perception

7:40

of the economy as if it's a

7:42

political problem, right? So, oh my God,

7:44

I need the markets to take off.

7:46

Okay, I'm not firing Powell. I never

7:48

even thought of firing Powell. All right,

7:50

let's, let's send the message, let's have

7:52

the Treasury Secretary, send the message that,

7:54

hey, we know we've got to cut

7:56

a deal with China, we're not, we

7:58

know this is unsustainable, unsustainable, to the big

8:01

investors. But that doesn't, you

8:03

know, this is, you don't

8:05

have companies sitting there going,

8:07

oh, I feel certain, this is what the

8:09

policy is going to be, so

8:11

maybe I will start to think

8:13

about how to rebuild my

8:15

supply chain with an American

8:18

first, America first mindset. But

8:20

when you see the president

8:22

get tough, back off, change his mind,

8:24

do this on a whim, do that

8:26

on a whim. That's not certainty.

8:29

And at this point, you figure out,

8:31

all right, I think we're just going

8:33

to stay paralyzed and see if we

8:35

can make it through this term and

8:38

then worry about certainty down the road.

8:40

So look, I think this is the

8:42

trappie's end. In order to accomplish

8:44

what he wants to accomplish with

8:47

trade, if it's really about

8:49

bringing manufacturing to America, then

8:51

he's got to be able

8:53

to sustain essentially a rough

8:56

transition. But he doesn't have, he

8:58

knows he doesn't really have the

9:00

political capital to do that and

9:02

somehow convince Congress to pass his

9:04

tax cut and somehow to do

9:06

these other things. So he's in

9:08

a tough spot, the voters are

9:10

noticing, and like I said, to

9:12

me, the real canary in the

9:14

coal mine is how non-voters perceive

9:16

him. That doesn't mean those people

9:18

are going to show up to the polls.

9:21

But what it tells you is what has

9:23

made it through to low information.

9:25

voters to people that aren't tuning in

9:28

low information doesn't mean by the way

9:30

you hear expressions like that that doesn't

9:32

mean dumb voters or anything means busy

9:34

people okay low information about politics sometimes

9:36

following politics is a luxury trust me

9:39

I know this and I appreciate you

9:41

downloading and listening and maintaining by the

9:43

way like and subscribe to all your

9:45

friends are like and subscribe did I

9:47

tell you about liking and subscribing but

9:50

it just what it tells me

9:52

is people that are living their

9:54

own lives what they're hearing what

9:56

they're feeling and what they're seeing

9:58

is not good. Like I said... That

10:00

31 percent, that's sort of, I'd look at

10:02

it as sort of, that's the worst case

10:04

scenario. Like I said, I still think his

10:07

base is in a place that would keep

10:09

him at least in the mid-30s, but he's

10:11

in a tough spot. But there's one more

10:13

wrinkle to this poll that I think is

10:16

quite important. And that wrinkle is, which

10:18

party has a higher favorable rating right

10:20

now? The Republican Party or

10:22

the Democratic Party. Now I just

10:24

gave you a litany of things.

10:26

Everything he's touching has a majority

10:28

of voters not liking what he's

10:30

doing. Even, frankly, on immigration, although

10:33

that's basically 50-50. But on everything else,

10:35

people think the cuts are too much,

10:37

too willy-nilly, the doge cuts, they don't

10:39

like his foreign policy. This is a,

10:41

you know, the country is still more

10:43

in favor of Ukraine than Russia,

10:45

unlike where the president is

10:47

sitting right now in these,

10:49

on trying to strong-arm Ukraine.

10:51

His economic policies are unpopular

10:53

policies are unpopular. So

10:56

you'd think this would bleed into

10:58

the Republican Party? It doesn't. The

11:00

Republican Party still at now has

11:02

a higher favorable rating than the Democratic

11:04

Party. So all of this disaster

11:06

that has really been, and this

11:09

is arguably as bad of a

11:11

first hundred days, Bill Clinton had

11:13

a pretty bad first hundred days,

11:15

but this is a much worse first

11:17

hundred days, because it was self-inflicted.

11:19

Bill Clinton had a plan, the

11:21

plane didn't go well. This doesn't

11:23

feel like this team had a plan.

11:25

They had a plan when it came

11:27

to cutting the government. They had a

11:29

plan when it came to going after

11:32

the, you know, doing the grievance thing,

11:34

going after the law firms, going after

11:36

the universities, trying to go after the

11:38

media. So they had all these sort

11:40

of what I'd call retribution plans, but

11:42

to actually run the country outside

11:45

of homeland security and the border,

11:47

that doesn't look like they really

11:49

know what they're doing at the Pentagon.

11:51

at the State Department. I mean, the way

11:54

they cut AID was a mess. Nobody

11:56

is saying that these things. And this

11:58

is, so this is the fascinating. thing

12:00

here that I think plays itself

12:02

into this the poll results of

12:04

the two parties is that for

12:06

as unhappy and as chaotic you

12:08

know unhappy people are of Trump's

12:11

chaos it's not as if this

12:13

is yet accruing to the benefit

12:15

of the Democratic Party right

12:18

now this is anti- Trump

12:20

it's not yet anti-conservative or

12:23

anti-Republican because the ideas right

12:25

the perfect you know is these

12:27

ideas The public is still in

12:29

favor of making government smaller and

12:31

efficient. That is a goal that

12:33

has majority support. But the

12:35

public doesn't like the execution. When

12:38

it comes to even even on

12:40

the due process issues, which there

12:42

is large majorities of the public.

12:44

By the way, even 75% of

12:46

Republicans say Donald Trump should follow

12:48

any sort of Supreme Court order.

12:51

So that was also a fascinating

12:53

finding in this poll. that

12:55

everybody is almost universal agreement

12:57

that if the Supreme Court

12:59

makes a ruling Donald Trump ought

13:02

to follow it and better follow

13:04

it pure and simple so look

13:06

this is a pretty bad report

13:08

card for Donald Trump but the

13:10

most fascinating takeaway I had

13:12

and in fact it looks like it

13:14

could get worse for him but so

13:16

far this is becoming a bigger

13:18

problem for Donald Trump and

13:20

it's not yet accruing to the

13:22

Democrats. And I think part of

13:24

it is the Democrats' Sullivan identity

13:27

crisis, right? What are they for?

13:29

What do they represent? Where are

13:31

they in these things? It's clear

13:33

that Donald Trump doesn't know how

13:35

to manage the government. If you

13:37

didn't get that idea in the

13:39

first term, you're now getting a

13:41

huge reminder here in the second

13:43

term. I mean, it's fascinating to

13:45

me. See Ken Griffin, one of

13:47

the most respected. respected Wall Street

13:49

investors that there is, who's a big

13:51

Republican, very supportive, generically so, of Republican

13:53

causes, and has been a on-again-off-again supporter

13:56

of Trump. I mean, he supports Trump

13:58

because he's the head of the Republican.

14:00

Republican Party and Ken Griffin wouldn't,

14:02

doesn't want to support the Democratic

14:04

Party. But the fact that he

14:06

is essentially just eviscerated Trump's tariff

14:08

policy and has said that this

14:10

is now making companies focus more

14:12

on supply chains than growth, you

14:14

know, that, you know, and he's

14:16

sitting there publicly warning about tarnishing,

14:18

you know, and the conversation with

14:21

Mark Zandi, we talked about this,

14:23

tarnishing that the country's reputation to

14:25

a point where even our debt

14:27

is no longer considered worth investing

14:29

it. There was nobody else's debt

14:31

that was better to invest

14:34

in than the United States

14:36

of America. And if we're

14:38

now creating uncertainty in that

14:41

world where big sovereign

14:43

funds, whether it's the Saudis

14:45

or whoever, are a little

14:48

bit nervous in investing in

14:50

US Treasury bonds, that's a

14:52

big problem. Not a small one,

14:54

a big one. But again,

14:57

Democrats shouldn't feel... really

14:59

good about this poll because they need

15:01

to realize a lot of voters there

15:04

have a lot of concerns about the

15:06

party don't see them yet as a

15:08

viable alternative and that's something that that

15:11

democrats have to work on you know

15:13

this is a public that wants to

15:15

see government get closer to the people

15:18

and be more efficient can they

15:20

promise that this is a country

15:22

that does want tighter borders we've

15:24

we've always been you know it's

15:26

interesting I don't think America is

15:29

a nativist country, but we're a

15:31

bit, we're a bit nationalist, right?

15:33

We are, we are sort of,

15:35

we want, it's not necessarily America

15:37

first, right? But we want to

15:39

be America, we want to make sure

15:41

we're the, we're a little bit ahead

15:44

of everybody, right? It's this weird line.

15:46

So I think that in some cases,

15:48

that's why the, the ideas that Trump

15:50

throws out there are ones that the

15:53

public. Well, all right if he could

15:55

do that that would be good, but

15:57

his inability to execute is clearly

15:59

his And the question is,

16:01

at what point do congressional

16:04

Republicans realize that Trump's taken

16:06

them down? Right? That this is going

16:08

to drag them down and drag them

16:10

down. And this is why he's, and

16:13

if he continues to try to manage

16:15

the stock market like a political problem.

16:17

All right, let's see if I can

16:19

goose the markets this way, all because

16:21

he thinks he can deal with the

16:24

markets as a new cycle. Well, as you

16:26

learn from Mark Zandi. You know, unless

16:28

these tariff deals start coming in and

16:30

there's not one yet, right? There's, there

16:33

is, I guess, a concept of a

16:35

memo of understanding with India. There's a

16:37

concept of an idea of a plan

16:39

with Japan, but he needs some points

16:41

on the board and he needs points

16:43

on the board quickly. Ironically, the market's

16:45

desperate for it. If he can show

16:47

that he actually knows how to make

16:49

one of these trade deals, I do

16:51

think the markets will reward them.

16:54

But these are hard and complicated,

16:56

and these tariffs aren't going to

16:58

go away until these deals are

17:00

done. And that's what's going to,

17:02

I think that's what's going to

17:04

impact his political ratings even further.

17:07

You know, it is interesting to

17:09

me that the Walmart and Target

17:11

folks, when they met with the

17:13

president, used the visual of empty

17:15

shelves by July if this trade

17:18

war with China doesn't de-escalate. One

17:20

thing about Donald Trump is he

17:22

understands visuals. He knows perception. This

17:25

is a guy who essentially has

17:27

tried to turn perceptions into reality.

17:29

So he understands how quickly perceptions

17:31

can become reality. He is somebody

17:34

that tries to create false realities.

17:36

So when you have somebody who's

17:38

that good at that, they're aware

17:40

of how powerful empty shelves. You

17:43

know who has empty shelves? Russia,

17:45

right? Communist countries. Cuba. North Korea.

