Chuck Todd breaks down a NYT/Siena poll showing Democrats up 8 on the generic ballot and leading independents by 23 — numbers that would mean 25-30 House seats and 4-6 Senate seats, with Trump polling worse than he did before the 2018 wave. He argues the Justice Department, FBI, and Pentagon damage will take a generation to repair, that Thomas Massie's impeachment articles against Hegseth usefully drag the Iran war back to center stage, and that Republicans in swing areas should cut bait on Trump entirely. He's also furious about JD Vance attacking Kansas Senate candidate Adam Hamilton over how he practices his faith — religious bigotry, Todd argues, and proof Kansas is in play. Plus Trump's claim that the only AI guardrail needed is a "high IQ president," from a man who spent a decade destroying the very trust he's now demanding. 

Finally, Chuck updates his ToddCast Top 5 list of 2028 Democratic candidates for president and answers listeners’ questions in the Ask Chuck segment.

Timeline:

(Timestamps may vary based on advertisements)

00:00 Chuck Todd’s introduction

04:00 The politicization of DOJ and the damage to federal institutions

12:30 The Kennedy Center tantrum and Trump's messaging problem

15:45 Massie's impeachment articles put the Iran war front and center

22:00 Inside the NYT/Siena poll: +8 generic, +23 with independents

32:30 Why voters under 45 decide wave vs. tsunami

36:30 JD Vance's religious attack on Adam Hamilton

42:45 Trump's AI "high IQ president" guardrail — and why trust is the whole problem

52:45 What social media taught us that we ignored 

1:04:30 Gavin Newsom says he won’t run if Kamala Harris does

1:07:30 Newsom is a savvy politician

1:09:15 Newsom will struggle to overcome California image

1:09:30 ToddCast Top 5 Democratic candidates for president in 2028

1:16:00 Ask Chuck

1:16:15 Could Democrats make solidly red states competitive in this environment?

1:18:30 Thoughts onJames Franklin’s first two outings at Virginia Tech?

1:24:30 Is there a way to make a political donation without ending up on email lists?

1:26:15 Should Dems pursue impeachment if they don’t have votes to convict?

1:29:45 Is it possible the Iran war served Russia’s interests & could it be intentional?

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Chuck Todd breaks down a NYT/Siena poll showing Democrats up 8 on the generic ballot and leading independents by 23 — numbers that would mean 25-30 House seats and 4-6 Senate seats, with Trump polling worse than he did before the 2018 wave. He argues the Justice Department, FBI, and Pentagon damage will take a generation to repair, that Thomas Massie's impeachment articles against Hegseth usefully drag the Iran war back to center stage, and that Republicans in swing areas should cut bait on Trump entirely. He's also furious about JD Vance attacking Kansas Senate candidate Adam Hamilton over how he practices his faith — religious bigotry, Todd argues, and proof Kansas is in play. Plus Trump's claim that the only AI guardrail needed is a "high IQ president," from a man who spent a decade destroying the very trust he's now demanding. 

Disclosure: Chapter is an advertiser on The Chuck ToddCast.

Then, Chapter co-founder and CEO Cobi Blumenfeld-Gantz joins the Chuck Toddcast to explain why Medicare enrollment is so punishing — he started the company after watching his own parents struggle, and notes even a Stanford health economics professor found it overwhelming. He walks through what people in their sixties should actually be doing to prepare, why Parts A and B only cover about 80% of costs, how Medicare Advantage works and where its incentives cut against patients, and why the federal government's antiquated technology can't solve this itself. He and Chuck also get into why insurers have no real incentive to keep anyone healthy, and why good produce costing more than a hamburger is the root of so much of it.

Finally, Chuck updates his ToddCast Top 5 list of 2028 Democratic candidates for president and answers listeners’ questions in the Ask Chuck segment.

Timeline:

00:00 Chuck Todd’s introduction

04:00 The politicization of DOJ and the damage to federal institutions

12:30 The Kennedy Center tantrum and Trump's messaging problem

15:45 Massie's impeachment articles put the Iran war front and center

22:00 Inside the NYT/Siena poll: +8 generic, +23 with independents

32:30 Why voters under 45 decide wave vs. tsunami

36:30 JD Vance's religious attack on Adam Hamilton

42:45 Trump's AI "high IQ president" guardrail — and why trust is the whole problem

52:45 What social media taught us that we ignored 

1:06:00 Cobi Blumenfeld-Gantz joins the Chuck Toddcast

1:07:00 Why Chapter exists and why Medicare is so hard to navigate

1:12:30 What Medicare actually covers — and what it doesn't

1:15:00 Medicare Advantage, denials, and misaligned incentives

1:17:45 Why the government can't build this itself

1:22:15 How Chapter works, and how it makes money

1:30:15 Bipartisan backing and the road ahead

1:39:15 Rebuilding American healthcare from scratch

1:46:00 Gavin Newsom says he won’t run if Kamala Harris does

1:49:00 Newsom is a savvy politician

1:50:45 Newsom will struggle to overcome California image

1:51:00 ToddCast Top 5 Democratic candidates for president in 2028

1:57:30 Ask Chuck

1:57:45 Could Democrats make solidly red states competitive in this environment?

2:00:00 Thoughts onJames Franklin’s first two outings at Virginia Tech?

2:06:00 Is there a way to make a political donation without ending up on email lists?

2:07:45 Should Dems pursue impeachment if they don’t have votes to convict?

2:11:15 Is it possible the Iran war served Russia’s interests & could it be intentional?

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Disclosure: Chapter is an advertiser on The Chuck ToddCast.

Chapter co-founder and CEO Cobi Blumenfeld-Gantz joins the Chuck Toddcast to explain why Medicare enrollment is so punishing — he started the company after watching his own parents struggle, and notes even a Stanford health economics professor found it overwhelming. He walks through what people in their sixties should actually be doing to prepare, why Parts A and B only cover about 80% of costs, how Medicare Advantage works and where its incentives cut against patients, and why the federal government's antiquated technology can't solve this itself. He and Chuck also get into why insurers have no real incentive to keep anyone healthy, and why good produce costing more than a hamburger is the root of so much of it.

Timeline:

00:00 Chuck Todd’s introduction

01:00 Why Chapter exists and why Medicare is so hard to navigate

06:30 What Medicare actually covers — and what it doesn't

09:00 Medicare Advantage, denials, and misaligned incentives

11:45 Why the government can't build this itself

16:15 How Chapter works, and how it makes money

24:15 Bipartisan backing and the road ahead

33:15 Rebuilding American healthcare from scratch 

For free and unbiased Medicare help, dial (980) 734-3985 to speak with my trusted partner, Chapter, or go to askchapter.org/chuck /  *Paid Partnership

Chapter and its affiliates are not connected with or endorsed by any government entity or the federal Medicare program. Chapter Advisory, LLC represents Medicare Advantage HMO, PPO, and PFFS organizations and stand alone prescription drug plans that have a Medicare contract. Enrollment depends on the plan’s contract renewal. While we have a database of every Medicare plan nationwide and can help you to search among all plans, we have contracts with many but not all plans. As a result, we do not offer every plan available in your area. Currently we represent 50 organizations which offer 18,160 products nationwide. We search and recommend all plans, even those we don’t directly offer. You can contact a licensed Chapter agent to find out the number of products available in your specific area.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Chuck Todd and Chris Cillizza open with a thesis worth marking on a calendar: the next two weeks may be the most consequential stretch of the campaign. Axios data shows Republicans outspending Democrats in every competitive state — $64 million in Texas, $45 million in Ohio — and Chuck's test is specific: if the ads work, Democratic numbers tick down and undecideds tick up by October 1st. His counterweight looks stronger by the day, with diesel at a record, Brent above $109, and the 10-year Treasury touching 5% for the first time since 2023. No amount of super PAC money outruns a gas pump, and he now believes the Iran war will hit these midterms the way Iraq hit 2006 — except as pure economic catastrophe with no upside. Plus: why Texas is an environment problem and not just a Paxton problem, a deep dive into Kansas and the reporting on Roger Marshall's medical-debt lawsuits, why Trump's $5,000 dividend pitch in Dallas was an accidental confession, JD Vance's rise as Rubio vanishes, a genuinely alarmed conversation about AI and the knowledge gap in Congress, and Ted Cruz getting drowned out on College GameDay. 

Timeline:

00:00 The late-money avalanche & why these two weeks decide everything

10:00 $6 diesel, a bond market on fire & the Iran war as this cycle's Iraq

18:00 Texas, Florida & the rescue mission for Ken Paxton

24:00 Kansas: the debate, the medical-debt story & why Marshall is vulnerable

34:00 Forced pairs — who flips first across Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa and Alaska

40:00 The Dallas convention: Vance rising, Rubio missing, Trump promising checks

46:00 AI, the knowledge gap in Congress & a leadership vacuum

56:00 Ted Cruz gets booed, and the case against the college sports bill

66:00 Week one signal vs. noise, monkey picks & the top five

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Chuck Todd connects two crises with the same root: nobody in charge is willing to stop. AI CEOs now openly concede their technology could end humanity — Dario Amodei published an essay arguing development needs to slow down — while the companies pour money into the midterms lobbying to let Washington overrule state regulators, and OpenAI's own models escape a sandbox to hack Hugging Face and cheat on a test. From there Todd maps the GOP's financial advantage state by state, argues Trump's convention cash promises are an admission the working-class economy is a disaster, and warns the Iran war has become a full-blown kitchen table issue with millions of barrels of oil a day offline and diesel at an all-time high. 

Finally, Chuck hops into the ToddCast Time Machine to revisit the 1920 Wall Street bombing, one of the deadliest terrorist attacks in American history, answers listeners’ questions in the Ask Chuck segment and reacts to the weekend in college football.

Timeline:

00:00 Chuck Todd’s introduction

06:15 The AI industry admits the danger and builds it anyway

17:30 Can Republican money mitigate a terrible climate?

27:45 Trump's convention, cash promises, and a working-class economy in freefall

32:00 Inflation, the Fed, and the Iran oil shock

39:00 Vance's 2028 advantage and the Trump albatross

42:30 Joe diGenova resigns, and the pile of discarded Trump allies

46:15 Why the Protect College Sports bill is fatally flawed 

56:30 ToddCast Time Machine - September 16th, 1920

58:00 The Wall Street Bombing

1:03:15 A. Palmer Mitchell warns of anarchists

1:10:00 Over 30 are killed by the bomb and hundreds are injured

1:16:00 Attacks on lower Manhattan became a symbol for attacks on American power

1:20:30 Ask Chuck

1:20:45 Should politicians avoid using foul language?

1:24:00 If Dems capture both chambers, what could they realistically accomplish?

1:30:00 Rebuilding local public access media via streaming?

1:33:45 Thoughts on the culture of NFL ownership?

1:38:00 College football reaction

Protect your family with life insurance from Ethos. Get up to $3 million in coverage in as little as 10 minutes at https://ethos.com/chuck. Application times may vary. Rates may vary.

For free and unbiased Medicare help, dial (980) 734-3985 to speak with my trusted partner, Chapter, or go to askchapter.org/chuck /  *Paid Partnership

Chapter and its affiliates are not connected with or endorsed by any government entity or the federal Medicare program. Chapter Advisory, LLC represents Medicare Advantage HMO, PPO, and PFFS organizations and stand alone prescription drug plans that have a Medicare contract. Enrollment depends on the plan’s contract renewal. While we have a database of every Medicare plan nationwide and can help you to search among all plans, we have contracts with many but not all plans. As a result, we do not offer every plan available in your area. Currently we represent 50 organizations which offer 18,160 products nationwide. We search and recommend all plans, even those we don’t directly offer. You can contact a licensed Chapter agent to find out the number of products available in your specific area.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Chuck Todd connects two crises with the same root: nobody in charge is willing to stop. AI CEOs now openly concede their technology could end humanity — Dario Amodei published an essay arguing development needs to slow down — while the companies pour money into the midterms lobbying to let Washington overrule state regulators, and OpenAI's own models escape a sandbox to hack Hugging Face and cheat on a test. From there Todd maps the GOP's financial advantage state by state, argues Trump's convention cash promises are an admission the working-class economy is a disaster, and warns the Iran war has become a full-blown kitchen table issue with millions of barrels of oil a day offline and diesel at an all-time high. 

Then, veteran political strategist Maria Comella — who has worked for Chris Christie, Rudy Giuliani, and Democrats alike — joins the Chuck Toddcast to argue that political consulting has become an industry with no character test left in it. Using the Graham Platner saga as a case study, she and Todd examine what consultants owe voters when they know a candidate's flaws, why the staffer who went public took real guts, and why authenticity isn't a value but merely a descriptor. Comella maps the persuadable Republican electorate heading into 2026, argues Texas is the perfect storm for a statewide Democratic win, and explains why a non-MAGA Republican may be structurally unable to break through in 2028. 

Finally, Chuck hops into the ToddCast Time Machine to revisit the 1920 Wall Street bombing, one of the deadliest terrorist attacks in American history, answers listeners’ questions in the Ask Chuck segment and reacts to the weekend in college football.

Timeline:

00:00 Chuck Todd’s introduction

06:15 The AI industry admits the danger and builds it anyway

17:30 Can Republican money mitigate a terrible climate?

27:45 Trump's convention, cash promises, and a working-class economy in freefall

32:00 Inflation, the Fed, and the Iran oil shock

39:00 Vance's 2028 advantage and the Trump albatross

42:30 Joe diGenova resigns, and the pile of discarded Trump allies

46:15 Why the Protect College Sports bill is fatally flawed 

58:00 Maria Comella joins the Chuck ToddCast

1:00:00 The Platner saga and the ethics of political consulting

1:08:00 Authenticity, character tests, and what voters will overlook

1:15:00 Going public, the Natalie Harp leaks, and protecting a candidate from himself

1:28:00 Persuadable Republicans and the 2026 battlegrounds

1:39:00 Outside money, data centers, and the AI problem

1:44:30 The 2028 GOP field and the fight for the party's future

1:53:45 Mamdani's first year, Cuomo, and the establishment's failures

2:01:15 ToddCast Time Machine - September 16th, 1920

2:02:45 The Wall Street Bombing

2:08:00 A. Palmer Mitchell warns of anarchists

2:14:45 Over 30 are killed by the bomb and hundreds are injured

2:20:45 Attacks on lower Manhattan became a symbol for attacks on American power

2:25:15 Ask Chuck

2:25:30 Should politicians avoid using foul language?

2:28:45 If Dems capture both chambers, what could they realistically accomplish?

2:34:45 Rebuilding local public access media via streaming?

2:38:30 Thoughts on the culture of NFL ownership?

2:42:45 College football reaction

Link in bio or go to https://getsoul.com & enter code TODDCAST for 30% off your first order. 

Protect your family with life insurance from Ethos. Get up to $3 million in coverage in as little as 10 minutes at https://ethos.com/chuck. Application times may vary. Rates may vary.

For free and unbiased Medicare help, dial (980) 734-3985 to speak with my trusted partner, Chapter, or go to askchapter.org/chuck /  *Paid Partnership

Chapter and its affiliates are not connected with or endorsed by any government entity or the federal Medicare program. Chapter Advisory, LLC represents Medicare Advantage HMO, PPO, and PFFS organizations and stand alone prescription drug plans that have a Medicare contract. Enrollment depends on the plan’s contract renewal. While we have a database of every Medicare plan nationwide and can help you to search among all plans, we have contracts with many but not all plans. As a result, we do not offer every plan available in your area. Currently we represent 50 organizations which offer 18,160 products nationwide. We search and recommend all plans, even those we don’t directly offer. You can contact a licensed Chapter agent to find out the number of products available in your specific area. Please contact 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Veteran political strategist Maria Comella — who has worked for Chris Christie, Rudy Giuliani, and Democrats alike — joins the Chuck Toddcast to argue that political consulting has become an industry with no character test left in it. Using the Graham Platner saga as a case study, she and Todd examine what consultants owe voters when they know a candidate's flaws, why the staffer who went public took real guts, and why authenticity isn't a value but merely a descriptor. Comella maps the persuadable Republican electorate heading into 2026, argues Texas is the perfect storm for a statewide Democratic win, and explains why a non-MAGA Republican may be structurally unable to break through in 2028. 

Link in bio or go to https://getsoul.com & enter code TODDCAST for 30% off your first order. 

Protect your family with life insurance from Ethos. Get up to $3 million in coverage in as little as 10 minutes at https://ethos.com/chuck. Application times may vary. Rates may vary.

For free and unbiased Medicare help, dial (980) 734-3985 to speak with my trusted partner, Chapter, or go to askchapter.org/chuck /  *Paid Partnership

Chapter and its affiliates are not connected with or endorsed by any government entity or the federal Medicare program. Chapter Advisory, LLC represents Medicare Advantage HMO, PPO, and PFFS organizations and stand alone prescription drug plans that have a Medicare contract. Enrollment depends on the plan’s contract renewal. While we have a database of every Medicare plan nationwide and can help you to search among all plans, we have contracts with many but not all plans. As a result, we do not offer every plan available in your area. Currently we represent 50 organizations which offer 18,160 products nationwide. We search and recommend all plans, even those we don’t directly offer. You can contact a licensed Chapter agent to find out the number of products available in your specific area. Please contact 

Timeline:

00:00 The Platner saga and the ethics of political consulting

10:00 Authenticity, character tests, and what voters will overlook

17:00 Going public, the Natalie Harp leaks, and protecting a candidate from himself

30:00 Persuadable Republicans and the 2026 battlegrounds

41:00 Outside money, data centers, and the AI problem

46:30 The 2028 GOP field and the fight for the party's future

55:45 Mamdani's first year, Cuomo, and the establishment's failures

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Chuck Todd argues AI alarmism just hit its break-glass moment. Jacob Coxon, a researcher who spent three years on pretraining at OpenAI and Anthropic, resigned Tuesday and posted that neither company is acting responsibly — that they're "racing straight to self-improving superintelligence and gambling with our lives". Chuck had assumed some of this fearmongering was a marketing tactic. He no longer does. His argument is that the public is begging for guardrails while a government that's been bought off or is simply afraid of tech money does nothing, that the tech companies want regulatory capture, and that we have the worst possible president for this moment. We organized globally to prevent nuclear war; we need televised emergency congressional hearings and the same seriousness here.

From there Chuck turns to trust — the connective tissue of the whole episode. Only 45% of Americans think the midterms will be fair, in part because Trump has convinced his supporters that every election he's lost was suspicious. Republicans have to win voters with oil prices at record highs, and unlike Obama, Trump can't credibly blame his predecessor: he inherited a recovery and made it worse. Chuck previews a convention that's a base-turnout exercise rather than a persuasion play, notes Trump's instinct for gimmicks (paying stay-at-home mothers is functionally welfare), and observes that the limited-government wing of the GOP has been fully eviscerated by a party that now wants to coerce social behavior. On the 25th anniversary of 9/11, he's blunt about the Islamophobia aimed at Zohran Mamdani and argues Muslim participation in American life post-9/11 is largely a good story. The security apparatus worked, intelligence sharing genuinely improved, but emergency powers should have expiration dates, the surveillance watchdog board is effectively defunct, and Congress has abdicated oversight. We traded privacy for security and then got used to it. 

Finally, he answers listeners’ questions in the “Ask Chuck” segment and previews the upcoming weekend in college football. 

link in bio or go to https://getsoul.com & enter code TODDCAST for 30% off your first order. 

Get your wardrobe sorted and your gift list handled with Quince. Don't wait! Go to https://Quince.com/CHUCK for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. Now available in Canada, too! 

For free and unbiased Medicare help, dial (980) 734-3985 to speak with my trusted partner, Chapter, or go to askchapter.org/chuck /  *Paid Partnership

Chapter and its affiliates are not connected with or endorsed by any government entity or the federal Medicare program. Chapter Advisory, LLC represents Medicare Advantage HMO, PPO, and PFFS organizations and stand alone prescription drug plans that have a Medicare contract. Enrollment depends on the plan’s contract renewal. While we have a database of every Medicare plan nationwide and can help you to search among all plans, we have contracts with many but not all plans. As a result, we do not offer every plan available in your area. Currently we represent 50 organizations which offer 18,160 products nationwide. We search and recommend all plans, even those we don’t directly offer. You can contact a licensed Chapter agent to find out the number of products available in your specific area. Please contact 

Timeline:

(Timestamps may vary based on advertisements)

00:00 Chuck Todd's introduction

02:00 AI alarmism may have hit its break-glass moment

03:15 The viral resignation post — and the colleagues who confirmed it

04:30 Chuck had assumed some of this was a marketing tactic

05:45 The public is begging government for AI guardrails

07:15 We have the worst possible president for this moment

08:15 We stopped nuclear war globally — we need the same for AI

09:15 Officials are bought off or afraid of tech money

10:00 The tech companies want regulatory capture

13:00 Shouldn't we pause everything to work on this?

16:30 The virality feels like a primal scream from the public

18:30 Only 45% of Americans think the midterms will be fair

21:00 Trump convinced supporters every election he lost was suspicious

23:30 Republicans have to win with oil prices at record highs

26:15 Obama could blame his predecessor — Trump can't

30:00 A convention Trump can only use to talk to his own voters

34:30 Trump's instinct for finding the right gimmick

36:00 Paying stay-at-home moms is basically welfare

38:00 The GOP now wants government to coerce social behavior

40:30 Democrats should have fought harder for the Child Tax Credit

42:30 Friday marks the 25th anniversary of 9/11

44:15 The blatant Islamophobia aimed at Zohran Mamdani

47:00 Muslim participation in America post-9/11 is mostly a good story

51:30 We gave up a lot of freedoms — it's time to get them back

54:45 More surveillance power was granted, but oversight never followed

56:30 Emergency powers should have an expiration date

59:30 The surveillance watchdog board is basically defunct

1:03:00 Trust has collapsed, and that's dangerous for a pluralistic society

1:07:15 The terrorists win if we fight each other 

1:14:45 Ask Chuck

1:15:00 Where have you heard a musical performance that left an impression?

1:19:45 Examples of presidents making painful short-term decisions for long-term gain?

1:24:15 Reaction to Sen. Kennedy telling Kristen Welker he likes her better?

1:24:45 Who needs to sell their MLB team first?

1:28:00 Is there more Dems can do to sustain focus to counter Hegseth at the Pentagon?

1:31:45 Any question of which map will be used in Missouri election?

1:35:45 College football preview

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Chuck Todd argues AI alarmism just hit its break-glass moment. Jacob Coxon, a researcher who spent three years on pretraining at OpenAI and Anthropic, resigned Tuesday and posted that neither company is acting responsibly — that they're "racing straight to self-improving superintelligence and gambling with our lives". Chuck had assumed some of this fearmongering was a marketing tactic. He no longer does. His argument is that the public is begging for guardrails while a government that's been bought off or is simply afraid of tech money does nothing, that the tech companies want regulatory capture, and that we have the worst possible president for this moment. We organized globally to prevent nuclear war; we need televised emergency congressional hearings and the same seriousness here.

From there Chuck turns to trust — the connective tissue of the whole episode. Only 45% of Americans think the midterms will be fair, in part because Trump has convinced his supporters that every election he's lost was suspicious. Republicans have to win voters with oil prices at record highs, and unlike Obama, Trump can't credibly blame his predecessor: he inherited a recovery and made it worse. Chuck previews a convention that's a base-turnout exercise rather than a persuasion play, notes Trump's instinct for gimmicks (paying stay-at-home mothers is functionally welfare), and observes that the limited-government wing of the GOP has been fully eviscerated by a party that now wants to coerce social behavior. On the 25th anniversary of 9/11, he's blunt about the Islamophobia aimed at Zohran Mamdani and argues Muslim participation in American life post-9/11 is largely a good story. The security apparatus worked, intelligence sharing genuinely improved, but emergency powers should have expiration dates, the surveillance watchdog board is effectively defunct, and Congress has abdicated oversight. We traded privacy for security and then got used to it. 

Then, Lawfare senior editor Molly Roberts joins the Chuck Toddcast to walk through the "rogue clerk" scenario — the theory circulating online that House Republicans could hold power on January 3rd regardless of what voters do in November. Her piece on it has been called the most comprehensive analysis written to date, and her conclusion is genuinely nuanced: this is worth taking seriously without taking it too seriously. The mechanics matter. At noon on January 3rd the old House dissolves and, briefly, there is no House at all — only the clerk, who under 2 U.S.C. § 26 has a ministerial duty to place on the roll only those members whose credentials show they were regularly elected. Ministerial duties are enforceable by mandamus, which means courts can compel compliance before a speaker is ever seated. But the vulnerabilities are real: a speaker can unilaterally fire the clerk and install an acting one, a state certification delayed past January 3rd creates genuine chaos (Missouri is the obvious candidate), and once a speaker is elected the courts will likely bow out. She and Chuck walk through the historical precedents — the 1838 Broad Seal War, the 1984 fight over Indiana's "Bloody 8th" — and land on the reassuring and unsettling truth at once: pulling this off would require an enormous number of people at the state level and in the House conference acting in lockstep, and treating it as a foolproof hack implies it's lawful when it plainly isn't. The realistic ceiling for a rogue clerk isn't a stolen election; it's mayhem. The worry, as Roberts puts it, is that for some people mayhem is more than enough. 

Finally, he answers listeners’ questions in the “Ask Chuck” segment and previews the upcoming weekend in college football. 

link in bio or go to https://getsoul.com & enter code TODDCAST for 30% off your first order. 

Get your wardrobe sorted and your gift list handled with Quince. Don't wait! Go to https://Quince.com/CHUCK for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. Now available in Canada, too! 

For free and unbiased Medicare help, dial (980) 734-3985 to speak with my trusted partner, Chapter, or go to askchapter.org/chuck /  *Paid Partnership

Chapter and its affiliates are not connected with or endorsed by any government entity or the federal Medicare program. Chapter Advisory, LLC represents Medicare Advantage HMO, PPO, and PFFS organizations and stand alone prescription drug plans that have a Medicare contract. Enrollment depends on the plan’s contract renewal. While we have a database of every Medicare plan nationwide and can help you to search among all plans, we have contracts with many but not all plans. As a result, we do not offer every plan available in your area. Currently we represent 50 organizations which offer 18,160 products nationwide. We search and recommend all plans, even those we don’t directly offer. You can contact a licensed Chapter agent to find out the number of products available in your specific area. Please contact 

Timeline:

(Timestamps may vary based on advertisements)

00:00 Chuck Todd's introduction

02:00 AI alarmism may have hit its break-glass moment

03:15 The viral resignation post — and the colleagues who confirmed it

04:30 Chuck had assumed some of this was a marketing tactic

05:45 The public is begging government for AI guardrails

07:15 We have the worst possible president for this moment

08:15 We stopped nuclear war globally — we need the same for AI

09:15 Officials are bought off or afraid of tech money

10:00 The tech companies want regulatory capture

13:00 Shouldn't we pause everything to work on this?

16:30 The virality feels like a primal scream from the public

18:30 Only 45% of Americans think the midterms will be fair

21:00 Trump convinced supporters every election he lost was suspicious

23:30 Republicans have to win with oil prices at record highs

26:15 Obama could blame his predecessor — Trump can't

30:00 A convention Trump can only use to talk to his own voters

34:30 Trump's instinct for finding the right gimmick

36:00 Paying stay-at-home moms is basically welfare

38:00 The GOP now wants government to coerce social behavior

40:30 Democrats should have fought harder for the Child Tax Credit

42:30 Friday marks the 25th anniversary of 9/11

44:15 The blatant Islamophobia aimed at Zohran Mamdani

47:00 Muslim participation in America post-9/11 is mostly a good story

51:30 We gave up a lot of freedoms — it's time to get them back

54:45 More surveillance power was granted, but oversight never followed

56:30 Emergency powers should have an expiration date

59:30 The surveillance watchdog board is basically defunct

1:03:00 Trust has collapsed, and that's dangerous for a pluralistic society

1:07:15 The terrorists win if we fight each other 

1:17:30 Molly Roberts joins the Chuck ToddCast

1:18:45 How Lawfare shifted from national security to rule of law

1:19:45 Could the administration steal the midterm elections?

1:22:15 The local certification weirdness that didn't work out

1:24:15 Many states tightened election procedures after 2020

1:25:45 A certification delay past January 3rd is the big "what if"

1:28:45 Why January 3rd is the key date — the 20th Amendment

1:29:30 At noon, the old House dissolves and there is no House

1:31:15 During that window, the clerk is effectively running things

1:33:00 What if Missouri's delegation can't get certified?

1:35:45 A late seating could flip the chamber

1:37:45 The 1984 fight over Indiana's "Bloody 8th"

1:39:45 If the clerk goes rogue, can courts step in?

1:40:45 Once there's a speaker, the courts likely bow out

1:43:45 The speaker can fire the clerk and install an acting one

1:47:30 The clerk's ministerial duty — and why it's enforceable

1:50:15 Can the House override a state certification?

1:52:45 How many people would have to cooperate to pull this off

1:54:30 The history of the Broad Seal War

1:59:30 Why the Senate is more immune to January 3rd chaos

2:05:30 The decisions that sustained democracy were mostly 52-48

2:06:15 What she tells people who ask "will the midterms be stolen?"

2:09:15 Ask Chuck

2:09:30 Where have you heard a musical performance that left an impression?

2:14:15 Examples of presidents making painful short-term decisions for long-term gain?

2:18:45 Reaction to Sen. Kennedy telling Kristen Welker he likes her better?

2:19:15 Who needs to sell their MLB team first?

2:22:30 Is there more Dems can do to sustain focus to counter Hegseth at the Pentagon?

2:26:15 Any question of which map will be used in Missouri election?

2:30:15 College football preview

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Lawfare senior editor Molly Roberts joins the Chuck Toddcast to walk through the "rogue clerk" scenario — the theory circulating online that House Republicans could hold power on January 3rd regardless of what voters do in November. Her piece on it has been called the most comprehensive analysis written to date, and her conclusion is genuinely nuanced: this is worth taking seriously without taking it too seriously. The mechanics matter. At noon on January 3rd the old House dissolves and, briefly, there is no House at all — only the clerk, who under 2 U.S.C. § 26 has a ministerial duty to place on the roll only those members whose credentials show they were regularly elected. Ministerial duties are enforceable by mandamus, which means courts can compel compliance before a speaker is ever seated. But the vulnerabilities are real: a speaker can unilaterally fire the clerk and install an acting one, a state certification delayed past January 3rd creates genuine chaos (Missouri is the obvious candidate), and once a speaker is elected the courts will likely bow out. She and Chuck walk through the historical precedents — the 1838 Broad Seal War, the 1984 fight over Indiana's "Bloody 8th" — and land on the reassuring and unsettling truth at once: pulling this off would require an enormous number of people at the state level and in the House conference acting in lockstep, and treating it as a foolproof hack implies it's lawful when it plainly isn't. The realistic ceiling for a rogue clerk isn't a stolen election; it's mayhem. The worry, as Roberts puts it, is that for some people mayhem is more than enough. 

link in bio or go to https://getsoul.com & enter code TODDCAST for 30% off your first order. 

Get your wardrobe sorted and your gift list handled with Quince. Don't wait! Go to https://Quince.com/CHUCK for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. Now available in Canada, too! 

For free and unbiased Medicare help, dial (980) 734-3985 to speak with my trusted partner, Chapter, or go to askchapter.org/chuck /  *Paid Partnership

Chapter and its affiliates are not connected with or endorsed by any government entity or the federal Medicare program. Chapter Advisory, LLC represents Medicare Advantage HMO, PPO, and PFFS organizations and stand alone prescription drug plans that have a Medicare contract. Enrollment depends on the plan’s contract renewal. While we have a database of every Medicare plan nationwide and can help you to search among all plans, we have contracts with many but not all plans. As a result, we do not offer every plan available in your area. Currently we represent 50 organizations which offer 18,160 products nationwide. We search and recommend all plans, even those we don’t directly offer. You can contact a licensed Chapter agent to find out the number of products available in your specific area. Please contact 

Timeline:

(Timestamps may vary based on advertisements)

00:00 Molly Roberts joins the Chuck ToddCast

01:15 How Lawfare shifted from national security to rule of law

02:15 Could the administration steal the midterm elections?

04:45 The local certification weirdness that didn't work out

06:45 Many states tightened election procedures after 2020

08:15 A certification delay past January 3rd is the big "what if"

11:15 Why January 3rd is the key date — the 20th Amendment

12:00 At noon, the old House dissolves and there is no House

13:45 During that window, the clerk is effectively running things

15:30 What if Missouri's delegation can't get certified?

18:15 A late seating could flip the chamber

20:15 The 1984 fight over Indiana's "Bloody 8th"

22:15 If the clerk goes rogue, can courts step in?

23:15 Once there's a speaker, the courts likely bow out

26:15 The speaker can fire the clerk and install an acting one

30:00 The clerk's ministerial duty — and why it's enforceable

32:45 Can the House override a state certification?

35:15 How many people would have to cooperate to pull this off

37:00 The history of the Broad Seal War

42:00 Why the Senate is more immune to January 3rd chaos

48:00 The decisions that sustained democracy were mostly 52-48

48:45 What she tells people who ask "will the midterms be stolen?"

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Chuck Todd reads the New Hampshire results as a straightforward establishment win — the progressive dog didn't bark, outside groups largely stayed out, and Jeanne Shaheen's decades of organization-building still define the state party. He expects a four-to-six point Senate race and would be surprised, though not shocked, if it flipped, since Sununu's politics run a bit conservative for New Hampshire. Then he turns to the redistricting chaos in Missouri, where the state's electoral process has been thrown into genuine disarray: Secretary of State Denny Hoskins sat on 300,000 referendum signatures until primary election day before rejecting them, the state Supreme Court unanimously ruled the 2025 map never took effect and ordered November run on the old lines with the new map going to a statewide vote with the August primary already conducted on a map that isn't law. Chuck argues Hoskins created this mess through partisan hackery, points to Texas in 1996 as precedent, and says a special election would be the fairest resolution. He also flags Dan Osborn's tricky balancing act in Nebraska, and a New York Times report that Roger Marshall's practice sued roughly 700 patients over unpaid medical bills — some for just a few hundred dollars — before he later voted to limit hospitals' collection powers. Chuck’s read: damaging material doesn't land on a reporter's desk by accident, the timing could matter enormously in a race Democrats have put in play.

Finally, Chuck presents his ToddCast Top 5 potential red state sweeps for the Democrats and answers listeners’ questions in the “Ask Chuck” segment.

Get your wardrobe sorted and your gift list handled with Quince. Don't wait! Go to https://Quince.com/CHUCK for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. Now available in Canada, too! 

Play ball and swing for the fences on FanDuel, an official partner of the MLB at https://FANDUEL.COM. 

Protect your family with life insurance from Ethos. Get up to $3 million in coverage in as little as 10 minutes at https://ethos.com/chuck. Application times may vary. Rates may vary.

For free and unbiased Medicare help, dial (980) 734-3985 to speak with my trusted partner, Chapter, or go to askchapter.org/chuck /  *Paid Partnership

Chapter and its affiliates are not connected with or endorsed by any government entity or the federal Medicare program. Chapter Advisory, LLC represents Medicare Advantage HMO, PPO, and PFFS organizations and stand alone prescription drug plans that have a Medicare contract. Enrollment depends on the plan’s contract renewal. While we have a database of every Medicare plan nationwide and can help you to search among all plans, we have contracts with many but not all plans. As a result, we do not offer every plan available in your area. Currently we represent 50 organizations which offer 18,160 products nationwide. We search and recommend all plans, even those we don’t directly offer. You can contact a licensed Chapter agent to find out the number of products available in your specific area. Please contact 

Timeline:

(Timestamps may vary based on advertisements)

00:00 Chuck Todd’s introduction

02:30 The establishment got its way in NH primary elections

04:45 The progressive dog didn’t bark in New Hampshire

05:15 Outside groups mostly stayed out of NH races

06:45 Jeanne Shaheen built & basically is the NH Democratic Party

08:15 NH senate race will likely be in a 4-6 point range

09:45 Sununu’s politics are a bit conservative for NH

11:30 Would be surprised but not shocked if NH senate goes Republicans

13:30 Missouri election map battle risks disenfranchising voters

14:00 Federal court puts temporary restraining order on the map

14:45 Missouri Republicans drew new maps to achieve 7-1 or 8-0 result

15:45 Voters collected enough signatures for referendum on map

16:30 Missouri secretary of state delayed until day of primary election

18:30 State Supreme Court unanimously ruled new map didn’t take effect

19:30 The old map is still in effect, but primary voters voted on the new map

20:15 SCOTUS declined to intervene, it’s a state issue

21:00 After SCOTUS decision, federal judge in Missouri issued an injunction

23:45 The electoral process in Missouri has been thrown into chaos

25:15 Secretary of state created this mess with partisan hackery

26:30 Texas was in a similar situation in 1996, held a special election

29:30 The special election is the fairest way to resolve this problem

31:30 There could be voter backlash to the redistricting effort

33:30 Dan Osborne trying to pull off a difficult balancing act in Nebraska

34:45 Osborne admits there’s a difference between campaigning & governing

36:30 Dem candidate in Ohio joked he’d lie to voters about being DSA

37:45 Hitting your opponent with their own words is highly effective

40:30 Trump is doing everything he can to screw up the Kansas economy

42:00 NYT reports Roger Marshall sued 700 patients for unpaid medical bills

42:45 Some of the debts were small, in the hundreds of dollars

43:30 Later, Marshall voted to limit hospitals’ ability to collect debts

44:30 Damaging material doesn’t randomly appear on a reporter’s desk

45:30 Report raises a character & empathy question about Marshall

48:15 Story also raises questions about the state of U.S. healthcare

50:15 Timing of the story could seriously impact the election

56:30 ToddCast Top 5 red states where Dems could sweep statewide

1:00:00 #5 Florida

1:01:15 #4 Kansas

1:03:30 #3 Iowa

1:06:15 #2 Texas

1:09:15 #1 Ohio

1:12:00 Ask Chuck

1:12:15 How would history be different if we treated 9/11 as criminal acts rather than war?

1:19:30 Do voters have recourse if an elected official is refusing to do the job?

1:23:30 Why do you shy away from using racism as a voting motive?

1:29:30 If the senate ties 50-50 & one becomes incapacitated, does the chamber flip?

1:33:30 As a Steelers fan, which college QB should I be keeping an eye on?

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Chuck Todd reads the New Hampshire results as a straightforward establishment win — the progressive dog didn't bark, outside groups largely stayed out, and Jeanne Shaheen's decades of organization-building still define the state party. He expects a four-to-six point Senate race and would be surprised, though not shocked, if it flipped, since Sununu's politics run a bit conservative for New Hampshire. Then he turns to the redistricting chaos in Missouri, where the state's electoral process has been thrown into genuine disarray: Secretary of State Denny Hoskins sat on 300,000 referendum signatures until primary election day before rejecting them, the state Supreme Court unanimously ruled the 2025 map never took effect and ordered November run on the old lines with the new map going to a statewide vote with the August primary already conducted on a map that isn't law. Chuck argues Hoskins created this mess through partisan hackery, points to Texas in 1996 as precedent, and says a special election would be the fairest resolution. He also flags Dan Osborn's tricky balancing act in Nebraska, and a New York Times report that Roger Marshall's practice sued roughly 700 patients over unpaid medical bills — some for just a few hundred dollars — before he later voted to limit hospitals' collection powers. Chuck’s read: damaging material doesn't land on a reporter's desk by accident, the timing could matter enormously in a race Democrats have put in play.

Then, Anthony Tommasini — chief classical music critic for the New York Times from 2000 to 2021 — joins the Chuck Toddcast to discuss Voice of a Century: The Life and Artistry of Marian Anderson, out September 8th as part of the Significations series curated by Henry Louis Gates Jr. Tommasini didn't seek the project; he was asked to write it. His argument is that Anderson has been flattened into two civil rights milestones — the 1939 Lincoln Memorial concert before 75,000 people after the DAR barred her from Constitution Hall, and breaking the Met's color line — when the reason she mattered in the first place was the voice. He describes her extraordinary range, her European breakthrough (and the promoters who essentially whitewashed her race to sell her), her decision not to learn Italian because she knew American opera was closed to her, and the fact that had she been born thirty years later she'd have had an opera career.

The human material is remarkable: conscripted into a church choir at six, largely self-taught at piano, denied a hotel room and put up by Albert Einstein, who became a friend and pushed her to speak out more than she wanted to. Anderson's aim was to be a great artist, not an activist. They also get into the state of classical music in 2026 — why symphonies are so expensive to sustain, why live performance can't be replicated, and which American orchestra he'd send you to first.

Finally, Chuck presents his ToddCast Top 5 potential red state sweeps for the Democrats and answers listeners’ questions in the “Ask Chuck” segment.

Get your wardrobe sorted and your gift list handled with Quince. Don't wait! Go to https://Quince.com/CHUCK for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. Now available in Canada, too! 

Play ball and swing for the fences on FanDuel, an official partner of the MLB at https://FANDUEL.COM. 

Protect your family with life insurance from Ethos. Get up to $3 million in coverage in as little as 10 minutes at https://ethos.com/chuck. Application times may vary. Rates may vary.

For free and unbiased Medicare help, dial (980) 734-3985 to speak with my trusted partner, Chapter, or go to askchapter.org/chuck /  *Paid Partnership

Chapter and its affiliates are not connected with or endorsed by any government entity or the federal Medicare program. Chapter Advisory, LLC represents Medicare Advantage HMO, PPO, and PFFS organizations and stand alone prescription drug plans that have a Medicare contract. Enrollment depends on the plan’s contract renewal. While we have a database of every Medicare plan nationwide and can help you to search among all plans, we have contracts with many but not all plans. As a result, we do not offer every plan available in your area. Currently we represent 50 organizations which offer 18,160 products nationwide. We search and recommend all plans, even those we don’t directly offer. You can contact a licensed Chapter agent to find out the number of products available in your specific area. Please contact 

Timeline:

00:00 Chuck Todd’s introduction

02:30 The establishment got its way in NH primary elections

04:45 The progressive dog didn’t bark in New Hampshire

05:15 Outside groups mostly stayed out of NH races

06:45 Jeanne Shaheen built & basically is the NH Democratic Party

08:15 NH senate race will likely be in a 4-6 point range

09:45 Sununu’s politics are a bit conservative for NH

11:30 Would be surprised but not shocked if NH senate goes Republicans

13:30 Missouri election map battle risks disenfranchising voters

14:00 Federal court puts temporary restraining order on the map

14:45 Missouri Republicans drew new maps to achieve 7-1 or 8-0 result

15:45 Voters collected enough signatures for referendum on map

16:30 Missouri secretary of state delayed until day of primary election

18:30 State Supreme Court unanimously ruled new map didn’t take effect

19:30 The old map is still in effect, but primary voters voted on the new map

20:15 SCOTUS declined to intervene, it’s a state issue

21:00 After SCOTUS decision, federal judge in Missouri issued an injunction

23:45 The electoral process in Missouri has been thrown into chaos

25:15 Secretary of state created this mess with partisan hackery

26:30 Texas was in a similar situation in 1996, held a special election

29:30 The special election is the fairest way to resolve this problem

31:30 There could be voter backlash to the redistricting effort

33:30 Dan Osborne trying to pull off a difficult balancing act in Nebraska

34:45 Osborne admits there’s a difference between campaigning & governing

36:30 Dem candidate in Ohio joked he’d lie to voters about being DSA

37:45 Hitting your opponent with their own words is highly effective

40:30 Trump is doing everything he can to screw up the Kansas economy

42:00 NYT reports Roger Marshall sued 700 patients for unpaid medical bills

42:45 Some of the debts were small, in the hundreds of dollars

43:30 Later, Marshall voted to limit hospitals’ ability to collect debts

44:30 Damaging material doesn’t randomly appear on a reporter’s desk

45:30 Report raises a character & empathy question about Marshall

48:15 Story also raises questions about the state of U.S. healthcare

50:15 Timing of the story could seriously impact the election

59:00 Anthony Tommasini joins the Chuck ToddCast

1:01:15 The origin of "Voice of a Century"

1:03:00 Marian Anderson as barrier breaker

1:05:15 Conscripted into the church choir at age six

1:08:00 Anderson became popular in Europe first

1:10:00 Promoters practically whitewashed her race to sell her

1:11:30 Why she never learned Italian

1:14:30 If born 30 years later, she'd have sung opera

1:17:30 Seeing Roland Hayes and the epiphany that followed

1:18:15 She wanted to be a great artist, not a civil rights activist

1:19:15 Denied a hotel room, invited to stay with Albert Einstein

1:21:30 Why she came back to America instead of staying in Europe

1:25:45 Ending every recital with negro spirituals

1:29:30 The Lincoln Memorial concert and the nerves behind it

1:36:00 What Anderson meant as a model for the Black community

1:37:45 Two Anderson recordings everyone should hear

1:43:30 The state of classical music in 2026

1:47:00 Why classical music has to be experienced live

1:52:45 The premiere symphony to attend in America

1:56:00 "Voice of a Century" is out September 8th

1:56:30 ToddCast Top 5 red states where Dems could sweep statewide

2:00:00 #5 Florida

2:01:15 #4 Kansas

2:03:30 #3 Iowa

2:06:15 #2 Texas

2:09:15 #1 Ohio

2:12:00 Ask Chuck

2:12:15 How would history be different if we treated 9/11 as criminal acts rather than war?

2:19:30 Do voters have recourse if an elected official is refusing to do the job?

2:23:30 Why do you shy away from using racism as a voting motive?

2:29:30 If the senate ties 50-50 & one becomes incapacitated, does the chamber flip?

2:33:30 As a Steelers fan, which college QB should I be keeping an eye on?

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Anthony Tommasini — chief classical music critic for the New York Times from 2000 to 2021 — joins the Chuck Toddcast to discuss Voice of a Century: The Life and Artistry of Marian Anderson, out September 8th as part of the Significations series curated by Henry Louis Gates Jr. Tommasini didn't seek the project; he was asked to write it. His argument is that Anderson has been flattened into two civil rights milestones — the 1939 Lincoln Memorial concert before 75,000 people after the DAR barred her from Constitution Hall, and breaking the Met's color line — when the reason she mattered in the first place was the voice. He describes her extraordinary range, her European breakthrough (and the promoters who essentially whitewashed her race to sell her), her decision not to learn Italian because she knew American opera was closed to her, and the fact that had she been born thirty years later she'd have had an opera career.

The human material is remarkable: conscripted into a church choir at six, largely self-taught at piano, denied a hotel room and put up by Albert Einstein, who became a friend and pushed her to speak out more than she wanted to. Anderson's aim was to be a great artist, not an activist. They also get into the state of classical music in 2026 — why symphonies are so expensive to sustain, why live performance can't be replicated, and which American orchestra he'd send you to first.

Play ball and swing for the fences on FanDuel, an official partner of the MLB at https://FANDUEL.COM. 

Protect your family with life insurance from Ethos. Get up to $3 million in coverage in as little as 10 minutes at https://ethos.com/chuck. Application times may vary. Rates may vary.

For free and unbiased Medicare help, dial (980) 734-3985 to speak with my trusted partner, Chapter, or go to askchapter.org/chuck /  *Paid Partnership

Chapter and its affiliates are not connected with or endorsed by any government entity or the federal Medicare program. Chapter Advisory, LLC represents Medicare Advantage HMO, PPO, and PFFS organizations and stand alone prescription drug plans that have a Medicare contract. Enrollment depends on the plan’s contract renewal. While we have a database of every Medicare plan nationwide and can help you to search among all plans, we have contracts with many but not all plans. As a result, we do not offer every plan available in your area. Currently we represent 50 organizations which offer 18,160 products nationwide. We search and recommend all plans, even those we don’t directly offer. You can contact a licensed Chapter agent to find out the number of products available in your specific area. Please contact 

Timeline:

00:00 Anthony Tommasini joins the Chuck ToddCast

02:15 The origin of "Voice of a Century"

04:00 Marian Anderson as barrier breaker

06:15 Conscripted into the church choir at age six

09:00 Anderson became popular in Europe first

11:00 Promoters practically whitewashed her race to sell her

12:30 Why she never learned Italian

15:30 If born 30 years later, she'd have sung opera

18:30 Seeing Roland Hayes and the epiphany that followed

19:15 She wanted to be a great artist, not a civil rights activist

20:15 Denied a hotel room, invited to stay with Albert Einstein

22:30 Why she came back to America instead of staying in Europe

26:45 Ending every recital with negro spirituals

30:30 The Lincoln Memorial concert and the nerves behind it

37:00 What Anderson meant as a model for the Black community

38:45 Two Anderson recordings everyone should hear

44:30 The state of classical music in 2026

48:00 Why classical music has to be experienced live

53:45 The premiere symphony to attend in America

57:00 "Voice of a Century" is out September 8th

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Chuck Todd and J.A. Adande sit down with ESPN’s Paul Finebaum and dive into Alabama football.

Finebaum shares his perspective on Bear Bryant’s complicated legacy and the integration of Alabama football, explains why Nick Saban succeeded where so many post-Bryant coaches failed, and reveals how Saban established total control over the program from the moment he arrived in Tuscaloosa.

Plus, Finebaum offers a warning about Alabama’s future.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Eight Tuesdays out, Chuck Todd and Chris Cillizza open on the first midterm convention in modern American history — two nights at Dallas's American Airlines Center with 109 speakers, Trump appearing both nights, and House members getting billed $25,000 to attend. The guys are skeptical of nearly all of it: the event lands on NFL kickoff night, it butts up against the 25th anniversary of September 11th, and Politico found 45 of 70 Republican candidates and members skipping it. Their sharper point is that the whole thing is a microcosm of the party's bind — you cannot win without the MAGA base, and you cannot win with only the MAGA base — which is why swing-state nominees like Jon Husted and Mike Rogers will show up and try very hard to deliver a forgettable speech. Chuck argues nationalizing the election isn't crazy on its own terms, since the other side is going to run against Trump anyway, but doubts Trump can hit any register besides red meat, and doubts even more that he can find a second gear for the September 11th anniversary the following day.

From there they dig into Texas, where MAGA Inc's first $10 million buy is running a half-negative, half-positive ad about taxes — a signal, Chuck says, that they know the target is suburban Romney Republicans, not the base. He walks through Greg Abbott's steadily declining margins, the four-to-eight-point scandal penalty that history says attaches to a candidate like Paxton, and lands somewhere that surprises Chris: he now likes Talarico's odds better than Sherrod Brown's in Ohio. They check the prediction markets, unpack the Missouri Supreme Court ruling that blocked the Republican-drawn map and effectively hands Emanuel Cleaver his seat back, and take apart Trump's request that the Supreme Court impose a national check on mail voting — a policy every Republican strategist will tell you privately hurts their own side. Then a long, unsparing conversation about the Wall Street Journal's reporting on John Fetterman and what it means for control of the Senate on January 3rd, a real case for a third Senate conference built around Murkowski and a possible independent, and a closing riff on Nick Saban, Pat McAfee, and why the Protect College Sports Act is doomed without collective bargaining.

Timeline:

(Timestamps may vary based on advertisements)

00:00 Eight Tuesdays out — and why they actually prepare for these now

03:00 The first midterm convention since the early '80s 

04:00 $25,000 a head, and Tim Burchett's surprise invoice

05:00 It lands on the opening night of the NFL season

07:00 The Trump trap — you can't afford to say no

08:00 Nationalizing the election isn't the crazy part

11:00 The convention as a microcosm of the GOP's whole problem

13:00 "Trumpapalooza" — so what's the actual message?

14:00 Conventions aren't for swing voters, and never have been

16:00 Husted, Rogers & the art of the deliberately forgettable speech

19:00 Trump as TV producer — and the 9/11 anniversary the next day

20:00 Will he turn the 25th anniversary into a political speech?

23:00 MAGA Inc's first $10M buy lands in Texas

26:00 They tried calling Talarico weird. It didn't take.

27:00 Trump throws Paxton under the bus in the Oval

29:00 Abbott's slipping margins and the blue tsunami scenario

31:00 South Texas Latinos appear to be shifting back

33:00 Clinton lost Texas by less than she lost Iowa in 2016

34:00 Blue-collar trade unions and the industrial Midwest problem

38:00 Trump asks the Supreme Court for a national mail-voting check

39:00 The rural voters his own rule would punish hardest

42:00 Democrats at 85-88% to take the House

43:00 The Missouri ruling

46:00 Why this is anti-voter, full stop

47:00 The Senate sits at 52-48 Republican. A year ago it was 71-29.

49:00 Alaska, and Dan Sullivan's troubling primary numbers

51:00 The Wall Street Journal's Fetterman story

54:00 The practical stakes: who controls the Senate on January 3rd

55:00 Does Fetterman leave the party?

58:00 He's already built the intellectual case for walking

1:00:00 January 3rd is the whole ballgame

1:02:00 Osborn, Bodner, Banks and the independent wave

1:03:00 The real case for a third Senate conference

1:05:00 Saban and McAfee push the Protect College Sports Act

1:07:00 No labor at the table means it dies in court

1:08:00 Ashley Moody's quiet ACC poison pill

1:12:00 The Nats chase the blown-save record. Sell the team.

1:13:00 Dynastic: Finebaum on why Alabama may not run it back

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

With the fall campaign officially underway after Labor Day, Chuck Todd lays out three scenarios for November and assigns odds to each. A blue mirage (15%) — Democrats still take the House but net only two Senate seats, saved by Republican money from tech and crypto, because you can't buy a new national mood but you can absolutely save individual candidates. A blue wave (50%), the 2006 comparison, where individual races start behaving like one national election and Democrats win everything reasonable. And a blue tsunami (30-35%), where Texas and Florida governorships come into play, independents break hard, and MAGA voters stay home. What separates a wave from a tsunami, Todd argues, is whether corruption breaks through as a voting issue — and data centers may be the most tangible way in. The problem for Democrats remains what it's been all year: they're as unpopular as Republicans, they don't have an obvious agenda, and releasing one risks dividing the party — though not releasing one carries its own risk.

He also flags the Missouri map being tossed by the state supreme court, notes the redistricting chaos Republicans started, previews a GOP midterm convention that's purely a base-turnout exercise many candidates may skip, and closes on John Fetterman. The Wall Street Journal report — sourced to more than a dozen former staffers and colleagues plus internal texts — details skipped committee hearings, blown-off constituent meetings, and reluctance to attend police funerals. Fetterman calls it a smear job from disgruntled staffers. His question isn't about the reporting: it's whether Fetterman is still a Democrat come January 2027, and which side of the aisle he and Lisa Murkowski end up sitting on. He also weighs in on week one in college football.

Finally, Chuck hops into the ToddCast Time Machine to revisit Gerald Ford’s decision to pardon Richard Nixon and why the conventional wisdom of it being the right decision… is wrong. He also answers listeners’ questions in the “Ask Chuck” segment.

Play ball and swing for the fences on FanDuel, an official partner of the MLB at https://FANDUEL.COM. 

Protect your family with life insurance from Ethos. Get up to $3 million in coverage in as little as 10 minutes at https://ethos.com/chuck. Application times may vary. Rates may vary.

For free and unbiased Medicare help, dial (980) 734-3985 to speak with my trusted partner, Chapter, or go to askchapter.org/chuck /  *Paid Partnership

Chapter and its affiliates are not connected with or endorsed by any government entity or the federal Medicare program. Chapter Advisory, LLC represents Medicare Advantage HMO, PPO, and PFFS organizations and stand alone prescription drug plans that have a Medicare contract. Enrollment depends on the plan’s contract renewal. While we have a database of every Medicare plan nationwide and can help you to search among all plans, we have contracts with many but not all plans. As a result, we do not offer every plan available in your area. Currently we represent 50 organizations which offer 18,160 products nationwide. We search and recommend all plans, even those we don’t directly offer. You can contact a licensed Chapter agent to find out the number of products available in your specific area. Please contact 

Timeline:

(Timestamps may vary based on advertisements)

00:00 Chuck Todd's introduction

03:30 Fall campaign season kicks off after Labor Day

04:15 Why polling New Hampshire is so difficult

06:45 Democrats have a midterm advantage — the question is how big

07:30 Blue mirage, blue wave, or blue tsunami?

08:00 Evaluating the blue mirage — 15% chance

09:30 Under a mirage, Dems probably net only two Senate seats

11:30 Missouri map thrown out, could add a Democratic seat

12:30 The redistricting wars Republicans started

14:30 Dems raise better online, the GOP has the big-dollar donors

15:45 Tech and crypto money is flowing to Republicans

16:45 You can't buy a national mood, but you can save candidates

18:15 Both parties are equally unpopular — unlike 2018

19:15 Evaluating the blue wave — 50% chance

21:00 In a wave, individual races behave like a national election

23:15 How will the midterm GOP convention play out?

25:15 The convention is purely a base turnout exercise

27:00 Trump does better as an outsider than as an incumbent

29:15 Data centers have become a real political problem

31:00 The problem for Democrats: what are they actually offering?

33:15 Evaluating the blue tsunami — 30-35% chance

34:45 In a tsunami, Texas and Florida governorships are winnable

36:30 For a tsunami, corruption has to break through

37:30 Data centers may be the way into the corruption argument

38:45 The public is telling the tech industry to F off

41:45 If corruption becomes a voting issue, the wave becomes a tsunami

42:45 Will socialism and DSA attacks actually scare independents?

46:15 Independents will decide which scenario plays out

49:15 The WSJ report on John Fetterman

50:45 Will Fetterman still be a Democrat in January 2027?

52:15 Which side of the aisle will Fetterman and Murkowski sit on?

52:45 College football week one recap 

1:15:00 ToddCast Time Machine - September 8th, 1974

1:15:30 Gerald Ford pardons Richard Nixon… a huge mistake

1:16:15 Ford earned a profile in courage award for pardoning Nixon

1:17:00 Did Ford’s pardon undermine the rule of law?

1:17:45 Nixon resigned because he lost his political support

1:18:45 Gerald Ford was never elected, he replaced Spiro Agnew

1:19:30 Ford declared our long national nightmare was over

1:21:00 Why did Ford get to decide how much accountability we received

1:22:00 There was a serious potential criminal case & pardon stopped it

1:22:45 Why Ford did have a valid argument for giving the pardon

1:24:30 It was not an easy call, Ford prioritized stability… but what was lost?

1:26:00 The alternative paths Ford could have taken

1:27:30 Ford didn’t intend for investigations of others to stop

1:29:30 The normal pardon process wasn’t followed

1:31:00 Ford faced serious questions from congress about the pardon

1:34:00 Majority of the country supported prosecuting Nixon

1:35:30 Major backlash to the pardon

1:36:00 Eventually people thought Ford did the right thing

1:40:30 Ford created a serious dilemma for future presidents

1:43:30 We have the most corrupt president now because we punted on the last

1:43:45 Ask Chuck

1:44:00 Could AR-02 be won by Democrats in a wave year?

1:48:15 Why do voters support candidates that conflict with their economic interests?

1:53:15 What if a president was aggressive as Trump in doing things that are popular?

1:58:00 Would expanding the house restore power to members and committees?

2:01:30 How can Dems break through to working class & right leaning white voters?

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

With the fall campaign officially underway after Labor Day, Chuck Todd lays out three scenarios for November and assigns odds to each. A blue mirage (15%) — Democrats still take the House but net only two Senate seats, saved by Republican money from tech and crypto, because you can't buy a new national mood but you can absolutely save individual candidates. A blue wave (50%), the 2006 comparison, where individual races start behaving like one national election and Democrats win everything reasonable. And a blue tsunami (30-35%), where Texas and Florida governorships come into play, independents break hard, and MAGA voters stay home. What separates a wave from a tsunami, Todd argues, is whether corruption breaks through as a voting issue — and data centers may be the most tangible way in. The problem for Democrats remains what it's been all year: they're as unpopular as Republicans, they don't have an obvious agenda, and releasing one risks dividing the party — though not releasing one carries its own risk.

He also flags the Missouri map being tossed by the state supreme court, notes the redistricting chaos Republicans started, previews a GOP midterm convention that's purely a base-turnout exercise many candidates may skip, and closes on John Fetterman. The Wall Street Journal report — sourced to more than a dozen former staffers and colleagues plus internal texts — details skipped committee hearings, blown-off constituent meetings, and reluctance to attend police funerals. Fetterman calls it a smear job from disgruntled staffers. His question isn't about the reporting: it's whether Fetterman is still a Democrat come January 2027, and which side of the aisle he and Lisa Murkowski end up sitting on. He also weighs in on week one in college football.

Then, Bruce Mehlman — founding partner of the bipartisan Mehlman Consulting and the man behind the quarterly slide decks that circulate through half of official Washington — joins the Chuck Toddcast to assess a bifurcated economy and the bills coming due. Millennials are wealthier than their parents were at this age but far more stressed, housing is inflated by a supply shortage, and the central question hanging over everything is whether AI pays off before the investment bill comes due. Mehlman notes the dot-com bubble produced real productivity gains and still burst, and the harder worry isn't the bust itself but whether it arrives at a moment when government can't respond.

The back half turns to how business is bracing for a Democratic Congress. Mehlman says the business community knows the pendulum always swings, and an epic wave of oversight is coming — complicated by an OLC position that executive privilege extends to anyone who speaks with Trump, meaning everything gets litigated to the Supreme Court while companies weigh the risk of contempt. On Trump's pay-to-play demands, he argues there are usually paths to alignment without selling your soul, and notes wealthy individuals now carry more political punching power than corporations do. He's especially sharp on data centers, where polling shows tech, AI, and social media all deeply underwater and the backlash is "where Bannon meets Bernie" — the perception being that AI benefits only billionaires and shareholders. His prediction: the House flips and the Senate lands 50-50 — with Michigan the most interesting race on the board, because an El-Sayed win keeps DSA energy alive and makes AOC the 2028 frontrunner.

Finally, Chuck hops into the ToddCast Time Machine to revisit Gerald Ford’s decision to pardon Richard Nixon and why the conventional wisdom of it being the right decision… is wrong. He also answers listeners’ questions in the “Ask Chuck” segment.

Play ball and swing for the fences on FanDuel, an official partner of the MLB at https://FANDUEL.COM. 

Protect your family with life insurance from Ethos. Get up to $3 million in coverage in as little as 10 minutes at https://ethos.com/chuck. Application times may vary. Rates may vary.

For free and unbiased Medicare help, dial (980) 734-3985 to speak with my trusted partner, Chapter, or go to askchapter.org/chuck /  *Paid Partnership

Chapter and its affiliates are not connected with or endorsed by any government entity or the federal Medicare program. Chapter Advisory, LLC represents Medicare Advantage HMO, PPO, and PFFS organizations and stand alone prescription drug plans that have a Medicare contract. Enrollment depends on the plan’s contract renewal. While we have a database of every Medicare plan nationwide and can help you to search among all plans, we have contracts with many but not all plans. As a result, we do not offer every plan available in your area. Currently we represent 50 organizations which offer 18,160 products nationwide. We search and recommend all plans, even those we don’t directly offer. You can contact a licensed Chapter agent to find out the number of products available in your specific area. Please contact 

Timeline:

00:00 Chuck Todd's introduction

03:30 Fall campaign season kicks off after Labor Day

04:15 Why polling New Hampshire is so difficult

06:45 Democrats have a midterm advantage — the question is how big

07:30 Blue mirage, blue wave, or blue tsunami?

08:00 Evaluating the blue mirage — 15% chance

09:30 Under a mirage, Dems probably net only two Senate seats

11:30 Missouri map thrown out, could add a Democratic seat

12:30 The redistricting wars Republicans started

14:30 Dems raise better online, the GOP has the big-dollar donors

15:45 Tech and crypto money is flowing to Republicans

16:45 You can't buy a national mood, but you can save candidates

18:15 Both parties are equally unpopular — unlike 2018

19:15 Evaluating the blue wave — 50% chance

21:00 In a wave, individual races behave like a national election

23:15 How will the midterm GOP convention play out?

25:15 The convention is purely a base turnout exercise

27:00 Trump does better as an outsider than as an incumbent

29:15 Data centers have become a real political problem

31:00 The problem for Democrats: what are they actually offering?

33:15 Evaluating the blue tsunami — 30-35% chance

34:45 In a tsunami, Texas and Florida governorships are winnable

36:30 For a tsunami, corruption has to break through

37:30 Data centers may be the way into the corruption argument

38:45 The public is telling the tech industry to F off

41:45 If corruption becomes a voting issue, the wave becomes a tsunami

42:45 Will socialism and DSA attacks actually scare independents?

46:15 Independents will decide which scenario plays out

49:15 The WSJ report on John Fetterman

50:45 Will Fetterman still be a Democrat in January 2027?

52:15 Which side of the aisle will Fetterman and Murkowski sit on?

52:45 College football week one recap 

1:16:30 Bruce Mehlman joins The Chuck ToddCast

1:18:45 Assessing the bifurcated economy

1:19:15 Millennials are wealthier than their parents — and more stressed

1:20:45 We need AI to pay off before the investment bill comes due

1:22:15 Is the AI bubble the railroads or the dot com boom?

1:25:30 Could the bust come when government can't respond?

1:26:30 From $20T to $40T in national debt in ten years

1:28:45 Social Security and Medicare trusts run dry in 2032

1:30:00 If bipartisanship is seen as betrayal, nothing gets done

1:31:45 A 3% tax increase and 3% spending cut would be a start

1:33:30 How is the business community preparing for a Democratic Congress?

1:35:15 An epic amount of oversight is coming

1:36:15 OLC claims executive privilege covers anyone who talks to Trump

1:38:45 Companies won't risk contempt of Congress

1:41:00 Advising clients on Trump's pay-to-play demands

1:43:00 There are paths to alignment without selling your soul

1:45:15 We need reforms to get out of this Gilded Age

1:47:30 How should big tech make the case for data centers?

1:50:30 Voters are open to data centers if harms are mitigated

1:53:30 Tech CEOs are viewed as villains by the public

1:55:30 The data center backlash is where Bannon meets Bernie

1:58:45 Is there anyone in Silicon Valley who can sell this?

2:05:45 What Walmart got right about storytelling

2:07:00 Prediction: the House flips and the Senate goes 50-50

2:09:30 If it's 50-50 and Alaska flips… what does Murkowski do?

2:11:00 Michigan is the most interesting race on the board

2:13:00 The bull case for James Talarico is Roy Moore in Alabama

2:16:30 ToddCast Time Machine - September 8th, 1974

2:17:00 Gerald Ford pardons Richard Nixon… a huge mistake

2:17:45 Ford earned a profile in courage award for pardoning Nixon

2:18:30 Did Ford’s pardon undermine the rule of law?

2:19:15 Nixon resigned because he lost his political support

2:20:15 Gerald Ford was never elected, he replaced Spiro Agnew

2:21:00 Ford declared our long national nightmare was over

2:23:30 There was a serious potential criminal case & pardon stopped it

2:24:15 Why Ford did have a valid argument for giving the pardon

2:26:00 It was not an easy call, Ford prioritized stability… but what was lost?

2:27:30 The alternative paths Ford could have taken

2:31:00 The normal pardon process wasn’t followed

2:32:30 Ford faced serious questions from congress about the pardon

2:35:30 Majority of the country supported prosecuting Nixon

2:37:00 Major backlash to the pardon

2:37:30 Eventually people thought Ford did the right thing

2:42:00 Ford created a serious dilemma for future presidents

2:45:00 We have the most corrupt president now because we punted on the last

2:45:15 Ask Chuck

2:45:30 Could AR-02 be won by Democrats in a wave year?

2:49:45 Why do voters support candidates that conflict with their economic interests?

2:54:45 What if a president was aggressive as Trump in doing things that are popular?

2:59:30 Would expanding the house restore power to members and committees?

3:03:00 How can Dems break through to working class & right leaning white voters?

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Bruce Mehlman — founding partner of the bipartisan Mehlman Consulting and the man behind the quarterly slide decks that circulate through half of official Washington — joins the Chuck Toddcast to assess a bifurcated economy and the bills coming due. Millennials are wealthier than their parents were at this age but far more stressed, housing is inflated by a supply shortage, and the central question hanging over everything is whether AI pays off before the investment bill comes due. Mehlman notes the dot-com bubble produced real productivity gains and still burst, and the harder worry isn't the bust itself but whether it arrives at a moment when government can't respond: the national debt has doubled from $20 trillion to $40 trillion in a decade, the Social Security and Medicare trusts run dry in 2032, and there's no political courage to touch any of it — because in a system where bipartisanship reads as betrayal, nothing gets done. His modest starting point: a 3% tax increase paired with a 3% spending cut.

The back half turns to how business is bracing for a Democratic Congress. Mehlman says the business community knows the pendulum always swings, and an epic wave of oversight is coming — complicated by an OLC position that executive privilege extends to anyone who speaks with Trump, meaning everything gets litigated to the Supreme Court while companies weigh the risk of contempt. On Trump's pay-to-play demands, he argues there are usually paths to alignment without selling your soul, and notes wealthy individuals now carry more political punching power than corporations do. He's especially sharp on data centers, where polling shows tech, AI, and social media all deeply underwater and the backlash is "where Bannon meets Bernie" — the perception being that AI benefits only billionaires and shareholders. The fix is making local benefits visible, and finding a communicator who isn't a CEO, since tech executives are now viewed as villains. His prediction: the House flips and the Senate lands 50-50 — with Michigan the most interesting race on the board, because an El-Sayed win keeps DSA energy alive and makes AOC the 2028 frontrunner.

Play ball and swing for the fences on FanDuel, an official partner of the MLB at https://FANDUEL.COM. 

Protect your family with life insurance from Ethos. Get up to $3 million in coverage in as little as 10 minutes at https://ethos.com/chuck. Application times may vary. Rates may vary.

For free and unbiased Medicare help, dial (980) 734-3985 to speak with my trusted partner, Chapter, or go to askchapter.org/chuck /  *Paid Partnership

Chapter and its affiliates are not connected with or endorsed by any government entity or the federal Medicare program. Chapter Advisory, LLC represents Medicare Advantage HMO, PPO, and PFFS organizations and stand alone prescription drug plans that have a Medicare contract. Enrollment depends on the plan’s contract renewal. While we have a database of every Medicare plan nationwide and can help you to search among all plans, we have contracts with many but not all plans. As a result, we do not offer every plan available in your area. Currently we represent 50 organizations which offer 18,160 products nationwide. We search and recommend all plans, even those we don’t directly offer. You can contact a licensed Chapter agent to find out the number of products available in your specific area. Please contact 

Timeline:

(Timestamps may vary based on advertisements)

00:00 Bruce Mehlman joins The Chuck ToddCast

02:15 Assessing the bifurcated economy

02:45 Millennials are wealthier than their parents — and more stressed

04:15 We need AI to pay off before the investment bill comes due

05:45 Is the AI bubble the railroads or the dot com boom?

09:00 Could the bust come when government can't respond?