17:47

If America has empty shelves,

17:50

that's a terrible look. One

17:52

more thing before I get

17:54

to the interview with John

17:57

Tester and his podcast partner

17:59

in crime. at Georgia. A

18:01

little thing about what's going on

18:03

with Ukraine, and we'll see, look,

18:05

I'm time stamping this Wednesday evening,

18:08

you never know what's going to

18:10

happen, and by the time you

18:12

hear this 12 hours later, when

18:14

this video podcast and

18:17

audio podcast drops, but it's,

18:19

you know, I know we've said this

18:21

before, but the idea that the

18:24

United States of America

18:26

is essentially taking rushes

18:28

asks and making them our

18:30

asks and strong-arming Ukraine here

18:33

is just it's whiplash. It's

18:35

really hard to fully wrap

18:37

your head around that the

18:40

United States of America's government

18:42

is essentially pro-Russia right now

18:44

on this. It's funny how

18:47

the negotiations are going so

18:49

one of the sticking points obviously

18:51

a big one is you know

18:53

giving up sovereignty right and so

18:55

it's in... the idea that Ukraine

18:57

would have to recognize Russia's

19:00

sovereignty over Crimea? Well,

19:02

apparently Donald Trump has

19:04

said, no, no, no,

19:06

no, Ukraine doesn't have

19:08

to recognize Russia's sovereignty over

19:10

Crimea. It's just the United States

19:13

that plans to do it. And

19:15

as if that somehow that technicality

19:17

is supposed to be reassuring to

19:20

the Ukrainians, don't worry, you don't

19:22

have to recognize that Russia, that

19:24

Crimea belongs to Russia, just we

19:26

will. And the Europeans don't have

19:29

to do this, just we will.

19:31

It's a weird thing to draw a

19:33

line on, and it's a weird

19:36

distinction, because unfortunately, or fortunately, however

19:38

you want to look at it,

19:40

once the United States does recognize,

19:43

some countries hold on land. Other

19:45

countries usually follow suit. Now it

19:47

didn't work with Gulf of America,

19:49

right? I think the only entity

19:52

in the world that's going to

19:54

call it Gulf of America are

19:56

essentially Rhonda Santas and Donald Trump.

19:59

But if we're the ones recognizing Russia's

20:01

hold on Crimea. A

20:03

lot of other countries

20:05

will likely do that

20:07

too. So I'm going to pause

20:10

right here by the way. I got

20:12

a special treat for you this week.

20:14

We're going to have an extra pod

20:16

this week. So this is not the

20:18

last you will hear from me this

20:20

week. We got something more coming later

20:22

in the week. And you think, well,

20:24

today's Thursday. What does that mean? That's

20:27

right. We're going to have a Friday

20:29

special. So be on the lookout for

20:31

that. Let me sneak in a break.

20:33

Enjoy my conversation with John Tester and

20:35

Ritza Georgia Georgia. Well,

20:43

I'm excited for this set

20:45

of guests joining me

20:47

now is the former

20:50

senator from Montana, John

20:52

Tester, and his podcast

20:54

co-host, Marissa Giorgio, long-time

20:56

journalists also from Montana.

20:58

They both are Montanans.

21:00

The podcast is called

21:02

Grounded with John Tester

21:04

and Marissa Giorgio. Welcome

21:06

to the podcast, guys. Great

21:08

to be here. Thanks for having

21:10

us, Chuck. Appreciated. Senator,

21:13

let me start with you. All right,

21:15

how, uh, why are you doing a podcast?

21:18

I say this because there's, it

21:20

is, it is, you don't see a

21:22

lot of former elected's

21:24

jumping into this space

21:26

as as quickly as, say,

21:29

Marita and I are as

21:31

former, as recovering journalists, whatever

21:33

we want to call ourselves

21:35

these days, right? What's been

21:38

the, what was the interest on

21:40

your level? I'm a farmer

21:42

and a U.S. Senator, I'm a

21:44

policy guy. I, when the election

21:46

happened and I was unemployed,

21:49

journalists that I respect a

21:51

lot in Montana emailed me

21:53

and said, hey, would you

21:55

be interested in a podcast?

21:57

And I thought about it.

22:00

And I thought, you know, one of

22:02

the things I think is always a

22:04

challenge is where do you go to

22:07

get information? That's good information. So

22:09

you can make a good decision. And

22:11

I thought, you know what? Maurice is

22:13

solid. She's good at what she does.

22:15

One of the best in the state

22:18

of Washington. And why not? Let's give

22:20

it a go. And if it, you

22:22

know, it's one of these things that

22:24

if it bombs, if it bombs, it

22:27

bombs and we'll figure out something,

22:29

good people on. It's worthwhile

22:31

to do. So that's pretty much

22:33

why we did it. Besides that,

22:35

it's turned out to be a

22:37

lot of fun, you know, and

22:39

had an opportunity to actually deliver

22:42

some information, get some opinions from

22:44

folks that we trust. And it's

22:46

been solid. It's been good. It's

22:48

been fun. Marita, what do you

22:50

like best about it, right? I mean, I've

22:52

got, you know, I, my whole, the way

22:54

I evangelize on it is I

22:56

just was done with the five to

22:59

ten minute minute interview. look John and

23:01

I have done plenty of those five to

23:03

ten minute interviews before and it's it's one

23:05

topic if you're lucky or it's the then

23:07

there's always the hey I got to ask

23:10

this question because it's in the news maybe

23:12

he'll make news and Chuck Schumer will be

23:14

pissed off or whatever it is right like

23:16

I know what I enjoy now is the

23:18

longer conversation where you can have a little

23:21

bit of that fun but at the same

23:23

time get some context what what's been the

23:25

most rewarding part of it for you so

23:27

far? And I don't have somebody in my

23:29

ear saying, no, no, cut, cut. We don't

23:32

have time. I'll say one more, one more.

23:34

I mean, ask anybody who's ever worked with

23:36

me, whether it's on my former show and

23:38

we were doing live interviews or out in

23:40

the field. I'm always trying to, you know,

23:42

stretch the interview longer because I always

23:44

have more questions asked and John will

23:46

see this, you know, when we're going through

23:48

and I'll send him a list of all

23:50

my questions and I think I probably get

23:52

about. I don't know a fifth of the

23:55

questions I always want to ask,

23:57

but I think you're absolutely right,

23:59

especially right now. people consume news by

24:01

just reading headlines or blurbs and they

24:03

don't actually fully understand things like the

24:05

context of things and why it matters

24:07

and the history of it and so

24:10

to be able to have guests on

24:12

and actually dig in and there's no

24:14

there's no time limit and we can

24:16

say go as long as you want

24:18

if it's long or you know goes

24:21

a little bit. It's like God made

24:23

editors. Yeah, we can cut it down,

24:25

but I mean, my good. We had

24:27

an interview, I guess it was earlier

24:29

this week, it feels like a few

24:31

weeks ago, but with this, you know,

24:33

economist from the University of Michigan, Justin

24:36

Wolfers, who also goes by Fed Lasso

24:38

sometimes. And he was fabulous. That's funny. Fed

24:40

Lasso, I'm, look, as a dad over 50,

24:42

I like a good dad pun, you know,

24:44

which is, hence the podcast, so anyway, I'm

24:46

all for Fed Lasso, I'm in. Fed Lasso

24:49

was so entertaining and I've had

24:51

more feedback. The two I've had

24:53

the most feedback on are Fed

24:56

Lasso and Sam Donaldson because we

24:58

actually got into stuff with that.

25:01

Sam Donaldson, also a rancher.

25:03

Also, yeah, Mexico, that's right.

25:05

So, you know, we're able to actually

25:07

get in and have conversations that matter.

25:09

And if two people write me and

25:11

say, wow, I learned so much or

25:13

if my if my best friend calls

25:15

me and says, I never heard anybody

25:17

do that and she consumes, you know,

25:20

more news than I do, that feels

25:22

great because it feels like we're actually

25:24

doing a service and helping people and

25:26

not just sitting here. The thing that

25:28

I'm excited about what you two two

25:30

are doing is, you know, my biggest

25:32

complaint about right now, how media

25:34

is organized is essentially, I

25:37

would argue that everybody, you

25:39

know, thinks of sort of the information,

25:42

head sectors as Washington,

25:44

New York, LA, and

25:46

San Francisco, right? Silicon

25:48

Valley, Hollywood, Wall Street,

25:50

and the political capital.

25:52

And there's a lot of

25:54

people that make a ton of

25:56

money just off of making sure

25:58

they're covering those. for giant tent

26:01

poles of culture, right? Whether it's

26:03

axios, right, they, and I say

26:05

this, though, I'm good for them,

26:07

like, it's a good business, but

26:09

the biggest thing that I think

26:11

we're missing, John Tester, is, and

26:13

I think why people feel so

26:15

disconnected from the culture these days,

26:17

outside of those four tent poles.

26:19

from other areas of the country.

26:21

We don't have enough geographic diversity

26:23

in the information ecosystem. I'm very

26:25

hopeful having two Montanans here to

26:27

help talk to the rest of

26:29

America. I mean, I'm not trying

26:31

to butter you up here, but

26:33

I assume that's something you probably

26:35

hear complaints about all the time

26:37

from your friends and neighbors. Oh,

26:39

absolutely. No, I mean, look, I

26:41

think the area between the two

26:43

mountain ranges tend to be forgotten

26:45

about a lot. And we're both

26:47

products of who we are. I'm

26:49

a product of rural America. Some

26:51

would say it's even frontier America.

26:53

And that's the approach I'm going

26:55

to take when we're talking. talking

26:57

about issues. And I think it's

26:59

really important to talk about issues,

27:01

but then, especially at this moment

27:03

in time, people want to know

27:05

how they can be effective as

27:07

citizens and how they can make

27:09

sure their voices are being heard.

27:11

And so whether we're talking about

27:13

tariffs or whether we're talking about

27:15

public lands or whatever, the many

27:17

issues we've talked about, we usually

27:19

try to end up the show

27:21

saying, well, now here's what you

27:23

can do. And by the way,

27:25

setting down your hands is not

27:27

an option here, if you might

27:29

feel you feel that these issues

27:31

are important to you, then you

27:33

gotta be part of the part

27:35

of the ecosystem. But no, there's

27:37

no doubt about it, Chuck. We

27:39

are going to bring a perspective,

27:41

some would call it a rural

27:43

America perspective. I'll just call it

27:45

a perspective that's not an east

27:47

or west coast perspective to the

27:49

issues that are out there. I

27:51

was just going to say, I

27:53

wanted you to, look, you're a

27:55

product of local news and nationalism.