10:00 From $20T to $40T in national debt in ten years

12:15 Social Security and Medicare trusts run dry in 2032

13:30 If bipartisanship is seen as betrayal, nothing gets done

15:15 A 3% tax increase and 3% spending cut would be a start

17:00 How is the business community preparing for a Democratic Congress?

18:45 An epic amount of oversight is coming

19:45 OLC claims executive privilege covers anyone who talks to Trump

22:15 Companies won't risk contempt of Congress

24:30 Advising clients on Trump's pay-to-play demands

26:30 There are paths to alignment without selling your soul

28:45 We need reforms to get out of this Gilded Age

31:00 How should big tech make the case for data centers?

34:00 Voters are open to data centers if harms are mitigated

37:00 Tech CEOs are viewed as villains by the public

39:00 The data center backlash is where Bannon meets Bernie

42:15 Is there anyone in Silicon Valley who can sell this?

49:15 What Walmart got right about storytelling

50:30 Prediction: the House flips and the Senate goes 50-50

53:00 If it's 50-50 and Alaska flips… what does Murkowski do?

54:30 Michigan is the most interesting race on the board

56:30 The bull case for James Talarico is Roy Moore in Alabama

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Chuck Todd reads the tea leaves on a building Democratic wave: primary turnout is up 35% over 2022 while Republican turnout is down 4%, and Todd argues voter behavior is a far better predictor than polling — though it's a tea leaf, not a guarantee. He then digs into an underappreciated dynamic that could decide Senate control: governor's races make the weather. Texas, Chuck argues, is now more plausible for Democrats than Iowa. And South Carolina, which Republicans never expected to worry about, just got more expensive after Ralph Norman told supporters to write him in rather than back Darline Graham.

The second half is a five-alarm fire at the Pentagon. Army Secretary Dan Driscoll resigned this week over Hegseth blocking Army modernization by firing the generals leading it — the latest in a purge that has left the Army without a chief of staff for months and cut four-star positions from ten to five, all during an active war. Chuck’s read is that this is a deliberate gutting and argues the fired and recently resigned generals have an obligation to speak up, because silence doesn't protect the institution. He closes with what he calls the cancer in American politics — the House — using Jared Golden's lobster fishing bill as the perfect illustration: Golden had to vote for a Republican rule just to get a floor vote on his own legislation, then got accused by leadership of a breach of trust for representing his constituents. That's the disease, Chuck argues, and Democrats will inherit every bit of it.

Finally, Chuck updates his ToddCast Top 5 list of senate seats most likely to flip, answers listeners’ questions in the “Ask Chuck” segment, and previews week 1 in college football.

Play ball and swing for the fences on FanDuel, an official partner of the MLB at https://FANDUEL.COM. 

Protect your family with life insurance from Ethos. Get up to $3 million in coverage in as little as 10 minutes at https://ethos.com/chuck. Application times may vary. Rates may vary.

For free and unbiased Medicare help, dial (980) 734-3985 to speak with my trusted partner, Chapter, or go to askchapter.org/chuck /  *Paid Partnership

Chapter and its affiliates are not connected with or endorsed by any government entity or the federal Medicare program. Chapter Advisory, LLC represents Medicare Advantage HMO, PPO, and PFFS organizations and stand alone prescription drug plans that have a Medicare contract. Enrollment depends on the plan’s contract renewal. While we have a database of every Medicare plan nationwide and can help you to search among all plans, we have contracts with many but not all plans. As a result, we do not offer every plan available in your area. Currently we represent 50 organizations which offer 18,160 products nationwide. We search and recommend all plans, even those we don’t directly offer. You can contact a licensed Chapter agent to find out the number of products available in your specific area. Please contact Medicare.gov, 1-800-Medicare, or your local State Health Insurance Program (SHIP) to get information on all of your options. 

Timeline:

(Timestamps may vary based on advertisements)

00:00 Chuck Todd's introduction

04:15 A Democratic wave is building… but how big?

06:15 Dem turnout up 35% from 2022, GOP turnout down 4%

08:30 A tea leaf, not a guarantee — and why behavior beats polling

11:15 New Hampshire primaries preview

13:15 Senate control may be decided by governor races in MI, TX and IA

14:30 Ramaswamy is the wrong avatar for a Republican to win Ohio

16:45 Republicans didn't think they'd have to worry about South Carolina

17:30 Ralph Norman tells supporters to write him in rather than back Graham

22:15 Governor's races make the weather and drag Senate candidates along

26:00 Ticket splitting hasn't disappeared since 2010, but it's less common

27:15 Breaking down the penalty for various candidate sins

30:00 Ken Paxton needs Abbott to win big — and Abbott's trending down

33:15 Todd Akin's voters fled to the Libertarians in 2012

35:00 El-Sayed's penalty isn't scandal, it's ideological — 2-3 points

36:00 Jocelyn Benson is running the best campaign of the cycle

38:45 Iowa hasn't split a governor/senate race since 1998

41:45 Texas looks more plausible for Democrats than Iowa

43:45 Problems at the Pentagon should be a five-alarm fire

45:30 Hegseth forced out the leaders modernizing the Army

47:45 Hollowing out the military during an active war

48:45 Hegseth wants the Pentagon to be a reality show about himself

52:00 Assets needed to deter Russia & China are being removed

54:15 Military leaders must be able to disagree with civilian leadership

57:00 An obligation to warn the country if the military is being weakened

59:45 The House of Representatives is the cancer in our political system

1:03:30 The Jared Golden lobster bill saga

1:06:30 Golden voted for a GOP rule to get a vote on his own bill

1:09:45 Leadership accused him of breaching trust… by representing their voters

1:13:00 If Democrats win the House, they inherit all of this dysfunction

1:18:00 The House is the cancer we have to cure first 

1:20:30 ToddCast Top 5 senate seats most likely to flip

1:21:00 #1 North Carolina

1:21:45 #2 Alaska

1:22:15 #3 Texas

1:23:45 #4 Ohio

1:25:30 #5 Tie between Maine & Michigan

1:27:30 Ask Chuck

1:27:45 Could the Bradley effect be in play in the Texas senate race?

1:30:00 Should congress be doing more to protect the mail-in vote?

1:33:00 Thoughts on proposal to add 12 at large senators?

1:35:15 College football preview

1:40:30 Column on Lane Kiffin being the “bad boy” of college football

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Chuck Todd reads the tea leaves on a building Democratic wave: primary turnout is up 35% over 2022 while Republican turnout is down 4%, and Todd argues voter behavior is a far better predictor than polling — though it's a tea leaf, not a guarantee. He then digs into an underappreciated dynamic that could decide Senate control: governor's races make the weather. Texas, Chuck argues, is now more plausible for Democrats than Iowa. And South Carolina, which Republicans never expected to worry about, just got more expensive after Ralph Norman told supporters to write him in rather than back Darline Graham.

The second half is a five-alarm fire at the Pentagon. Army Secretary Dan Driscoll resigned this week over Hegseth blocking Army modernization by firing the generals leading it — the latest in a purge that has left the Army without a chief of staff for months and cut four-star positions from ten to five, all during an active war. Chuck’s read is that this is a deliberate gutting and argues the fired and recently resigned generals have an obligation to speak up, because silence doesn't protect the institution. He closes with what he calls the cancer in American politics — the House — using Jared Golden's lobster fishing bill as the perfect illustration: Golden had to vote for a Republican rule just to get a floor vote on his own legislation, then got accused by leadership of a breach of trust for representing his constituents. That's the disease, Chuck argues, and Democrats will inherit every bit of it.

Documentarian Brian Knappenberger joins the Chuck Toddcast to discuss Turning Point: Generation 9/11, out on Netflix September 2nd — a film built around a striking fact: more than half of Americans were either born after 2001 or were too young to remember it. Knappenberger's aim was to bring that generation into the moment, capturing not just the attack but the fear and uncertainty that followed, including the attacks everyone braced for that never came. He points to a news clip in the film where 63% of Americans said they'd trade freedom for security, and to the AUMF passed almost immediately with Barbara Lee as the lone no vote. He and Chuck revisit the genuine moment of global unity — the only time NATO's Article 5 has ever been triggered — and Bush's real effort to reassure American Muslims, progress on Islamophobia that Knappenberger argues has since been squandered.

The back half is a hard-nosed accounting. Driving the Taliban out was a success; the Iraq war took America's eye off the ball; intelligence agencies genuinely do communicate better now. But al-Qaeda was only a few hundred people who exploited a vulnerability, and the domino effect produced ISIS, something far larger. Knappenberger talks about interviewing kids who lost parents that day — including a pilot's daughter still trolled online by a Truther movement that social media made possible — and about Marines at Abbey Gate, many not yet alive on 9/11, expressing real conflict about what it was all for. Chuck’s question hangs over it: after 25 years of Pentagon budgets, what exactly did we get? And with no meaningful congressional oversight of the Iran war, the founders' decision that a king shouldn't declare wars feels less like history than a warning. Knappenberger's hope is simple — that we remember the fear well enough not to repeat the mistakes it produced.

Finally, Chuck updates his ToddCast Top 5 list of senate seats most likely to flip, answers listeners’ questions in the “Ask Chuck” segment, and previews week 1 in college football.

Play ball and swing for the fences on FanDuel, an official partner of the MLB at https://FANDUEL.COM. 

Protect your family with life insurance from Ethos. Get up to $3 million in coverage in as little as 10 minutes at https://ethos.com/chuck. Application times may vary. Rates may vary.

For free and unbiased Medicare help, dial (980) 734-3985 to speak with my trusted partner, Chapter, or go to askchapter.org/chuck /  *Paid Partnership

Chapter and its affiliates are not connected with or endorsed by any government entity or the federal Medicare program. Chapter Advisory, LLC represents Medicare Advantage HMO, PPO, and PFFS organizations and stand alone prescription drug plans that have a Medicare contract. Enrollment depends on the plan’s contract renewal. While we have a database of every Medicare plan nationwide and can help you to search among all plans, we have contracts with many but not all plans. As a result, we do not offer every plan available in your area. Currently we represent 50 organizations which offer 18,160 products nationwide. We search and recommend all plans, even those we don’t directly offer. You can contact a licensed Chapter agent to find out the number of products available in your specific area. Please contact Medicare.gov, 1-800-Medicare, or your local State Health Insurance Program (SHIP) to get information on all of your options. 

Timeline:

(Timestamps may vary based on advertisements)

00:00 Chuck Todd's introduction

04:15 A Democratic wave is building… but how big?

06:15 Dem turnout up 35% from 2022, GOP turnout down 4%

08:30 A tea leaf, not a guarantee — and why behavior beats polling

11:15 New Hampshire primaries preview

13:15 Senate control may be decided by governor races in MI, TX and IA

14:30 Ramaswamy is the wrong avatar for a Republican to win Ohio

16:45 Republicans didn't think they'd have to worry about South Carolina

17:30 Ralph Norman tells supporters to write him in rather than back Graham

22:15 Governor's races make the weather and drag Senate candidates along

26:00 Ticket splitting hasn't disappeared since 2010, but it's less common

27:15 Breaking down the penalty for various candidate sins

30:00 Ken Paxton needs Abbott to win big — and Abbott's trending down

33:15 Todd Akin's voters fled to the Libertarians in 2012

35:00 El-Sayed's penalty isn't scandal, it's ideological — 2-3 points

36:00 Jocelyn Benson is running the best campaign of the cycle

38:45 Iowa hasn't split a governor/senate race since 1998

41:45 Texas looks more plausible for Democrats than Iowa

43:45 Problems at the Pentagon should be a five-alarm fire

45:30 Hegseth forced out the leaders modernizing the Army

47:45 Hollowing out the military during an active war

48:45 Hegseth wants the Pentagon to be a reality show about himself

52:00 Assets needed to deter Russia & China are being removed

54:15 Military leaders must be able to disagree with civilian leadership

57:00 An obligation to warn the country if the military is being weakened

59:45 The House of Representatives is the cancer in our political system

1:03:30 The Jared Golden lobster bill saga

1:06:30 Golden voted for a GOP rule to get a vote on his own bill

1:09:45 Leadership accused him of breaching trust… by representing their voters

1:13:00 If Democrats win the House, they inherit all of this dysfunction

1:18:00 The House is the cancer we have to cure first 

1:22:45 Brian Knappenberger joins The Chuck ToddCast

1:25:15 Many Americans are too young to remember 9/11 well

1:27:15 9/11 is moving from a lived memory into history

1:30:45 Wanted to capture the fear and uncertainty of that period in time

1:34:45 Want the next generation not to fall into the same trap of fear & suspicion

1:39:45 The rally around the flag effect after the attacks

1:42:30 There was a real moment of unity worldwide before the divisiveness

1:43:00 The only time Article V of NATO was triggered was from 9/11

1:47:15 Pre-Trump the country had made real progress on Islamaphobia

1:48:00 Talked to a lot of kids who lost parents on 9/11 for the doc

1:49:15 Social media emerged after 9/11 and the “Truther” movement came with it

1:51:15 Driving the Taliban out of Afghanistan was a positive

1:51:45 We took our eye off the ball with the Iraq war

1:54:45 Have we sufficiently answered why Bin Laden attacked us

1:59:00 The real damage was the divisiveness and attrition of two wars

2:00:00 Al-Qaeda was only a few hundred people, exploited a vulnerability

2:01:15 The domino effect created ISIS, which is much larger than Al-Qaeda

2:06:00 Marines at Abbey Gate express feeling conflicted

2:08:30 25 years of Pentagon budgets has gotten us…what?

2:10:45 There seems to be no congressional oversight with the Iran war

2:11:15 What other Turning Point projects do you have in the works?

2:12:45 Ukraine war is a weird blend of history and modern technology

2:15:45 9/11 changed our perception of ourselves and our vulnerabilities

2:20:00 ToddCast Top 5 senate seats most likely to flip

2:20:30 #1 North Carolina

2:21:15 #2 Alaska

2:21:45 #3 Texas

2:23:15 #4 Ohio

2:25:00 #5 Tie between Maine & Michigan

2:27:00 Ask Chuck

2:27:15 Could the Bradley effect be in play in the Texas senate race?

2:29:30 Should congress be doing more to protect the mail-in vote?

2:32:30 Thoughts on proposal to add 12 at large senators?

2:34:45 College football preview

2:40:00 Column on Lane Kiffin being the “bad boy” of college football

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Documentarian Brian Knappenberger joins the Chuck Toddcast to discuss Turning Point: Generation 9/11, out on Netflix September 2nd — a film built around a striking fact: more than half of Americans were either born after 2001 or were too young to remember it. Knappenberger's aim was to bring that generation into the moment, capturing not just the attack but the fear and uncertainty that followed, including the attacks everyone braced for that never came. He points to a news clip in the film where 63% of Americans said they'd trade freedom for security, and to the AUMF passed almost immediately with Barbara Lee as the lone no vote. He and Chuck revisit the genuine moment of global unity — the only time NATO's Article 5 has ever been triggered — and Bush's real effort to reassure American Muslims, progress on Islamophobia that Knappenberger argues has since been squandered.

The back half is a hard-nosed accounting. Driving the Taliban out was a success; the Iraq war took America's eye off the ball; intelligence agencies genuinely do communicate better now. But al-Qaeda was only a few hundred people who exploited a vulnerability, and the domino effect produced ISIS, something far larger. Knappenberger talks about interviewing kids who lost parents that day — including a pilot's daughter still trolled online by a Truther movement that social media made possible — and about Marines at Abbey Gate, many not yet alive on 9/11, expressing real conflict about what it was all for. Chuck’s question hangs over it: after 25 years of Pentagon budgets, what exactly did we get? And with no meaningful congressional oversight of the Iran war, the founders' decision that a king shouldn't declare wars feels less like history than a warning. Knappenberger's hope is simple — that we remember the fear well enough not to repeat the mistakes it produced.

Play ball and swing for the fences on FanDuel, an official partner of the MLB at https://FANDUEL.COM. 

Protect your family with life insurance from Ethos. Get up to $3 million in coverage in as little as 10 minutes at https://ethos.com/chuck. Application times may vary. Rates may vary.

For free and unbiased Medicare help, dial (980) 734-3985 to speak with my trusted partner, Chapter, or go to askchapter.org/chuck /  *Paid Partnership

Chapter and its affiliates are not connected with or endorsed by any government entity or the federal Medicare program. Chapter Advisory, LLC represents Medicare Advantage HMO, PPO, and PFFS organizations and stand alone prescription drug plans that have a Medicare contract. Enrollment depends on the plan’s contract renewal. While we have a database of every Medicare plan nationwide and can help you to search among all plans, we have contracts with many but not all plans. As a result, we do not offer every plan available in your area. Currently we represent 50 organizations which offer 18,160 products nationwide. We search and recommend all plans, even those we don’t directly offer. You can contact a licensed Chapter agent to find out the number of products available in your specific area. Please contact Medicare.gov, 1-800-Medicare, or your local State Health Insurance Program (SHIP) to get information on all of your options.

Timeline:

(Timestamps may vary based on advertisements)

00:00 Brian Knappenberger joins The Chuck ToddCast

02:30 Many Americans are too young to remember 9/11 well

04:30 9/11 is moving from a lived memory into history

08:00 Wanted to capture the fear and uncertainty of that period in time

12:00 Want the next generation not to fall into the same trap of fear & suspicion

17:00 The rally around the flag effect after the attacks

19:45 There was a real moment of unity worldwide before the divisiveness 

20:15 The only time Article V of NATO was triggered was from 9/11

24:30 Pre-Trump the country had made real progress on Islamaphobia

25:15 Talked to a lot of kids who lost parents on 9/11 for the doc

26:30 Social media emerged after 9/11 and the “Truther” movement came with it

28:30 Driving the Taliban out of Afghanistan was a positive

29:00 We took our eye off the ball with the Iraq war

32:00 Have we sufficiently answered why Bin Laden attacked us

36:15 The real damage was the divisiveness and attrition of two wars

37:15 Al-Qaeda was only a few hundred people, exploited a vulnerability

38:30 The domino effect created ISIS, which is much larger than Al-Qaeda

43:15 Marines at Abbey Gate express feeling conflicted

45:45 25 years of Pentagon budgets has gotten us…what?

48:00 There seems to be no congressional oversight with the Iran war

48:30 What other Turning Point projects do you have in the works?

50:00 Ukraine war is a weird blend of history and modern technology

53:00 9/11 changed our perception of ourselves and our vulnerabilities

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Inside ten weeks to the midterms, Chuck Todd and Chris Cillizza start with the race Republicans have suddenly woken up to: Texas. With Talarico sitting on $21.5 million to Paxton's $1.75 million, Cornyn refusing to raise money in-state, and John Kennedy telling Fox News flatly that the Senate doesn't have the money budgeted for Texas, the guys argue the GOP's comfort blanket — that this is a Paxton problem, not a party problem — is wrong. Chuck's bet: no Republican on the Texas statewide ticket breaks 55%. From there they turn to the issue that's moved faster than either expected, data centers, framed by Trump's Monday Truth Social post declaring that communities rejecting them "want to end up being backwards and poor" and urging the country to "let Data Reign." Chuck and Chris place it in the rare category of issues voters force onto politicians rather than the reverse — the opioid crisis being the last one — and track the fallout from Wisconsin, where Tom Tiffany is already hitting David Crowley on it, to Shapiro and Hochul reversing course, to the blue-collar trade unions now cutting the other way.

The heart of the episode is a long strategic read of the map. The Atlantic reported Trump wants to deploy MAGA Inc's roughly $400 million on ads touting his own second term, telling voters to "pretend I'm on the ballot" — and Chuck makes the counterintuitive case that it may be defensible where the fight actually is, even as they debate whether it gooses MAGA turnout or hands independents another reason to break left. They walk the four-seat path through North Carolina, Maine, Ohio, and Alaska, why Michigan is the state that keeps Democrats up at night, and what Abdul El-Sayed's ongoing Hasan Piker problem is costing him thirty days after the primary. Chris picks Texas as the GOP's nightmare on sheer cost; Chuck picks Iowa, where three House seats, a Senate seat, and a governorship all sit on the table. Plus: the 2028er welcome in both red and blue America (it's not who you'd guess), Trump's demand that the FCC punish Kristen Welker over a single mild remark, a blistering segment on Pete Hegseth and a munitions shortage nobody in Congress seems to be asking about, and the Nats' blown ninth-inning lead as a season in miniature.

Timeline:

00:00 Inside ten weeks — and a college football appetizer

01:00 Why college football has become prime political ad real estate

02:00 The ads they spotted: anti-Whatley in NC, anti-Talarico in Texas

03:00 Republicans wake up to a real race a real money problem in Texas

04:00 The cash disparity — $21.5M for Talarico, $1.75M for Paxton

05:00 The Texas governor's race 

06:00 A one-party state can't blame a party that doesn't exist

07:00 Is Paxton the problem, or is it the environment?

08:00 Trump's data center post: "let Data Reign"

10:00 Reid Wilson called data centers the sleeper issue six weeks ago

11:00 Washington is only discovering what voters have said for months

12:00 David Wallace-Wells & data centers as a vessel for tech frustration

13:00 Wisconsin: Tiffany already attacking Crowley on data centers

14:00 Big tech is the new big Pharma 

15:00 The counter-trend: blue-collar trade unions saying these are jobs

16:00 Why is Trump this pro-data-center in an anti-data-center moment?

19:00 The Atlantic: Trump wants to spend the $400M and run his own campaign

20:00 "Pretend I am on the ballot"

21:00 Wave-year history: Clinton in '00, Bush in '06, Obama in '10 and '14

22:00 Where Trump can't go: Ohio, North Carolina, Maine, Michigan

23:00 The four-seat path — North Carolina, Maine, Ohio, Alaska

24:00 The fifth state problem: Iowa, Texas, Kansas, Nebraska, Montana

25:00 The Darline Graham rescue mission and what it proved

26:00 Democratic gains are a given — the question is wave or tsunami

27:00 This election is about the cost of living 

28:00 Cook's toss-ups always break in one direction

31:00 What if Republicans win New Hampshire and Democrats win Texas?

34:00 The state that keeps Democrats up at night

35:00 El-Sayed is still doing cleanup thirty days after the primary

37:00 The libertarian-candidate play red-state Democrats aren't running

38:00 The Hasan Piker problem

39:00 The Detroit synagogue comment and the apology he did make

42:00 The Trump-and-white-supremacists parallel

43:00 Alaska as the wild card: ranked choice, two Sullivans, Peltola

45:00 Josh Turek is a very hard candidate to attack

47:00 Rob Sand deserves 30% of the buzz Ossoff is getting

49:00 The Obama-in-'06 comparison and the asses-in-seats metric

50:00 Newsom went to Michigan and couldn't find anyone to campaign with

52:00 Trump demands the FCC punish Kristen Welker

54:00 What the meltdown says about how fragile he is

57:00 The Maggie Haberman attack, 48 hours apart

58:00 Hegseth gets the worst week in Washington

59:00 Sean Parnell, the influencer hires & a very online secretary

1:00:00 The cabinet primary: Lutnick, RFK Jr., Gabbard

1:02:00 Are we really out of munitions after one excursion against Iran?

1:03:00 Lake Ontario gets more coverage than troops without weapons

1:05:00 The Nats blow a 2-0 ninth-inning lead to the Marlins

1:07:00 No bullpen help at the deadline, and here we are

1:07:00 Becoming Statler and Waldorf

1:08:00 Tuesday night live: the Massachusetts primary

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Chuck Todd argues the entire 2026 election is collapsing into a single issue — prices — and that every other story is just a contributing factor. The problem for Republicans is that the economy is going to get worse, not better: price pressure is building across the food supply, the Iran war has disrupted fuel and fertilizer, JP Morgan is warning food inflation could hit 5% by 2027, and Kevin Warsh is going to be forced to raise rates, which will infuriate a president who Chuck argues is focused mainly on his own financial interests and could produce genuinely 1970s-like conditions. Chuck brings back reporting from a visit to the Black Locust Livestock cattle ranch to explain why beef prices can't be fixed by turning a dial: raising cattle is a years-long process, the American herd is historically small, only four companies process the country's beef and capacity is shrinking, and importing more is a short-term patch that damages domestic supply long term. It's the pattern of the whole administration — solving a price problem today by making it worse tomorrow, while the cost of producing food rises because of decisions Trump himself made. Underneath it all sits the number that explains the mood of the country: corporate pre-tax profits are at their highest share since just after World War II while workers take home the smallest share since the 1950s. There is no economic boom for most Americans, Washington keeps misreading the anger, and Trump's own voters are getting hit hardest at the pump.

The war, Chuck argues, isn't just making life expensive — it's making America vulnerable. Defense leaders are warning Hegseth the Iran campaign is unsustainable: barely a quarter of the Navy's destroyer fleet is ready to deploy, advanced munitions stocks are largely burned through, and equipment and personnel are worn out, meaning fighting this war has left the country less capable of fighting the next one. China is the clear winner of Trump's second term, and Chuck’s real worry is Putin testing NATO while looking at an American president desperate for any win. Then there's Venezuela, where Trump has announced the U.S. has seized the country's oil reserves — a move Chuck calls British-empire-style imperialism and highway robbery at gunpoint, asking the obvious question: if Putin did this to a neighbor, what would we call it? The standard shouldn't change because we're the ones doing it, the windfall ought to benefit Venezuelans, and it's worth asking who's actually negotiating this and who stands to profit. It's exactly why two-thirds of South America resents the United States, and why Trump's imperial turn will only compound a credibility problem that's already severe. Chuck closes somewhere more personal: his old high school, Miami's Killian, is down from 3,000 students to 400. The kids didn't disappear — school choice killed the ambition to attend. Big public high schools once defined their communities and forced people to know each other; we traded that for choice and specialization without ever asking what a public school is actually for. We didn't try to fix public education, Chuck argues. We empowered people to escape it — and in doing so gutted one of the real sources of American strength.

Finally, Chuck hops into the ToddCast Time Machine to revisit the assassination of President William McKinley and the striking parallels between modern America, and America in 1901. He also answers listeners’ questions in the Ask Chuck segment.

Play ball and swing for the fences on FanDuel, an official partner of the MLB at https://FANDUEL.COM. 

Protect your family with life insurance from Ethos. Get up to $3 million in coverage in as little as 10 minutes at https://ethos.com/chuck. Application times may vary. Rates may vary.

For free and unbiased Medicare help, dial (980) 734-3985 to speak with my trusted partner, Chapter, or go to askchapter.org/chuck /  *Paid Partnership

Chapter and its affiliates are not connected with or endorsed by any government entity or the federal Medicare program. Chapter Advisory, LLC represents Medicare Advantage HMO, PPO, and PFFS organizations and stand alone prescription drug plans that have a Medicare contract. Enrollment depends on the plan’s contract renewal. While we have a database of every Medicare plan nationwide and can help you to search among all plans, we have contracts with many but not all plans. As a result, we do not offer every plan available in your area. Currently we represent 50 organizations which offer 18,160 products nationwide. We search and recommend all plans, even those we don’t directly offer. You can contact a licensed Chapter agent to find out the number of products available in your specific area. Please contact Medicare.gov, 1-800-Medicare, or your local State Health Insurance Program (SHIP) to get information on all of your options. 

Timeline:

(Timestamps may vary based on advertisements)

00:00 Chuck Todd’s introduction

04:30 With return of college football, comes a ton of political advertising

05:00 Football attracts a wide array of potential voters

06:30 Pro-Paxton ad in Texas made China the central theme, blamed Talarico

07:30 GOP has controlled Texas for decades, blaming Talarico is ridiculous

10:00 Dems dismiss the ad as ridiculous, but some people will believe it

12:15 Massachusetts primaries coming up on Tuesday, Sept 1st

14:15 The electorate will be voting on one issue… prices & affordability

15:00 Every other issue is a contributing factor to the price issues

15:45 The problem for Republicans is the economy will get worse, not better

16:30 Price pressures are building across the food supply

16:45 Iran war is causing major issues with the fuel & fertilizer supply

18:00 JP Morgan warns food inflation could reach 5% by 2027

18:30 Kevin Warsh will be forced to raise rates, Trump will be furious

19:00 Trump is only worried about his own personal financial interest

19:45 Fed raising rates to combat inflation will create 1970’s like conditions

20:15 Went to the Black Locust Livestock cattle ranch for Noosphere interview

21:45 Beef prices can’t just be adjusted with the turn of a dial

22:15 Raising cattle is a long term process & our beef herd is historically small

23:00 Trump knows beef prices are hurting him & wanted to import more

24:15 Importing is a short term solution, hurts the long term domestic supply

25:00 Only 4 companies process American beef & we’re losing capacity

25:30 How we can lower beef prices and boost domestic production

26:30 Trump tries to solve price issues in the short term, makes it worse long term

27:00 The price to produce food is rising because of decisions Trump made

27:45 Corporate pre-tax profits are at highest share since aftermath of WW2

28:15 Workers are getting lowest take home share of profits since 1950s

29:00 This is why voters across the spectrum are so pissed off at the system

29:30 There’s no economic boom for most Americans

30:15 Washington continues to misunderstand the anger of the voters

30:45 Trump voters are getting hardest hit by higher gas prices

32:30 Iran war isn’t just making things expensive, it’s making us more vulnerable

33:00 Defense leaders warning Hegseth the Iran war is unsustainable

33:45 Hegseth has put America in more danger than it’s been in since Cold War

34:15 Barely 1/4th of the Navy’s destroyer fleet is ready to deploy

34:45 We’ve burned through most of our advanced munitions

35:15 We’ve worn out our military equipment and personnel

36:00 Fighting this war has made us less capable of fighting the next war

36:30 China has been the biggest winner of Trump’s second term

37:00 What are we no longer willing to do because of the Iran war?

38:00 We’ve spent all this money on the military… and we’re tapped out?

38:30 We should be incredibly concerned about Putin testing NATO

39:15 Putin sees an American president desperate for a win

40:00 Trump announced that we’ve seized Venezuela’s oil reserves

40:45 This feels like British empire style imperialism

42:00 If Putin had done this to another country… what would we call it?

42:30 The standards shouldn’t be different because WE are doing it

43:30 Who is doing this negotiation and who stands to benefit?

44:30 Shouldn’t the windfall from Venezuelan oil benefit Venezuelans?

45:00 Trump is taking Venezuela’s oil at gunpoint, it’s highway robbery

46:00 This is why 2/3rd’s of South America hates the United States

46:30 Trump wants to make America and empire… and the world will hate us

48:00 This compounds America’s credibility problem globally

49:00 The world is only going to hate America & Americans more due to Trump

51:00 Chuck’s high school, Killian is down to 400 students from 3,000

51:45 The kids didn’t disappear, school choice killed ambition to attend there

53:00 Big successful public high schools defined their communities

54:30 Connection between community and schools has broken down

55:00 School choice creates communities not based in their neighborhood

56:00 We haven’t asked “What do we want a public school to do for a community?”

56:45 A public school is central to creating a local community

57:30 We trade choice and specialization, for a community that isn’t forced to interact

59:00 Killian’s community is still a good one, but the character changed

1:00:15 What exactly is public education for? Is it purely for kids' education?

1:01:00 The public school system was a source of our power… and we’ve gutted it

1:01:30 We didn’t try to fix public ed, we tried to empower people to escape it

1:03:45 We created more choices, but did we make education better?

1:05:45 We lost a place where we were forced to get to know each other

1:09:00 ToddCast Time Machine - The Assassination of William McKinley

1:09:30 Of all presidential assassinations, Americans know the least about this one

1:10:00 The assassin was Leon Czolgosz, an anarchist who felt system was unjust

1:10:45 After McKinley died, Teddy Roosevelt became president

1:11:15 Czolgosz actually produced some of the political change he wanted

1:12:00 Modern America echoes America in 1901

1:13:00 Czolgosz saw political assassinations create change in Europe

1:14:45 Other anarchists thought Czolgosz was too committed, maybe a plant

1:15:15 Emma Goldman argues that societal conditions explain the assassination

1:16:00 When people conclude politics won’t solve problems, they look to alternatives

1:16:45 The assassination happened at a fair showing celebrating technological advances

1:17:30 The United States was emerging as a world power, but there were two Americas

1:18:00 One America saw dynamism, the other saw exploitation

1:18:30 The setting of the assassination was almost poetic

1:19:15 Doctors treating McKinley were too afraid to use new X-ray technology

1:20:15 Lincoln’s son was actually nearby during the assassination

1:20:45 Roosevelt was installed as VP by party bosses to get rid of him

1:21:30 Roosevelt sworn in at age 42, and understood the conditions for political radicalism

1:22:00 Roosevelt argues for the “Square Deal” and goes after concentrated corporate power

1:23:00 The uncomfortable truth: Does assassination provide the sought political change?

1:23:45 Lincoln and JFK’s assassination both changed the political timeline

1:25:00 Czolgosz was convicted and executed weeks after McKinley’s death

1:25:30 Congress passes the Anarchist Exclusion Act, Goldman is deported

1:27:00 The forces that produced Czolgosz weren’t confined to America

1:27:30 Roosevelt’s policies helped prevent a Russian-style revolution

1:28:00 Roosevelt argues capitalism has to be regulated and restrained

1:29:15 America in 2026 isn’t America 1901, but it does rhyme

1:30:15 Ask Chuck

1:30:30 What do you make of James Talarico’s status in Texas?

1:36:30 Thoughts on Project 2025, is it a threat and is Trump following it?

1:38:45 Do you think the Trump administration will still act on Cuba?

1:41:00 Why not make the Attorney General an elected position?

1:44:45 Do you see your political independence as a protest against duopoly?

1:49:00 Takeaways from first week of college football

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Chuck Todd argues the entire 2026 election is collapsing into a single issue — prices — and that every other story is just a contributing factor. The problem for Republicans is that the economy is going to get worse, not better: price pressure is building across the food supply, the Iran war has disrupted fuel and fertilizer, JP Morgan is warning food inflation could hit 5% by 2027, and Kevin Warsh is going to be forced to raise rates, which will infuriate a president who Chuck argues is focused mainly on his own financial interests and could produce genuinely 1970s-like conditions. Chuck brings back reporting from a visit to the Black Locust Livestock cattle ranch to explain why beef prices can't be fixed by turning a dial: raising cattle is a years-long process, the American herd is historically small, only four companies process the country's beef and capacity is shrinking, and importing more is a short-term patch that damages domestic supply long term. It's the pattern of the whole administration — solving a price problem today by making it worse tomorrow, while the cost of producing food rises because of decisions Trump himself made. Underneath it all sits the number that explains the mood of the country: corporate pre-tax profits are at their highest share since just after World War II while workers take home the smallest share since the 1950s. There is no economic boom for most Americans, Washington keeps misreading the anger, and Trump's own voters are getting hit hardest at the pump.

The war, Chuck argues, isn't just making life expensive — it's making America vulnerable. Defense leaders are warning Hegseth the Iran campaign is unsustainable: barely a quarter of the Navy's destroyer fleet is ready to deploy, advanced munitions stocks are largely burned through, and equipment and personnel are worn out, meaning fighting this war has left the country less capable of fighting the next one. China is the clear winner of Trump's second term, and Chuck’s real worry is Putin testing NATO while looking at an American president desperate for any win. Then there's Venezuela, where Trump has announced the U.S. has seized the country's oil reserves — a move Chuck calls British-empire-style imperialism and highway robbery at gunpoint, asking the obvious question: if Putin did this to a neighbor, what would we call it? The standard shouldn't change because we're the ones doing it, the windfall ought to benefit Venezuelans, and it's worth asking who's actually negotiating this and who stands to profit. It's exactly why two-thirds of South America resents the United States, and why Trump's imperial turn will only compound a credibility problem that's already severe. Chuck closes somewhere more personal: his old high school, Miami's Killian, is down from 3,000 students to 400. The kids didn't disappear — school choice killed the ambition to attend. Big public high schools once defined their communities and forced people to know each other; we traded that for choice and specialization without ever asking what a public school is actually for. We didn't try to fix public education, Chuck argues. We empowered people to escape it — and in doing so gutted one of the real sources of American strength.