27:57

You've been sort of, you've had

27:59

your foot in, you know, how

28:01

would you describe the state of

28:03

the local news ecosystem in Montana

28:05

right now? I mean, Montana still

28:07

has a pretty strong local news

28:09

community. However, we see it being

28:11

chipped away at all the time.

28:13

We have news deserts. I mean,

28:15

you talk to Senator Tester, his.

28:17

closest to Montana City Great Falls

28:19

used to have the biggest, strongest,

28:21

best newspaper in the state and

28:23

I think now I have one

28:25

reporter. And so it's, you know,

28:27

I know you've talked about this

28:29

a lot on these news deserts.

28:31

That's a really huge issue when

28:33

we talk about our country and

28:35

where we are at and the

28:37

breaking down of just basic knowledge

28:39

and understanding of things because if

28:41

people don't have access to local

28:43

news and what's going on in

28:45

their communities, they're getting it from

28:47

either. media or politicized radio programs

28:49

that are broadcast in their communities

28:51

and so I think that's led

28:53

to a huge polarization in this

28:55

country. But I'll also say, you

28:57

know, similar to what Senator Tester

28:59

said, part of the reason we're

29:01

here is that so many people

29:03

in the middle felt ignored, felt

29:06

like they weren't hurt. And by

29:08

the way, that's a lot of

29:10

middle. A lot of middle. When

29:12

I say middle, it's sometimes middle

29:14

of the country. geographically. Sometimes it's

29:16

middle of the ideological spectrum, right?

29:18

It's people that, that. Economic class,

29:20

right? Yeah, middle class, right. The

29:22

middle is such a, you know,

29:24

it is, I do, it is

29:26

an intentional catch-all word for me

29:28

when I say middle. I'm always

29:30

thinking, you know, I, I always

29:32

joke, I was born and raised

29:34

in Miami, but my father grew

29:36

up in Waterloo, Iowa, and I

29:38

always say I was raised, Iowa,

29:40

you know, he almost insisted my

29:42

savings account. As a kid, the

29:44

first savings account I got was

29:46

at the Waterloo Savings and Loan

29:48

because my father just wanted me

29:50

to have this Iowa connection even

29:52

though, again, There are a lot

29:54

of Todd's buried in Iowa, but

29:56

there are not many that still

29:58

live there today, but it was

30:00

really important to my dad that

30:02

I have that Midwestern grounding. So

30:04

I've always had this belief that,

30:06

hey, I've got to talk to

30:08

the middle, right? I've got to

30:10

talk to the middle of America.

30:12

I've always been very comfortable, frankly,

30:14

sometimes more comfortable, thinking of myself

30:16

as a Midwestern or even though

30:18

I've never been there. And it

30:20

used to be where all things

30:22

were decided. Well, and I grew

30:24

up in Minneapolis, suburbs of Minneapolis.

30:26

So I'm a Midwesterner, I moved

30:28

out to Montana 22 years ago,

30:30

very similar values. And I just

30:32

think so many people feel left

30:34

behind. And that's part of the

30:36

reason, you know, I was laid

30:38

off from Scripps News in November,

30:40

but we had a nightly national

30:42

show that originated in Missoula, Montana,

30:44

the first ever. And that was

30:46

really cool to people, because we

30:48

did bring perspectives that you didn't

30:50

hear coming out of DC, New

30:52

York or LA. And so I

30:54

think that it can't be ignored.

30:56

You know, John Tester, I always

30:58

used to joke if, that I

31:00

wanted Congress to rotate where they

31:02

held sessions. So, you know, first

31:04

of all, part of it would

31:06

be like if you if you

31:08

always moved Congress, then the lobbyists

31:10

would always have to pick up

31:12

stakes and go move with them.

31:14

So maybe you could stay a

31:16

half step ahead of the lobbying

31:18

community. But the point really was

31:20

this. I always said if Wichita,

31:22

Kansas were the. were the media

31:24

center of the world. I promise

31:26

you the news media would cover

31:28

religion and ag issues differently. But

31:30

because we're in the media capital

31:32

is New York City, for instance

31:34

on the issues of the Second

31:36

Amendment. I understand where a New

31:38

York perspective comes from on the

31:40

Second Amendment, and I also have

31:42

an uncle who lives in the

31:44

mountains of Arkansas. who will tell

31:46

you 30 minutes before first responder

31:48

is going to come to his

31:50

house and he's going to have

31:52

to deal, you know, he needs

31:54

a firearm. for a variety of

31:56

reasons. And where the news media

31:58

is located can really warp a

32:00

perspective, right? Yeah, I mean, you're

32:02

exactly right. I mean, we're taping

32:04

this show in a recent Florida

32:06

state shooting just happened where two

32:08

people lost their lives. So, I

32:10

heard. And, you know, that kind

32:13

of stuff just ripped your guts

32:15

out. but also for you this

32:17

you're exactly right from a for

32:19

a protect your home perspective and

32:21

areas man it takes it takes

32:23

a long time just because of

32:25

distance no other reason the police

32:27

no that's all it is it's

32:29

not anything else right this distance

32:31

it just takes a while for

32:33

folks to get there so you

32:35

need to have some way to

32:37

protect your homes but that does

32:39

not mean any extent that anybody

32:41

out there that's a gun owner

32:43

should should say you know that

32:45

Florida state shooting needs to happen

32:47

it doesn't need to happen and

32:49

you can still protect yourselves and

32:51

you can try to stop those

32:53

kind of things from happening. But

32:55

you're exactly right, and I've never

32:57

even even thought about that, that

32:59

if the center of the universe

33:01

was Omaha, Nebraska, or anywhere else

33:03

in the middle, you're right, the

33:05

perspective would be different and probably

33:07

noticeably different quite honestly. No, I

33:09

mean, I thought, if Congress moved,

33:11

I mean, I'm dead serious about

33:13

that. Why should Congress always convene

33:15

in Washington? Yeah, well look, I

33:17

would applaud that effort when I

33:19

was a U.S. Senator because it's

33:21

2,000 miles from here. Not many

33:23

non-stops from Bozeman in DC. Although,

33:25

you know, Taylor Sheridan gets his

33:27

way, keeps making the place so

33:29

popular, there might be a lot

33:31

of non-stops, but that's not. That's

33:33

true, but that's Bo's been and

33:35

Bo's been still four and a

33:37

half hours from where I live.

33:39

So I still have a shot

33:41

to get to the airport that

33:43

has the non-stops. But the bottom

33:45

line is, is it, is it,

33:47

you're right, from a news perspective,

33:49

the areas that are more rural,

33:51

more urban, more rural versus urban.

33:53

get reported on, but quite frankly

33:55

don't don't get reported on nearly

33:57

as much as they probably should.

33:59

And because of that I might

34:01

add, political people tend to pit

34:03

urban versus rural. When we have

34:05

the same challenges out there, we

34:07

have the same challenges for the

34:09

most part, with the exception of

34:11

distance, we all want to be

34:13

able to have good health care

34:15

and put food on the table

34:17

and have a good job and

34:19

be able to send their kids

34:21

to college, all that stuff. No,

34:23

I mean, it goes to People

34:25

want to be able to make

34:27

a living living in New York

34:29

City and be able to make

34:31

ends meet and people want to

34:33

be able to have the choice

34:35

to live in Missoula and make

34:37

their end and be able to

34:39

make their ends meet. I mean,

34:41

I think that's that's very fair.

34:43

I want to move shift this

34:45

question a little bit to get

34:47

to your most recent career and

34:49

frankly, Marissa, I'm curious of your

34:51

take on this and I'm going

34:53

to start with you on this.

34:55

So one of my theories as

34:57

to why we are so you

34:59

know, sort of the, this is

35:01

sort of a chicken and egg

35:03

question, the concentration of power in

35:05

Washington these days and the concentration

35:07

of power to the presidency itself.

35:09

I think this has created this

35:11

massive trickle-down effect. So for instance,

35:13

in our world, Maritza of journalism,

35:15

20 years ago, my advice to

35:18

young journalists was, go cover a

35:20

state capital, then come to Washington.

35:22

Ten years ago. My advice to

35:24

young journalists who wanted to be

35:26

a White House correspondent or cover

35:28

Congress was, well then come to

35:30

Washington now. There's a lot of

35:32

trade publications. Get a job at

35:34

roll call. Get a job at

35:36

punch bowl. Get a job at

35:38

Politico. Which is really actually unhealthy,

35:40

right? And I'll get to that

35:42

in a minute. But did you

35:44

find that the pull to Washington

35:46

was really great in that that

35:48

everybody kept in your world kept

35:50

wanting to figure out how to

35:52

get east? You

35:54

know, I don't know if it's necessarily

35:56

to Washington, but everybody in my world

35:58

definitely wanted to move up and move

36:01

up and move up. You know, I

36:03

started in Missoula, Montana, which is a

36:05

market where you cut your teeth and

36:08

you make mistakes and you learn a

36:10

lot. And I think that if you

36:12

go straight to these big cities, I

36:15

think you miss out on something. I

36:17

mean, that for me, you know, local

36:19

news is so important, not only for

36:21

that reason, because you learn so much,

36:24

but you learn how to form connections

36:26

and you learn how to be part

36:28

of a community. And People generally trust

36:31

their local news personalities more than they

36:33

trust network personalities. I don't think we've

36:35

ever, I say this, national media has

36:38

never had the trust. Our trust was

36:40

handed to us by our local colleagues

36:42

because the local journalists was somebody, if

36:45

you didn't know the local journalists, maybe

36:47

your kid knew their kid, maybe your

36:49

friend knew their spouse, you knew their

36:51

spouse, you knew something about them. And

36:54

you know, they're one of us. And

36:56

they seemed to reporting this. All right,

36:58

they've confirmed what the national, like it

37:01

was a, it really was. And then

37:03

when you get rid of local, when

37:05

a man named Craig thought classifieds ought

37:08

to be free, yada yada, yada, Donald

37:10

Trump became president. It is, it cut

37:12

out. I always said national media is

37:14

best character references. Well, that's a big

37:17

yada yada yada. I'll just say that.

37:19

But yes, I, you know. I live

37:21

in this community, I stop and talk

37:24

to people at the grocery store and

37:26

at my son's school and you know

37:28

out on the streets. And so yeah,

37:31

when people feel like they can come

37:33

up to you and talk to you

37:35

and you're accessible. And also you have

37:38

an understanding of the issues and why

37:40

they matter. I mean, that I really

37:42

think unless you're covering Capitol Hill, so

37:44

many of our giant, giant breaking news

37:47

stories originate locally. And then the networks

37:49

pick them up and they run with

37:51

it. a story that propelled me had

37:54

to do a tests are actually his

37:56

office sent out just an email saying

37:58

we're hearing reports that maybe the USPS

38:01

is pulling up these blue collection boxes.

38:03

It was right before the 2020 election

38:05

and I was working on a story

38:07

with USPS anyway so I reached out

38:10

to one of my local informants here

38:12

in Missoula Montana and they sent me

38:14

a list of all of these addresses.

38:17

that we're slated for removal. Now, if

38:19

I sent that list to anybody in

38:21

New York or D.C., they would have

38:24

no idea what those addresses meant. But

38:26

I could look at it and say,

38:28

oh, well, that's the main post office

38:31

in Missoula. That's in front of the

38:33

University of Montana. That's in front of

38:35

Target. What is happening? And that story

38:37

went gangbusters and, you know, we reversed

38:40

federal policy by the end of the

38:42

end of the day because of, you

38:44

know, a local reporter, you know, just

38:47

that story, digging into it, it would

38:49

never have gone where it went. And

38:51

I think we can say that for

38:54

so many of these huge stories that

38:56

explode. John Tester, I had a congressman,

38:58

now former congressman, his name's Jaycla Turner.

39:00

This is a Republican from rural Kansas.

39:03

He was in Kansas's second district. Now

39:05

he retired 36 and he chose to

39:07

not seek re-election. Part of it is

39:10

he's not, he's a different kind of

39:12

Republican. He's more of the Paul Ryan

39:14

wing of the party, I guess, you

39:17

know, he came up in that version

39:19

of conservatism is not, as he said,

39:21

he's not a Marjorie Taylor Green type

39:24

of Republican. But he said, he didn't

39:26

have anybody in his congressional district covering

39:28

what he did. Let literally, congressional trees

39:30

were falling in the district, in his

39:33

congressional forest, and no one was there

39:35

to say, I mean, All he had

39:37

was just being able to email his

39:40

constituents or text or whatever. He was

39:42

caught, but there was nobody there to

39:44

verify what he was doing. Nobody there

39:47

to say, hey, you know, explaining what

39:49

Washington was doing for that district. And

39:51

we sit here and wonder why people

39:53

don't know what Washington does for them.

39:56

And I would answer, because there's no

39:58

more local journalists telling them what Washington

40:00

is doing for them. Is this been

40:03

your experience? Yeah. Absolutely. I'm going to

40:05

tell you that I think the, and

40:07

I've been involved, the state politics and

40:10

federal politics since 98, so a little

40:12

over 25 years. And I see the

40:14

change, right? The biggest change, the absolute

40:17

biggest change. We always had young TV

40:19

reporters that we're looking to go to

40:21

go to bigger markets. But what we

40:23

always had is we had seasoned reporters

40:26

working for print media. That isn't happening

40:28

anymore. Those season political reporters are gone.

40:30

And those political reporters not only reported

40:33

on what was going on, Washington, they

40:35

reported on what was going on locally,

40:37

and they held us all accountable. And

40:40

they were the local historian in some

40:42

ways. They knew more about this stuff

40:44

than anybody, right? Absolutely. They had the

40:46

corporate memory to go be able to

40:49

go back and institute school memory, I

40:51

should say, to be able to go

40:53

back and be able to report and

40:56

say, this is what happened back in

40:58

1979, and this is that day, and

41:00

it's no different. Or, by the way,

41:03

these guys are screwing up because they're

41:05

doing this. And that accountability. is critically

41:07

important for a democracy to work and

41:10

work well. Without that accountability, you've got

41:12

public servants that are out there doing

41:14

stuff that they shouldn't be doing, and

41:16

nobody knows about it. And it's not

41:19

to the best interest of their constituents,

41:21

and certainly not the best interest of

41:23

democracy. Let me go to your side

41:26

of things, though, on the governance side,

41:28

right? Which is, this decision, this concentrate,

41:30

going back to my focus on the

41:33

concentration of power, not just in Washington,

41:35

but with the executive branch itself. Look

41:37

at this fight over tariffs, look at

41:39

this fight over due process when it

41:42

comes to immigration, look at this fight

41:44

over pretty much all the fights that

41:46

this, that the Trump administration is picking.

41:49

And we're sitting here arguing about the

41:51

checks and balances and it's judiciary right

41:53

now versus the executive and we're all.

41:56

screaming in our heads, where the hell

41:58

is Congress? And I'll be honest, going,

42:00

let's, just the 21st century. We've had

42:03

all Republican control of the trifecta for

42:05

about three years in, you know, post

42:07

9-11, and that handed a bunch of

42:09

power to the executive. We had another

42:12

two-year stint with Trump, more power to

42:14

the executive. More power to the executive.

42:16

Ditto with Biden, more power to the

42:19

executive, now again. And all it's done

42:21

is I think made the country think

42:23

that the presidency is a be all-end-all

42:26

fight. And Congress has just given up,

42:28

what I don't get is collectively why

42:30

members of Congress are comfortable giving up

42:33

all this power. It shouldn't be. They

42:35

absolutely shouldn't be. And I've contributed this

42:37

to a lot of things. I actually...

42:39

contribute to campaign finance and amount of

42:42

money that's coming into these. But that's

42:44

probably a different topic for a different

42:46

show that we could talk all day

42:49

about. But the bottom line is, is

42:51

that we need Robert C. Bird back

42:53

in Congress. Robert C. Bird would be

42:56

going crazy right now with Congress giving

42:58

up their responsibility and saying, go ahead,

43:00

do it by executive order. We're not

43:02

going to pass a law that either

43:05

does this or pass a law that

43:07

says no. And I watched, you know,

43:09

you watched the Sunday shows and I've

43:12

watched many people in leadership and stand

43:14

up and go, well, you know, the

43:16

tariff thing, absolutely the president has the

43:19

power to do this. The only reason

43:21

the president has the power to do

43:23

this, because you guys aren't calling bullshit

43:26

on it. That's why he's got a

43:28

power to do it. It's because, you

43:30

know, I love this anecdote as somebody

43:32

said to me. Well, the reason why

43:35

Congress was comfortable handing tariff power to

43:37

the president is because Congress these leaders,

43:39

the ideas stem from this center. Well,

43:42

we'll never, the president, whoever it is,

43:44

will always be more of a free

43:46

trader than Congress. Oops. Well, yeah, that

43:49

kind of screwed up. That philosophy doesn't

43:51

work today. And by the way, I

43:53

get it. I would have agreed with

43:55

that analysis in 2014. You know, it

43:58

has made this country, what I think

44:00

has made this country great my entire

44:02

lifetime, is that Congress hasn't just rolled

44:05

over all the time, that they've actually

44:07

challenged the president. They've actually had the

44:09

debate on the Senate for the House.

44:12

and did their jobs as the forefathers

44:14

set it up. What we've seen, and

44:16

it didn't happen just with the Trump

44:19

presidency, as you just pointed out, it's

44:21

been. No, this is a 21st century

44:23

phenomenon, I'd like that going on. And

44:25

the truth is, is that we're all

44:28

more concerned, and I think it's because

44:30

of campaign finance, about raising the money

44:32

to run for elections rather than the

44:35

job we were elected to, and that's

44:37

to make sure we put in good

44:39

policy that allows our kids and grandkids

44:42

and grandkids to be successful to be

44:44

successful, and keep this country a democracy,

44:46

and keep this country a democracy. All

44:48

right, I want to talk about this

44:51

campaign finance thing, though, because I just,

44:53

I'll be honest, I'm, I don't know

44:55

if you, or Alex Gimney is doing

44:58

an episodic series now on Dark Money

45:00

for HBO, and I'm going to be

45:02

interviewing him in a future podcast. And

45:05

so I was watching the first couple

45:07

of episodes, and he, and I remember

45:09

one of the, there's a documentary about

45:12

five years ago, that was about Dark

45:14

Money in Montana. and how that it

45:16

was a Montana with the rare example

45:18

where there was actually a bipartisan effort

45:21

to try to at least limit dark

45:23

money in state races. Federal races is

45:25

a different story. We'll get to that

45:28

in state races. And I'd love for

45:30

you to share because there's a culture

45:32

in Montana that goes back and I

45:35

kind of think we're sort of repeating

45:37

this, right? But it was the copper

45:39

industry and it's the turn of the

45:41

century, right? 19th to 20th century that

45:44

really... And we may be having a

45:46

repeat right now with the Brologarks, as

45:48

we're dealing with now, but what about

45:51

that era seem to cement skepticism of

45:53

money? in politics, more so in a

45:55

Montana, frankly, than any other rural state.

45:58

So to go back just a little

46:00

bit, as you already find out, Montana

46:02

was the state that mined the copper

46:05

that wired this country. And a hundred

46:07

years ago, a little over 100 years

46:09

ago now, those dudes had a lot

46:11

of money, the copper things. They had

46:14

a lot of money. And they ran,

46:16

they ran this state, quite honestly. It

46:18

wasn't the Aggies, it wasn't the cattle

46:21

guys, it wasn't the copper guys. and

46:23

it came down to a point where

46:25

when When legislators picked the senator, they

46:28

went in with a bag of cash,

46:30

literally went in with a bag of

46:32

cash and said, here, vote for this

46:34

dude, you get this money, and they

46:37

did it, and they got it accomplished.

46:39

That resulted in the people going, the

46:41

people going, this is baloney, we're gonna

46:44

make sure this doesn't have again, and

46:46

they passed voter initiatives to stop it,

46:48

and had some of the best campaign

46:51

finance, because they put caps, it made

46:53

everything. because it was being abused over

46:55

a hundred years ago. That's why the

46:58

people said, this isn't how it should

47:00

work. My voice isn't being heard anymore.

47:02

It's just the rich dudes. It's voice

47:04

to being heard. And it happened and

47:07

it worked. And it worked well until

47:09

Citizens United and McCutchin and all those

47:11

court decisions came down to court that

47:14

the Supreme Court did that I argue

47:16

may be some of the worst that

47:18

they've ever done. And it's resulted in

47:21

in Vallejo before that in 1976. money

47:23

equal speech when in fact it might

47:25

but it also says that if you

47:27

got a lot of money your speech

47:30

is a hell a lot louder than

47:32

than if you don't have money and

47:34

so it's really skewed the system and

47:37

what has resulted by the way a

47:39

campaign like mine my first one 2006

47:41

all in both sides primary everything 27

47:44

million bucks this last one I just

47:46

got done over 275 million dollars you

47:48

were not short of cash either Okay,

47:51

let's not. No. That's right. You got

47:53

bored and the other guy. We still

47:55

lost. And not only that, I remember,

47:57

like, I don't want to tell tales

48:00

out of school, but there was a

48:02

consultant helping you that said, it would

48:04

be more efficient if we just bought

48:07

the radio stations. I mean, it was

48:09

so upset and I sort of like

48:11

half-kitted it was like, if it had

48:14

been legal, you might have done it.