Then, Ohio Governor Mike DeWine joins the Chuck Toddcast in his final months in office and, freed from ever facing voters again, says exactly what he thinks. The headline is his reversal on capital punishment: DeWine helped write Ohio's death penalty statute as a state senator in 1981 and defended it as attorney general, but in June he called on the legislature to abolish it, saying the moral justification he once had simply no longer exists. He walks Chuck through the practical case — roughly 20 years on average from sentencing to execution, a process that structurally cannot be sped up — and the harder question a Republican has to answer about whether you can be both pro-life and pro-death penalty. That flows into a broader argument about criminal justice that DeWine says has been driven by emotion rather than logic: truly violent offenders are a small percentage of the prison population and those are the people who need to be removed from society, but it's in society's direct self-interest to educate and rehabilitate everyone else. He's equally out of step with his party on immigration, arguing America needs legal immigrants, that we've been educating them and then failing to keep them, that Ohio's economic gains have come from immigrants, and that they're critical to caring for an aging population. On Springfield, DeWine is direct: the Haitian population created real challenges for the community, but they work hard, and it is not in America's interest to deport people who are here and working.

The conversation turns to the economy and the state's political future. DeWine calls the Canada trade war a genuine problem for Ohio — Canada is a major customer — and argues the country needs a real balance between domestic manufacturing and importing rather than a grudge match. On the data center boom reshaping Ohio politics, he says tech companies have an obligation to invest in the communities they move into, notes the technology has improved and no longer requires as much water, and makes the case that nuclear power is what will actually have to underwrite the buildout. He and Chuck get into whether there's a genuine divide between the two factions of the Ohio GOP, and DeWine offers a thoughtful answer about how the nationalization of politics has flattened the local distinctions that once existed inside both parties — and how that nationalization is now in everyone's face every single day. He takes ownership of the COVID shutdown decisions (the buck stopped with him), assesses whether Ohio is genuinely back to purple status with both the governor and Senate races going down to the wire, weighs in on whether the state is in good hands with either Vivek Ramaswamy or Amy Acton — and, of course, whether this is finally Joe Burrow's year.

Finally, Chuck hops into the ToddCast Time Machine to revisit the assassination of President William McKinley and the striking parallels between modern America, and America in 1901. He also answers listeners’ questions in the Ask Chuck segment.

Play ball and swing for the fences on FanDuel, an official partner of the MLB at https://FANDUEL.COM. 

Protect your family with life insurance from Ethos. Get up to $3 million in coverage in as little as 10 minutes at https://ethos.com/chuck. Application times may vary. Rates may vary.

For free and unbiased Medicare help, dial (980) 734-3985 to speak with my trusted partner, Chapter, or go to askchapter.org/chuck /  *Paid Partnership

Chapter and its affiliates are not connected with or endorsed by any government entity or the federal Medicare program. Chapter Advisory, LLC represents Medicare Advantage HMO, PPO, and PFFS organizations and stand alone prescription drug plans that have a Medicare contract. Enrollment depends on the plan’s contract renewal. While we have a database of every Medicare plan nationwide and can help you to search among all plans, we have contracts with many but not all plans. As a result, we do not offer every plan available in your area. Currently we represent 50 organizations which offer 18,160 products nationwide. We search and recommend all plans, even those we don’t directly offer. You can contact a licensed Chapter agent to find out the number of products available in your specific area. Please contact Medicare.gov, 1-800-Medicare, or your local State Health Insurance Program (SHIP) to get information on all of your options. 

Timeline:

(Timestamps may vary based on advertisements)

00:00 Chuck Todd’s introduction

04:30 With return of college football, comes a ton of political advertising

05:00 Football attracts a wide array of potential voters

06:30 Pro-Paxton ad in Texas made China the central theme, blamed Talarico

07:30 GOP has controlled Texas for decades, blaming Talarico is ridiculous

10:00 Dems dismiss the ad as ridiculous, but some people will believe it

12:15 Massachusetts primaries coming up on Tuesday, Sept 1st

14:15 The electorate will be voting on one issue… prices & affordability

15:00 Every other issue is a contributing factor to the price issues

15:45 The problem for Republicans is the economy will get worse, not better

16:30 Price pressures are building across the food supply

16:45 Iran war is causing major issues with the fuel & fertilizer supply

18:00 JP Morgan warns food inflation could reach 5% by 2027

18:30 Kevin Warsh will be forced to raise rates, Trump will be furious

19:00 Trump is only worried about his own personal financial interest

19:45 Fed raising rates to combat inflation will create 1970’s like conditions

20:15 Went to the Black Locust Livestock cattle ranch for Noosphere interview

21:45 Beef prices can’t just be adjusted with the turn of a dial

22:15 Raising cattle is a long term process & our beef herd is historically small

23:00 Trump knows beef prices are hurting him & wanted to import more

24:15 Importing is a short term solution, hurts the long term domestic supply

25:00 Only 4 companies process American beef & we’re losing capacity

25:30 How we can lower beef prices and boost domestic production

26:30 Trump tries to solve price issues in the short term, makes it worse long term

27:00 The price to produce food is rising because of decisions Trump made

27:45 Corporate pre-tax profits are at highest share since aftermath of WW2

28:15 Workers are getting lowest take home share of profits since 1950s

29:00 This is why voters across the spectrum are so pissed off at the system

29:30 There’s no economic boom for most Americans

30:15 Washington continues to misunderstand the anger of the voters

30:45 Trump voters are getting hardest hit by higher gas prices

32:30 Iran war isn’t just making things expensive, it’s making us more vulnerable

33:00 Defense leaders warning Hegseth the Iran war is unsustainable

33:45 Hegseth has put America in more danger than it’s been in since Cold War

34:15 Barely 1/4th of the Navy’s destroyer fleet is ready to deploy

34:45 We’ve burned through most of our advanced munitions

35:15 We’ve worn out our military equipment and personnel

36:00 Fighting this war has made us less capable of fighting the next war

36:30 China has been the biggest winner of Trump’s second term

37:00 What are we no longer willing to do because of the Iran war?

38:00 We’ve spent all this money on the military… and we’re tapped out?

38:30 We should be incredibly concerned about Putin testing NATO

39:15 Putin sees an American president desperate for a win

40:00 Trump announced that we’ve seized Venezuela’s oil reserves

40:45 This feels like British empire style imperialism

42:00 If Putin had done this to another country… what would we call it?

42:30 The standards shouldn’t be different because WE are doing it

43:30 Who is doing this negotiation and who stands to benefit?

44:30 Shouldn’t the windfall from Venezuelan oil benefit Venezuelans?

45:00 Trump is taking Venezuela’s oil at gunpoint, it’s highway robbery

46:00 This is why 2/3rd’s of South America hates the United States

46:30 Trump wants to make America and empire… and the world will hate us

48:00 This compounds America’s credibility problem globally

49:00 The world is only going to hate America & Americans more due to Trump

51:00 Chuck’s high school, Killian is down to 400 students from 3,000

51:45 The kids didn’t disappear, school choice killed ambition to attend there

53:00 Big successful public high schools defined their communities

54:30 Connection between community and schools has broken down

55:00 School choice creates communities not based in their neighborhood

56:00 We haven’t asked “What do we want a public school to do for a community?”

56:45 A public school is central to creating a local community

57:30 We trade choice and specialization, for a community that isn’t forced to interact

59:00 Killian’s community is still a good one, but the character changed

1:00:15 What exactly is public education for? Is it purely for kids' education?

1:01:00 The public school system was a source of our power… and we’ve gutted it

1:01:30 We didn’t try to fix public ed, we tried to empower people to escape it

1:03:45 We created more choices, but did we make education better?

1:05:45 We lost a place where we were forced to get to know each other

1:10:15 Governor Mike DeWine joins the Chuck ToddCast

1:11:30 More comfortable speaking out since not running for office

1:12:45 Mike’s argument against the death penalty

1:13:15 It takes 20 years on average from adjudication to execution

1:13:45 Death penalty process is not able to be sped up

1:15:15 We need to have legal immigrants admitted to America

1:16:30 We were educating immigrants, then not having them stay

1:17:15 Ohio’s economic increases have come from immigrants

1:17:45 Immigrants are critical to caring for our aging population

1:18:30 Can you be pro-life and pro-death penalty?

1:20:15 Putting an emphasis on rehabilitating prisoners

1:21:30 It’s in the self-interest of society to educate inmates

1:22:45 Emotion rather than logic & nuance drives the crime debate

1:23:45 Truly violent criminals are a very small percentage of the population

1:24:15 Violent criminals are the ones you have to get out of society

1:25:30 America goes through pro-immigration and anti-immigration phases

1:26:15 We need people who want to work

1:26:45 Haitians in Springfield created challenges, but they work hard

1:27:45 It’s not in our interest to deport people who are here and working

1:29:00 Haiti is a major challenge

1:32:00 Canada trade war is a problem, they’re a major customer for Ohio

1:33:45 Need a balance between manufacturing here and importing

1:36:00 Is there a divide in Ohio GOP between the two factions?

1:38:45 There used to be major distinctions within the parties

1:39:45 Nationalization of politics has stymied local distinctions within parties

1:40:45 The nationalization is now in everyone’s face everyday

1:43:15 Tech companies need to invest in communities where they put data centers

1:44:00 The data center tech is getting better, don’t have to use as much water

1:45:00 Need to invest in nuclear power in order to power the data center boom

1:45:45 Is Ohio in good hands with Ramaswamy or Acton as governor?

1:47:30 Shutdown decisions during COVID were the governor's choice. Buck stops with him

1:48:30 Is Ohio back to purple state status?

1:49:45 The governor and senate races will go down to the wire

1:50:15 Will this finally be Joe Burrow’s year?

1:52:00 ToddCast Time Machine - The Assassination of William McKinley

1:52:30 Of all presidential assassinations, Americans know the least about this one

1:53:00 The assassin was Leon Czolgosz, an anarchist who felt system was unjust

1:53:45 After McKinley died, Teddy Roosevelt became president

1:54:15 Czolgosz actually produced some of the political change he wanted

1:55:00 Modern America echoes America in 1901

1:56:00 Czolgosz saw political assassinations create change in Europe

1:57:45 Other anarchists thought Czolgosz was too committed, maybe a plant

1:58:15 Emma Goldman argues that societal conditions explain the assassination

1:59:00 When people conclude politics won’t solve problems, they look to alternatives

1:59:45 The assassination happened at a fair showing celebrating technological advances

2:00:30 The United States was emerging as a world power, but there were two Americas

2:01:00 One America saw dynamism, the other saw exploitation

2:01:30 The setting of the assassination was almost poetic

2:02:15 Doctors treating McKinley were too afraid to use new X-ray technology

2:03:15 Lincoln’s son was actually nearby during the assassination

2:03:45 Roosevelt was installed as VP by party bosses to get rid of him

2:04:30 Roosevelt sworn in at age 42, and understood the conditions for political radicalism

2:05:00 Roosevelt argues for the “Square Deal” and goes after concentrated corporate power

2:06:00 The uncomfortable truth: Does assassination provide the sought political change?

2:06:45 Lincoln and JFK’s assassination both changed the political timeline

2:08:00 Czolgosz was convicted and executed weeks after McKinley’s death

2:08:30 Congress passes the Anarchist Exclusion Act, Goldman is deported

2:10:00 The forces that produced Czolgosz weren’t confined to America

2:10:30 Roosevelt’s policies helped prevent a Russian-style revolution

2:11:00 Roosevelt argues capitalism has to be regulated and restrained

2:12:15 America in 2026 isn’t America 1901, but it does rhyme

2:13:15 Ask Chuck

2:13:30 What do you make of James Talarico’s status in Texas?

2:19:30 Thoughts on Project 2025, is it a threat and is Trump following it?

2:21:45 Do you think the Trump administration will still act on Cuba?

2:24:00 Why not make the Attorney General an elected position?

2:27:45 Do you see your political independence as a protest against duopoly?

2:32:00 Takeaways from first week of college football

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Ohio Governor Mike DeWine joins the Chuck Toddcast in his final months in office and, freed from ever facing voters again, says exactly what he thinks. The headline is his reversal on capital punishment: DeWine helped write Ohio's death penalty statute as a state senator in 1981 and defended it as attorney general, but in June he called on the legislature to abolish it, saying the moral justification he once had simply no longer exists. He walks Chuck through the practical case — roughly 20 years on average from sentencing to execution, a process that structurally cannot be sped up — and the harder question a Republican has to answer about whether you can be both pro-life and pro-death penalty. That flows into a broader argument about criminal justice that DeWine says has been driven by emotion rather than logic: truly violent offenders are a small percentage of the prison population and those are the people who need to be removed from society, but it's in society's direct self-interest to educate and rehabilitate everyone else. He's equally out of step with his party on immigration, arguing America needs legal immigrants, that we've been educating them and then failing to keep them, that Ohio's economic gains have come from immigrants, and that they're critical to caring for an aging population. On Springfield, DeWine is direct: the Haitian population created real challenges for the community, but they work hard, and it is not in America's interest to deport people who are here and working.

The conversation turns to the economy and the state's political future. DeWine calls the Canada trade war a genuine problem for Ohio — Canada is a major customer — and argues the country needs a real balance between domestic manufacturing and importing rather than a grudge match. On the data center boom reshaping Ohio politics, he says tech companies have an obligation to invest in the communities they move into, notes the technology has improved and no longer requires as much water, and makes the case that nuclear power is what will actually have to underwrite the buildout. He and Chuck get into whether there's a genuine divide between the two factions of the Ohio GOP, and DeWine offers a thoughtful answer about how the nationalization of politics has flattened the local distinctions that once existed inside both parties — and how that nationalization is now in everyone's face every single day. He takes ownership of the COVID shutdown decisions (the buck stopped with him), assesses whether Ohio is genuinely back to purple status with both the governor and Senate races going down to the wire, weighs in on whether the state is in good hands with either Vivek Ramaswamy or Amy Acton — and, of course, whether this is finally Joe Burrow's year.

Play ball and swing for the fences on FanDuel, an official partner of the MLB at https://FANDUEL.COM. 

Protect your family with life insurance from Ethos. Get up to $3 million in coverage in as little as 10 minutes at https://ethos.com/chuck. Application times may vary. Rates may vary.

For free and unbiased Medicare help, dial (980) 734-3985 to speak with my trusted partner, Chapter, or go to askchapter.org/chuck /  *Paid Partnership

Chapter and its affiliates are not connected with or endorsed by any government entity or the federal Medicare program. Chapter Advisory, LLC represents Medicare Advantage HMO, PPO, and PFFS organizations and stand alone prescription drug plans that have a Medicare contract. Enrollment depends on the plan’s contract renewal. While we have a database of every Medicare plan nationwide and can help you to search among all plans, we have contracts with many but not all plans. As a result, we do not offer every plan available in your area. Currently we represent 50 organizations which offer 18,160 products nationwide. We search and recommend all plans, even those we don’t directly offer. You can contact a licensed Chapter agent to find out the number of products available in your specific area. Please contact Medicare.gov, 1-800-Medicare, or your local State Health Insurance Program (SHIP) to get information on all of your options. 

Timeline:

(Timestamps may vary based on advertisements)

00:00 Governor Mike DeWine joins the Chuck ToddCast

01:15 More comfortable speaking out since not running for office

02:30 Mike’s argument against the death penalty

03:00 It takes 20 years on average from adjudication to execution

03:30 Death penalty process is not able to be sped up

05:00 We need to have legal immigrants admitted to America

06:15 We were educating immigrants, then not having them stay

07:00 Ohio’s economic increases have come from immigrants

07:30 Immigrants are critical to caring for our aging population

08:15 Can you be pro-life and pro-death penalty?

10:00 Putting an emphasis on rehabilitating prisoners

11:15 It’s in the self-interest of society to educate inmates

12:30 Emotion rather than logic & nuance drives the crime debate

13:30 Truly violent criminals are a very small percentage of the population

14:00 Violent criminals are the ones you have to get out of society

15:15 America goes through pro-immigration and anti-immigration phases

16:00 We need people who want to work 

16:30 Haitians in Springfield created challenges, but they work hard

17:30 It’s not in our interest to deport people who are here and working

18:45 Haiti is a major challenge

21:45 Canada trade war is a problem, they’re a major customer for Ohio

23:30 Need a balance between manufacturing here and importing

25:45 Is there a divide in Ohio GOP between the two factions?

28:30 There used to be major distinctions within the parties

29:30 Nationalization of politics has stymied local distinctions within parties

30:30 The nationalization is now in everyone’s face everyday

33:00 Tech companies need to invest in communities where they put data centers

33:45 The data center tech is getting better, don’t have to use as much water

34:45 Need to invest in nuclear power in order to power the data center boom

35:30 Is Ohio in good hands with Ramaswamy or Acton as governor?

37:15 Shutdown decisions during COVID were the governor's choice. Buck stops with him

38:15 Is Ohio back to purple state status?

39:30 The governor and senate races will go down to the wire

40:00 Will this finally be Joe Burrow’s year?

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Chuck Todd digs into Darline Graham's 52-48 runoff win over Ralph Norman in South Carolina — a result that snapped Trump's ugly endorsement streak but only barely, and only because Trump personally recruited her, endorsed her, flew to Myrtle Beach for a rally, and dropped more than $800,000 in MAGA Inc. money on a race his PAC had sat out all cycle elsewhere. Chuck's read is that Trump clearly still moves Republican primary voters, but that a four-point squeaker for an appointed newcomer carrying one of the most recognizable names in state politics is not the show of strength the White House wanted. Graham inherited Lindsey's negatives with voters without inheriting his positives, remains an amateur candidate prone to gaffes, and may be dragged down further by resentment over how she got the seat in the first place. Against her is Democrat Annie Andrews, a pediatrician with a real organization raising real money — and while no Democrat has won a Senate race in South Carolina since 1998, Chuck asks the honest question about a favorable environment: what's Andrews' actual ceiling, and can 48% be a winning number in a state where the Supreme Court gutting the Voting Rights Act has produced a surge in Black turnout? If the blue wave turns into a tsunami, South Carolina lands on the map. A Graham loss in this environment would be a genuine disaster for Trump.

That leads into the broader strategic picture, where Chuck reports Trump met with advisors about how to deploy his enormous war chest — with the advisors trying to keep the midterms from becoming a referendum on him, and Trump insisting MAGA Inc. spend on ads touting his record. It's a plan built on turning out voters who show up only for Trump, which could either backfire badly or, Chuck concedes, prevent a tsunami. The deeper problem is that Trump is being told what he wants to hear: he thinks the economy is great, voters emphatically don't, and charts are meaningless to people staring at their grocery bills. Unlike Obama, who inherited a mess, Trump's central problems — the tariffs and the Iran war — were his own choices, which is why blaming Joe Biden won't land with any credibility. Chuck also notes that conservative media has spent the week obsessing over the WNBA, a classic look-over-here tactic from outlets that can't discuss the cost of living, and observes something genuinely changed about Trump's second-term psychology: more countries and institutions are willing to push back, and people simply aren't as afraid of him anymore. He is appalled by the reported plan to tear down the Kennedy Center — calling it disgusting to want your name on someone else's tombstone, noting the Kennedy Center was doing fine, and marveling that the Justice Department put any of this in writing. He  closes with his argument that America no longer has two functional parties: Democrats are paralyzed, the GOP is owned by Trump, both are held together only by fear of the other side's extremes, nearly half the public identifies with neither, and state law now protects the duopoly from competition. We demand more choice everywhere else in life. His pitch: stop protecting the two parties, let them divorce, and let voters build something that actually looks like the country.

Then, former Trump White House Communications Director and author of the upcoming book All the Wrong Moves: How Three Catastrophic Decisions Led to the Rise of Trump, Anthony Scaramucci joins the Chuck Toddcast, picking up a conversation the two started in Abu Dhabi just before the Iran war — back when the gulf states were considered one of the safest places on earth. They discuss why America's military industrial complex is badly out of step with modern warfare, and that the circuit running between defense contractors and Washington is why nobody fixes it. He walks through Iran's mosaic defense doctrine and its decentralized command structure, the damage Iranian strikes did to U.S. naval logistics in the Gulf — reporting has traced the USS Abraham Lincoln's resupply crisis back to the destruction of the Navy's main Bahrain hub, which forced operations out to Diego Garcia — and the Pentagon's response to that story, which was to go after the press rather than answer for any of it. Hegseth's Pentagon fired Stars and Stripes publisher Max Lederer, editor-in-chief Erik Slavin, and reporter Lara Korte, citing insubordination months after the department had already forced out the paper's congressionally mandated ombudsman, who sued over it. Firing the journalists at a publication created specifically to give troops independent information is, as Scaramucci frames it, exactly the instinct of an institution that can't withstand scrutiny. The structural problem underneath: a defense industry consolidated down to five giant companies that function like a cartel, operating in a post-Citizens United Washington where corporations reliably get what they want and lobbyists will smother any real reform. We spent enormous sums, he argues, to get embarrassed by Iran — and the countries hosting American bases are quietly concluding it isn't worth it, which means new defense pacts are going to form without the United States in them.

From there the conversation widens into competition with China and the fracturing of the western alliance. Scaramucci argues China can plan for the long term in ways America simply doesn't, and that the Pentagon still can't pass an audit with nobody ever held accountable — but he's not a declinist: America's freedoms remain a real advantage over Beijing if the country gets its act together, which is precisely the argument in the op-ed on press freedom that started his rift with Trump, and precisely what the Stars and Stripes firings put at risk. He calls Mark Carney the leader of the western world now, credits Carney with understanding that Trump wants to sever the U.S. from the west, and offers the episode's sharpest line: if Trump were a Putin agent, he'd be getting an A+. On the collapsed Canada trade talks, Scaramucci thinks the dispute gets resolved within a couple of weeks, but he's clear that the Carney path — standing up to Trump directly — is not a path Democrats can simply copy. New coalitions have formed since 2016, and he doesn't see a coalition builder anywhere in the current Democratic Party; Gavin Newsom has been pilloried by conservative media for a decade, and the person capable of assembling something genuinely new may have to come from outside politics altogether.

Finally, Chuck presents his ToddCast Top 5 list of 2028 GOP presidential candidates and answers listeners’ questions in the “Ask Chuck” segment. 

“Pre-order All The Wrong Moves now

https://www.scaramucci.net/books

Protect your family with life insurance from Ethos. Get up to $3 million in coverage in as little as 10 minutes at https://ethos.com/chuck. Application times may vary. Rates may vary.

For free and unbiased Medicare help, dial (980) 734-3985 to speak with my trusted partner, Chapter, or go to askchapter.org/chuck /  *Paid Partnership

Chapter and its affiliates are not connected with or endorsed by any government entity or the federal Medicare program. Chapter Advisory, LLC represents Medicare Advantage HMO, PPO, and PFFS organizations and stand alone prescription drug plans that have a Medicare contract. Enrollment depends on the plan’s contract renewal. While we have a database of every Medicare plan nationwide and can help you to search among all plans, we have contracts with many but not all plans. As a result, we do not offer every plan available in your area. Currently we represent 50 organizations which offer 18,160 products nationwide. We search and recommend all plans, even those we don’t directly offer. You can contact a licensed Chapter agent to find out the number of products available in your specific area. Please contact Medicare.gov, 1-800-Medicare, or your local State Health Insurance Program (SHIP) to get information on all of your options. 

Timeline:

(Timestamps may vary based on advertisements)

00:00 Chuck Todd’s introduction

05:30 Darline Graham wins South Carolina runoff w/Trump’s endorsement

06:00 Trump clearly has influence over GOP primary voters

06:45 The race was a test of Trump’s political strength & she barely won

08:15 Darline inherited Lindsey’s negatives with voters, but not the positives

09:15 It took Trump & his operation to get Graham over the finish line

09:45 May not be a path for Annie Andrews to win, but can make it close

10:30 In favorable environment for Dems, what is the ceiling for Andrews?

11:30 Can 48% be a winning number for Annie Andrews?

12:00 Graham is still an amateur candidate, prone to gaffes

13:15 SCOTUS gutting the Voting Rights Act has led to surge in black vote

14:30 Some voters may be turned off by Graham being appointed

15:30 Andrews has a strong organization & is raising real money

16:15 If the blue wave is a tsunami… South Carolina may be on the map

17:15 Trump desperately needed a Darline Graham

19:15 Candidates who ran as Trump candidates are pivoting for the general

21:00 A Graham loss in this environment would be a disaster for Trump

22:00 Trump met with advisors to discuss how to use his giant war chest

22:30 Advisors don’t want the midterms to be a referendum on Trump

23:15 Trump wants MAGA Inc to spend on ads touting his record

24:15 Trump is out of touch, told what he wants to hear 

25:45 Trump thinks the economy is great, the voters certainly don’t

27:00 Economic charts are meaningless when costs are so high

27:45 Trump is not meeting voters where they are

28:15 While Obama inherited a mess, the problems now are caused by Trump

29:00 The tariffs and Iran war were Trump’s choices

30:00 Playing the “blame Joe Biden” card won’t land with credibility

31:00 The senate map is still pretty friendly territory for Republicans

31:30 Trump’s strategy is to turn out voters that show up for only for him

32:30 This plan could also backfire on Republicans

33:45 The plan could also possibly prevent a potential blue tsunami

34:15 Conservative media has been obsessing over the WNBA

35:00 They can’t talk about the serious issues, focused on culture wars

35:45 It’s an old political “look over here” tactic

36:45 Conservatives want voters focused on WNBA, not cost of living

37:30 Conservative media tries to change the subject, Trump doesn’t

38:00 Trump’s psychology has clearly changed in term two

38:45 More countries and institutions are willing to push back on Trump

39:30 People aren’t as afraid to stand up to Trump now

40:15 If Trump tears down the Kennedy Center, the symbolism would be powerful

40:45 It’s disgusting to want to put your name on someone else’s tombstone

41:30 The Kennedy Center was doing FINE before Trump

42:15 Trump isn’t nearly as much of a “builder” as he claims to be

43:15 Threatening to tear down the Kennedy Center is just appalling

44:30 It’s crazy that the Department of Justice put this in writing

45:00 Don’t have two functional parties, Dems are paralyzed, GOP owned by Trump

46:30 Both parties contain wings with diverging philosophies

47:45 Both parties stay together because they’re afraid of the other sides extremes

48:45 Nearly half the public doesn’t identify with either major party

49:30 Voters identify as independents to register protest with both parties

51:30 The “left” and “right” labels end up doing the thinking for us

52:15 Parties lost regional identities as politics became nationalized

53:45 State law now protects the two political parties from competition

54:30 We should stop protecting the duopoly

56:30 Every race shouldn’t have to collapse into the same two parties

57:00 There is a constituency for a multiparty democracy

58:30 We keep defending a political system that most agree isn’t working

59:45 Everywhere else in life we demand more choice. Just not in politics

1:00:45 Let the parties divorce and then let the voters decide

1:02:30 Politics should be more representative of what we are

1:07:00 Anthony Scaramucci joins The Chuck ToddCast

1:07:45 Last time seeing each other was in Abu Dhabi right before Iran war

1:09:15 Abu Dhabi was one of the safest places in the world pre-war

1:10:45 How much damage has been done to U.S. & gulf state alliance?

1:11:15 Our military industrial complex is out of step with modern warfare

1:12:00 There’s a circuit between defense contractors and D.C.

1:12:30 Iran will end up closer to their Sunni neighbors after the war

1:13:15 Iran’s mosaic defense doctrine created decentralized leadership

1:14:00 Our naval supply depots have been decimated by Iran

1:15:00 Hegseth’s response was to fire reporters who reported the story

1:17:30 Defense industry has been consolidated down to 5 big companies

1:18:30 Those 5 companies act like a monopoly cartel

1:19:15 Since Citizen’s United, corporations get what they want from D.C.

1:20:45 We’ve spent huge sums of money to get embarrassed by Iran

1:22:15 Countries that hosted U.S. bases finding out it’s not worth it

1:23:00 New defense pacts will be formed without the U.S. involved

1:24:00 The lobbyists will get in the way of any attempts at reform

1:26:15 China is able to plan for the long term in a way the U.S. doesn’t

1:27:15 Anthony’s rift with Trump began was op-ed about importance of free press

1:27:45 Our freedoms are advantage over China if we get our act together

1:29:15 China has some advantages over us, but we also have our advantages

1:30:00 Pentagon can’t pass an audit, but nobody holds them accountable

1:30:30 Mark Carney is now the leader of the western world now

1:31:00 Carney understands Trump wants to sever the U.S. from the west

1:31:30 If Trump was a Putin agent… he would get an A+

1:33:15 The Canada trade deal stalled over dual language packaging

1:35:00 Trade dispute will likely get resolved in the next couple weeks

1:36:15 The Carney path is not a path for the Democrats

1:37:30 New coalitions have been formed since the 2016 election

1:38:15 Don’t see a coalition builder in the current Democratic party

1:39:00 Gavin Newsom has been pilloried by conservative media for a decade

1:40:00 Someone from outside of politics could potentially build a coalition

1:41:00 ToddCast Top 5 2028 GOP Presidential candidates

1:41:45 #1 JD Vance

1:43:15 #2 Marco Rubio

1:46:00 #3 Someone named Trump

1:47:00 #4 Nikki Haley

1:47:30 #5 Rand Paul

1:51:00 Ask Chuck

1:51:30 Thoughts on the long-shot Democratic 2028 candidates?

1:57:00 What would your dream bipartisan ticket look like?

2:00:30 What happened to the ideological principles of both parties?

2:04:15 Could Roger Marshall leave and then just be reappointed?

2:07:00 Are we missing shifts in areas we assume are safely red?

2:11:00 College football preview

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Former Trump White House Communications Director and author of the upcoming book All the Wrong Moves: How Three Catastrophic Decisions Led to the Rise of Trump, Anthony Scaramucci joins the Chuck Toddcast, picking up a conversation the two started in Abu Dhabi just before the Iran war — back when the gulf states were considered one of the safest places on earth. They discuss why America's military industrial complex is badly out of step with modern warfare, and that the circuit running between defense contractors and Washington is why nobody fixes it. He walks through Iran's mosaic defense doctrine and its decentralized command structure, the damage Iranian strikes did to U.S. naval logistics in the Gulf — reporting has traced the USS Abraham Lincoln's resupply crisis back to the destruction of the Navy's main Bahrain hub, which forced operations out to Diego Garcia — and the Pentagon's response to that story, which was to go after the press rather than answer for any of it. Hegseth's Pentagon fired Stars and Stripes publisher Max Lederer, editor-in-chief Erik Slavin, and reporter Lara Korte, citing insubordination months after the department had already forced out the paper's congressionally mandated ombudsman, who sued over it. Firing the journalists at a publication created specifically to give troops independent information is, as Scaramucci frames it, exactly the instinct of an institution that can't withstand scrutiny. The structural problem underneath: a defense industry consolidated down to five giant companies that function like a cartel, operating in a post-Citizens United Washington where corporations reliably get what they want and lobbyists will smother any real reform. We spent enormous sums, he argues, to get embarrassed by Iran — and the countries hosting American bases are quietly concluding it isn't worth it, which means new defense pacts are going to form without the United States in them.

From there the conversation widens into competition with China and the fracturing of the western alliance. Scaramucci argues China can plan for the long term in ways America simply doesn't, and that the Pentagon still can't pass an audit with nobody ever held accountable — but he's not a declinist: America's freedoms remain a real advantage over Beijing if the country gets its act together, which is precisely the argument in the op-ed on press freedom that started his rift with Trump, and precisely what the Stars and Stripes firings put at risk. He calls Mark Carney the leader of the western world now, credits Carney with understanding that Trump wants to sever the U.S. from the west, and offers the episode's sharpest line: if Trump were a Putin agent, he'd be getting an A+. On the collapsed Canada trade talks, Scaramucci thinks the dispute gets resolved within a couple of weeks, but he's clear that the Carney path — standing up to Trump directly — is not a path Democrats can simply copy. New coalitions have formed since 2016, and he doesn't see a coalition builder anywhere in the current Democratic Party; Gavin Newsom has been pilloried by conservative media for a decade, and the person capable of assembling something genuinely new may have to come from outside politics altogether.

“Pre-order All The Wrong Moves now

https://www.scaramucci.net/books

Protect your family with life insurance from Ethos. Get up to $3 million in coverage in as little as 10 minutes at https://ethos.com/chuck. Application times may vary. Rates may vary.

For free and unbiased Medicare help, dial (980) 734-3985 to speak with my trusted partner, Chapter, or go to askchapter.org/chuck /  *Paid Partnership

Chapter and its affiliates are not connected with or endorsed by any government entity or the federal Medicare program. Chapter Advisory, LLC represents Medicare Advantage HMO, PPO, and PFFS organizations and stand alone prescription drug plans that have a Medicare contract. Enrollment depends on the plan’s contract renewal. While we have a database of every Medicare plan nationwide and can help you to search among all plans, we have contracts with many but not all plans. As a result, we do not offer every plan available in your area. Currently we represent 50 organizations which offer 18,160 products nationwide. We search and recommend all plans, even those we don’t directly offer. You can contact a licensed Chapter agent to find out the number of products available in your specific area. Please contact Medicare.gov, 1-800-Medicare, or your local State Health Insurance Program (SHIP) to get information on all of your options. 

Timeline:

(Timestamps may vary based on advertisements)

00:00 Anthony Scaramucci joins The Chuck ToddCast

00:45 Last time seeing each other was in Abu Dhabi right before Iran war

02:15 Abu Dhabi was one of the safest places in the world pre-war

03:45 How much damage has been done to U.S. & gulf state alliance?

04:15 Our military industrial complex is out of step with modern warfare

05:00 There’s a circuit between defense contractors and D.C.

05:30 Iran will end up closer to their Sunni neighbors after the war

06:15 Iran’s mosaic defense doctrine created decentralized leadership

07:00 Our naval supply depots have been decimated by Iran

08:00 Hegseth’s response was to fire reporters who reported the story

10:30 Defense industry has been consolidated down to 5 big companies

11:30 Those 5 companies act like a monopoly cartel

12:15 Since Citizen’s United, corporations get what they want from D.C.

13:45 We’ve spent huge sums of money to get embarrassed by Iran

15:15 Countries that hosted U.S. bases finding out it’s not worth it

16:00 New defense pacts will be formed without the U.S. involved

17:00 The lobbyists will get in the way of any attempts at reform

19:15 China is able to plan for the long term in a way the U.S. doesn’t

20:15 Anthony’s rift with Trump began was op-ed about importance of free press

20:45 Our freedoms are advantage over China if we get our act together

22:15 China has some advantages over us, but we also have our advantages

23:00 Pentagon can’t pass an audit, but nobody holds them accountable

23:30 Mark Carney is now the leader of the western world now

24:00 Carney understands Trump wants to sever the U.S. from the west

24:30 If Trump was a Putin agent… he would get an A+

26:15 The Canada trade deal stalled over dual language packaging

28:00 Trade dispute will likely get resolved in the next couple weeks

29:15 The Carney path is not a path for the Democrats

30:30 New coalitions have been formed since the 2016 election

31:15 Don’t see a coalition builder in the current Democratic party

32:00 Gavin Newsom has been pilloried by conservative media for a decade

33:00 Someone from outside of politics could potentially build a coalition

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Chuck Todd and J.A. Adande pick up in Part 2 of Alabama football with Bear Bryant’s final chapter and follow the Crimson Tide through decades of dominance, decline and an eventual return to the top.