48:16

Like, it was like, you guys were

48:18

going to violate the law, but it

48:20

was like, that's how much money. Essentially

48:23

both sides had available to them. bought,

48:25

and radio still is an important aspect

48:27

of communicating in Montana. And rural areas

48:30

is just a huge area. It was

48:32

so much money, and this has happened

48:34

actually ever since 2006, TV stations run

48:37

on two-year budget seconds. Why? Because these

48:39

races come up, and they make enough

48:41

money. I watch the station. They had

48:44

a brand new set, and they said,

48:46

boy, this is nice. They said, yeah,

48:48

thank you. That's right. They're really unhappy

48:50

that the bullet can test around around

48:53

anymore. I'll tell you that because I've

48:55

never thought about that. I owe you.

48:57

I owe you a thank you for

49:00

paying me. Yeah, well, but then losing.

49:02

Now, you know, we see what happened.

49:04

You know, come on, you may need

49:07

to go run again so we could

49:09

pay for these podcasts there. John, come

49:11

on. Marita, I'm curious. I'm numbed of

49:14

money, right. As somebody who's been a

49:16

political. reporter and a political analyst and

49:18

you know I come I come at

49:20

camping finance issues. There's this line that

49:23

Jeff Goldblum says in Jurassic Park. The

49:25

old man in that movie claims that

49:27

he's got all the dinosaurs. They're all

49:30

female. They're not going to breed. And

49:32

Goldblum has this line. Life finds a

49:34

way. Well, the cynic in me says,

49:37

because we've passed every time Congress has

49:39

tried to pass a campaign finance reform

49:41

and I think that with the various

49:43

versions of were attempts. All it did

49:46

was create a process to find a

49:48

loophole, right? Packs, the original packs, post

49:50

Watergate, were supposed to actually be reforms,

49:53

right? This was a way to sort

49:55

of, okay, give everybody a little bit

49:57

of a say, within reason, you're giving

50:00

corporations an opportunity, but it's with their

50:02

employees, right? it gets abused. McCain Fine

50:04

Gold, right, and instead what McCain Fine

50:07

Gold created was all these lawyers who

50:09

figured out 501c's in, you know, threes

50:11

and fours at the time. Now, of

50:13

course, it's the 501, I think it's

50:16

the 501, the C4s that are the

50:18

true dark money aspects. So I'm a

50:20

little bit cynical. Do you think it's

50:23

possible to get the public animated about

50:25

campaign? Because I'll tell you, it's one

50:27

of those issues that when you, when

50:30

you, when you put it. importance. Is

50:32

it a voting issue? It's not a

50:34

voting issue. It's not. You aren't voting

50:36

on this issue. However, what it would

50:39

take to get people to vote in

50:41

the issue. I have heard people though,

50:43

you know, I did a whole thing

50:46

with school lunch debt. And you think

50:48

about all the kids who are being

50:50

shamed or punished or denied lunch at

50:53

school because they can't afford to pay

50:55

their school lunch debt, right? And then

50:57

you talk about the kind of money

51:00

that set our testors race rates rates

51:02

and people, and people, when you start

51:04

to compare that and those two things

51:06

with people, they do get mad. Like

51:09

think of everything that money could do

51:11

for this country, actually do things instead

51:13

of just putting it toward people who

51:16

say and promise they were going to

51:18

do these things. And I also think

51:20

in a state like Montana, you know,

51:23

like John said, you walk into a

51:25

TV station and they have a brand

51:27

new set. You can see that. You

51:29

come to Montana during an election cycle.

51:32

The kids on the playground at my

51:34

son's school literally were calling each other

51:36

shady she-hees because that's how much the

51:39

ads played. I mean, that was, it

51:41

was just, we can't escape it. You

51:43

can't escape it. And so I think

51:46

if you say, hey, you're sick of

51:48

those ads, because people do, they talk

51:50

about it the entire cycle. You know,

51:53

at the end of the day, sadly,

51:55

I think a lot of Americans care

51:57

when it affects them. And so I

51:59

agree with that. But it's always after,

52:02

right? We're angry after the fact. We

52:04

can't believe you didn't stop this. Right.

52:06

We tried to tell you, you didn't

52:09

seem to care. We warned you, you

52:11

know, about them. You want to stop

52:13

turning on TV and the radio and

52:16

Instagram and seeing an ad about John

52:18

Tester, Tim Shee, guess what? Here's how

52:20

we do it. You want more of

52:22

this money to go to things that

52:25

actually help your family. Here's how we

52:27

do it. I think it's just a

52:29

matter of explaining it. And I do

52:32

think you're right. We get, you know,

52:34

you say numbers, whether it's about. the

52:36

amount of people who are devastated after

52:39

a hurricane and you hear a number

52:41

and it's just a number and you

52:43

don't think like these are people this

52:46

is actually a real thing and I

52:48

think that we need to do a

52:50

better job in journalism and explaining that

52:52

like no no this is not just

52:55

a number think about the families think

52:57

about this and this is. Look I've

52:59

always we got to be we have

53:02

to think of ourselves first as educators,

53:04

Marita. I've thought that the thing that

53:06

I don't fully appreciate is how many

53:09

people look to the media to learn

53:11

something. Not to be informed, just simply

53:13

learn. And we don't do, you know,

53:15

I think about our fellow sports journalists

53:18

during the college football season. Every college

53:20

football reporter took time to explain the

53:22

college football playoff every time they wrote

53:25

about the college football playoff. Do you

53:27

know what we don't do? We don't

53:29

explain the Supreme Court and its nine

53:32

members and this or that. We actually

53:34

assume too much sometimes of the readers.

53:36

So what do we do? It becomes

53:39

self-selecting. Those that are informed, read our

53:41

stories, those that feel like, well, I

53:43

don't know if I know a lot

53:45

about it, and I don't know that

53:48

much about it. So it becomes, if

53:50

you're afraid you can't, you can't speak

53:52

the language, you can't. Well then that

53:55

we're screwing out. We need to speak,

53:57

I always say we need to speak

53:59

American. Yes, and I think, I mean

54:02

that is part of the reason we

54:04

are where we are and we have

54:06

the extremes is because these candidates have

54:08

learned what to say to reach people.

54:11

But also, you're absolutely right, you know,

54:13

a nod to my friend Jeff Goldbloom,

54:15

life does find a way and I

54:18

have said this about, you know, everything

54:20

though. If you think about, we're talking

54:22

today about fentanyl, about fentanyl, All we

54:25

talked about in Montana was meth. That's

54:27

all we talked about. And the thing

54:29

is, we can talk about the drug

54:32

all day long, but if we don't

54:34

talk about the addiction and what causes

54:36

the addiction, people have found ways to

54:38

feed their addictions since the beginning of

54:41

time. So today it's fentanyl, but if

54:43

we stop fentanyl, then what? I just

54:45

think we need to talk more about

54:48

like what's causing these things and that

54:50

brings us back to our very first

54:52

question which is you can't do that

54:55

in two minutes sound bites or news.

54:57

Sorry, John, you wanted to jump. Yeah,

54:59

the other thing I want to add

55:02

is that people probably don't vote on

55:04

this. You're exactly right, Chuck. But I

55:06

do think people are concerned about it.

55:08

And not just Democrats, not just Republicans

55:11

in a very bipartisan way. I think

55:13

they see the negative parts. And one

55:15

of the things that we're seeing right

55:18

now is we're seeing nobody doing town

55:20

hall meetings. They've been told, don't do

55:22

town hall meetings. What's the only time

55:25

that you could really get? a senator

55:27

or a congressman to do a town

55:29

all meeting during election. Now they don't

55:31

even have to do it then. They

55:34

just put the ads up and then

55:36

they go underground and just let the

55:38

ads do the talking. And it's really,

55:41

I think people are getting sick of

55:43

it. I really, I think people are

55:45

getting sick of it. I really do.

55:48

And I really do. And I think

55:50

there is going to be an opportunity

55:52

if handled correctly to be able to

55:55

make some, and going to be able

55:57

to make some steps in the right

55:59

direction. I don't get why it is

56:01

such a hard vote to be for

56:04

transparency. Like, I've not, you know, I,

56:06

look, I believe if we created the

56:08

NASCAR law, right, which said, all right,

56:11

anybody that writes you a check, I'm

56:13

for unlimited for members of Congress. But

56:15

if you write a check for every

56:18

$100,000 check you take, you've got to

56:20

put that name literally on your jumpsuit

56:22

in every TV ad and you've got

56:24

to. the I approve I approve this

56:27

message and it was paid for by

56:29

Maritza Giorgio and Chuck Todd and John

56:31

Tester and mobile and you let the

56:34

chips fall where they may type of

56:36

mindset but disclosure seems to be the

56:38

the easiest first step and yet that

56:41

I mean I love you know there's

56:43

nothing more fun than when Sheldon Whitehouse

56:45

gets mad. I always say, you don't

56:48

want to make Sheldon mad, right? He

56:50

gets so fired up on this topic,

56:52

right? Dark buddy, like, his dark buddy

56:54

rants are probably epic. There's some of

56:57

my favorite rants, because he's not wrong.

56:59

Why is this so difficult in the

57:01

United States Senate? It shouldn't be. I

57:04

think part of it has to do

57:06

with, I think the leadership on both

57:08

says, yeah, I think this is an

57:11

advantage for each one of their parties.

57:13

Well that you don't want to tie

57:15

your arm. That's always the. And it's

57:17

always, right, each side believes they're, well,

57:20

we'd love to do that, but they're

57:22

not going to. Yeah, no, that's right.

57:24

And instead, let's just do the right

57:27

thing. Let's just fix it. I mean,

57:29

and by the way, you know this,

57:31

the candidates do have the caps, they

57:34

do, are supposed to be transparency. The

57:36

problem is, is the money, and I

57:38

would say most of money is flying

57:41

through these C4s, which is total dark

57:43

money, have limitations. But some super packed

57:45

can come in here and say, you

57:47

know what, we're gonna make this election

57:50

about breeding rabbits. And, you know, we're

57:52

just gonna put so many ads about

57:54

breeding. rabbits that that's all anybody's going

57:57

to talk about. It ain't going to

57:59

be shady shee. It's going to be,

58:01

you know, rabbit rabbits are running around.

58:04

And that's the power of these super

58:06

packs. They can literally change the dialogue

58:08

of the conversation in the campaign. So

58:10

let me give you a real one

58:13

that happened last like making the weather.