They explore Alabama’s complicated integration story, Bryant’s reinvention of the program with the wishbone offense, and the championships that cemented his place as a college football icon. Then, after Bryant’s death, Alabama begins a turbulent search for the coach who could live up to the impossible standard he left behind.

That journey eventually leads to Nick Saban. From the Drew Brees decision that could have changed Saban’s future to the philosophy he developed alongside Bill Belichick, the arrival of Lane Kiffin and the offensive transformation that extended Alabama’s dynasty, Chuck and J.R. break down how Saban built the defining college football program of the modern era.

Plus, the Kick Six, the legendary 1992 championship team, Alabama’s greatest players and coaches, and the difficult question facing the Crimson Tide today: What happens after a legend leaves?

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

After last week's Democratic field audit, Chuck Todd and Chris Cillizza turn to the 2028 Republicans — and find a race the markets treat as a two-man affair between JD Vance and Marco Rubio, and one that Chuck thinks is far softer than that looks. His case: no sitting vice president has been denied his party's nomination in the modern era, but Vance sits below 50% in the markets and may be the weakest heir apparent in either man's lifetime, a candidate who has never won anything without Trump carrying him. They dig into why Rubio has kept his hands remarkably clean on the Iran debacle while Vance has ended up owning it, and why Chuck thinks Rubio takes a break, makes money, and waits for 2032. From there they build out the rest of the field: the near-certainty of a Trump family candidate, Sarah Huckabee Sanders as the likeliest VP pick, Joe Lombardo as the pragmatist the party should be building around, Nikki Haley's underrated path, why Tucker Carlson's contrarianism has no Buchanan-style through line, the class of cabinet officials convinced they can do this — and a genuine, surprising case for Rand Paul as the one candidate who could credibly run against Trump's tariffs and Iran war without being an anti-Trumper.

The second half is a brutal accounting of Trump's August. With Canada moving to retaliate after the administration began enforcing 50% tariffs on a slate of Canadian goods and Mark Carney declaring his country "at war," and a temporary waiver on tariffs for 300,000 metric tons of imported ground beef drawing pushback from ranchers, Chuck argues Trump has become the single most effective partner Chuck Schumer has — turning Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, and South Dakota into live races and making life impossible for Collins, Rogers, Hinson, and Husted. They walk through the Arkansas poll showing Tom Cotton in a real race, why they think Republicans have already wasted their financial advantage, and Trump's insistence he deserves a perfect grade on the economy. Then they preview Tuesday's high-stakes South Carolina runoff between Darline Graham and Ralph Norman — a race Trump has personally invested in, with a striking stat about appointed senators in the South — before closing on the Nats' collapse and a hard look at how the front office handled CJ Abrams.

Timeline:

00:00 Last week was the Democrats — today it's the 2028 Republican field

00:40 The markets read it as a two-man race: Vance 47%, Rubio 20%

00:57 Who else clears 3%: Tucker, Trump Sr., DeSantis, Don Jr.

01:35 History says the sitting VP gets it 

02:51 Vance reminds Chuck of Kamala Harris

03:19 A frontrunner with no positive track record to point to

04:05 Vance probably isn't even a senator without Trump

04:51 How much of Vance's weakness is actually Trump's decline?

06:26 If Trump loses the House and Senate, the field blows open

07:28 Why a Trump family candidacy isn't a 0% proposition

08:03 Ivanka as heir apparent? The Don Jr. vs. Eric assumption

08:44 Rubio: does he run, or take the VP slot?

10:07 Hegseth as McNamara, and Vance owning a war he questioned

10:48 How has Rubio kept his hands this clean?

12:42 The one cabinet member with no visible pay-for-play story

13:13 Chuck's prediction: Rubio sits it out, runs in 2032

14:21 Who else? A Hawley or Cotton as Trumpism 2.0

14:48 Sarah Huckabee Sanders as the most likely VP pick

15:24 Youngkin's problem, and the Huntsman-Kasich empathy lane

16:17 Spencer Cox and the never-Trump ceiling

17:59 How the war with Canada gutted the Las Vegas economy

19:30 Can a Jim Banks run against Vance? 

20:42 Brian Kemp passed on the Senate to look at 2028

21:24 What do Republican primary voters even want after a wipeout?

22:11 Are we underwriting Nikki Haley?

23:45 What to make of Tucker Carlson's ten-point plan

25:37 MTG, Massie & the America First lane

27:12 Why Never Trumpers overrate his constituency

28:40 The cabinet members who all think they'll be president

30:09 The Portnoy/Cuban outsider slot

31:19 The one advantage — Vance runs the RNC's fundraising operation

34:06 The real problem for Rand Paul: he isn't likable

35:02 Tariffs and Iran — Trump's two great failures, and Paul opposed both

36:27 Under 1% on the board: the dark-horse buy

36:51 To Trump: a trade war with Canada, and more sanctions on Iran

38:20 The beef decision and what it does to midwest states

39:05 Why the Canada fight hits Vegas and Orlando hardest

40:21 Has Trump found a floor lower than Bush's?

41:41 The Arkansas poll putting Tom Cotton in a real race

42:03 Reading the methodology honestly 

43:18 Donald Trump has declared war on rural America

44:55 Trump says he deserves 100% on the economy

46:22 Republicans wasted their financial advantage

47:59 Tuesday night preview: the Graham-Norman runoff

48:40 Trump calls in, rallies in Myrtle Beach t

50:16 Appointed senators survive at 44% in the South vs. 81% elsewhere

52:26 Trump's endorsement record & why he wants to reassert dominance

53:27 What a Graham loss would mean for Hinson and Husted

54:41 Why Collins doesn't want Trump in Maine

57:02 Vance as a cipher — from near-primary-loss to vice president

59:37 What has JD Vance actually done?

1:00:45 The Nats get swept by the Marlins 

1:05:04 How you actually screw up a team

1:06:23 Where this front office is genuinely excellent

1:07:48 It's still a people business, just like politics

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Chuck Todd opens with the collapse of U.S.-Canada trade talks, where Mark Carney walked away after last-minute American demands — chiefly on mid- and heavy-duty truck tariffs — and declared the U.S. can't be trusted as a partner. Asked about the tone of his remarks, Carney's answer was blunt: you are at war when you get attacked. Chuck notes the whole western world is quietly cheering him on even as individual European leaders push back while the EU took its deal, and argues the real problem is that this administration isn't negotiating with one voice. The fallout lands squarely on Senate battlegrounds, forcing Susan Collins to speak out against her own party's trade war. Then there's beef: Trump's move to let in 300,000 metric tons of tariff-free ground beef drew immediate fire from cattle groups and Republicans including Ashley Hinson and Tim Sheehy, and Chuck argues it's a tacit admission that the tariff regime is raising prices. Battleground states account for two-thirds of American cattle ranching, Iowa becomes the bellwether, and Trump is single-handedly making safe races competitive — while Scott Bessent defends the indefensible, calling tariff refunds corporate welfare and arguing the country needs fewer jobs because of deportations, all as the national debt clears $40 trillion.

Then Chuck highlights that polling between July 4th and Labor Day is largely wasted money, the August electorate isn't the November electorate, polling has gotten cheaper and worse, and polling averages deserve real skepticism. Arkansas is the case study — five Senate polls, four poorly done, and the one that got everyone's attention showing Tom Cotton in trouble had bad methodology. Chuck’s landing: don't buy the poll, but Cotton may be in some trouble anyway, because he's an old-school hawk who championed war with Iran in a state where Trump commands more personal loyalty than he does. He won't lose, but the margin could surprise. Chuck also flags red flags in Byron Donalds' northern Florida margins, argues the USS Abraham Lincoln reporting exposed a credibility crisis at a Pentagon where Hegseth treats accurate reporting as a personal threat, and warns it'll take decades for either the Pentagon or DOJ to recover. Plus: an NRSC memo declaring data center politics toxic, Mike Rogers keeping AIPAC out of Michigan while El-Sayed argues outside money shouldn't buy the state's politics, and Hakeem Jeffries meeting privately with Jared Kushner — which Chuck defends outright, because communication isn't betrayal even when the base wants confrontation. He closes on the question underneath the ToddCast's Lakers special report: with private credit over $1.5 trillion and life insurers holding roughly $900 billion of it, is Mark Walter an outlier or the canary in the coal mine? Chuck’s answer is that he isn't an outlier at all — this is how the machine works now, in a corner of finance where no single regulator can see the whole picture and where the real worry may be inflated valuations.

Finally, Chuck hops into the ToddCast Time Machine to revisit Harry Truman nationalizing the railroad system… and why emergency presidential powers need to be taken back by congress. He also answers listeners’ questions in the “Ask Chuck” segment.

Play ball and swing for the fences on FanDuel, an official partner of the MLB at https://FANDUEL.COM. 

Protect your family with life insurance from Ethos. Get up to $3 million in coverage in as little as 10 minutes at https://ethos.com/chuck. Application times may vary. Rates may vary.

For free and unbiased Medicare help, dial (980) 734-3985 to speak with my trusted partner, Chapter, or go to askchapter.org/chuck /  *Paid Partnership

Chapter and its affiliates are not connected with or endorsed by any government entity or the federal Medicare program. Chapter Advisory, LLC represents Medicare Advantage HMO, PPO, and PFFS organizations and stand alone prescription drug plans that have a Medicare contract. Enrollment depends on the plan’s contract renewal. While we have a database of every Medicare plan nationwide and can help you to search among all plans, we have contracts with many but not all plans. As a result, we do not offer every plan available in your area. Currently we represent 50 organizations which offer 18,160 products nationwide. We search and recommend all plans, even those we don’t directly offer. You can contact a licensed Chapter agent to find out the number of products available in your specific area. Please contact Medicare.gov, 1-800-Medicare, or your local State Health Insurance Program (SHIP) to get information on all of your options. 

Timeline:

(Timestamps may vary based on advertisements)

00:00 Chuck Todd’s introduction

03:00 Noosphere interview this week is on China shock 2.0

05:00 Dynastic this week is on Alabama football

07:00 A couple shout outs from Chuck

11:00 Trade talks between U.S. and Canada collapse

11:30 Mark Carney says the US can’t be trusted as a partner

12:30 Carney says U.S. fired the first shot in trade war with Canada

13:45 Carney doesn’t want Canada subservient to U.S. & will diversify 

15:00 European leaders are individually pushing back, but EU took the deal

16:00 The whole western world is cheering on Mark Carney

18:00 We were close to a trade deal, then U.S. added new demands

19:00 Howard Lutnick got involved and created new problems

20:15 The Trump administration isn’t negotiating with one voice

21:15 All the senate battleground races are impacted by Canada trade war

22:30 These aren’t trivial trade relationships with Canada

23:00 Susan Collins is being forced to speak out against trade war

24:30 Trump is now creating a fight with the beef & cattle industry

25:15 Importing cheap foreign beef is admission tariff regime hurts consumers

26:00 Trump will hurt American cattle producers by importing beef

26:45 Battleground states account for 2/3rds of cattle ranching

27:45 This could make uncompetitive elections very competitive

28:15 Iowa will be the bellwether for Trump’s policies impacting ag states

29:15 Trump is actively hurting Republicans in ag heavy states

30:00 Scott Bessent is forced to say the stupidest things to defend Trump

30:30 Bessent is now saying tariff refunds are corporate welfare

31:30 Bessent says we don’t need as many jobs due to deportations

32:15 Bessent is trying to manipulate the bond market prior to midterms

33:15 National debt surpassed 40 trillion dollars, both sides point fingers

34:00 We’re going to have to deal with the debt sooner rather than later

35:00 It’s a waste of money to poll between July 4th and Labor Day

35:45 The electorate in August isn’t the same as the electorate in November

37:00 Polling has gotten cheaper… and worse

38:00 Be wary of indiscriminate polling averages

40:00 Arkansas has had 5 senate polls and 4 were poorly done

41:00 Arkansas poll got everyone’s attention, showed Cotton in trouble

42:30 The methodology of the poll was bad & limited

43:45 Don’t buy the poll, but Tom Cotton actually may be in trouble

44:30 Cotton is an old-school hawk, a champion of war with Iran

45:00 Trump has more personal loyalty in Arkansas than Cotton

45:45 Cotton won’t lose, but the margin may be surprisingly close

47:15 Examination of Bryon Donald's margins showed red flags

47:45 Donalds didn’t perform well in northern Florida counties

48:30 Base voters were motivated enough to go vote against him

49:00 USS Abraham Lincoln has revealed a credibility problem with DoD

49:30 Stars & Stripes was created to give troops access to independent info

50:00 Hegseth viewed accurate reporting as a threat to himself

50:30 Hegseth more worried about a presidential run than the troops

51:15 Can’t trust either the Justice Department or the Pentagon

52:00 It will take decades for either institution to regain credibility

53:30 NRSC put out memo saying data center politics are toxic

54:15 Messaging is to “let communities decide”

54:45 Data centers are the beginning of backlash against tech & AI

55:30 Mark Zuckerberg is only tech CEO who understands the backlash

56:00 Mike Rodgers doesn’t want AIPAC publicly involved in Michigan race

56:45 El-Sayed’s argument is outside interests shouldn’t purchase MI politics

57:30 Plenty of American jews support Israel, but not Netanyahu’s government

58:30 Hakeem Jeffries met privately with Jared Kushner

59:00 This meeting shows the Trump WH preparing for Speaker Jeffries

59:30 Jeffries in impossible position, base wants confrontation with Trump

1:00:30 Jeffries and Kushner SHOULD be talking, communication isn’t betrayal

1:01:45 Is Mark Walter an outlier, or the canary in the coal mine?

1:02:15 After financial crisis, government cracked down on banks

1:02:45 US private credit is now over $1.5 trillion dollar

1:03:30 Life insurance companies have become banks for the ultra wealthy

1:04:30 LIfe insurance companies can operate very differently

1:05:45 You can’t just pull your money out of a life insurance company

1:07:00 The incentives between investment firm & policyholder may not align

1:08:15 Life insurance companies hold $900B in private credit debt

1:08:45 Mark Walter isn’t an outlier, this is how the machine works

1:09:30 If a life insurance company fails, your money can be frozen

1:10:30 There are caps on policyholder protection 

1:11:00 Executive Life failed when the junk bond market crashed

1:11:45 Executive Life bonds were bought by Leon Black, who founded Apollo

1:12:15 Insurance isn’t regulated by one agency, it’s multiple agencies and states

1:13:30 Regulators can’t get the picture of the entire machine, just pieces of it

1:14:15 Finance regulators have been siloed off from each other

1:15:45 The real worry here could be inflated valuations

1:20:00 ToddCast Time Machine - 1950, Truman seizes the nation’s railroads

1:20:45 Private rail was the primary transportation system at the time

1:21:15 Congress had given the president the tool to do this

1:22:00 The authority was used during WW1 and WW2

1:22:30 Truman wanted to draft striking rail workers into the military

1:23:00 The strike was settled while Truman was addressing congress

1:23:30 Railroad seizure became routine in the Truman administration

1:24:30 Truman decided country couldn’t risk rail strike during Korean War

1:25:45 Truman’s authority was never really challenged

1:26:15 The rail workers unions couldn’t stop workers from walking off the job

1:27:00 In April 1952 steelworkers were threatening to strike

1:28:30 Steel industry sued Truman and won after he tried to seize it

1:29:00 Rail seizure power was granted by congress, not for steel

1:30:45 Future presidents tried to use this same authority, didn’t always work

1:31:15 Congress needs to take back emergency powers after granting them

1:32:45 Could a future president try to use this power to seize the AI industry?

1:34:30 The lesson is how presidents accumulate power over time

1:35:15 Ask Chuck

1:35:30 Parallels between Natalie Harp and Isabel Lyon?

1:39:45 What gives you pause about Mark Kelly as a candidate?

1:43:30 Could a Democratic wave election change smaller local politics?

1:46:15 What is motivating Darline Graham to run for a full term?

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Chuck Todd opens with the collapse of U.S.-Canada trade talks, where Mark Carney walked away after last-minute American demands — chiefly on mid- and heavy-duty truck tariffs — and declared the U.S. can't be trusted as a partner. Asked about the tone of his remarks, Carney's answer was blunt: you are at war when you get attacked. Chuck notes the whole western world is quietly cheering him on even as individual European leaders push back while the EU took its deal, and argues the real problem is that this administration isn't negotiating with one voice. The fallout lands squarely on Senate battlegrounds, forcing Susan Collins to speak out against her own party's trade war. Then there's beef: Trump's move to let in 300,000 metric tons of tariff-free ground beef drew immediate fire from cattle groups and Republicans including Ashley Hinson and Tim Sheehy, and Chuck argues it's a tacit admission that the tariff regime is raising prices. Battleground states account for two-thirds of American cattle ranching, Iowa becomes the bellwether, and Trump is single-handedly making safe races competitive — while Scott Bessent defends the indefensible, calling tariff refunds corporate welfare and arguing the country needs fewer jobs because of deportations, all as the national debt clears $40 trillion.

Then Chuck highlights that polling between July 4th and Labor Day is largely wasted money, the August electorate isn't the November electorate, polling has gotten cheaper and worse, and polling averages deserve real skepticism. Arkansas is the case study — five Senate polls, four poorly done, and the one that got everyone's attention showing Tom Cotton in trouble had bad methodology. Chuck’s landing: don't buy the poll, but Cotton may be in some trouble anyway, because he's an old-school hawk who championed war with Iran in a state where Trump commands more personal loyalty than he does. He won't lose, but the margin could surprise. Chuck also flags red flags in Byron Donalds' northern Florida margins, argues the USS Abraham Lincoln reporting exposed a credibility crisis at a Pentagon where Hegseth treats accurate reporting as a personal threat, and warns it'll take decades for either the Pentagon or DOJ to recover. Plus: an NRSC memo declaring data center politics toxic, Mike Rogers keeping AIPAC out of Michigan while El-Sayed argues outside money shouldn't buy the state's politics, and Hakeem Jeffries meeting privately with Jared Kushner — which Chuck defends outright, because communication isn't betrayal even when the base wants confrontation. He closes on the question underneath the ToddCast's Lakers special report: with private credit over $1.5 trillion and life insurers holding roughly $900 billion of it, is Mark Walter an outlier or the canary in the coal mine? Chuck’s answer is that he isn't an outlier at all — this is how the machine works now, in a corner of finance where no single regulator can see the whole picture and where the real worry may be inflated valuations.

Then, former Ohio Governor and presidential candidate John Kasich joins the Chuck Toddcast for a wide-ranging conversation that keeps returning to one uncomfortable diagnosis: Americans say they want the political middle and then retreat to their partisan corners the moment it counts. Kasich's read on this cycle is bracing coming from a Republican — the democratic socialists are talking about things voters actually care about, while moderate Democrats have stayed conspicuously quiet, which is exactly why the left has struck a nerve. On the data center backlash, Kasich has a straightforward answer — make them provide their own power — and points out that Ohio ratepayers are already footing higher bills for facilities located in Virginia. He's blunt that politicians are beholden to special interests before they're even sworn in, supports public financing of elections, and warns that neither the center-right nor center-left is producing genuinely interesting solutions to anything, least of all a national debt he says is going to hurt everybody if it isn't addressed.

Kasich also addresses recent concerns with the Pentagon, where he brings real budget-committee experience to a question few politicians take seriously: what exactly are we getting for a defense budget this size? He argues Pentagon leadership is deeply resistant to change, that America isn't developing new systems and technology well, that only about 1% of defense dollars go toward new systems, and that we simply don't need this many nuclear weapons — one alone, as he puts it, will ruin your day. He uses the B-2 bomber, built with parts manufactured across a strategically chosen array of states, to explain why reform is so brutally hard, while insisting it remains possible with the right political leadership. From there the conversation widens into Kasich's argument that moderates have historically been the bulwark against the extremes, that outside forces are often what actually force change , and that people outside both parties are about to turn hard on the tech companies. He wonders aloud whether a backlash to private equity could become a genuine threat to capitalism itself — pointing to private equity buying up youth sports to raise prices, and to firms that can effectively choose which regulators they deal with. Kasich closes with Ohio: whether the state is genuinely purple again or just having a bad Republican year, why he thinks it drifts back toward swing status over time, why the Senate race is too close to call, and whether Amy Acton or Vivek Ramaswamy faces the harder barrier to winning the governorship.

Finally, Chuck hops into the ToddCast Time Machine to revisit Harry Truman nationalizing the railroad system… and why emergency presidential powers need to be taken back by congress. He also answers listeners’ questions in the “Ask Chuck” segment.

Play ball and swing for the fences on FanDuel, an official partner of the MLB at https://FANDUEL.COM. 

Protect your family with life insurance from Ethos. Get up to $3 million in coverage in as little as 10 minutes at https://ethos.com/chuck. Application times may vary. Rates may vary.

For free and unbiased Medicare help, dial (980) 734-3985 to speak with my trusted partner, Chapter, or go to askchapter.org/chuck /  *Paid Partnership

Chapter and its affiliates are not connected with or endorsed by any government entity or the federal Medicare program. Chapter Advisory, LLC represents Medicare Advantage HMO, PPO, and PFFS organizations and stand alone prescription drug plans that have a Medicare contract. Enrollment depends on the plan’s contract renewal. While we have a database of every Medicare plan nationwide and can help you to search among all plans, we have contracts with many but not all plans. As a result, we do not offer every plan available in your area. Currently we represent 50 organizations which offer 18,160 products nationwide. We search and recommend all plans, even those we don’t directly offer. You can contact a licensed Chapter agent to find out the number of products available in your specific area. Please contact Medicare.gov, 1-800-Medicare, or your local State Health Insurance Program (SHIP) to get information on all of your options. 

Timeline:

(Timestamps may vary based on advertisements)

00:00 Chuck Todd’s introduction

03:00 Noosphere interview this week is on China shock 2.0

05:00 Dynastic this week is on Alabama football

07:00 A couple shout outs from Chuck

11:00 Trade talks between U.S. and Canada collapse

11:30 Mark Carney says the US can’t be trusted as a partner

12:30 Carney says U.S. fired the first shot in trade war with Canada

13:45 Carney doesn’t want Canada subservient to U.S. & will diversify 

15:00 European leaders are individually pushing back, but EU took the deal

16:00 The whole western world is cheering on Mark Carney

18:00 We were close to a trade deal, then U.S. added new demands

19:00 Howard Lutnick got involved and created new problems

20:15 The Trump administration isn’t negotiating with one voice

21:15 All the senate battleground races are impacted by Canada trade war

22:30 These aren’t trivial trade relationships with Canada

23:00 Susan Collins is being forced to speak out against trade war

24:30 Trump is now creating a fight with the beef & cattle industry

25:15 Importing cheap foreign beef is admission tariff regime hurts consumers

26:00 Trump will hurt American cattle producers by importing beef

26:45 Battleground states account for 2/3rds of cattle ranching

27:45 This could make uncompetitive elections very competitive

28:15 Iowa will be the bellwether for Trump’s policies impacting ag states

29:15 Trump is actively hurting Republicans in ag heavy states

30:00 Scott Bessent is forced to say the stupidest things to defend Trump

30:30 Bessent is now saying tariff refunds are corporate welfare

31:30 Bessent says we don’t need as many jobs due to deportations

32:15 Bessent is trying to manipulate the bond market prior to midterms

33:15 National debt surpassed 40 trillion dollars, both sides point fingers

34:00 We’re going to have to deal with the debt sooner rather than later

35:00 It’s a waste of money to poll between July 4th and Labor Day

35:45 The electorate in August isn’t the same as the electorate in November

37:00 Polling has gotten cheaper… and worse

38:00 Be wary of indiscriminate polling averages

40:00 Arkansas has had 5 senate polls and 4 were poorly done

41:00 Arkansas poll got everyone’s attention, showed Cotton in trouble

42:30 The methodology of the poll was bad & limited

43:45 Don’t buy the poll, but Tom Cotton actually may be in trouble

44:30 Cotton is an old-school hawk, a champion of war with Iran

45:00 Trump has more personal loyalty in Arkansas than Cotton

45:45 Cotton won’t lose, but the margin may be surprisingly close

47:15 Examination of Bryon Donald's margins showed red flags

47:45 Donalds didn’t perform well in northern Florida counties

48:30 Base voters were motivated enough to go vote against him

49:00 USS Abraham Lincoln has revealed a credibility problem with DoD

49:30 Stars & Stripes was created to give troops access to independent info

50:00 Hegseth viewed accurate reporting as a threat to himself

50:30 Hegseth more worried about a presidential run than the troops

51:15 Can’t trust either the Justice Department or the Pentagon

52:00 It will take decades for either institution to regain credibility

53:30 NRSC put out memo saying data center politics are toxic

54:15 Messaging is to “let communities decide”

54:45 Data centers are the beginning of backlash against tech & AI

55:30 Mark Zuckerberg is only tech CEO who understands the backlash

56:00 Mike Rodgers doesn’t want AIPAC publicly involved in Michigan race

56:45 El-Sayed’s argument is outside interests shouldn’t purchase MI politics

57:30 Plenty of American jews support Israel, but not Netanyahu’s government

58:30 Hakeem Jeffries met privately with Jared Kushner

59:00 This meeting shows the Trump WH preparing for Speaker Jeffries

59:30 Jeffries in impossible position, base wants confrontation with Trump

1:00:30 Jeffries and Kushner SHOULD be talking, communication isn’t betrayal

1:01:45 Is Mark Walter an outlier, or the canary in the coal mine?

1:02:15 After financial crisis, government cracked down on banks

1:02:45 US private credit is now over $1.5 trillion dollar

1:03:30 Life insurance companies have become banks for the ultra wealthy

1:04:30 LIfe insurance companies can operate very differently

1:05:45 You can’t just pull your money out of a life insurance company

1:07:00 The incentives between investment firm & policyholder may not align

1:08:15 Life insurance companies hold $900B in private credit debt

1:08:45 Mark Walter isn’t an outlier, this is how the machine works

1:09:30 If a life insurance company fails, your money can be frozen

1:10:30 There are caps on policyholder protection 

1:11:00 Executive Life failed when the junk bond market crashed

1:11:45 Executive Life bonds were bought by Leon Black, who founded Apollo

1:12:15 Insurance isn’t regulated by one agency, it’s multiple agencies and states

1:13:30 Regulators can’t get the picture of the entire machine, just pieces of it

1:14:15 Finance regulators have been siloed off from each other

1:15:45 The real worry here could be inflated valuations

1:21:30 John Kasich joins the Chuck ToddCast

1:23:45 People say they want the middle, then retreat to partisan corners

1:25:00 Voters keep rejecting the party in power

1:27:15 It took six presidential elections to get beyond Lincoln

1:28:15 Democratic socialists are talking about things voters care about

1:29:00 Moderate Dems are staying quiet while socialists have struck a nerve

1:32:30 Rent control doesn’t work, but sounds appealing to voters in NYC

1:33:30 The healthcare system doesn’t keep us healthy, only treats the sick

1:35:00 Healthcare and education have atrophied over the years

1:36:30 Competition drives change in education, teachers union doesn’t want change

1:37:45 How would you handle the public backlash to data centers and big tech?

1:38:15 Data centers should be forced to provide their own power

1:38:45 Customers in Ohio are paying higher rates for data centers in Virginia

1:40:00 Politicians are beholden to special interests before they’re sworn in

1:40:15 Support public financing for elections

1:41:30 The center right & left aren’t coming up with interesting solutions

1:43:00 If we don’t fix the national debt it’s going to hurt everybody

1:44:30 What are we getting from our massive military budget?

1:45:15 Pentagon leaders are highly resistant to change

1:47:00 We aren’t developing new systems & tech well

1:47:30 Only 1% of the defense dollars go to new systems

1:48:30 Don’t need this many nukes, one alone will ruin your day

1:49:15 Trying to change the Pentagon is incredibly difficult

1:49:45 B2 bomber was built with parts all manufactured in different states

1:51:00 It is possible for the Pentagon to be reformed with right political leadership

1:53:30 Moderates have served as the bulwark against the extremes

1:54:15 Who are leaders from the past who electrified the country?

1:56:30 Bill Clinton isn’t a budget balancer without Ross Perot

1:58:00 Ralph Nader also forced change from the outside

1:59:30 People outside the parties will start turning on the tech companies

2:01:15 Could backlash to private equity become a threat to capitalism?

2:01:45 Private equity is now buying up youth sports to raise prices?

2:04:45 Ohio went from #47 to #1 by hiring smart business investors

2:06:15 Private equity can pick the regulators they want to deal with

2:08:00 Is Ohio purple again or is this just a bad year for Republicans?

2:08:30 Over time, Ohio will naturally drift back to swing status

2:09:30 Ohio senate is too close to call

2:12:00 Harder barrier to break: Amy Acton or Vivek Ramaswamy?

2:13:15 Ramaswamy will run into friction with Ohio voters due to his race

2:14:45 Would still bet that Ramaswamy will win

2:16:00 There’s a formula to what makes a good leader

2:17:30 Rural communities are being devastated by drugs & homelessness

2:18:15 There is abject poverty in appalachia

2:19:15 What young leaders have impressed you in the past couple years?

2:21:45 Predictions for Miami’s upcoming football season

2:23:30 Check out the John Kasich Show on SiriusXM

2:25:00 ToddCast Time Machine - 1950, Truman seizes the nation’s railroads

2:25:45 Private rail was the primary transportation system at the time

2:26:15 Congress had given the president the tool to do this

2:27:00 The authority was used during WW1 and WW2

2:27:30 Truman wanted to draft striking rail workers into the military

2:28:00 The strike was settled while Truman was addressing congress

2:28:30 Railroad seizure became routine in the Truman administration

2:29:30 Truman decided country couldn’t risk rail strike during Korean War

2:30:45 Truman’s authority was never really challenged

2:31:15 The rail workers unions couldn’t stop workers from walking off the job

2:32:00 In April 1952 steelworkers were threatening to strike

2:33:30 Steel industry sued Truman and won after he tried to seize it

2:34:00 Rail seizure power was granted by congress, not for steel

2:35:45 Future presidents tried to use this same authority, didn’t always work

2:36:15 Congress needs to take back emergency powers after granting them

2:37:45 Could a future president try to use this power to seize the AI industry?

2:39:30 The lesson is how presidents accumulate power over time

2:40:15 Ask Chuck

2:40:30 Parallels between Natalie Harp and Isabel Lyon?

2:44:45 What gives you pause about Mark Kelly as a candidate?

2:48:30 Could a Democratic wave election change smaller local politics?

2:51:15 What is motivating Darline Graham to run for a full term?

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Former Ohio Governor and presidential candidate John Kasich joins the Chuck Toddcast for a wide-ranging conversation that keeps returning to one uncomfortable diagnosis: Americans say they want the political middle and then retreat to their partisan corners the moment it counts. Kasich's read on this cycle is bracing coming from a Republican — the democratic socialists are talking about things voters actually care about, while moderate Democrats have stayed conspicuously quiet, which is exactly why the left has struck a nerve. On the data center backlash, Kasich has a straightforward answer — make them provide their own power — and points out that Ohio ratepayers are already footing higher bills for facilities located in Virginia. He's blunt that politicians are beholden to special interests before they're even sworn in, supports public financing of elections, and warns that neither the center-right nor center-left is producing genuinely interesting solutions to anything, least of all a national debt he says is going to hurt everybody if it isn't addressed.

Kasich also addresses recent concerns with the Pentagon, where he brings real budget-committee experience to a question few politicians take seriously: what exactly are we getting for a defense budget this size? He argues Pentagon leadership is deeply resistant to change, that America isn't developing new systems and technology well, that only about 1% of defense dollars go toward new systems, and that we simply don't need this many nuclear weapons — one alone, as he puts it, will ruin your day. He uses the B-2 bomber, built with parts manufactured across a strategically chosen array of states, to explain why reform is so brutally hard, while insisting it remains possible with the right political leadership. From there the conversation widens into Kasich's argument that moderates have historically been the bulwark against the extremes, that outside forces are often what actually force change , and that people outside both parties are about to turn hard on the tech companies. He wonders aloud whether a backlash to private equity could become a genuine threat to capitalism itself — pointing to private equity buying up youth sports to raise prices, and to firms that can effectively choose which regulators they deal with. Kasich closes with Ohio: whether the state is genuinely purple again or just having a bad Republican year, why he thinks it drifts back toward swing status over time, why the Senate race is too close to call, and whether Amy Acton or Vivek Ramaswamy faces the harder barrier to winning the governorship.

Play ball and swing for the fences on FanDuel, an official partner of the MLB at https://FANDUEL.COM. 

For free and unbiased Medicare help, dial (980) 734-3985 to speak with my trusted partner, Chapter, or go to askchapter.org/chuck /  *Paid Partnership

Chapter and its affiliates are not connected with or endorsed by any government entity or the federal Medicare program. Chapter Advisory, LLC represents Medicare Advantage HMO, PPO, and PFFS organizations and stand alone prescription drug plans that have a Medicare contract. Enrollment depends on the plan’s contract renewal. While we have a database of every Medicare plan nationwide and can help you to search among all plans, we have contracts with many but not all plans. As a result, we do not offer every plan available in your area. Currently we represent 50 organizations which offer 18,160 products nationwide. We search and recommend all plans, even those we don’t directly offer. You can contact a licensed Chapter agent to find out the number of products available in your specific area. Please contact Medicare.gov, 1-800-Medicare, or your local State Health Insurance Program (SHIP) to get information on all of your options. 

Timeline:

(Timestamps may vary based on advertisements)

00:00 John Kasich joins the Chuck ToddCast

02:15 People say they want the middle, then retreat to partisan corners

03:30 Voters keep rejecting the party in power

05:45 It took six presidential elections to get beyond Lincoln

06:45 Democratic socialists are talking about things voters care about

07:30 Moderate Dems are staying quiet while socialists have struck a nerve

11:00 Rent control doesn’t work, but sounds appealing to voters in NYC

12:00 The healthcare system doesn’t keep us healthy, only treats the sick

13:30 Healthcare and education have atrophied over the years

15:00 Competition drives change in education, teachers union doesn’t want change

16:15 How would you handle the public backlash to data centers and big tech?

16:45 Data centers should be forced to provide their own power

17:15 Customers in Ohio are paying higher rates for data centers in Virginia

18:30 Politicians are beholden to special interests before they’re sworn in

18:45 Support public financing for elections

20:00 The center right & left aren’t coming up with interesting solutions

21:30 If we don’t fix the national debt it’s going to hurt everybody

23:00 What are we getting from our massive military budget?

23:45 Pentagon leaders are highly resistant to change

25:30 We aren’t developing new systems & tech well

26:00 Only 1% of the defense dollars go to new systems

27:00 Don’t need this many nukes, one alone will ruin your day

27:45 Trying to change the Pentagon is incredibly difficult

28:15 B2 bomber was built with parts all manufactured in different states

29:30 It is possible for the Pentagon to be reformed with right political leadership

32:00 Moderates have served as the bulwark against the extremes

32:45 Who are leaders from the past who electrified the country?

35:00 Bill Clinton isn’t a budget balancer without Ross Perot

36:30 Ralph Nader also forced change from the outside

38:00 People outside the parties will start turning on the tech companies

39:45 Could backlash to private equity become a threat to capitalism?