58:15

We're going to talk about men playing

58:17

girls basketball. And I say to people,

58:20

show me one example in the state

58:22

of Montana where this is happening. Just

58:24

one example. But no, that's what the

58:27

ads on TV were about for God's

58:29

sake. So it wasn't about the national

58:31

debt. It wasn't about climate change. It

58:34

wasn't about what we're going to do

58:36

in health care. It wasn't about education.

58:38

None of that. It was about men

58:40

playing women sports. And by the way,

58:43

it may happen somewhere in the country,

58:45

but it sure and shit doesn't happen

58:47

here. We had no about it. I

58:50

have a thesis about members of Congress,

58:52

John, and I'm curious if you agree

58:54

with this, if you agree with this.

58:57

There's certain dog breeds that are really

58:59

well behaved to an owner, like a

59:01

lab. They'll be well behaved, but if

59:03

they get around other labs, they stop,

59:06

you know, they ignore their owner and

59:08

they just start bark, bark, bark. That

59:10

most members of Congress, most senators, individually,

59:13

are motivated. You may not agree with

59:15

the ideology, but they're motivated for the

59:17

right reason in their head. And then

59:20

there's something about the collective. that makes

59:22

everybody behave stupidly? I mean, is it

59:24

that is simpler? I mean, would you,

59:27

because I always individually, frankly, seems like

59:29

everybody wants to be reasonable. Collectively, it

59:31

becomes unreasonable. Is that a, is that

59:33

my oversimplifying? No, I don't think so.

59:36

I think it's spot on. I think

59:38

it might not look like it, but

59:40

occasionally I go down at the gym

59:43

and you'll find out all sorts of

59:45

things that were going on in people's

59:47

heads that were normal. And then they

59:50

would say stuff that's absolutely crazy. And

59:52

I think you're exactly right. That's why

59:54

I say on the podcast, many. I

59:56

know the people in the Senate and

59:59

they're better people than this. They should

1:00:01

be holding the president accountable. And I

1:00:03

get emails that goes, how can you

1:00:06

say these are good people when they're

1:00:08

not holding them? I hear I get

1:00:10

that too. I'm like, why are you

1:00:13

so nice to them? Like they are

1:00:15

decent people, they're decent humans. That's right.

1:00:17

And if you, if you, they know

1:00:20

what's right. There's, there's something else going

1:00:22

on out there. Whether they're worried about

1:00:24

their safety or worried about political retaliation.

1:00:26

Well, I got to get you to

1:00:29

react to Lisa Mercowski. Yeah. I mean,

1:00:31

that was such a, that was such

1:00:33

a Lisa Mercowski thing to say, meaning,

1:00:36

you know, she will speak the truth

1:00:38

on that side of the aisle in

1:00:40

ways that others, others, others, And your

1:00:43

last name is Markowski? That is the

1:00:45

mic drop. Like, come at me. Oh

1:00:47

yeah? I got everybody to write my

1:00:50

name in, and it wasn't Smith, brother.

1:00:52

Okay? Markowski. So she is a little

1:00:54

more shielded politically. But that was chilling

1:00:56

what she said, John. Absolutely, right. And

1:00:59

Lisa is one of my favorite people.

1:01:01

I work with her on. the infrastructure

1:01:03

bill. She is solid. I mean, I

1:01:06

will tell you that trust is something

1:01:08

that doesn't exist in Washington DC. One,

1:01:10

the recent infrastructure bill went is there

1:01:13

was trust developed between the senators. We

1:01:15

knew we weren't going to stab one

1:01:17

another in the back. We were going

1:01:19

to do the right things for the

1:01:22

right reasons. That is Lisa Markowski in

1:01:24

a nutshell. Do I agree with her

1:01:26

all the time? No, but I don't

1:01:29

agree with my wife all the time.

1:01:31

So that's normal. Okay. And in this

1:01:33

particular case, you're exactly right. I would

1:01:36

love to get her on our podcast

1:01:38

to talk about what she's my Greta

1:01:40

Garbo brother. I, the only person I

1:01:43

could never book on my 10 years

1:01:45

at meet the press, Lisa Wukowski. Is

1:01:47

that exactly? She, she's very wary of

1:01:49

national media and I get it. Like

1:01:52

she's an Alaska. She, she, she, she

1:01:54

spends a lot of time with Alaska

1:01:56

media. It's not that. she's, you know,

1:01:59

she just doesn't want to, and I

1:02:01

get it, right? What does she get,

1:02:03

what does she get, what does she

1:02:06

get out of it? She'll just get

1:02:08

arrows from Trump. I get it. Yeah,

1:02:10

that's true on one hand. On the

1:02:12

other hand, maybe, maybe it will help

1:02:15

her influence the other folks in the

1:02:17

United States Senate to make sure the

1:02:19

Senate acts like Robert C. Bird thought

1:02:22

the Senate should act and hold the

1:02:24

executive branch accountable. I think it she

1:02:26

sees it by the note that she

1:02:29

put out. And quite frankly, she's disturbed

1:02:31

by it greatly. And I will tell

1:02:33

you, I am too, by the way.

1:02:36

There's there's barely a day that goes

1:02:38

by that that I don't think about

1:02:40

who's gonna who's gonna who's gonna do

1:02:42

the job that they were elected to

1:02:45

do? And should just Congress go home

1:02:47

and will save the 165 thousand bucks

1:02:49

a year that we're paying these dudes?

1:02:52

Because they're not doing anything. They're not

1:02:54

paying, they're not doing what they need

1:02:56

to do that the forefathers had in

1:02:59

mind. And instead of reading the constitution

1:03:01

and looking for loopholes, they ought to

1:03:03

just read the constitution, period, instead of

1:03:05

carrying it around in their front pocket

1:03:08

and bringing it out while they got

1:03:10

the flagrapped around it because we're losing

1:03:12

that right now. We're losing it right

1:03:15

now, right, wrong or indifferent. What's going

1:03:17

on in Washington DC, the forefathers would

1:03:19

never recognize at this moment in time.

1:03:22

A lot of times I get

1:03:24

the, hey, the media needs to

1:03:27

do X better. The media needs

1:03:29

to do Y better. And my

1:03:31

reaction is sort of like, well,

1:03:33

tell me what the media is.

1:03:35

And I'll tell you, you know,

1:03:37

right, like, you know, the fact

1:03:39

is, Joe Rogan's part of the

1:03:42

media. What's he doing, right? Why

1:03:44

is this only, you know, when

1:03:46

they say media, what they really

1:03:48

mean is what you and I

1:03:50

have done for a living, which

1:03:52

is, quote unquote traditional traditional media,

1:03:55

If the people we're trying to

1:03:57

talk to won't listen to us,

1:03:59

that's our, we gotta figure out

1:04:01

how to talk. I feel like

1:04:03

right now, I'm talking to the

1:04:05

people that. want to be informed.

1:04:07

Exactly. That's exactly right. How do

1:04:10

you reach those people? Again, it

1:04:12

goes back to this trust thing

1:04:14

and having people on the ground

1:04:16

and leaving the studio and going

1:04:18

out to these areas, going out

1:04:20

to Montana, going out to Iowa,

1:04:23

going out into Oklahoma and talking

1:04:25

to people about what really matters

1:04:27

and not just talking to them,

1:04:29

more importantly, listening to them, listening

1:04:31

to what they're saying. you know

1:04:33

I think it's it's just a

1:04:35

we're in a place that feels

1:04:38

impossible for journalists because we are

1:04:40

taught to fact check we are

1:04:42

taught to ask hard questions and

1:04:44

now we're in a place where

1:04:46

the Associated Press yeah by you're

1:04:48

not coming to the White House

1:04:51

and let me ask you this

1:04:53

do you think I'm very frustrated

1:04:55

by the lack of anger over

1:04:57

the AP situation by the rest

1:04:59

of the press corps. I mean

1:05:01

that the thing that bothers me

1:05:03

the most is is the lack

1:05:06

of support AP's been getting from

1:05:08

its brothers and sisters in that

1:05:10

press room. Solidarity and that's what

1:05:12

it is going to take. Whether

1:05:14

you're talking about the press corps

1:05:16

or the United States Senate, I

1:05:18

mean, that's how you beat this

1:05:21

back as you stand up to

1:05:23

a bully and say, no, no,

1:05:25

no, we're not going to take

1:05:27

this. No, no, no, you're not

1:05:29

going to ignore that this is

1:05:31

congressional power and people aren't doing

1:05:34

it. All right, I want to

1:05:36

use our last few minutes here

1:05:38

to geek out. on Montana's star

1:05:40

turn in everybody's TV screens. What

1:05:42

do you, I'm just curious, do

1:05:44

you hate when people like, you

1:05:46

know, us voyeurs of Taylor Sheridan

1:05:49

all want to, like, I mean,

1:05:51

I had this conversation with Bullock

1:05:53

Tester and Bullock's like, oh, I

1:05:55

love the, he admitted, he goes,

1:05:57

he loves going to the sad.

1:05:59

He loves me and invited there.

1:06:02

What do you make of it? Do you

1:06:04

roll your eyes? Like I used to, I

1:06:06

grew up in Miami. When Miami Vice happened,

1:06:08

I used to roll my eyes a little

1:06:10

bit, okay? Because I'd be like, they're kind

1:06:13

of glorifying parts of, you

1:06:15

know, they're exaggerating this, you

1:06:17

know, it wasn't, it isn't all

1:06:19

that. I've never saw anybody dressed like

1:06:21

Crocket or Tubbs on the Miami Police

1:06:23

Force when I was trying to run

1:06:25

from the cops back in my youth.

1:06:28

What do you make of the

1:06:30

portrayal of Montana by Mr. Sheridan?

1:06:32

Let me tell you a quick

1:06:34

story, Chuck. So when I was

1:06:36

a US Senator, we did a

1:06:38

little zoom broadcast with some folks

1:06:40

from Viacom, which is a parent company.

1:06:43

And one of the people had

1:06:45

a background of the barn with

1:06:47

the brand on it. Yep. The Y. Yeah.

1:06:49

And a bunch of angus cattle

1:06:51

in front of it. And, you

1:06:53

know, me being the guy who's

1:06:55

trying to, you know, break the

1:06:57

ice, I said, geez, you raised

1:06:59

Angus Cowell? And they said, no,

1:07:01

that's the background for Yellowstone. And

1:07:03

so what I'm going to tell

1:07:05

you is that I've never watched

1:07:07

the show. I've never watched it.