40:15 Private equity is now buying up youth sports to raise prices?

43:15 Ohio went from #47 to #1 by hiring smart business investors

44:45 Private equity can pick the regulators they want to deal with

46:30 Is Ohio purple again or is this just a bad year for Republicans?

47:00 Over time, Ohio will naturally drift back to swing status

48:00 Ohio senate is too close to call 

50:30 Harder barrier to break: Amy Acton or Vivek Ramaswamy?

51:45 Ramaswamy will run into friction with Ohio voters due to his race

53:15 Would still bet that Ramaswamy will win

54:30 There’s a formula to what makes a good leader

56:00 Rural communities are being devastated by drugs & homelessness

56:45 There is abject poverty in appalachia

57:45 What young leaders have impressed you in the past couple years?

1:00:15 Predictions for Miami’s upcoming football season

1:02:00 Check out the John Kasich Show on SiriusXM

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Chuck Todd closes the book on primary season with Florida — and leads with the stunning upset that ended it. State Rep. Angie Nixon, a Jacksonville former union organizer and Democratic Socialists of America member, beat Alex Vindman with 56% of the vote despite being outraised roughly 16-to-1, and will now face appointed Republican Sen. Ashley Moody in November for the final two years of Marco Rubio's old seat. Chuck’s read is that this wasn't a movement election so much as a performance gap: Vindman ran like the presumptive nominee, hoarded his money for a general election he never reached, and got flatly outworked with primary voters. He's curious what Vindman does with that war chest, and notes Vindman's whole profile felt like first-term Trump resistance in a cycle that's moved on. Elsewhere in Florida: Debbie Wasserman Schultz won in a majority-Black district, Cory Mills lost his primary, Republican turnout meaningfully outpaced Democratic turnout in Florida, and Chuck thinks it's improbable but not impossible for David Jolly to beat Byron Donalds in the governor's race. But the bigger story is national, and it's about turnout as a tea leaf. More Trump-endorsed candidates went down, part of a trend Chuck argues shows Trump's relevance melting away as his approval drops — and that he's actively making things harder for his own party. Democrats cast 57% of primary ballots nationally, up from 54% in 2018, with the biggest jump in Alabama and double-digit increases across multiple states. Chuck is careful with the caveat: primary turnout is a thermometer, not a crystal ball — it tells you where your floor is, not your ceiling. Texas Democratic turnout rose even with marquee Republican races on the ballot, Kansas Republican turnout cratered (though Democrats still have work to do there), and Florida Democrats hemorrhaged voters to no-party affiliation — meaning you can see something real happening in Texas that simply isn't happening in Florida. His bottom line: Democrats will win more votes in November, and history says they win the midterms. The open question is whether they can take both chambers. 

Finally, Chuck hops into the ToddCast Time Machine to revisit the 72 year struggle of the women’s suffrage movement before achieving the ratification of the 19th amendment, presents his ToddCast Top 5 list of Democratic Presidential hopefuls who will work the hardest to win the nomination and answers listeners’ questions in the “Ask Chuck” segment.

Play ball and swing for the fences on FanDuel, an official partner of the MLB at https://FANDUEL.COM. 

Upgrade your everyday. Go to https://Quince.com/CHUCK for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. 

For free and unbiased Medicare help, dial (980) 734-3985 to speak with my trusted partner, Chapter, or go to askchapter.org/chuck /  *Paid Partnership

Chapter and its affiliates are not connected with or endorsed by any government entity or the federal Medicare program. Chapter Advisory, LLC represents Medicare Advantage HMO, PPO, and PFFS organizations and stand alone prescription drug plans that have a Medicare contract. Enrollment depends on the plan’s contract renewal. While we have a database of every Medicare plan nationwide and can help you to search among all plans, we have contracts with many but not all plans. As a result, we do not offer every plan available in your area. Currently we represent 50 organizations which offer 18,160 products nationwide. We search and recommend all plans, even those we don’t directly offer. You can contact a licensed Chapter agent to find out the number of products available in your specific area. Please contact Medicare.gov, 1-800-Medicare, or your local State Health Insurance Program (SHIP) to get information on all of your options. 

Timeline:

(Timestamps may vary based on advertisements)

00:00 Chuck Todd’s introduction

01:30 Don’t miss the Toddcast Special Report on the Lakers sale

06:30 Primary season is basically wrapped up after Florida

07:45 Raw primary turnout is a good tealeaf to read ahead of midterms

09:00 Democratic voters have been more enthusiastic w/ higher turnout

09:30 Alex Vindman loses Florida senate primary to Angie Nixon

10:30 Vindman ran his race like he was the presumptive nominee

11:00 Nixon just outworked Vindman with primary voters

11:30 Vindman hoarded his money for the general

12:30 This wasn’t a movement election, Nixon just performed

13:15 The importance of the African-American vote in Dem primaries

15:15 Need to live in Florida for more than a couple years to run successfully

15:45 Most of the carpetbagger candidates lost their primaries

16:30 Will be interesting to see what Vindman does with his war chest

18:00 Voters care if you are of/from their community

20:00 Vindman felt like first-term Trump resistance

21:00 It’s improbable but not impossible for David Jolly to beat Byron Donalds

22:15 Florida Republican turnout was much higher than Dems

23:45 Debbie Wasserman Schultz won in majority black district

24:45 Cory Mills loses his primary

25:30 More Trump endorsed candidates lost their primaries

27:15 Trump backed candidates losing has become a trend

27:45 Trump is going out of his way to make it harder for Republicans

28:30 Trump’s relevance is melting away as his approval drops

31:45 Democratic electorate is expanding in most competitive states

32:15 Primary turnout is a thermometer, not a crystal ball

32:45 Turnout tells you where your floor is, not the ceiling

34:30 Democrats outperformed their primary edge in the general in 2018

36:00 Democrats cast 57% of primary ballots, compared to 54% in ‘18

37:00 Biggest jump in Dem turnout was in Alabama

37:45 Multiple states with Democrat turnout up double digits 

39:45 Alabama’s governor race may be very competitive

42:30 Texas Dem turnout was higher even with marquee GOP races

43:45 Florida Dems lost voters to a no party affiliation

44:30 You can see something happening in Texas, not in Florida

45:30 Republican turnout was way down in Kansas

47:15 Dems probably still have more work to do in Kansas

48:00 Dems will win more votes in November,
48:45 History says Dems win the midterms, but can they win both chambers?

52:15 ToddCast Time Machine moved due to Lakers deep dive special

53:45 The movement for women’s suffrage took 72 years

54:15 Movement started in Seneca Falls, NY with the “Declaration of Sentiments”

55:15 100 people sign that declaration. 68 women and 32 men

56:15 Women could work for wages & have no control over the money

57:00 The movement fractured over disagreement about the 15th amendment

58:00 Susan B. Anthony votes illegally and is arrested in 1872

58:30 Women’s suffrage amendment keeps being introduced and failing for 40 years

59:15 The people who started the movement die, and new leaders emerge

1:00:30 In 1919 congress passes the 19th Amendment, need 36 states to ratify

1:01:00 Tennessee becomes the final state needed to ratify

1:01:30 Vote keeps ending up tied in the Tennessee statehouse

1:02:30 Ratification passes the house 50-46

1:03:45 Women couldn’t immediately vote everywhere after passage

1:05:00 Charlotte Woodward was only signatory that lived to see 19th amendment

1:05:45 Woodward lived long enough to see it, but was too old/sick to vote herself

1:06:45 A political movement often requires one generation to build it for the next one

1:07:45 After Trump, America will need a hard fought reform movement

1:09:30 America eventually gets it right, after exhausting other paths

1:10:45 ToddCast Top 5 candidates working the hardest to win

1:11:15 #1 AOC

1:13:30 #2 Pete Buttigieg

1:13:45 #3 Kamala Harris

1:14:00 #4 Mark Kelly + #5 Gavin Newsom

1:15:45 Jon Ossoff didn’t need to make his Natalie comment

1:17:45 Andy Beshear + Rahm Emmanuel don’t scare red state Dems

1:23:00 Ask Chuck

1:24:00 Can Dems actually bring accountability to Trump if they take congress?

1:31:30 Why were outsider Dem candidates so competitive in MI and WI?

1:35:15 Why can Trump do whatever he wants unchecked?

1:40:45 How should newsrooms cover the Natalie Harp story??

1:46:00 How do we hold politicians to account for upholding the constitution despite religion?

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Chuck Todd closes the book on primary season with Florida — and leads with the stunning upset that ended it. State Rep. Angie Nixon, a Jacksonville former union organizer and Democratic Socialists of America member, beat Alex Vindman with 56% of the vote despite being outraised roughly 16-to-1, and will now face appointed Republican Sen. Ashley Moody in November for the final two years of Marco Rubio's old seat. Chuck’s read is that this wasn't a movement election so much as a performance gap: Vindman ran like the presumptive nominee, hoarded his money for a general election he never reached, and got flatly outworked with primary voters. He's curious what Vindman does with that war chest, and notes Vindman's whole profile felt like first-term Trump resistance in a cycle that's moved on. Elsewhere in Florida: Debbie Wasserman Schultz won in a majority-Black district, Cory Mills lost his primary, Republican turnout meaningfully outpaced Democratic turnout in Florida, and Chuck thinks it's improbable but not impossible for David Jolly to beat Byron Donalds in the governor's race. But the bigger story is national, and it's about turnout as a tea leaf. More Trump-endorsed candidates went down, part of a trend Chuck argues shows Trump's relevance melting away as his approval drops — and that he's actively making things harder for his own party. Democrats cast 57% of primary ballots nationally, up from 54% in 2018, with the biggest jump in Alabama and double-digit increases across multiple states. Chuck is careful with the caveat: primary turnout is a thermometer, not a crystal ball — it tells you where your floor is, not your ceiling. Texas Democratic turnout rose even with marquee Republican races on the ballot, Kansas Republican turnout cratered (though Democrats still have work to do there), and Florida Democrats hemorrhaged voters to no-party affiliation — meaning you can see something real happening in Texas that simply isn't happening in Florida. His bottom line: Democrats will win more votes in November, and history says they win the midterms. The open question is whether they can take both chambers. 

Then, filmmaker and author Greg Mitchell joins the Chuck Toddcast to discuss Woody Guthrie and the Ghost of Tom Joad Today, his new PBS documentary narrated by Rosanne Cash and featuring music from Bruce Springsteen, which traces the bond Guthrie forged with John Steinbeck during a campaign to ease the suffering of migrants in California — and argues those 1930s conflicts have unmistakable echoes in the present. Mitchell, a Depression-era obsessive who has written extensively about American politics since the 1930s, explains how he began seeing the connections between Guthrie and Steinbeck and why he refused to make a straight biopic: he wanted a film with current ramifications, which is why it closes with Springsteen's "The Ghost of Tom Joad" set against images of immigrants surrounded by federal agents and protesters holding signs quoting Guthrie. He and Chuck get into the story behind "This Land Is Your Land" (which wasn't the song's original title), the mechanics of securing the rights to the music and the story, his conversation with Tom Morello about the Springsteen song, and how seeing the migrant work camps firsthand fundamentally transformed Guthrie as an artist. Mitchell notes that Steinbeck was denounced as a communist for his trouble, that the majority of California's agricultural workforce eventually became Mexican and Filipino, and that Tom Joad was always meant to be a political character — which is exactly why he keeps getting resurrected.

The conversation broadens into a genuinely fun argument about protest music and whether great art requires great despair. Mitchell traces the lineage from Guthrie to Dylan (whom Guthrie mentored) to Springsteen, and notes that Guthrie has had a moment of renewed relevance over the past year as his music finds new audiences at No Kings and anti-ICE protests. He and Chuck walk through the iterations of protest music across the decades — The Clash and Blondie as deeply political acts, Springsteen's own evolution from apolitical rock star to a man now delivering angry speeches from the concert stage, and Jesse Welles finding real modern success in the form. They debate whether a fictional account can land harder than a true story, whether The Grapes of Wrath would even be a bestseller if published today, and what Tom Joad would make of contemporary America — with Mitchell arguing that the collapse of organized labor would genuinely shock both Joad and Guthrie. The episode closes on a pointed political note: Mitchell contends that Trump's corruption so far exceeds anything Nixon did that Nixon himself would be considered a lefty by modern standards. The film is streaming now on PBS.org and the PBS app.

Finally, Chuck hops into the ToddCast Time Machine to revisit the 72 year struggle of the women’s suffrage movement before achieving the ratification of the 19th amendment, presents his ToddCast Top 5 list of Democratic Presidential hopefuls who will work the hardest to win the nomination and answers listeners’ questions in the “Ask Chuck” segment.

Play ball and swing for the fences on FanDuel, an official partner of the MLB at https://FANDUEL.COM. 

Upgrade your everyday. Go to https://Quince.com/CHUCK for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. 

For free and unbiased Medicare help, dial (980) 734-3985 to speak with my trusted partner, Chapter, or go to askchapter.org/chuck /  *Paid Partnership

Chapter and its affiliates are not connected with or endorsed by any government entity or the federal Medicare program. Chapter Advisory, LLC represents Medicare Advantage HMO, PPO, and PFFS organizations and stand alone prescription drug plans that have a Medicare contract. Enrollment depends on the plan’s contract renewal. While we have a database of every Medicare plan nationwide and can help you to search among all plans, we have contracts with many but not all plans. As a result, we do not offer every plan available in your area. Currently we represent 50 organizations which offer 18,160 products nationwide. We search and recommend all plans, even those we don’t directly offer. You can contact a licensed Chapter agent to find out the number of products available in your specific area. Please contact Medicare.gov, 1-800-Medicare, or your local State Health Insurance Program (SHIP) to get information on all of your options. 

Timeline:

(Timestamps may vary based on advertisements)

00:00 Chuck Todd’s introduction

01:30 Don’t miss the Toddcast Special Report on the Lakers sale

06:30 Primary season is basically wrapped up after Florida

07:45 Raw primary turnout is a good tealeaf to read ahead of midterms

09:00 Democratic voters have been more enthusiastic w/ higher turnout

09:30 Alex Vindman loses Florida senate primary to Angie Nixon

10:30 Vindman ran his race like he was the presumptive nominee

11:00 Nixon just outworked Vindman with primary voters

11:30 Vindman hoarded his money for the general

12:30 This wasn’t a movement election, Nixon just performed

13:15 The importance of the African-American vote in Dem primaries

15:15 Need to live in Florida for more than a couple years to run successfully

15:45 Most of the carpetbagger candidates lost their primaries

16:30 Will be interesting to see what Vindman does with his war chest

18:00 Voters care if you are of/from their community

20:00 Vindman felt like first-term Trump resistance

21:00 It’s improbable but not impossible for David Jolly to beat Byron Donalds

22:15 Florida Republican turnout was much higher than Dems

23:45 Debbie Wasserman Schultz won in majority black district

24:45 Cory Mills loses his primary

25:30 More Trump endorsed candidates lost their primaries

27:15 Trump backed candidates losing has become a trend

27:45 Trump is going out of his way to make it harder for Republicans

28:30 Trump’s relevance is melting away as his approval drops

31:45 Democratic electorate is expanding in most competitive states

32:15 Primary turnout is a thermometer, not a crystal ball

32:45 Turnout tells you where your floor is, not the ceiling

34:30 Democrats outperformed their primary edge in the general in 2018

36:00 Democrats cast 57% of primary ballots, compared to 54% in ‘18

37:00 Biggest jump in Dem turnout was in Alabama

37:45 Multiple states with Democrat turnout up double digits 

39:45 Alabama’s governor race may be very competitive

42:30 Texas Dem turnout was higher even with marquee GOP races

43:45 Florida Dems lost voters to a no party affiliation

44:30 You can see something happening in Texas, not in Florida

45:30 Republican turnout was way down in Kansas

47:15 Dems probably still have more work to do in Kansas

48:00 Dems will win more votes in November,
48:45 History says Dems win the midterms, but can they win both chambers?

56:30 Greg Mitchell joins the Chuck ToddCast

58:00 Making an appearance in Woody Guthrie and the Ghost of Tom Joad Today

1:00:15 Chose the subject because he’s obsessed with the Depression era

1:01:15 Started seeing connections between Woody Guthrie and John Steinbeck

1:03:30 Was it difficult to get the rights for the music/story?

1:05:30 Creating protest songs like This Land Is Your Land

1:06:45 Discussing the Ghost of Tom Joad with Tom Morello

1:08:30 Tom Joad was an inspiration for Springsteen

1:09:30 Woody has always remained relevant. Songs have been covered

1:10:45 Tom Joad was meant to be political in Grapes of Wrath

1:12:30 Seeing migrant work camps deeply affected Woody Guthrie

1:14:15 Majority of agricultural workers became Mexicans & Philipinos

1:15:30 Steinbeck was denounced as a communist

1:16:15 “This land is your land” could be the national anthem

1:17:30 Do we need times of great despair to produce great art?

1:19:45 There have been iterations of protest music over the decades

1:20:45 Jesse Wells has found modern success with protest music

1:21:15 Bruce Springsteen & Tom Morello have produced new protest music

1:22:30 Groups like The Clash and Blondie were very political

1:23:15 Springsteen started as apolitical, then evolved to become political

1:25:00 Springsteen now gives angry speeches during his concerts

1:27:00 Can a fictional account land harder than a true story?

1:29:30 Is Guthrie to Dylan to Springsteen the lineage of protest music?

1:30:30 Guthrie was Bob Dylan’s mentor

1:32:00 Would Grapes of Wrath be a best seller if it came out today?

1:32:45 Film is available at PBS and the PBS app

1:33:00 What would Tom Joad feel if he was in modern America?

1:33:45 The fall of unions would shock Guthrie and Joad

1:34:45 Trump’s corruption so far exceeds anything done by Nixon

1:36:30 Nixon would be considered a “lefty” by modern standards

1:37:15 ToddCast Time Machine moved due to Lakers deep dive special

1:38:45 The movement for women’s suffrage took 72 years

1:39:15 Movement started in Seneca Falls, NY with the “Declaration of Sentiments”

1:40:15 100 people sign that declaration. 68 women and 32 men

1:41:15 Women could work for wages & have no control over the money

1:42:00 The movement fractured over disagreement about the 15th amendment

1:43:00 Susan B. Anthony votes illegally and is arrested in 1872

1:43:30 Women’s suffrage amendment keeps being introduced and failing for 40 years

1:44:15 The people who started the movement die, and new leaders emerge

1:45:30 In 1919 congress passes the 19th Amendment, need 36 states to ratify

1:46:00 Tennessee becomes the final state needed to ratify

1:46:30 Vote keeps ending up tied in the Tennessee statehouse

1:47:30 Ratification passes the house 50-46

1:48:45 Women couldn’t immediately vote everywhere after passage

1:50:00 Charlotte Woodward was only signatory that lived to see 19th amendment

1:50:45 Woodward lived long enough to see it, but was too old/sick to vote herself

1:51:45 A political movement often requires one generation to build it for the next one

1:52:45 After Trump, America will need a hard fought reform movement

1:54:30 America eventually gets it right, after exhausting other paths

1:55:30 ToddCast Top 5 candidates working the hardest to win

1:56:00 #1 AOC

1:58:15 #2 Pete Buttigieg

1:58:30 #3 Kamala Harris

1:58:45 #4 Mark Kelly + #5 Gavin Newsom

2:00:30 Jon Ossoff didn’t need to make his Natalie comment

2:02:30 Andy Beshear + Rahm Emmanuel don’t scare red state Dems

2:08:00 Ask Chuck

2:09:00 Can Dems actually bring accountability to Trump if they take congress?

2:16:30 Why were outsider Dem candidates so competitive in MI and WI?

2:20:15 Why can Trump do whatever he wants unchecked?

2:25:45 How should newsrooms cover the Natalie Harp story??

2:31:00 How do we hold politicians to account for upholding the constitution despite religion?

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Filmmaker and author Greg Mitchell joins the Chuck Toddcast to discuss Woody Guthrie and the Ghost of Tom Joad Today, his new PBS documentary narrated by Rosanne Cash and featuring music from Bruce Springsteen, which traces the bond Guthrie forged with John Steinbeck during a campaign to ease the suffering of migrants in California — and argues those 1930s conflicts have unmistakable echoes in the present. Mitchell, a Depression-era obsessive who has written extensively about American politics since the 1930s, explains how he began seeing the connections between Guthrie and Steinbeck and why he refused to make a straight biopic: he wanted a film with current ramifications, which is why it closes with Springsteen's "The Ghost of Tom Joad" set against images of immigrants surrounded by federal agents and protesters holding signs quoting Guthrie. He and Chuck get into the story behind "This Land Is Your Land" (which wasn't the song's original title), the mechanics of securing the rights to the music and the story, his conversation with Tom Morello about the Springsteen song, and how seeing the migrant work camps firsthand fundamentally transformed Guthrie as an artist. Mitchell notes that Steinbeck was denounced as a communist for his trouble, that the majority of California's agricultural workforce eventually became Mexican and Filipino, and that Tom Joad was always meant to be a political character — which is exactly why he keeps getting resurrected.

The conversation broadens into a genuinely fun argument about protest music and whether great art requires great despair. Mitchell traces the lineage from Guthrie to Dylan (whom Guthrie mentored) to Springsteen, and notes that Guthrie has had a moment of renewed relevance over the past year as his music finds new audiences at No Kings and anti-ICE protests. He and Chuck walk through the iterations of protest music across the decades — The Clash and Blondie as deeply political acts, Springsteen's own evolution from apolitical rock star to a man now delivering angry speeches from the concert stage, and Jesse Welles finding real modern success in the form. They debate whether a fictional account can land harder than a true story, whether The Grapes of Wrath would even be a bestseller if published today, and what Tom Joad would make of contemporary America — with Mitchell arguing that the collapse of organized labor would genuinely shock both Joad and Guthrie. The episode closes on a pointed political note: Mitchell contends that Trump's corruption so far exceeds anything Nixon did, and that Nixon himself would be considered a lefty by modern standards. The film is streaming now on PBS.org and the PBS app.

Play ball and swing for the fences on FanDuel, an official partner of the MLB at https://FANDUEL.COM. 

For free and unbiased Medicare help, dial (980) 734-3985 to speak with my trusted partner, Chapter, or go to askchapter.org/chuck /  *Paid Partnership

Chapter and its affiliates are not connected with or endorsed by any government entity or the federal Medicare program. Chapter Advisory, LLC represents Medicare Advantage HMO, PPO, and PFFS organizations and stand alone prescription drug plans that have a Medicare contract. Enrollment depends on the plan’s contract renewal. While we have a database of every Medicare plan nationwide and can help you to search among all plans, we have contracts with many but not all plans. As a result, we do not offer every plan available in your area. Currently we represent 50 organizations which offer 18,160 products nationwide. We search and recommend all plans, even those we don’t directly offer. You can contact a licensed Chapter agent to find out the number of products available in your specific area. Please contact Medicare.gov, 1-800-Medicare, or your local State Health Insurance Program (SHIP) to get information on all of your options. 

Timeline:

(Timestamps may vary based on advertisements)

00:00 Greg Mitchell joins the Chuck ToddCast

01:30 Making an appearance in Woody Guthrie and the Ghost of Tom Joad Today 

03:45 Chose the subject because he’s obsessed with the Depression era

04:45 Started seeing connections between Woody Guthrie and John Steinbeck

07:00 Was it difficult to get the rights for the music/story?

09:00 Creating protest songs like This Land Is Your Land

10:15 Discussing the Ghost of Tom Joad with Tom Morello

12:00 Tom Joad was an inspiration for Springsteen

13:00 Woody has always remained relevant. Songs have been covered

14:15 Tom Joad was meant to be political in Grapes of Wrath

16:00 Seeing migrant work camps deeply affected Woody Guthrie

17:45 Majority of agricultural workers became Mexicans & Philipinos

19:00 Steinbeck was denounced as a communist

19:45 “This land is your land” could be the national anthem

21:00 Do we need times of great despair to produce great art?

23:15 There have been iterations of protest music over the decades

24:15 Jesse Wells has found modern success with protest music

24:45 Bruce Springsteen & Tom Morello have produced new protest music

26:00 Groups like The Clash and Blondie were very political

26:45 Springsteen started as apolitical, then evolved to become political

28:30 Springsteen now gives angry speeches during his concerts

30:30 Can a fictional account land harder than a true story?

33:00 Is Guthrie to Dylan to Springsteen the lineage of protest music?

34:00 Guthrie was Bob Dylan’s mentor

35:30 Would Grapes of Wrath be a best seller if it came out today?

36:15 Film is available at PBS and the PBS app

36:30 What would Tom Joad feel if he was in modern America?

37:15 The fall of unions would shock Guthrie and Joad

38:15 Trump’s corruption so far exceeds anything done by Nixon

40:00 Nixon would be considered a “lefty” by modern standards

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Chuck Todd and J.A. Adande explore the origins of the Crimson Tide and the remarkable rise of Bear Bryant. From Alabama’s early Rose Bowl triumphs and the beginnings of the Crimson Tide name to Bryant’s near-departure for the Miami Dolphins, they trace the moments that helped turn Alabama into the standard of college football.

They also examine one of the most complicated chapters in the program’s history: integration, Bear Bryant’s role in a changing South, and Alabama’s landmark 1970 matchup with USC.

It’s the story of how football became inseparable from Alabama—and how the foundation was laid for one of the greatest dynasties in sports history.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

With under 80 days to the midterms, Chuck Todd and Chris Cillizza pause the horse race for a full "where are we now" audit of the 2028 Democratic field — prompted, Chris admits, by listener pushback that they'd been too dismissive of Gavin Newsom. Using the Kalshi and Polymarket odds as a starting point rather than gospel, they work through a top tier of AOC, Newsom, and Jon Ossoff. Chuck's central thesis is that AOC could become a magnetic force on the scale of Trump in 2016 or Obama in 2008 — a candidacy the entire field gets measured against, potentially freezing out half the governors and senators eyeing a run. He maps how she could be the frontrunner while playing underdog in South Carolina, and why the new calendar's crowded first state may actually cushion her. On Newsom, Chuck is blunt: the prediction markets are artificially inflating him, the attention economy is doing the work, and a California governor with a mixed record has no obvious state to win. They also make the case that Kamala Harris ultimately doesn't run — and that not running is the smarter play for 2032.

The back half turns to the field's second tier and its long shots: whether Mark Kelly has the hunger and the issue to go with the biography (Chuck's dream ticket: Kelly and Warnock, order randomized), why John Glenn and Bill Bradley are the cautionary tales for résumé candidates, whether Ossoff can realistically jump straight from an $87 million Senate race into a billion-dollar presidential campaign, and a genuine dark-horse case for Rahm Emanuel built on the party's underinvestment in rural Black voters. They preview Tuesday's Florida primary — Byron Donalds's real ceiling, why Chuck thinks the general could land inside five points, the Mel Martinez precedent, and Corey Mills, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, and Alex Vindman. Then the tone shifts hard: an angry, unsparing exchange about the expired US-Iran memorandum, the Strait of Hormuz, conditions aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln, and Pete Hegseth's fitness for the job.

Timeline:

(Timestamps may vary based on advertisements)

00:00 Under 80 days out — and a full 2028 Democratic audit

01:06 Why Chuck thinks JD Vance will divide the right 

02:08 The prediction markets as one data point, not the whole story

02:55 Reading Polymarket and Kalshi: AOC, Newsom, Ossoff at the top

05:12 Could AOC suck up all the oxygen the way Trump did in '16?

06:15 The egg-freezing story as proof of her magnetic pull

06:42 Skeptical Newsom can play in Michigan, Iowa, South Carolina

07:30 The impossible position for Newsom

08:16 AOC's advantage — no long record to defend

09:38 Could egg-freezing access become an issue she champions?

10:01 How her presence could paralyze half the field before it starts

10:57 Where does that leave Pritzker? Or Ossoff?

11:59 The formalized DNC calendar

13:37 Nevada, Michigan and the Culinary Union question

14:42 Why a crowded South Carolina helps the progressive lane

15:13 What 2020 looked like when South Carolina came fourth

15:49 Newsom's real problem: where does he actually win?

16:59 Harris's East Coast headquarters lesson

17:22 Advice: put your HQ in Michigan, not San Francisco

19:42 The counterargument: no gatekeepers left, and the hustler wins

20:10 Ossoff, Buttigieg & who's actually willing to burn the boats

21:08 Newsom one-on-one vs. Newsom in a big room

22:08 Would a swing-state Democrat invite Newsom to campaign? 

23:04 Harris analysis: you don't buy in Malibu if you're running

24:06 The Dan Quayle risk if she runs under these circumstances

25:01 Newsom and Harris can't both run 

26:20 Mark Kelly in Iowa & the quote that reads like a stump speech

27:15 Chuck's lab-built ticket: an astronaut and a pastor

27:50 Will the Democratic base accept Kelly?

29:30 Is Kelly too pro-business for this version of the party?

30:45 How Trump's attacks on Kelly may have helped him

31:33 The real gap: Kelly has no signature issue

32:03 AOC is the change candidate — inside the party and outside it

33:09 Biographies don't win the presidency

33:30 The cautionary tales: John Glenn and Bill Bradley

35:08 The charisma gap — and Kelly's habit of yelling to show energy

35:55 Scanning the long shots on the board

36:55 If not AOC, then Ro Khanna

37:16 Pritzker at 1% — the governor who could reach the left

37:46 Chuck's real dark horse: Rahm Emanuel

39:32 Democrats' rural problem isn't just rural whites

39:59 The left will never accept him

42:07 Not a cycle for an insider — but maybe for an ideas guy

42:27 The Wisconsin lesson: Crowley won against something

42:50 To Florida: Tuesday's primary and Tuesday night's live stream

43:35 Jolly-Donalds could land inside five points

44:01 Why Florida isn't as noncompetitive as people assume

44:44 Could DeSantis win a third term? 

45:24 What's Donalds's real number? 

46:16 The Mel Martinez precedent

48:29 Why Chuck thinks Jerry Demings had the better shot at Donalds

49:56 The 2018 what-if: Bernie, Soros, Gillum and DeSantis

50:43 Credit to DeSantis for saying what Trump never does

51:48 Debbie Wasserman Schultz in a majority-Black district

52:38 The Vindman question — and the residency problem

54:23 The US-Iran memorandum expires with no deal

55:46 A $1.5 trillion budget and a carrier crew that can't get fed

56:11 Testosterone tests and push-up contests while the Lincoln goes short

56:33 Operationally a disaster — and where's the audit?

57:57 Damaging the last institution still standing

59:51 The Nats get swept by the Mets 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What started as a simple sports question: why did Mark Walter sell the Los Angeles Lakers after just 14 months? — turned into something else entirely. In Part 1 of this two-part ToddCast Special Report, Chuck Todd pulls the thread from a record $12.5 billion franchise sale to the life insurance companies, private credit vehicles, and obscure Delaware LLCs sitting underneath one of the least understood transformations in American finance since 2008. The facts on the record: Walter's Delaware Life Insurance Co. and Clear Spring Life and Annuity Co. received grand jury subpoenas from Manhattan prosecutors in February, disclosed in June 26 regulatory filings, with a parallel SEC review, following earlier inquiries into Guggenheim's $362 billion money management arm. After receiving the subpoenas, both insurers conducted internal reviews, found reporting errors, and revised earlier disclosures — with Delaware Life disclosing an additional $16 billion in private credit assets linked to affiliated entities beyond what had previously been reported. Chuck is emphatic about what that does not mean: no money disappeared, no loans were declared bad, and a disclosure change is not a financial loss. No charges have been announced against the companies or any individuals, Group 1001 says it is cooperating fully with federal authorities and that its financial position remains strong, and the filings did not state that assets were improperly managed or that investors suffered losses.

From there, Chuck builds the machine from the ground up in plain English — a retiree in Indiana buying an annuity, an insurer that has to earn enough to keep that promise, a post-2008 world where banks got safer and the risky lending simply moved somewhere with no public market attached to it. He traces Walter's career from asset-backed securitization in the 1990s through the 2012 Dodgers purchase (and the question Andrew Ross Sorkin asked at the time about where the money came from), through the corporate genealogy of Guggenheim, Delaware Life, Clear Spring, and Group 1001, to insurance filings showing hundreds of millions in debt tied to the Dodgers' regional sports network and ticket revenue. He credits the reporting he's leaning on throughout — Katie Baker at The Ringer, independent researcher Nick Nemeth at Mispriced Assets, plus Bloomberg, the Wall Street Journal, and the Financial Times — and he is scrupulous about the line between what the public record establishes and what it simply cannot. The core question isn't whether anyone broke the law; investigators with subpoena power will answer that. It's whether we understand this system well enough to know what happens when it comes under stress — because when the assets underneath an institution's balance sheet can't be continuously tested in a public market, how much confidence should any of us have in the numbers? Part 2 continues the story. 

Timeline:

00:00 Why did Mark Walter sell the Lakers? Pulling the thread

00:30 This stopped being a basketball story

00:45 A record $12.5B sale — and why the seller is the story, not the buyers

01:15 Walter took control just 14 months earlier at a $10B valuation

01:30 The thread led to life insurance companies

02:00 A financial market that's grown enormously since the last crisis

02:30 Things that rhyme with 2008 — and things that rhyme with Enron

02:45 Executive Life: the insurer that failed three decades ago

03:15 Three different historical examples — not the same thing

03:45 Not saying another 2008 is coming

04:00 "A sneaking suspicion we may be looking at the beginning of something very bad"

04:15 The questions public filings simply cannot answer

05:15 Why some answers only exist in depositions

05:30 Why the federal investigation matters — subpoena power

06:00 The rule for this episode: what we know vs. what we don't

06:30 The central question about measuring financial strength

07:15 Why this should be a five-alarm fire for regulators

07:45 An enormous market built around things that are private by definition

08:15 Credit where it's due: The Ringer, Mispriced Assets, WSJ, Bloomberg, FT

09:15 Connecting dots vs. building a case

10:00 We made banks safer after 2008 — the money went somewhere else

11:00 Even if it's all legal, the larger question remains

11:45 A simple rule: when someone tells you "it's complicated"

12:15 Complexity as a feature, not a bug

13:00 The innocent explanation: a $2.5B gain in 14 months

13:30 Iger and Kushner were already exploring an NBA expansion team

13:45 Why buy the Lakers instead of building from scratch

14:45 What "valued at $10 billion" does and doesn't mean

15:30 We don't know how much cash Walter personally receives

15:45 Why sell at all? Walter collects teams, he doesn't flip them

16:30 Why only the Lakers? He's keeping the Dodgers

17:15 February grand jury subpoenas and the parallel SEC review

17:30 The disclosure change inside the insurers' filings

18:15 A disclosure change is not a financial loss

19:30 Nobody's been charged; companies say they're cooperating

20:00 Reporting on liquidity — and the precision that question requires

21:00 Why the timing is a legitimate reporting question

21:15 Keeping two separate sports stories separate

21:45 The FIFA deal collapsed roughly 10 days before the Lakers deal

22:15 What the timing does and does not establish

23:00 The political question: Josh Kushner, Jared Kushner, the executive branch

23:45 The pattern is context — it is not evidence

24:00 No evidence of a quid pro quo

24:45 Why the question stays on the shelf

25:15 What does "billionaire" actually mean?

26:00 Who is Mark Walter? Cedar Rapids, a concrete plant, and anonymity

27:15 "I'm nothing special. I'm just the king of common sense."

27:45 Why the low profile matters to this story

28:30 Liberty Hampshire and asset-backed securitization

29:30 Meeting the Guggenheims and building Guggenheim Partners

30:45 Wealth vs. commanding capital that isn't yours

31:45 2012: buying the Dodgers, and the Frank McCourt cautionary tale

33:00 Baseball wanted the exact opposite of McCourt

33:45 Andrew Ross Sorkin's question: where's the rest of the money?

34:15 Insurance company capital in the Dodgers financing

35:15 How does retirement money end up near a baseball team?

36:30 Following the money: a hypothetical retiree in Indiana

37:15 The annuity bargain and what insurers do with the money

38:15 How 2008 scrambled the insurance business

39:00 Low rates and the hunt for yield

39:45 Chuck's Widget Company and the loan the bank won't make

41:00 Money always finds a way — the lesson from campaign finance

41:45 What private credit actually is

42:15 The genuine advantages of private credit

43:00 Stickier capital — and why runs still happen

43:45 Private credit isn't inherently bad. What happens when it gets big?

44:15 No public market means no continuous price check

45:15 What replaces the market as the check on valuation?

46:00 Two sides looking for each other

47:00 Multiplying one retiree's $100,000 by hundreds of thousands

47:45 What happens when the same person owns both sides?

48:30 This is an entire industry, not one man's invention

49:15 Guggenheim's move into insurance and the roots of Group 1001

50:30 The ecosystem: asset management, insurance, private credit

51:00 Why the corporate structure is so hard to follow

51:30 Sportsnet LA and American Media Productions

52:00 Roughly $587M of that debt held by the two insurers, per filings

52:30 Dodgers Tickets LLC and slicing up a franchise

53:00 Is the Dodgers one entity or many?

53:30 Asset-backed securitization, applied to a baseball team

54:30 Is lending against Dodgers TV revenue inherently bad?

55:00 The brother analogy: conflicts and other people's money

55:30 February: subpoenas to Delaware Life and Clear Spring

56:15 The assets were always on the books — the question is characterization

56:30 General interrogatory 13.2 and the original 3% answer

57:00 The revised figure: roughly $16.4B described as dependent on affiliates

57:30 Three separate questions the public record can't resolve

58:15 What the internal reviews concluded

58:45 Comparing that figure to Delaware Life's reported capital and surplus

59:15 What the number does NOT mean

59:45 Concentration, governance, and disclosure

1:00:30 The questions that actually matter

1:01:00 Why the opacity itself is part of the story

1:01:15 Someone looked at the individual borrowers, one by one

1:02:00 Nick Nemeth and the Mispriced Assets research

1:03:15 Why independent research matters in the new media world

1:03:45 Roughly 230 holdings with striking similarities

1:04:00 The names: Verdant Hills, Pines, Iroquois, Yellow Creek

1:04:30 Special purpose vehicles — what's inside the box?

1:05:00 The legitimate reasons to use an LLC

1:05:30 How structure can change regulatory treatment

1:06:15 Does the legal wrapper describe the economic risk underneath?

1:06:45 Does that explain 230 vehicles? We don't know.

1:07:15 The echo of the mortgage crisis

1:08:00 Formation dates, filing numbers, and same-day funding

1:08:45 Roughly 44% of positions held by both insurers, purchased the same day

1:09:15 Innocent explanations exist — but this looks like a system

1:09:30 The questions only investigators can answer

1:10:00 Identification numbers and why outsiders can't check a price

1:10:45 A sophisticated process may exist — but it isn't a public market

1:11:15 What's a private note worth this morning?

1:11:30 Carried at or near purchase price: the concern raised

1:12:00 The great irony: the Lakers are the easy thing to value

1:12:30 Who owns these investments — and who was promised what

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In Part 2 of this ToddCast Special Report, Chuck Todd picks up the thread where Part 1 left it: if an insurance company's capital cushion is determined by how risky its investments are judged to be, then who is doing the judging? The answer leads to private letter ratings — a corner of finance almost no one outside it has heard of, and one that has exploded in size. Wall Street Journal reporting by Shane Shiflett and Heather Gillers assembled data on nearly 18,000 privately rated instruments held by U.S. insurers, and the growth curve is the number to remember: roughly $47 billion in 2018 to roughly $480 billion seven years later, with one estimate putting total private credit in insurance portfolios near $1 trillion. Much of that grading runs through firms most people have never heard of, and Chuck focuses on Egan-Jones, which privately graded roughly $40 billion of debt held by U.S. insurers, faces a 2024 lawsuit from two former executives alleging they were fired after raising conflict-of-interest concerns and that the firm pressured staff to inflate ratings, has drawn SEC questions about its reliability, and in January was removed by Bermuda regulators from their list of recognized ratings providers — all of which Egan-Jones forcefully denies, saying it stands behind the integrity and independence of its work. Chuck is careful throughout about what this does and does not establish: agencies can legitimately disagree, private raters often see borrower information outsiders never will, and none of it means any particular rating is wrong. It means the ratings deserve scrutiny, because if the grade helps set the size of the rainy day fund, being wrong about the grade means being wrong about the cushion.

From there the episode widens out. Chuck walks through what a clean audit opinion actually certifies versus what people assume it certifies, revisits Executive Life — the insurer that reached for yield in junk bonds in the 1980s and was eventually seized — as a more instructive warning than Enron or 2008, and is direct that this is not a story about an insurer on the brink: Group 1001 says it is cooperating fully and that its financial position remains sound, Delaware Life reported roughly $69 billion in assets as of March and Clear Spring roughly $16 billion, and no charges have been announced against the companies or any individuals. AM Best has affirmed both companies' A- (Excellent) financial strength ratings while revising their outlooks to negative following the reclassification of private credit investments from unaffiliated to affiliated. Complicated private assets are not insolvency; related-party exposure is not insolvency; a federal investigation is not insolvency. The question Chuck is actually chasing is structural — whether a system split across fifty state insurance departments, the SEC, the Fed, offshore reinsurance regulators, and private ratings firms can assemble the whole machine fast enough when one piece breaks, and whether the real lesson of the post-2008 era is that we made the banks safer without ever asking where the behavior would go. He lays out three ways this ends, six specific questions he'd chase with subpoena power he doesn't have, and — unusually — the exact evidence that would bring him back in six months to say the warning lights looked worse than the engine. Because capitalism doesn't run on money alone. It runs on people believing that a price means what it says, that a rating means something, and that somebody understands the risk underneath a promise made to a retiree thirty years out. 

Timeline:

00:00 Recapping Part 1: inside Mark Walter's world of structured finance
00:30 Who looked inside the box and decided how safe it was?
01:00 Why the risk grade determines the size of an insurer's cushion
01:30 Credit rating agencies as the report card for debt
02:00 A better grade can mean less capital sitting behind it
02:15 The special purpose vehicle, the note, and the rating
02:45 Does the grade on the box accurately reflect what's inside?
03:15 WSJ data on nearly 18,000 privately rated investments
03:30 From $47 billion in 2018 to $480 billion seven years later
03:45 One estimate puts private credit near $1 trillion in insurance portfolios
04:15 What "privately rated" actually means
04:30 Private letter ratings and what the public can't see
05:00 Why the quality and independence of the rating matters so much
05:15 Egan-Jones — and the Arthur Andersen flashback
05:45 The ratings agencies you know, and the one you don't
06:00 Roughly $40 billion of insurer-held debt privately rated by Egan-Jones
06:15 Egan-Jones also rated the Dodgers TV network debt
06:30 Following the chain from annuity customer to capital cushion
06:45 Who pays the ratings agencies? The inherent tension
07:15 The Journal's comparison: roughly one grade higher on average
07:45 Egan-Jones strongly disputes the Journal's analysis
08:00 Former executives' lawsuit alleging pressure to inflate ratings
08:15 Egan-Jones denies it; the SEC has examined its processes
08:30 Bermuda removed Egan-Jones as a recognized ratings provider
08:45 Allianz's response: requiring a second rating
09:15 This doesn't mean the ratings are wrong — it means scrutiny
09:30 Enter the auditor: KPMG and the clean opinions
10:00 What an audit opinion addresses — and what it doesn't
10:30 The right question to ask about a clean opinion
11:00 Executive Life: the more useful historical warning
11:30 Junk bonds, Michael Milken, and the reach for yield
12:00 How Executive Life ended — and why it isn't the same thing
12:15 The evidence that cuts against the scariest version of this story
12:30 Delaware Life's reported assets, capital, and surplus
12:45 Financial strength ratings and what "A-" actually means
13:00 The more recent caution from the ratings agencies
13:30 This is not an insurer on the verge of seizure
13:45 The real question: confidence in conventional measures of strength
14:00 Why asset quality matters when you're backing promises
14:30 The safety net: state guaranty associations
14:45 And who ultimately pays for that safety net
15:00 Accumulating echoes: Executive Life, Enron, and 2008
15:45 The warning lights of 2026
16:15 Not a crisis — but a reason to ask better questions
16:30 Can regulators adapt as fast as the system is changing?
17:00 What regulators are actually doing right now
17:30 This is not asleep-at-the-switch
17:45 The structural problem: nobody sees the whole machine
18:15 Fifty states, fifty insurance departments
18:45 Why we regulate different financial businesses differently
19:00 Assembling the machine when each regulator holds one piece
19:45 Finance moves at the speed of a term sheet
20:15 Regulation moves at the speed of rulemaking
20:45 Understanding regulatory arbitrage
21:00 Same television, different rules
21:45 Most regulatory arbitrage is perfectly legal
22:00 But risk doesn't change just because the address does
22:15 Why regulators are reconsidering what qualifies as a bond
22:30 Show me what's inside the box, not the wrapping paper
23:00 The rules are being rewritten — but the money is already there
23:30 The mistake Washington may have made after 2008
24:00 You can't pass a law eliminating the desire to make money
24:45 The campaign finance parallel
25:00 We regulated the scene of the accident
25:30 We get very good at preventing the last financial crisis
26:00 Incentives work: if banks pull back, somebody else lends
26:15 Maybe the behavior simply migrated
27:15 The systemic stress test Chuck doesn't think we can pass
27:45 Why the investigation is useful regardless of the outcome
28:00 Looking through the legal boxes to the economics underneath
28:30 Where the central argument lands
29:15 What happens when something goes wrong? The honest answer
29:30 The strongest case that nothing catastrophic happens
30:00 Why private credit isn't structured like a bank run
30:15 Longer-term liabilities and patient money
30:45 Three ways this story could end
31:00 Possibility one: Walter is the problem
31:15 Possibility two: an extreme example of a manageable problem
31:45 Possibility three: Walter is the X-ray
32:00 What we do — and don't — have evidence of
32:30 Being careful not to invent the next 2008
32:45 Where pressure could actually come from
33:15 When patient money becomes less patient
33:30 Other sources of insurance funding under stress
33:45 Borrowing, credit lines, and reinsurance triggers
34:00 Who else made a promise based on that valuation?
34:15 Being fair to Delaware Life and Clear Spring
34:45 The narrower question: how much stress can the cushions absorb?
35:15 Back to the Lakers one last time
35:45 Why you sell the thing you can sell
36:00 What Chuck is and isn't ready to say
36:30 If I had subpoena power: the reporting roadmap
37:00 What open-source reporting can and can't do
37:30 One: open the boxes and show the underlying assets
37:45 Two: did the structure change the regulatory treatment?
38:15 Schedule D vs. Schedule BA — show us the math
38:30 Three: who graded the box, and on what information?
38:45 Four: why did 3% become something vastly larger?
39:00 Who made that judgment, and what changed after the subpoenas?
39:30 Five: did the Lakers money actually matter?
39:45 Six: how much stress can these insurers absorb?
40:15 What we know, and what we don't
40:30 The final test: what would make Chuck say he was too worried
40:45 Show me the marks hold up
41:15 "I'd love to make that podcast"
41:30 What this story already tells us
41:45 Coming back to Josh Kushner and the timing
42:00 No evidence of a quid pro quo
42:15 Why the political question is the smaller question
42:45 The more consequential story
43:00 The full thread: Lakers to Walter to Dodgers to private credit
43:30 What we have and haven't established
43:45 We reinforced the part of the house that burned down
44:15 Every private equity firm wanted its own insurance company
44:30 "Money always finds a way"
45:00 The failure was assuming we'd solved the behavior
45:15 Why this matters well beyond Wall Street
45:30 Our hypothetical retiree, and what she has to trust
45:45 Capitalism runs on trust, not just money
46:15 If that trust breaks, everyone finds a different villain
46:45 Where Chuck's instincts are — and what the evidence doesn't establish
47:00 What would change his mind
47:15 Why it's fitting we got here through the Lakers
47:45 Let's figure out what it is before the patient gets sick

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Chuck Todd unloads on newly confirmed Attorney General Todd Blanche for appearing at a political rally alongside Trump — a line past attorneys general knew better than to cross — and for openly stating that the Justice Department won't be independent of the White House. Chuck argues Republicans are making the DOJ far more nakedly partisan than any prior administration, that the senators who voted to confirm Blanche should be ashamed of themselves, and that Blanche is essentially telling the country in advance that the institution won't hold. He turns to the horror stories surfacing about morale and conditions aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln, where Trump's response was that the deployment hasn't gone on nearly long enough — proof, Chuck argues, that neither Trump nor Hegseth is even pretending to care about the people they've deployed, and that America was taken into a war it was never prepared to fight. After years of record military budgets producing bad results, Chuck’s question is simple and furious: what the hell have we been paying for? He identifies a clear leadership problem at the Pentagon, then pivots to what he sees as the coming Republican civil war over JD Vance, who now says he wants to end the dollar's status as the world's reserve currency and who views America's alliances as liabilities rather than strengths — positions Vance will have to actually sell on the merits, because he doesn't have Trump's charisma to carry them, and positions that could drive a meaningful number of Republicans out of a Vance-led party altogether. Chuck closes with a genuinely provocative question about the missing anti-war movement: where are the protests over Iran? He wonders aloud whether the Gaza demonstrations were ever really an anti-war movement at all, whether they were as organically American-driven as they appeared, and argues the silence around Iran is revealing in ways nobody on either side seems eager to examine — before previewing Tuesday's Florida primaries. 

Politico politics bureau chief and senior political columnist Jonathan Martin joins the Chuck Toddcast for a reporter's-eye tour of the 2028 landscape, starting from an observation both men keep circling: the governing wing of each party is badly out of step with its own voters. Martin walks through the Democratic field with real granularity. Pete Buttigieg carries genuine Biden baggage and is fundamentally a creature of institutions — he isn't going to burn the house down, which is precisely why the left will never trust his establishment credentials, and why Martin wonders aloud whether his future might be more as an advisor than a candidate. On AOC, Martin's read is that the entire question is simply whether she runs: if she does, she's the lead car in the progressive lane and could clear it outright, and she'd be formidable in a crowded field. He notes it's no accident she reemerged right after El-Sayed's Michigan win, that she's been careful and disciplined about picking her spots during the primaries, and that she more than held her own speaking at Ebenezer Baptist church — which matters enormously given the Democratic calendar was explicitly designed to stymie progressives by putting South Carolina first. Martin isn't at all convinced Jon Ossoff runs, even though Ossoff checks every box on the list of things Democrats have historically wanted, and he thinks Abdul El-Sayed could be a genuinely formidable presidential candidate. The overarching question, as Martin frames it, is whether Democrats vote with their head or their heart in 2028 — a decision the November midterms will shape more than anything else.

On the Republican side, they point out Vance simply wasn't a good candidate when he ran for Senate and needed both Trump and Peter Thiel to drag him over the finish line, that Rubio's presidential campaigns always ran into whoever's "turn" it was, and that the fastest way to lose in this environment is to be seen as one of the donor candidates. Vance's real challenge, Martin argues, is the Tucker Carlson model — and the open question of who carries that banner in 2028. He and Chuck agree the far left is currently stronger than the far right within their respective parties, and that insurgencies are a natural feature of the party out of power. Nothing, Martin says flatly, gets better for Republicans between now and the midterms; the Iranians want to humiliate Trump and Jimmy Carter him, and they're timing their moves to the American political calendar. They agree Democrats are either picking up two Senate seats or six with very little in between, and predict Greg Abbott will have to spend real money to win in Texas. Plus: why in-person interviews still beat remote ones, the disappearance of the old guard of Tennessee Republican politics, how Buttigieg's sexuality might factor into a national campaign, why online small-dollar money means Democrats no longer need to court only big donors — and whether UVA can actually contend in football this year.

Finally, he answers listeners’ questions in the “Ask Chuck” segment.

Upgrade your everyday. Go to https://Quince.com/CHUCK for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. 

Play ball and swing for the fences on FanDuel, an official partner of the MLB at https://FANDUEL.COM. 

For free and unbiased Medicare help, dial (980) 734-3985 to speak with my trusted partner, Chapter, or go to askchapter.org/chuck /  *Paid Partnership

Chapter and its affiliates are not connected with or endorsed by any government entity or the federal Medicare program. Chapter Advisory, LLC represents Medicare Advantage HMO, PPO, and PFFS organizations and stand alone prescription drug plans that have a Medicare contract. Enrollment depends on the plan’s contract renewal. While we have a database of every Medicare plan nationwide and can help you to search among all plans, we have contracts with many but not all plans. As a result, we do not offer every plan available in your area. Currently we represent 50 organizations which offer 18,160 products nationwide. We search and recommend all plans, even those we don’t directly offer. You can contact a licensed Chapter agent to find out the number of products available in your specific area. Please contact Medicare.gov, 1-800-Medicare, or your local State Health Insurance Program (SHIP) to get information on all of your options. 

Timeline:

(Timestamps may vary based on advertisements)

00:00 Chuck Todd’s introduction

04:30 Shout out to ReCenter Indiana

07:30 Todd Blanche appeared at political rally with Trump, now as AG

08:00 Past Attorneys General knew better than to act so partisan

08:30 Blanche says DOJ won’t be independent of the White House

09:15 Republicans are making DOJ far more partisan than prior admins

10:15 Senators who confirmed Blanche should be ashamed of themselves

11:15 Blanche is telling us that the institution of the DOJ won’t hold

12:00 Horror stories surface about morale & conditions on USS Abraham Lincoln

12:30 Trump says deployment hasn’t gone on nearly long enough

13:00 Trump and Hegseth didn’t even pretend to care about these soldiers

13:45 Clearly we were taken into a war that we weren’t prepared for

14:15 We keep passing record military budgets & getting bad results

15:00 What the hell have we been paying for?   

15:30 We have a clear leadership problem at the Pentagon

16:45 The coming civil war inside the Republican party over JD Vance

17:15 Vance says he wants to end the dollar as the reserve currency

17:45 Vance views alliances as liabilities rather than strengths

18:15 Vance doesn’t have Trump’s charisma, will have to sell his argument

18:45 Many Republicans might leave a Vance Republican party

19:30 Where are the protests and the anti-war movement over Iran?

20:30 Was Gaza actually an anti-war movement? 

21:00 Were Gaza protests not as American driven as we thought?

22:15 The lack of protest over Iran is revealing

23:15 Preview of Florida primary elections on Tuesday

28:00 Jonathan Martin joins The Chuck ToddCast

29:30 Why in-person interviews are so much better than remote

31:30 The old guard of GOP politics in Tennessee are gone

33:30 The governing wing of each party aren’t agreeing with the voters

34:15 How does Pete Buttigieg navigate carrying “Biden baggage”?

34:45 Pete is a creature of the institutions, he won’t burn down the house

35:30 The left won’t ever trust Pete’s establishment credentials

36:30 How Pete’s sexuality could affect a presidential run

37:30 Is his future more in an advisor role than an elected official?

40:00 If AOC runs in 2028, she’ll be the lead car in the progressive lane

41:30 The question surrounding AOC is “will she or won’t she run”

42:00 The presidential campaign will be shaped by November midterms

42:30 Do the Dems go with their head or their heart in 28?

44:45 Insurgencies happen in this environment for party out of power

46:15 Nothing gets better between now and the midterms for Republicans

47:45 The Iranians want to humiliate Trump and “Jimmy Carter” him

48:45 Besides Vance, Rubio and Youngkin, who else might run for the GOP?

49:30 Who carries the Tucker Carlson banner in ‘28?

51:45 Vance was not a good candidate when he ran for senate

52:30 Vance needed Trump & Peter Thiel to get him over the finish line

53:30 Rubio’s campaigns were challenging the person whose turn it was

54:45 You don’t want to be seen as one of the “donor candidates”

55:30 Vance’s biggest challenge will be of the Tucker model

56:00 The far left is stronger than the far right

59:00 Democrats primary calendar designed to stymie progressives

1:00:00 Impact of South Carolina going first

1:01:30 AOC would clear progressive lane & be formidable in crowded field

1:02:30 Not at all convinced that Jon Ossoff runs in ‘28

1:03:00 Democrats have a type, and Ossoff checks all those boxes

1:04:15 Abdul El-Sayed could be formidable as a presidential candidate

1:05:00 AOC could emerge from South Carolina in a strong position

1:05:30 AOC held her own speaking at Ebenezer Baptist church

1:06:15 Not an accident AOC reemerged after El-Sayed’s win

1:08:15 AOC has been smart and careful to pick her spots during primaries

1:09:30 What will keep prominent Dems from running?

1:10:00 There’s lots of Dem donor money online, don’t need only big $ donors

1:11:30 Dems are either picking up two senate seats… or six

1:12:30 How cemented is the red/blue map?

1:15:00 Kansas could be ‘06 Indiana but Dem hasn’t won senate seat since 30s

1:16:15 Voters don’t like the public school funding cuts for vouchers

1:17:30 Greg Abbott will have to spend big to win his race

1:18:00 Will UVA be a contender in football?

1:25:00 No time machine this week

1:25:45 Ask Chuck

1:26:00 Why doesn’t congress vote on more clean standalone bills?

1:29:15 List of biggest presidential blunders

1:32:30 Dems chances of shifting red states in the midwest?

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Politico politics bureau chief and senior political columnist Jonathan Martin joins the Chuck Toddcast for a reporter's-eye tour of the 2028 landscape, starting from an observation both men keep circling: the governing wing of each party is badly out of step with its own voters. Martin walks through the Democratic field with real granularity. Pete Buttigieg carries genuine Biden baggage and is fundamentally a creature of institutions — he isn't going to burn the house down, which is precisely why the left will never trust his establishment credentials, and why Martin wonders aloud whether his future might be more as an advisor than a candidate. On AOC, Martin's read is that the entire question is simply whether she runs: if she does, she's the lead car in the progressive lane and could clear it outright, and she'd be formidable in a crowded field. He notes it's no accident she reemerged right after El-Sayed's Michigan win, that she's been careful and disciplined about picking her spots during the primaries, and that she more than held her own speaking at Ebenezer Baptist church — which matters enormously given the Democratic calendar was explicitly designed to stymie progressives by putting South Carolina first. Martin isn't at all convinced Jon Ossoff runs, even though Ossoff checks every box on the list of things Democrats have historically wanted, and he thinks Abdul El-Sayed could be a genuinely formidable presidential candidate. The overarching question, as Martin frames it, is whether Democrats vote with their head or their heart in 2028 — a decision the November midterms will shape more than anything else.

On the Republican side, they point out Vance simply wasn't a good candidate when he ran for Senate and needed both Trump and Peter Thiel to drag him over the finish line, that Rubio's presidential campaigns always ran into whoever's "turn" it was, and that the fastest way to lose in this environment is to be seen as one of the donor candidates. Vance's real challenge, Martin argues, is the Tucker Carlson model — and the open question of who carries that banner in 2028. He and Chuck agree the far left is currently stronger than the far right within their respective parties, and that insurgencies are a natural feature of the party out of power. Nothing, Martin says flatly, gets better for Republicans between now and the midterms; the Iranians want to humiliate Trump and Jimmy Carter him, and they're timing their moves to the American political calendar. They agree Democrats are either picking up two Senate seats or six with very little in between, and predict Greg Abbott will have to spend real money to win in Texas. Plus: why in-person interviews still beat remote ones, the disappearance of the old guard of Tennessee Republican politics, how Buttigieg's sexuality might factor into a national campaign, why online small-dollar money means Democrats no longer need to court only big donors — and whether UVA can actually contend in football this year.

Upgrade your everyday. Go to https://Quince.com/CHUCK for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. 

Play ball and swing for the fences on FanDuel, an official partner of the MLB at https://FANDUEL.COM. 

For free and unbiased Medicare help, dial (980) 734-3985 to speak with my trusted partner, Chapter, or go to askchapter.org/chuck /  *Paid Partnership

Chapter and its affiliates are not connected with or endorsed by any government entity or the federal Medicare program. Chapter Advisory, LLC represents Medicare Advantage HMO, PPO, and PFFS organizations and stand alone prescription drug plans that have a Medicare contract. Enrollment depends on the plan’s contract renewal. While we have a database of every Medicare plan nationwide and can help you to search among all plans, we have contracts with many but not all plans. As a result, we do not offer every plan available in your area. Currently we represent 50 organizations which offer 18,160 products nationwide. We search and recommend all plans, even those we don’t directly offer. You can contact a licensed Chapter agent to find out the number of products available in your specific area. Please contact Medicare.gov, 1-800-Medicare, or your local State Health Insurance Program (SHIP) to get information on all of your options. 

Timeline:

(Timestamps may vary based on advertisements)

00:00 Jonathan Martin joins The Chuck ToddCast

01:30 Why in-person interviews are so much better than remote

03:30 The old guard of GOP politics in Tennessee are gone

05:30 The governing wing of each party aren’t agreeing with the voters

06:15 How does Pete Buttigieg navigate carrying “Biden baggage”?

06:45 Pete is a creature of the institutions, he won’t burn down the house

07:30 The left won’t ever trust Pete’s establishment credentials

08:30 How Pete’s sexuality could affect a presidential run

09:30 Is his future more in an advisor role than an elected official?

12:00 If AOC runs in 2028, she’ll be the lead car in the progressive lane

13:30 The question surrounding AOC is “will she or won’t she run”

14:00 The presidential campaign will be shaped by November midterms

14:30 Do the Dems go with their head or their heart in 28?

16:45 Insurgencies happen in this environment for party out of power

18:15 Nothing gets better between now and the midterms for Republicans

19:45 The Iranians want to humiliate Trump and “Jimmy Carter” him

20:45 Besides Vance, Rubio and Youngkin, who else might run for the GOP?

21:30 Who carries the Tucker Carlson banner in ‘28?

23:45 Vance was not a good candidate when he ran for senate

24:30 Vance needed Trump & Peter Thiel to get him over the finish line

25:30 Rubio’s campaigns were challenging the person whose turn it was

26:45 You don’t want to be seen as one of the “donor candidates”

27:30 Vance’s biggest challenge will be of the Tucker model

28:00 The far left is stronger than the far right

31:00 Democrats primary calendar designed to stymie progressives

32:00 Impact of South Carolina going first

33:30 AOC would clear progressive lane & be formidable in crowded field

34:30 Not at all convinced that Jon Ossoff runs in ‘28

35:00 Democrats have a type, and Ossoff checks all those boxes

36:15 Abdul El-Sayed could be formidable as a presidential candidate

37:00 AOC could emerge from South Carolina in a strong position

37:30 AOC held her own speaking at Ebenezer Baptist church

38:15 Not an accident AOC reemerged after El-Sayed’s win

40:15 AOC has been smart and careful to pick her spots during primaries

41:30 What will keep prominent Dems from running?

42:00 There’s lots of Dem donor money online, don’t need only big $ donors

43:30 Dems are either picking up two senate seats… or six

44:30 How cemented is the red/blue map?

47:00 Kansas could be ‘06 Indiana but Dem hasn’t won senate seat since 30s

48:15 Voters don’t like the public school funding cuts for vouchers

49:30 Greg Abbott will have to spend big to win his race

50:00 Will UVA be a contender in football?

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Chuck Todd unpacks David Crowley's astonishing photo-finish win over Francesca Hong in Wisconsin — a race Crowley dropped out of, re-entered with Tony Evers' backing, and then won by roughly 3,200 votes — and argues national Democrats are far more relieved than they'll ever admit. Had Hong won, she'd have become a face of the party while being forced to spend the fall answering for past statements about defunding police, abolishing prisons, and canceling Thanksgiving rather than talking about the economy, handing Republicans an absurdly easy story to tell. Chuck credits Tony Evers for refusing to fence-sit and mounting what amounted to an emergency rescue operation, while noting Crowley isn't remotely "establishment" — he came from genuinely modest roots and ran a campaign largely defined by what he wasn't. Chuck identifies Hong's central unforced error as nationalizing her race in the closing weeks, a fundraising-driven instinct in an era where media appearances increasingly function as fundraising appeals, forgetting that the national online audience and the local electorate are not the same people. Mamdani stayed disciplined and won; Hong drifted into boutique cultural debates and lost. But Chuck cautions against reading this as a repudiation of the left: Peggy Flanagan won in Minnesota, progressives are doing better this cycle than they have in years, and the 2027 House will be younger and slightly further left. The real structural lesson is that progressives struggle in higher-turnout and open primaries, still face a persistent obstacle with African American primary voters, and — most tellingly — keep getting rejected by the working-class voters they orient their entire message toward, which is more than a messaging glitch. Abdul El-Sayed emerges a quiet winner here, now much harder to lump in with the DSA, and Chuck notes that neither AOC nor Bernie ever endorsed Hong.

The rest of the monologue is a run of results that keep pointing the same direction. Trump-endorsed candidates keep losing primaries: Mike Lindell was trounced in Minnesota, Darline Graham didn't clear a third of the vote and is no lock in her runoff, and Chuck's read is that Trump's grip is measurably slipping. Fourteen-term Congressman John Larson lost his primary, part of the highest incumbent-loss rate since 1970 — in a genuine wave, Chuck says, the House could see north of 25% turnover. On Iran, he echoes Chris Christie's warning that this war turns Trump into Jimmy Carter: Iran has issued a list of demands that amounts to an "F you" ransom note, is openly watching the American election calendar and timing its moves accordingly, and — just as in 1980 — the humiliation itself is the point. All of it, Chuck notes, was Trump's own choice. He closes somewhere unexpected: giving Mark Zuckerberg genuine credit. In his 6,500-word manifesto, Zuckerberg argued that the real danger of AI is the concentration of power, writing that hoping an absolute power will benevolently provide for humanity has historically never ended well — and committing Meta to a review process before models go public. Chuck notes the argument is being made by a deeply self-interested party and that the important parts got buried in what was really a debate with Sam Altman, but he singles out one thing worth emulating: Meta funneling data center tax revenue back into teacher bonuses and job training. Communities hosting this infrastructure have to win too, and he hopes more tech CEOs adopt that philosophy.

Finally, Chuck reveals his ToddCast Top 5 list of biggest non-presidential primary upsets, which David Crowley’s win taking the top spot. He also answers listeners’ questions in the “Ask Chuck” segment and weighs in on the highly suspicious sale of the Los Angeles Lakers to Jared Kushner’s brother.

Thanks to our sponsors:

Upgrade your everyday. Go to https://Quince.com/CHUCK for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. 

Play ball and swing for the fences on FanDuel, an official partner of the MLB at https://FANDUEL.COM. 

For free and unbiased Medicare help, dial (980) 734-3985 to speak with my trusted partner, Chapter, or go to askchapter.org/chuck / *Paid Partnership

Chapter and its affiliates are not connected with or endorsed by any government entity or the federal Medicare program. Chapter Advisory, LLC represents Medicare Advantage HMO, PPO, and PFFS organizations and stand alone prescription drug plans that have a Medicare contract. Enrollment depends on the plan’s contract renewal. While we have a database of every Medicare plan nationwide and can help you to search among all plans, we have contracts with many but not all plans. As a result, we do not offer every plan available in your area. Currently we represent 50 organizations which offer 18,160 products nationwide. We search and recommend all plans, even those we don’t directly offer. You can contact a licensed Chapter agent to find out the number of products available in your specific area. Please contact Medicare.gov, 1-800-Medicare, or your local State Health Insurance Program (SHIP) to get information on all of your options. 

Timeline:

(Timestamps may vary based on advertisements)

00:00 Chuck Todd’s introduction

04:00 Unpacking David Crowley’s win over Francesca Hong in WI

04:45 Crowley got out, then back in to the race… yet still won

05:45 If Hong had won, she would have become a face of the Dem party

06:15 Hong had past statements that would have been problematic

07:15 She would have been forced to talk about Thanksgiving, not economics

08:15 Her win would have been an easy story for Republicans to tell

08:45 Abdul El-Sayed is a winner here, harder to be lumped in with DSA

10:00 National Democrats are more relieved than they will admit

11:00 Independents don’t want either party to let extremes take over

12:00 Democrats can make the distinction between themselves & socialism

13:30 The progressives didn’t blow it, Peggy Flannagan won in Minnesota

15:00 African-American primary voters remain an obstacle for progressives

16:30 Progressives gear toward working class voters, yet are rejected by them

17:30 Not winning working class voters is more than a messaging glitch

18:30 Structure of the primary has major impact on success of progressives

19:15 Progressives run into trouble in higher turnout primaries

20:30 Open primaries result in less extremist nominees

21:15 Hong’s big unforced error was campaigning nationally in final weeks

22:00 Nationalizing your race is about fundraising

22:45 Media appearances increasingly function as fundraising appearances

23:30 National online audience & local electorate aren’t the same people

24:15 Mamdani had a disciplined message & succeeded, Hong didn’t

25:00 Ideological candidates can win when the electorate agrees with them

26:00 Ideological movements forget they can sound weird to the normies

26:30 The establishment was dangerously close to screwing this up

28:15 The establishment side of the race was a chaotic mess

29:15 Tony Evers had to mount an emergency rescue operation for Crowley

30:30 David Crowley isn’t very “establishment”, came from modest roots

31:30 Tony Evers deserves credit for putting his capital behind Crowley

32:30 Notable AOC, Sanders and top progressives didn’t endorse Hong

33:45 Getting into boutique cultural debates ends up being a problem

34:30 In Michigan & Wisconsin, the campaigns that physically showed up won

36:15 If Crowley wins & El-Sayed loses, there will be a clear lesson for Dems

38:15 Tony Evers didn’t fence sit, he picked a side and it worked

40:00 Flannagan’s win dispels idea of total repudiation of progressives

42:00 Flannagan had establishment credentials while being progressive

42:30 Progressives aren’t running the table, but are doing better this cycle

43:15 The Democratic house in ‘27 will be younger & slightly further left

44:30 Crowley’s campaign was largely about what he wasn’t

46:00 There could be multiple demographic “first” Democratic governors

47:45 Could these new primary winners end up on a presidential ticket?