1:07:10

I truly have never watched it. My

1:07:12

brothers, they're much older than me,

1:07:14

so they got nothing to do

1:07:16

watch television. They love it. They

1:07:18

absolutely love the show. And or

1:07:21

did love it. But as far

1:07:23

as its images of Montana, look,

1:07:25

it's bringing people in, it's helping

1:07:27

with the economy, there's no doubt

1:07:29

about that. But as far as

1:07:31

its accuracy, I really can't tell

1:07:33

you, I doubt it's accurate, but

1:07:35

I haven't really seen it. Wow,

1:07:37

you don't watch it? Well, what

1:07:39

do you watch? Well, America wants

1:07:41

to know. What does John Testor

1:07:44

stream in these days? So I watch...

1:07:46

I don't stream much at all. I

1:07:48

watch a lot of sports. Okay, if

1:07:50

I'm watching, I can't say I watch

1:07:52

a lot of sports. If I'm watching

1:07:54

TV, it's usually baseball, basketball, or football.

1:07:56

All right, let's go. What's the base? Who's

1:07:58

your baseball team? So. So when we

1:08:00

first moved to the farm, Wednesday night

1:08:02

was baseball night in Canada. This was

1:08:05

before satellites. We got Bethbridge TV. And

1:08:07

quite frankly, the Expos or the Blue

1:08:09

Jays were on every Wednesday night. And

1:08:11

I got a big Pro fan in

1:08:13

the days. So are you a Nats

1:08:16

fan? Are you with me? Are you

1:08:18

a Nats fan? So I'm a Nats

1:08:20

fan, but I never admit it. Okay,

1:08:22

never admit it. Oh, wow. on Washington

1:08:24

DC. So, but I really proud, you

1:08:26

know, in the ring of honor there,

1:08:29

they have Gary Carter, Andre Dawson, and

1:08:31

Tim Rains in the Nats ring of

1:08:33

honor. Yeah, exactly as well. They should.

1:08:35

And they had a great team. It's

1:08:37

before I fully, oh, the 94 team.

1:08:39

Oh, even before that we're talking early

1:08:42

80s. We're talking, you know, 81. Look,

1:08:44

the dogs broke your heart. Rick Monday,

1:08:46

Rick Monday hits the home run. That,

1:08:48

that that team was loaded. Warren Primardi,

1:08:50

you had Dawson, Carter, oh my God,

1:08:53

Roger, Steve Rogers, right? Wasn't that the

1:08:55

big picture? Yeah, the pitcher, it was,

1:08:57

they had a fun team to watch,

1:08:59

let's just put it that way, because

1:09:01

they had people that could steal faces,

1:09:03

they had people that could run the

1:09:06

ball down, they played decent defense, their

1:09:08

pitching was good, and it was fun

1:09:10

to watch. And anyway, so you're prepared

1:09:12

for Canada to be the 51 state,

1:09:14

right? wrong idea bad idea those folks

1:09:16

are friends of mine and I want

1:09:19

to keep them friends I'm not sure

1:09:21

they want to be friends of mine

1:09:23

right now because of all the crap

1:09:25

that's going on but it would be

1:09:27

good for if they came into the

1:09:30

country that'd be good for team blue.

1:09:32

I mean I called Trump's bluff you're

1:09:34

like all right. I'd rather I'd rather

1:09:36

have him as our best friend and

1:09:38

neighbor and keep working with him as

1:09:40

we have in the past because they

1:09:43

they're good people and they deserve to

1:09:45

be treated better than this. What's your

1:09:47

Yellowstone love? Yeah, come on. How do

1:09:49

you feel about it? I've actually only

1:09:51

watched one half of the first episode,

1:09:53

but it is filmed where I live

1:09:56

in Missoula, and if you come out,

1:09:58

I'll take you to all the places.

1:10:00

where I you know the diner where

1:10:02

there was a deputy that was shot

1:10:04

and killed that that that's a big

1:10:06

guy a lot of violence it's a

1:10:09

pretty violent show that's the thing is

1:10:11

that what I know I know generally

1:10:13

about it and people literally ask me

1:10:15

like do you just to people just

1:10:17

disappear and they kill people all the

1:10:20

time? I was like, no, we don't

1:10:22

take people to the train station. That's

1:10:24

not a regular part of life. But

1:10:26

what they do get right is that

1:10:28

we do have this battle between wealthy

1:10:30

people moving in and native Montanans. And

1:10:33

so they do get that part right,

1:10:35

but the irony is that the show

1:10:37

is drawing more wealthy people into our

1:10:39

state-to-pire property. Yeah. Marissa Giorgio, John Tester,

1:10:41

the podcast is grounded. I love it.

1:10:43

This was a lot of fun. Let's

1:10:46

keep doing it. Absolutely, thank you. All

1:10:48

right, thanks guys. interesting interview with Chris

1:10:50

Van Allen. Let's just say the tester

1:10:52

Roll of Decks gets them some interesting

1:10:54

bookings and it's definitely worth your time

1:10:57

especially if you're into some because they've

1:10:59

been doing some issues that you don't

1:11:01

see like I say a lot on

1:11:03

the East Coast like public lands all

1:11:05

right and that was something obviously we

1:11:07

talked about but that's something that to

1:11:10

me makes it different and it's a

1:11:12

perspective literally from another area of the

1:11:14

country. All right before we go let's

1:11:16

do a little ask Chuck Chuck. The

1:11:18

music out there, by the way, there's

1:11:20

a couple of ways you can ask

1:11:23

me questions. You can ask Chuck at

1:11:25

the chucktodcast.com, send him by email, you

1:11:27

can just do something in you two

1:11:29

comments, do that in the Instagram, wherever

1:11:31

you find the Chuck Toddcast, you two

1:11:34

can simply ask questions, whether it's in

1:11:36

the comments. or you send us that

1:11:38

email. So let me deal with this

1:11:40

first one is from Drew Archer and

1:11:42

he writes, if you were chair of

1:11:44

the DNC or in charge of the

1:11:47

Dem Party's messaging writ large, what are

1:11:49

three to five things you'd be doing

1:11:51

to help the D brand in general

1:11:53

go hippos? Obviously a GW person. This

1:11:55

is a bit of an inside joke

1:11:57

with him. I think he's a repeat

1:12:00

questioner. I think he just enjoys me

1:12:02

saying the words hippos. Look, the problem

1:12:04

with me is that I'm not a

1:12:06

Democrat. a lot of times when people

1:12:08

give you their opinions, it's always about

1:12:11

what would appeal to me. It's always

1:12:13

funny to me when I see former

1:12:15

Republicans, like my friends over at the

1:12:17

Bullwork, Bill Crystal will say, the Democrats

1:12:19

should be doing this on messaging. And

1:12:21

I'm like, I don't know if the

1:12:24

Democrats are going to listen to a,

1:12:26

you know, Dan Quayle's former chief of

1:12:28

staff for messaging advice. And now what

1:12:30

Bill Crystal is really saying is, here's

1:12:32

what would appeal to me and my

1:12:34

sort of centrist, centrist leanings. Am I

1:12:37

giving you advice that would appeal to

1:12:39

me or what? I think, but if

1:12:41

I were in charge, if you have

1:12:43

a brand that is damaged, and right

1:12:45

now the Democratic Party's brand is damaged,

1:12:47

what you really need to do is

1:12:50

you need to convince people that it

1:12:52

is not a bad brand, right? So,

1:12:54

and at the same time, you've got

1:12:56

to convince those, because it's interesting in

1:12:58

this poll that I referenced at the

1:13:01

top of the podcast. You know, Democrats

1:13:03

are definitely the ones that are more

1:13:05

negative right now in Democrats, right? Republicans

1:13:07

feeling more good about being Republican, you

1:13:09

know, winning does that, right? Losing elections

1:13:11

makes you sour in your party. Winning

1:13:14

elections makes you more optimistic about your

1:13:16

chosen political party. So a little bit

1:13:18

is that, you know, it's interesting to

1:13:20

me that Democrats haven't tried being a

1:13:22

50 state party in a legitimate way

1:13:24

in 20 years, not since Howard Dean

1:13:27

and did it. And I think they

1:13:29

need to go on their own listening

1:13:31

tour, if you will, and talk to,

1:13:33

and I'd almost make it. intentional effort.

1:13:35

You know, if you were, if you

1:13:38

were, if people stopped drinking Coca-Cola, you'd

1:13:40

want to talk to the people who

1:13:42

stopped drinking Coca-Cola to find out why

1:13:44

they stopped drinking Coca-Cola. So, you know,

1:13:46

go find former Democrats and... and talk

1:13:48

to them. Don't just wait for reporters

1:13:51

like me to go talk to them

1:13:53

or look or look at polling data.

1:13:55

Spend real time and talk to them.

1:13:57

Do an entire town all of people

1:13:59

that left the Democratic Party in the

1:14:01

last five years. Finding these people is

1:14:04

very easy. You just got to ask.

1:14:06

You know, that's how you use your

1:14:08

polling to go find those folks. And

1:14:10

go have some listening, you know, and

1:14:12

go to all 50 states. And then

1:14:15

you go back and start a brand

1:14:17

ID campaign of, you know, what does

1:14:19

the party stand for and what doesn't

1:14:21

it stand for? You know, I do

1:14:23

think you can come up with messaging

1:14:25

that appeases a centrist Democrat and a

1:14:28

progressive Democrat, right? You know, you look

1:14:30

at, you know, to me, one of

1:14:32

the most important phrases that we have

1:14:34

in our founding documents is a more

1:14:36

perfect union, right? More perfect union, because

1:14:38

it implies we know we're not perfect.

1:14:41

We know we're not perfect. We know

1:14:43

we're not perfect. And perhaps we're never

1:14:45

going to get to perfect, but we're

1:14:47

always trying to make the union more

1:14:49

perfect, closer to perfect. So the Democrats

1:14:51

need to find their own branding that

1:14:54

essentially is able to say, look, the

1:14:56

Democratic Party wants to be the party

1:14:58

of the future, the party of today,

1:15:00

and tomorrow, etc. that you're always looking

1:15:02

forward, that your future oriented. So that

1:15:05

means you need to be younger. There's

1:15:07

definitely needs to be an attempt to

1:15:09

be younger. But you also need to,

1:15:11

you know, sometimes you can get younger.

1:15:13

not generationally, but in behavior. You need

1:15:15

to be more modern, you know, more,

1:15:18

and I think the Republicans in many

1:15:20

ways got, they came across as the

1:15:22

more in-touch party because they were, they

1:15:24

certainly were more modern when it came

1:15:26

to communicating and where to communicate. So,

1:15:28

you know, I do think that they

1:15:31

ought to tackle it in the same

1:15:33

way. aren't going to McDonald's anymore. Maybe

1:15:35

they need to offer different things. That's

1:15:37

the type of research. And they've done

1:15:39

this before. I mean, that's the irony.

1:15:42

They went through this in the 90s.

1:15:44

They kind of went through this a

1:15:46

little bit in the mid-ots. And each

1:15:48

time, it produced a successful two-term president,

1:15:50

right, with Bill Clinton, and then with

1:15:52

Barack Obama. But they do need to,

1:15:55

you have to acknowledge that you've failed.

1:15:57

And right now, our politics. and our

1:15:59

media infrastructure punishes anybody that admits failure

1:16:01

and makes it impossible to sort of

1:16:03

show humility without humiliation. And I think

1:16:05

that's what keeps good people from being

1:16:08

more honest with you. I mean it's

1:16:10

very frustrating to me. It's so clear

1:16:12

elected officials or you just look at

1:16:14

any Democrat or Republican. Most of them

1:16:16

are lying is a strong word, but

1:16:19

are constantly telling you what you what

1:16:21

they think you want to hear rather

1:16:23

than being honest about the situation as

1:16:25

it is and it's because they don't

1:16:27

want that honesty weaponized against them and

1:16:29

so when you have a media ecosystem

1:16:32

that does that makes it that much

1:16:34

harder in a moment like this right

1:16:36

where i think the republican party needs

1:16:38

to admit that hey Donald Trump needs

1:16:40

to admit he's getting some things wrong

1:16:42

but he you know never apologize never

1:16:45

apologize never apologize never apologize never apologize

1:16:47

and i think they have to emulate

1:16:49

that behavior which I think is a

1:16:51

huge mistake. Anyway, so I hope that

1:16:53

helps. Next question. Tom D. from Philadelphia.

1:16:55

Go Birds. He wrote that. It ain't

1:16:58

coming from me, damn it. And he

1:17:00

writes this, one of the things that

1:17:02

is frequently mentioned about the 1976 election

1:17:04

is that if election day was one

1:17:06

week later, Gerald Ford would have won

1:17:09

that election. Similarly, I've long believed that

1:17:11

if election day in 2016 was one

1:17:13

week earlier, Hillary Clinton would have held

1:17:15

back Donald Trump and won. Obviously, we

1:17:17

will never know the answer. But as

1:17:19

a big fan of your historical alternate

1:17:22

history... shows. If you go back in

1:17:24

my archives, NBC still has them up.

1:17:26

You can go see them. I do

1:17:28

this in December every year, done it

1:17:30

three or four years now. Tom would

1:17:32

like to know what says me about

1:17:35

both 76 and 16. Well look, I

1:17:37

mean, I think I know a lot

1:17:39

about the 76 election. first mentor in

1:17:41

politics was a gentleman named Doug Bailey,

1:17:43

a longtime Republican consultant, and he was

1:17:46

co-founder of the hotline, which was where

1:17:48

I cut my teeth on political journalism

1:17:50

for 15 years. Doug was the leading

1:17:52

media consultant on that. on that Ford

1:17:54

campaign. Dick Cheney, by the way, was

1:17:56

the chief of staff in the White

1:17:59

House. It's, and I think Jim Baker

1:18:01

was among the chief strategist. So it

1:18:03

was quite the, it was literally the

1:18:05

Republican establishment of that era. And when

1:18:07

you lose by a point, Doug Bailey

1:18:09

had a couple of theories as to

1:18:12

why they lost. Number one, and when

1:18:14

you lose by one percentage point, you

1:18:16

can blame a whole bunch of folks.

1:18:18

But it's interesting you talk about the

1:18:20

quote one week later. Doug believes the

1:18:23

most damaging thing that happened was a

1:18:25

Gallup poll came out the weekend of

1:18:27

that, the weekend before election day, that

1:18:29

showed Ford ahead of Carter for the

1:18:31

first time all year. And it was

1:18:33

like this shock. Oh wow. And he'd

1:18:36

been creeping up. What happened was Ford

1:18:38

started out way behind. As you might

1:18:40

expect, your Richard Nixon's vice president, Richard

1:18:42

Nixon was unpopular, that Watergate was very

1:18:44

unpopular, and Jimmy Carter's entire campaign was

1:18:46

premised on I will not tell a

1:18:49

lie, and basically I'm a much more

1:18:51

moral, I'm going to have high character

1:18:53

in the White House after we just

1:18:55

had that low character incident. So he

1:18:57

was essentially running against Nixon. Well, what

1:19:00

Doug came up with in his ad

1:19:02

campaign were these man on the street

1:19:04

interviews going, you know, what do you

1:19:06

know about Jimmy Carter? And it was

1:19:08

just, it was the first time these

1:19:10

were used really effectively. Now you see

1:19:13

them all the time. But this was

1:19:15

groundbreaking at the time. It was just

1:19:17

quote unquote. and women on the street

1:19:19

interviews. What do you know about Jimmy

1:19:21

Carter? And it was more like, do

1:19:23

you think he can handle the job?

1:19:26

It was playing to the idea that

1:19:28

people didn't know a lot about Carter.

1:19:30

They just knew who he wasn't. Right.

1:19:32

They knew, they knew the top lines.

1:19:34

Right. They knew, they knew, they knew

1:19:36

the top lines, but they didn't know

1:19:39

a lot about, can he handle the

1:19:41

Cold War? Can he do this? horrible

1:19:43

scandal with Watergate. So they were trying

1:19:45

to raise questions. And this ad campaign

1:19:47

was working. It was raising doubt. It

1:19:50

was sort of bringing independence and Republicans

1:19:52

home for Ford. And that poll comes

1:19:54

out on, I think it was a

1:19:56

Saturday night, shows Ford ahead by a

1:19:58

point. Doug went to his grave. He

1:20:00

is now deceased, believing that had that

1:20:03

poll showed Carter up by a point

1:20:05

and not Ford is a point, that

1:20:07

Ford ends up winning, because he thinks

1:20:09

that the minute voters realize Ford could

1:20:11

win, it was like, oh, whoa, whoa,

1:20:13

we just didn't want Carter to get

1:20:16

a mandate. We were not wanting to

1:20:18

reward Ford with another term. We still

1:20:20

need to punish the Republicans for Nixon.

1:20:22

So that was his theory, although he

1:20:24

will also say. When you lose by

1:20:27

a point, there's a lot of things

1:20:29

you can blame. And he thinks the

1:20:31

other, the most damaging thing in the

1:20:33

fall campaign to Gerald Ford was Bob

1:20:35

Dole's performance in the V.P. debate. It

1:20:37

was the first ever televised V.P. debate

1:20:40

in history, by the way. In that

1:20:42

V.P. debate, he infamously blamed, he said,

1:20:44

called all of the wars of the

1:20:46

20th century Democrat wars. Now he's trying

1:20:48

mostly saying, you know, you know, as

1:20:50

Democrats, got us involved with Vietnam, that's

1:20:53

unpopular. And he was saying, you know,

1:20:55

basically a Democrat was in the White

1:20:57

House at the start of World War

1:20:59

I, a Democrat was in the White

1:21:01

House at the start of War II,

1:21:04

a Democrat was in the White House,

1:21:06

start of Korea. Well, let's just say

1:21:08

that that is not how the country

1:21:10

viewed it. And frankly, there were a

1:21:12

lot of military veterans who didn't see

1:21:14

it as a democratic war, a Republican

1:21:17

war, but certainly World War I and

1:21:19

World War II were sort of brought

1:21:21

to us, brought to us more than

1:21:23

more than more than more than more

1:21:25

than more than more than more than

1:21:27

more than more than more than more

1:21:30

than more than more than more than

1:21:32

more than more than more than more

1:21:34

than more than more than more than

1:21:36

more than more than more than more

1:21:38

than more of more than more of

1:21:40

more of more of more than more

1:21:43

than more of more than more of

1:21:45

more than more than more than more

1:21:47

than more than more than more than

1:21:49

more than more than more than more

1:21:51

than more than more than more than

1:21:54

more than more than more Korea and

1:21:56

Vietnam, you can make a different calculation

1:21:58

on that, but it blew up in

1:22:00

Dole's face. It backfired. And so that's

1:22:02

always something that Doug's also put to

1:22:04

the test on that one. As for

1:22:07

your Hillary Clinton projection, we, you know,

1:22:09

look, if that election's 10 days earlier,

1:22:11

it's before the, that infamous laptop of

1:22:13

Anthony Wiener, who at the time was

1:22:15

married to one of Hillary Clinton's closest

1:22:17

advisors whom Aberdeen. The laptop had more

1:22:20

emails on it, but it turned out

1:22:22

it was the same emails, but Jim

1:22:24

Comey comes out, who's then head of

1:22:26

the FBI, and implies that the investigation

1:22:28

is back on the weekend before. Well,

1:22:31

look, when you have that small of

1:22:33

a margin in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania,

1:22:35

it's hard not to imagine that. Look,

1:22:37

there's a lot of people in the

1:22:39

world of George W. Bush who believe

1:22:41

of the DUI story. which came out

1:22:44

the weekend before the election doesn't come

1:22:46

out, Bush wins the popular vote and

1:22:48

carries the election, you know, with a

1:22:50

bit more of a comfortable margin than

1:22:52

he ended up losing the popular vote

1:22:54

and of course winning the electoral college

1:22:57

with a controversial court decision about the

1:22:59

recount in the state of Florida. So,

1:23:01

you're right, timing is everything in politics.

1:23:03

And that's why... I love me a

1:23:05

good butterfly effect because when you study

1:23:08

a butterfly effect on history, it actually

1:23:10

allows you to understand why things ended

1:23:12

up the way they did, right? The

1:23:14

butterfly effect, you wonder, boy, what if

1:23:16

this didn't happen and it allows you

1:23:18

to understand actually better what was going

1:23:21

on in the moment that these events

1:23:23

were taking place. So, enjoyed that question,

1:23:25

appreciate the plug on that, and remember

1:23:27

again, ask Chuck at the Chuck toddcast.com

1:23:29

or simply... drop any questions you'd like

1:23:31

me to address. And I'll just address

1:23:34

the ones I want to, not the

1:23:36

ones you really really really think I

1:23:38

should. And I certainly, you know, I'll

1:23:40

answer a troll's question. if the

1:23:42

troll actually asks

1:23:44

a good and fair

1:23:47

question. So I'll even let

1:23:49

even let you guys

1:23:51

in on that

1:23:53

as well. with that, with

1:23:55

that, you you listening

1:23:58

in and And again, be

1:24:00

be on the lookout

1:24:02

for a bonus

1:24:04

episode later this week

1:24:06

that's going to

1:24:08

be dropping. gonna be dropping.

1:24:11

And until then, I'll

1:24:13

I'll see you on

1:24:15

the other side

1:24:17

until we upload again.

1:24:20

again.