49:45 Progressives are doing better, but haven’t won control of the Dem party

50:45 Democrats can blunt the narrative that the socialists are taking over

51:15 Trump endorsed candidates keep losing their primaries

51:45 Mike Lindell was trounced in Minnesota primary

52:45 Trump endorsed Darline Graham didn’t get 1/3rd of the vote

53:15 Graham isn’t a shoo-in in the runoff

55:30 Trump’s endorsement isn’t a guaranteed win, his grip is slipping

57:00 14-term congressman John Larson loses his primary

57:45 Most incumbents have lost reelection this year since 1970

58:15 In a wave election, could see over 25% turnover of the House

59:30 Chris Christie says Iran war will turn Trump into Jimmy Carter

1:00:00 Iran is humiliating Trump, and it was all Trump’s choice

1:00:30 Iran issues list of demands, basically an “F You” ransom note

1:01:30 Iran are watching the American election calendar & acting accordingly

1:02:15 In 1980, the humiliation of Carter was the point, Iran sent a message

1:03:30 Mark Zuckerberg deserves credit for something he said

1:04:15 Zuckerberg argued that AI driven concentration of power is the danger

1:04:45 He says there’s no benevolent superintelligence held by one company

1:05:15 Committed to a review board to sign off on models before going public

1:05:45 At least the argument is being made… even if by a self-interested party

1:06:30 Revenue from Meta data centers has been paid to teachers & job training 

1:07:15 Meta reinvesting in communities with data centers is the right model

1:08:00 The manifesto was a debate with Sam Altman, buried the important things

1:09:15 Hope more tech CEO’s share his philosophy. Communities have to win too

1:15:00 ToddCast Top 5 biggest non-presidential primary upsets

1:17:00 #5 Joe Crowley loses to AOC

1:18:00 #4 Carol Moseley Braun

1:18:45 #3 Andrew Gillum

1:19:45 #2 Eric Cantor

1:20:45 #1 David Crawley

1:22:15 Honorable mentions

1:23:45 Ask Chuck

1:24:00 If Talarico wins close, could partisan officials mess with the outcome?

1:27:00 What makes a vice presidency successful & who makes your top 5?

1:34:45 What does it say about us that voters knew who Trump was and reelected him?

1:38:45 Can Jewish leaders like Pritzker & Ossoff campaign effectively for El-Sayed?

1:41:15 Lakers sold again, for $12B to Josh Kushner and Bob Iger

1:42:15 Mark Walter bought Lakers 14 months ago for $10B, and is already out

1:43:00 This story could be nothing… but the details warrant suspicion

1:44:30 Mark Walter’s businesses are under federal investigation right now

1:45:30 Nobody has been charged or accused of anything yet

1:46:15 Why did Walter sell so fast is not a rhetorical question anymore

1:47:00 Kushner was set to buy a piece of the World Cup, until boycott threats

1:48:00 Anyone close to Trump will be assumed guilty until proven innocent

1:49:30 Maybe everything is on the up and up… but the details are shocking

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Chuck Todd unpacks David Crowley's astonishing photo-finish win over Francesca Hong in Wisconsin — a race Crowley dropped out of, re-entered with Tony Evers' backing, and then won by roughly 3,200 votes — and argues national Democrats are far more relieved than they'll ever admit. Had Hong won, she'd have become a face of the party while being forced to spend the fall answering for past statements about defunding police, abolishing prisons, and canceling Thanksgiving rather than talking about the economy, handing Republicans an absurdly easy story to tell. Chuck credits Tony Evers for refusing to fence-sit and mounting what amounted to an emergency rescue operation, while noting Crowley isn't remotely "establishment" — he came from genuinely modest roots and ran a campaign largely defined by what he wasn't. Chuck identifies Hong's central unforced error as nationalizing her race in the closing weeks, a fundraising-driven instinct in an era where media appearances increasingly function as fundraising appeals, forgetting that the national online audience and the local electorate are not the same people. Mamdani stayed disciplined and won; Hong drifted into boutique cultural debates and lost. But Chuck cautions against reading this as a repudiation of the left: Peggy Flanagan won in Minnesota, progressives are doing better this cycle than they have in years, and the 2027 House will be younger and slightly further left. The real structural lesson is that progressives struggle in higher-turnout and open primaries, still face a persistent obstacle with African American primary voters, and — most tellingly — keep getting rejected by the working-class voters they orient their entire message toward, which is more than a messaging glitch. Abdul El-Sayed emerges a quiet winner here, now much harder to lump in with the DSA, and Chuck notes that neither AOC nor Bernie ever endorsed Hong.

The rest of the monologue is a run of results that keep pointing the same direction. Trump-endorsed candidates keep losing primaries: Mike Lindell was trounced in Minnesota, Darline Graham didn't clear a third of the vote and is no lock in her runoff, and Chuck's read is that Trump's grip is measurably slipping. Fourteen-term Congressman John Larson lost his primary, part of the highest incumbent-loss rate since 1970 — in a genuine wave, Chuck says, the House could see north of 25% turnover. On Iran, he echoes Chris Christie's warning that this war turns Trump into Jimmy Carter: Iran has issued a list of demands that amounts to an "F you" ransom note, is openly watching the American election calendar and timing its moves accordingly, and — just as in 1980 — the humiliation itself is the point. All of it, Chuck notes, was Trump's own choice. He closes somewhere unexpected: giving Mark Zuckerberg genuine credit. In his 6,500-word manifesto, Zuckerberg argued that the real danger of AI is the concentration of power, writing that hoping an absolute power will benevolently provide for humanity has historically never ended well — and committing Meta to a review process before models go public. Chuck notes the argument is being made by a deeply self-interested party and that the important parts got buried in what was really a debate with Sam Altman, but he singles out one thing worth emulating: Meta funneling data center tax revenue back into teacher bonuses and job training. Communities hosting this infrastructure have to win too, and he hopes more tech CEOs adopt that philosophy.

Then, Ben Wikler, the former Wisconsin Democratic Party chair and author of the new book This Is the Plan joins the Chuck Toddcast to argue that Democrats keep making the same category error: they keep winning change elections and then failing to deliver change, because they're trying to fix policy without first fixing the system that determines who gets to make policy. Wikler's framing is memorable and a little cheeky — you have to win the ring of power and then cast it into Mount Doom — but his point is serious. When the right wins power, it immediately restructures the system to entrench itself; Democrats win and then govern as though the rules are fixed. His plan runs through the state level, where free and fair elections are actually secured, and demands ending the filibuster and reforming the Supreme Court, including term limits for justices, because campaign finance reform is impossible without a Court willing to allow it. Wikler argues America is in the greatest period of political instability in its history, that inequality now exceeds the Gilded Age, that gerrymandering has left millions of people without a meaningful vote, and that both party bases increasingly want to fight more than they want to win — while swing and non-voters have simply given up on the system itself. He rejects the tired rebuilders-versus-renovators binary: FDR's Social Security pitch was a huge swing, incrementalism was the only path to Obamacare, and the actual art of politics is starting from values and vision and then figuring out what can pass.

The conversation gets specific about Wisconsin and about trust. Wikler pushes back on the idea that Francesca Hong is too "Madison" for a statewide race, notes she's spent years traveling and listening across the state, and calls Tom Tiffany an election denier who is genuinely beatable in a cycle where affordability is the central issue. He and Chuck work through the puzzle of why Tony Evers' calm, steady approach succeeded where Biden's didn't — Evers came out forcefully against Dobbs, and, more fundamentally, you have to convince a majority of voters that government can actually work, which means doing what you said you'd do and then relentlessly telling people you did it. Wikler points to pandemic relief as the cautionary tale: those programs dramatically improved life for lower-income voters, the child tax credit cut child poverty in half, and then it all expired and Democrats got punished for the loss rather than credited for the gain — with an extension that had bipartisan support dying anyway, because the filibuster exists largely to deprive the other side of a win. He credits Ken Martin for investing in state parties, argues Democrats don't need a 50-state strategy so much as fifty different state strategies since the coalition looks different everywhere, and concedes that Trump has been the most successful Republican of this era, spawning an army of mini-mes modeling themselves on him. And yes, Chuck asks the obvious question — why not run for Senate yourself? 

Finally, Chuck reveals his ToddCast Top 5 list of biggest non-presidential primary upsets, which David Crowley’s win taking the top spot. He also answers listeners’ questions in the “Ask Chuck” segment and weighs in on the highly suspicious sale of the Los Angeles Lakers to Jared Kushner’s brother.

Thanks to our sponsors:

Upgrade your everyday. Go to https://Quince.com/CHUCK for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. 

Play ball and swing for the fences on FanDuel, an official partner of the MLB at https://FANDUEL.COM. 

For free and unbiased Medicare help, dial (980) 734-3985 to speak with my trusted partner, Chapter, or go to askchapter.org/chuck / *Paid Partnership

Chapter and its affiliates are not connected with or endorsed by any government entity or the federal Medicare program. Chapter Advisory, LLC represents Medicare Advantage HMO, PPO, and PFFS organizations and stand alone prescription drug plans that have a Medicare contract. Enrollment depends on the plan’s contract renewal. While we have a database of every Medicare plan nationwide and can help you to search among all plans, we have contracts with many but not all plans. As a result, we do not offer every plan available in your area. Currently we represent 50 organizations which offer 18,160 products nationwide. We search and recommend all plans, even those we don’t directly offer. You can contact a licensed Chapter agent to find out the number of products available in your specific area. Please contact Medicare.gov, 1-800-Medicare, or your local State Health Insurance Program (SHIP) to get information on all of your options. 

Timeline:

00:00 Chuck Todd’s introduction

04:00 Unpacking David Crowley’s win over Francesca Hong in WI

04:45 Crowley got out, then back in to the race… yet still won

05:45 If Hong had won, she would have become a face of the Dem party

06:15 Hong had past statements that would have been problematic

07:15 She would have been forced to talk about Thanksgiving, not economics

08:15 Her win would have been an easy story for Republicans to tell

08:45 Abdul El-Sayed is a winner here, harder to be lumped in with DSA

10:00 National Democrats are more relieved than they will admit

11:00 Independents don’t want either party to let extremes take over

12:00 Democrats can make the distinction between themselves & socialism

13:30 The progressives didn’t blow it, Peggy Flannagan won in Minnesota

15:00 African-American primary voters remain an obstacle for progressives

16:30 Progressives gear toward working class voters, yet are rejected by them

17:30 Not winning working class voters is more than a messaging glitch

18:30 Structure of the primary has major impact on success of progressives

19:15 Progressives run into trouble in higher turnout primaries

20:30 Open primaries result in less extremist nominees

21:15 Hong’s big unforced error was campaigning nationally in final weeks

22:00 Nationalizing your race is about fundraising

22:45 Media appearances increasingly function as fundraising appearances

23:30 National online audience & local electorate aren’t the same people

24:15 Mamdani had a disciplined message & succeeded, Hong didn’t

25:00 Ideological candidates can win when the electorate agrees with them

26:00 Ideological movements forget they can sound weird to the normies

26:30 The establishment was dangerously close to screwing this up

28:15 The establishment side of the race was a chaotic mess

29:15 Tony Evers had to mount an emergency rescue operation for Crowley

30:30 David Crowley isn’t very “establishment”, came from modest roots

31:30 Tony Evers deserves credit for putting his capital behind Crowley

32:30 Notable AOC, Sanders and top progressives didn’t endorse Hong

33:45 Getting into boutique cultural debates ends up being a problem

34:30 In Michigan & Wisconsin, the campaigns that physically showed up won

36:15 If Crowley wins & El-Sayed loses, there will be a clear lesson for Dems

38:15 Tony Evers didn’t fence sit, he picked a side and it worked

40:00 Flannagan’s win dispels idea of total repudiation of progressives

42:00 Flannagan had establishment credentials while being progressive

42:30 Progressives aren’t running the table, but are doing better this cycle

43:15 The Democratic house in ‘27 will be younger & slightly further left

44:30 Crowley’s campaign was largely about what he wasn’t

46:00 There could be multiple demographic “first” Democratic governors

47:45 Could these new primary winners end up on a presidential ticket?

49:45 Progressives are doing better, but haven’t won control of the Dem party

50:45 Democrats can blunt the narrative that the socialists are taking over

51:15 Trump endorsed candidates keep losing their primaries

51:45 Mike Lindell was trounced in Minnesota primary

52:45 Trump endorsed Darline Graham didn’t get 1/3rd of the vote

53:15 Graham isn’t a shoo-in in the runoff

55:30 Trump’s endorsement isn’t a guaranteed win, his grip is slipping

57:00 14-term congressman John Larson loses his primary

57:45 Most incumbents have lost reelection this year since 1970

58:15 In a wave election, could see over 25% turnover of the House

59:30 Chris Christie says Iran war will turn Trump into Jimmy Carter

1:00:00 Iran is humiliating Trump, and it was all Trump’s choice

1:00:30 Iran issues list of demands, basically an “F You” ransom note

1:01:30 Iran are watching the American election calendar & acting accordingly

1:02:15 In 1980, the humiliation of Carter was the point, Iran sent a message

1:03:30 Mark Zuckerberg deserves credit for something he said

1:04:15 Zuckerberg argued that AI driven concentration of power is the danger

1:04:45 He says there’s no benevolent superintelligence held by one company

1:05:15 Committed to a review board to sign off on models before going public

1:05:45 At least the argument is being made… even if by a self-interested party

1:06:30 Revenue from Meta data centers has been paid to teachers & job training 

1:07:15 Meta reinvesting in communities with data centers is the right model

1:08:00 The manifesto was a debate with Sam Altman, buried the important things

1:09:15 Hope more tech CEO’s share his philosophy. Communities have to win too

1:16:45 Ben Wikler joins The Chuck ToddCast

1:17:45 Ben’s new book is “This Is The Plan”

1:18:00 What is the plan?

1:18:30 To get political change we need, we need to change the system

1:19:15 To secure free & fair elections, need to win at the state level

1:19:45 We need an end to the filibuster and Supreme Court reform

1:20:30 There’s no one office or candidate to get us out of this mess

1:22:30 We need to win the ring of power, then cast it into Mount Doom

1:23:00 When the right wins power, they immediately change systems

1:24:00 We keep having change elections, then not getting change

1:26:15 We’re in the greatest period of political instability in American history

1:29:15 Both party bases want to fight more than want to win

1:30:15 We’re so gerrymandered, people don’t really get a vote

1:31:45 Swing/Non voters have given up on the system itself

1:36:15 Are rebuilders or renovators going to win the argument?

1:36:45 FDR’s social security pitch was a big swing

1:39:15 Incrimentalism was the only way to pass Obamacare

1:40:00 The art of politics is values/vision, then figure out what can actually pass

1:41:00 A party should be able to change laws, then face the voters

1:42:15 Need to reform the Supreme Court to reform campaign finance laws

1:43:00 Advocate for term limits for Supreme Court justices in the book

1:43:30 Inequality is now worse than it was during the Gilded Age

1:44:45 Is Francesca Hong too “Madison” of a candidate for Wisconsin gov?

1:45:30 Hong has been traveling the state & listening for years

1:46:30 Wisconsin Dem gov primary has been topsy turvy

1:47:30 Tom Tiffany is an election denier & beatable candidate

1:48:45 Affordability is the central issue this election cycle

1:51:30 Why did “calming the waters” work for Tony Evers, but not Joe Biden?

1:52:15 Evers came out very strongly against Dobbs

1:53:00 You have to convince a majority of the public that government works

1:55:00 Trust is earned by doing what you say you’ll do, then highlighting it

1:56:30 Pandemic relief had a massive positive effect on lower income voters

1:57:00 Those programs stopped, and voters punished Dems for it

1:57:45 Child tax credit cut child poverty in half, great accomplishment for Dems

1:58:15 There was bipartisan support for extended tax credit, still didn’t get done

1:58:45 Filibuster is used to deprive the other side from getting a win

2:01:15 Politicians can lay out a succession plan, but voters get their say

2:02:45 Politicians are limited in setting out a succession plan

2:04:15 How big should the Democratic tent be?

2:05:15 The coalition looks different in different states

2:06:45 Donald Trump has been the most successful GOP politician of this era

2:07:30 Every Republican politician looks to Trump as the model

2:08:00 Trump has created an army of “mini-mes”

2:09:45 What Ken Martin is doing right: Building state parties

2:12:30 Democrats don’t need a 50 state strategy, they need 50 state strategies

2:13:30 You build a local brand through your actions over time

2:14:15 When did you first think about running for office?

2:16:15 Support Tammy Baldwin’s bill to provide live Packers games

2:17:45 Most excited about Jordan Love in the upcoming season

2:19:00 Why wouldn’t you run for the senate?

2:20:30 ToddCast Top 5 biggest non-presidential primary upsets

2:22:30 #5 Joe Crowley loses to AOC

2:23:30 #4 Carol Moseley Braun

2:24:15 #3 Andrew Gillum

2:25:15 #2 Eric Cantor

2:26:15 #1 David Crawley

2:27:45 Honorable mentions

2:29:15 Ask Chuck

2:29:30 If Talarico wins close, could partisan officials mess with the outcome?

2:32:30 What makes a vice presidency successful & who makes your top 5?

2:40:15 What does it say about us that voters knew who Trump was and reelected him?

2:44:15 Can Jewish leaders like Pritzker & Ossoff campaign effectively for El-Sayed?

2:46:45 Lakers sold again, for $12B to Josh Kushner and Bob Iger

2:47:45 Mark Walter bought Lakers 14 months ago for $10B, and is already out

2:48:30 This story could be nothing… but the details warrant suspicion

2:50:00 Mark Walter’s businesses are under federal investigation right now

2:51:00 Nobody has been charged or accused of anything yet

2:51:45 Why did Walter sell so fast is not a rhetorical question anymore

2:52:30 Kushner was set to buy a piece of the World Cup, until boycott threats

2:53:30 Anyone close to Trump will be assumed guilty until proven innocent

2:55:00 Maybe everything is on the up and up… but the details are shocking

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Ben Wikler, the former Wisconsin Democratic Party chair and author of the new book This Is the Plan joins the Chuck Toddcast to argue that Democrats keep making the same category error: they keep winning change elections and then failing to deliver change, because they're trying to fix policy without first fixing the system that determines who gets to make policy. Wikler's framing is memorable and a little cheeky — you have to win the ring of power and then cast it into Mount Doom — but his point is serious. When the right wins power, it immediately restructures the system to entrench itself; Democrats win and then govern as though the rules are fixed. His plan runs through the state level, where free and fair elections are actually secured, and demands ending the filibuster and reforming the Supreme Court, including term limits for justices, because campaign finance reform is impossible without a Court willing to allow it. Wikler argues America is in the greatest period of political instability in its history, that inequality now exceeds the Gilded Age, that gerrymandering has left millions of people without a meaningful vote, and that both party bases increasingly want to fight more than they want to win — while swing and non-voters have simply given up on the system itself. He rejects the tired rebuilders-versus-renovators binary: FDR's Social Security pitch was a huge swing, incrementalism was the only path to Obamacare, and the actual art of politics is starting from values and vision and then figuring out what can pass.

The conversation gets specific about Wisconsin and about trust. Wikler pushes back on the idea that Francesca Hong is too "Madison" for a statewide race, notes she's spent years traveling and listening across the state, and calls Tom Tiffany an election denier who is genuinely beatable in a cycle where affordability is the central issue. He and Chuck work through the puzzle of why Tony Evers' calm, steady approach succeeded where Biden's didn't — Evers came out forcefully against Dobbs, and, more fundamentally, you have to convince a majority of voters that government can actually work, which means doing what you said you'd do and then relentlessly telling people you did it. Wikler points to pandemic relief as the cautionary tale: those programs dramatically improved life for lower-income voters, the child tax credit cut child poverty in half, and then it all expired and Democrats got punished for the loss rather than credited for the gain — with an extension that had bipartisan support dying anyway, because the filibuster exists largely to deprive the other side of a win. He credits Ken Martin for investing in state parties, argues Democrats don't need a 50-state strategy so much as fifty different state strategies since the coalition looks different everywhere, and concedes that Trump has been the most successful Republican of this era, spawning an army of mini-mes modeling themselves on him. And yes, Chuck asks the obvious question — why not run for Senate yourself? 

Thanks to the sponsors of The Chuck ToddCast:

Upgrade your everyday. Go to https://Quince.com/CHUCK for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. 

Play ball and swing for the fences on FanDuel, an official partner of the MLB at https://FANDUEL.COM. 

For free and unbiased Medicare help, dial (980) 734-3985 to speak with my trusted partner, Chapter, or go to askchapter.org/chuck / *Paid Partnership

Chapter and its affiliates are not connected with or endorsed by any government entity or the federal Medicare program. Chapter Advisory, LLC represents Medicare Advantage HMO, PPO, and PFFS organizations and stand alone prescription drug plans that have a Medicare contract. Enrollment depends on the plan’s contract renewal. While we have a database of every Medicare plan nationwide and can help you to search among all plans, we have contracts with many but not all plans. As a result, we do not offer every plan available in your area. Currently we represent 50 organizations which offer 18,160 products nationwide. We search and recommend all plans, even those we don’t directly offer. You can contact a licensed Chapter agent to find out the number of products available in your specific area. Please contact Medicare.gov, 1-800-Medicare, or your local State Health Insurance Program (SHIP) to get information on all of your options. 

Timeline:

(Timestamps may vary based on advertisements)

00:00 Ben Wikler joins The Chuck ToddCast

01:00 Ben’s new book is “This Is The Plan”

01:15 What is the plan?

01:45 To get political change we need, we need to change the system

02:30 To secure free & fair elections, need to win at the state level

03:00 We need an end to the filibuster and Supreme Court reform

03:45 There’s no one office or candidate to get us out of this mess

05:45 We need to win the ring of power, then cast it into Mount Doom

06:15 When the right wins power, they immediately change systems

07:15 We keep having change elections, then not getting change

09:30 We’re in the greatest period of political instability in American history

12:30 Both party bases want to fight more than want to win

13:30 We’re so gerrymandered, people don’t really get a vote

15:00 Swing/Non voters have given up on the system itself

19:30 Are rebuilders or renovators going to win the argument?

20:00 FDR’s social security pitch was a big swing

22:30 Incrimentalism was the only way to pass Obamacare

23:15 The art of politics is values/vision, then figure out what can actually pass

24:15 A party should be able to change laws, then face the voters

25:30 Need to reform the Supreme Court to reform campaign finance laws

26:15 Advocate for term limits for Supreme Court justices in the book

26:45 Inequality is now worse than it was during the Gilded Age

28:00 Is Francesca Hong too “Madison” of a candidate for Wisconsin gov?

28:45 Hong has been traveling the state & listening for years

29:45 Wisconsin Dem gov primary has been topsy turvy

30:45 Tom Tiffany is an election denier & beatable candidate

32:00 Affordability is the central issue this election cycle

34:45 Why did “calming the waters” work for Tony Evers, but not Joe Biden?

35:30 Evers came out very strongly against Dobbs

36:15 You have to convince a majority of the public that government works

38:15 Trust is earned by doing what you say you’ll do, then highlighting it

39:45 Pandemic relief had a massive positive effect on lower income voters

40:15 Those programs stopped, and voters punished Dems for it

41:00 Child tax credit cut child poverty in half, great accomplishment for Dems

41:30 There was bipartisan support for extended tax credit, still didn’t get done

42:00 Filibuster is used to deprive the other side from getting a win

44:30 Politicians can lay out a succession plan, but voters get their say

46:00 Politicians are limited in setting out a succession plan

47:30 How big should the Democratic tent be? 

48:30 The coalition looks different in different states

50:00 Donald Trump has been the most successful GOP politician of this era

50:45 Every Republican politician looks to Trump as the model

51:15 Trump has created an army of “mini-mes”

53:00 What Ken Martin is doing right: Building state parties

55:45 Democrats don’t need a 50 state strategy, they need 50 state strategies

56:45 You build a local brand through your actions over time

57:30 When did you first think about running for office?

59:30 Support Tammy Baldwin’s bill to provide live Packers games

1:01:00 Most excited about Jordan Love in the upcoming season

1:02:15 Why wouldn’t you run for the senate?

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

With 84 days to the midterms and a six-state primary night ahead, Chuck Todd and Chris Cillizza open on Chuck's least-hedged read of the cycle: Democrats haven't had a good summer, but Republicans have had a worse one, and every macro trend points to something in the neighborhood of 30 House seats and six or seven Senate seats. The only thing holding him back from calling it a pasting is the Democratic brand problem — and they dig into the polling behind it, including why Hillary Clinton's warning that the socialism-and-communism attack could land is worth taking seriously. That leads to the sharpest segment of the episode: whether Abdul El-Sayed needs to give a version of the Kennedy "I don't work for the Pope" or Obama race speech about being a Muslim American, why the traditional consultant advice to ignore it is wrong, and where he'd give it. They then flip the question to the other side, asking whether Josh Shapiro, Jon Ossoff, Rahm Emanuel, or JB Pritzker will face a parallel demand to publicly separate loyalty to the Constitution from loyalty to Israel.

The back half is a clinic in reading political spin. Tim Scott's claim that Republicans will hold 54 Senate seats prompts a broader riff on why partisans now get punished for telling the truth, and why both the political industry and the media have built incentives against saying what's obvious. They break down AOC's remarkable weekend — announcing she's freezing her eggs, then telling Jon Karl she hasn't ruled out 2028 — and what it signals about staking a claim to the progressive lane before El-Sayed can. Chuck makes the case that parenthood is a real asset in presidential politics, and they assess whether Ossoff, now climbing the prediction markets, has the hunger and stamina for it, plus why Shapiro sometimes reads as a try-hard. They close with a genuinely angry exchange about Bill Cassidy's Blanche vote, the threats reshaping how senators vote, and a Nats-and-Reds baseball detour.

Timeline:

(Timestamps may vary based on advertisements)

00:00 84 days out and a six-state primary night ahead

00:45 Previewing the primaries

01:37 Republicans had a worse summer than Democrats

02:49 Trump makes it harder. Congress did nothing to earn reelection

03:14 Why the macro says 30 House seats and 6-7 Senate seats

04:02 Does the nominee even matter in an environment this bad?

05:14 Hillary Clinton's warning about the socialism-communism attack

06:14 In wave years, the losing party always thinks it's found a lifeline

06:45 Where the communism attack could actually work 

08:27 Did "Comrade Kamala" actually help Trump in 2024?

09:42 The attack only lands if a seed has already been planted

10:47 The mailbag question: Islamophobia in the Michigan race

11:11 Using El-Sayed's full name isn't even a dog whistle

12:10 Should El-Sayed give an Islam speech?

12:55 Why the consultant advice — stay on affordability — is wrong here

14:13 The Obama-and-Reverend-Wright precedent

15:45 Mike Rogers, Hassan Piker & a false attribution in circulation

17:24 Jackie Robinson, Kennedy, and breaking barriers

20:15 The flip side: will a Jewish candidate face the same demand?

22:10 The line each of them may have to draw on Netanyahu

23:02 Fever swamp vs. what voters actually care about

23:33 The insulting premise, and the Catholic parallel from the 1950s

25:05 Tim Scott tells Manu Raju Republicans will have 54 seats

26:51 Why partisans now get punished for telling the truth

28:49 Scott on Paxton, and what you're required to say out loud

30:42 Why they do the live streams — no election-night patty cake

31:47 The rare politicians who still say it plainly

32:41 AOC announces she's freezing her eggs

33:26 AOC says she's open to 2028

34:45 The El-Sayed factor: a swing-state progressive with more juice

36:23 Chuck's argument: you're a stronger candidate if you're a parent

37:52 Bush, Obama, Biden & families as political assets

38:51 Even Trump's kids softened him in 2016

41:08 The Howard Stern statistic about listeners who hate you

41:24 Ossoff passes Newsom in the Kalshi and Polymarket 2028 odds

42:10 Why Ossoff clearly has the ambition

44:08 Ossoff and Pritzker could bridge the party's divide

45:17 Pritzker's own money and his own record

46:07 Does Mark Kelly have the hunger? Does Wes Moore?

47:47 Where Shapiro crosses from wanting it to trying too hard

48:28 Des Moines in November, and why nobody likes a try-hard

49:18 Cassidy & Blanche 

50:40 The part that doesn't get reported: threats to families

51:21 You signed up to put the public ahead of yourself

53:15 Trump tells Punchbowl the voters are angry at Republicans, not him

53:46 Will he actually spend the super PAC money? 

54:04 The truth-serum question: would Trump rather be replaced by a Democrat?

54:20 Nats sweep the Reds

55:32 What is wrong with the Cincinnati Reds?

57:42 The Nats' 34-year-old analytics manager

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Chuck Todd opens with the Greenland oil expedition, an episode so strange it borders on parody: an American oil company drilling in defiance of another country's laws, with Trump's blessing, and — the detail that breaks the brain — Dr. Phil hired to document the whole thing. It's a fitting overture for a week in which the Senate confirmed Todd Blanche as Attorney General 50-49 at four in the morning before fleeing town for recess, with only Collins and Murkowski defecting. Chuck admits he was wrong; he never thought Blanche would actually get there. What galls him is the surrender it represents. Bill Cassidy's rationale — that Trump "needs someone to tell him no" — is laughable given that Blanche has said outright that the rule of law belongs to Trump and the DOJ won't be independent. John Cornyn's shrug that "there's nothing we can do to rein in the president" is, Chuck argues, the confession of a coward: senators possess the authority and simply refuse to use it, giving away what little leverage they had. The debate has now been reduced to whether the Attorney General is the people's lawyer or the president's.

Then takes on the question of why Democratic voters keep rewarding progressives whose politics they don't actually share, and his answer is that half the Democratic electorate did not suddenly become socialist — they're furious about 2024, and specifically about leadership deciding the nominee for them. They didn't dislike Harris; they wanted a choice, and they'd watched the establishment coalesce around Biden in 2020 to produce a presidency that ended with Trump's return. Progressives are the only Democrats willing to say the party screwed up, and voters will give you enormous latitude on the cure if they trust your diagnosis. Chuck illustrates it with a Washington Post story about the Conn brass instrument factory in Ohio, bought by Trump-supporting, tariff-championing investor John Paulson and now closing as production moves offshore — where the disillusioned employees don't plan to vote at all, because they feel the system has failed them for decades. He believes the opening in American politics right now isn't centrism, it's breaking up an establishment that voters believe is more worried about losing donors than losing their votes. He wonders aloud whether the answer is a military leader — he's intrigued by retired General Chris Donahue, essentially Captain America on paper, pushed out by Trump and Hegseth, with credibility across the aisle. Americans are exhausted by being told the other half of the country is the bad guy, they're desperate for honesty and a reboot of a captured government, and the space is wide open for someone to fill it. But Chuck’s closing caution matters: the system is badly screwed up, and that still isn't a reason to burn it all down.

Finally, Chuck hops into the ToddCast Time Machine to revisit two different but related events: the signing of the Social Security Act by FDR, and Richard Nixon announcing price and wage controls to combat inflation. Chuck argues that America has always flirted with socialism even if we call it by another name. He also answers listeners questions in the “Ask Chuck” segment. 

Upgrade your everyday. Go to https://Quince.com/CHUCK for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. 

Play ball and swing for the fences on FanDuel, an official partner of the MLB at https://FANDUEL.COM. 

For free and unbiased Medicare help, dial (980) 734-3985 to speak with my trusted partner, Chapter, or go to askchapter.org/chuck / *Paid Partnership

Chapter and its affiliates are not connected with or endorsed by any government entity or the federal Medicare program. Chapter Advisory, LLC represents Medicare Advantage HMO, PPO, and PFFS organizations and stand alone prescription drug plans that have a Medicare contract. Enrollment depends on the plan’s contract renewal. While we have a database of every Medicare plan nationwide and can help you to search among all plans, we have contracts with many but not all plans. As a result, we do not offer every plan available in your area. Currently we represent 50 organizations which offer 18,160 products nationwide. We search and recommend all plans, even those we don’t directly offer. You can contact a licensed Chapter agent to find out the number of products available in your specific area. Please contact Medicare.gov, 1-800-Medicare, or your local State Health Insurance Program (SHIP) to get information on all of your options. 

Timeline:

(Timestamps may vary based on advertisements)

00:00 Chuck Todd’s introduction

00:30 Trump’s crazy Greenland oil adventure 

01:15 Trump is just ignoring the laws of another country

01:45 Craziest detail is oil company hired Dr. Phil to document the expedition

02:15 Trump has gone out of his way to alienate European allies

02:45 Oprah gave us Dr. Oz & Dr. Phil… which is not a good thing

06:45 U.S. senate leaves town for recess after passing funding bill

07:15 Todd Blanche is now the confirmed AG for the United States

08:00 Republicans passed none of the things they said are priorities

09:00 GOP has a trifecta and still can’t get anything done

10:00 Was wrong about Blanche, didn’t think he’d actually get confirmed

10:45 Confirmed 50-49, not surprising Collins & Murkowski defected

11:45 Cassidy’s rationale was “Trump needs someone to tell him no”

12:15 Cassidy’s rationale is laughable

13:15 Even Bill Barr had a line he wouldn’t cross with Trump

14:45 The senate gave away what little leverage they have with Trump

16:00 John Cornyn says “there’s nothing we can do to rein in the president”

16:30 These Republicans are cowards, won’t exercise their authority*

17:00 These senators need to do their job

18:00 Blanche said the rule of law belongs to Trump, DOJ won’t be independent

19:00 Debate is now if AG is the people’s lawyer or the president’s lawyer

19:45 If he were alive, Trump would have nominated Roy Cohn

20:30 You don’t want presidents deciding who gets investigated

21:30 Trump got involved with Reflecting Pool vandal case THIS WEEK

22:30 Trump’s entire life has been about wearing people down

23:15 Republicans have politicized DOJ more than any previous admin

23:45 MAGA’s premise is that two wrongs do make a right

24:15 Does anybody in congress understand the constitution?

25:30 Confirming Blanche will cause more public distrust in DOJ

26:30 Founders never wanted the president to determine rule of law

27:00 Senate didn’t get crypto or college sports bill passed before recess

27:45 Republicans claim SAVE act is existential, didn’t pass it

28:45 Why do voters entertain progressives that don’t align with them?

29:15 Half the democratic electorate didn’t suddenly become socialist

30:30 Democratic voters are pissed off, think party messed up in 2024

31:00 Voters are mad leadership decided who the ‘24 nominee would be

31:30 Voters didn’t dislike Harris, but they wanted a choice

32:30 In 2020, the establishment coalesced around Biden

33:15 Biden’s presidency was a failure since it resulted in Trump returning

34:00 Progressives are the only Dems saying the party screwed up

35:30 Like Trump, the progressives are saying leadership is full of shit

36:15 Voters will give you latitude on the cure if they trust your diagnosis

37:00 WaPo story about Conn factory closing & private equity

38:00 Factory is in Ohio, been making brass instruments

38:45 Factory is closing and laying off all the employees

39:30 Conn was bought by John Paulson, Trump supporter who supports tariffs

40:30 Paulson is moving production offshore after arguing against it

42:00 Plant employees were completely disillusioned with politics

43:00 Employees feel like the system has left them down for decades, won’t vote

44:30 Romney’s loss was due to millions of white voters sitting out entirely

45:15 Trump’s appeal brought those voters back into the electorate

47:15 Voters reward candidates that can diagnose & call out their problems

48:00 Trump proved politically dormant voters can be reactivated

48:30 There’s always a third destination for voters… the couch

49:00 If the two parties don’t reform themselves, they risk being replaced

50:15 The opening isn’t centrism, it’s breaking up the establishment

51:15 Politics requires huge amounts of money, results in capture

52:15 Voters believe reps are more worried about losing donors than their vote

53:00 Competence and morality are not the same thing in politics

53:45 Leaders need to admit that they screwed everything up

54:30 Americans are desperate for a reset & are embracing revolutionaries

55:00 A military leader might be exactly what we need in next president

55:45 Intrigued by retired general Chris Donahue & his resume

56:45 Donahue is basically Captain America & was forced out by Trump & Hegseth

58:15 Someone like Donahue could have the credibility across the aisle

59:30 Politics won’t acknowledge failure if they think it helps the other side

1:00:00 Americans are desperate for honesty & morality in politics

1:01:15 It’s exhausting being told the other half of America is the bad guys

1:03:15 Voters want to preserve the Republic, but don’t trust the leadership

1:04:00 Voters want a reboot, and a government that isn’t captured

1:05:00 The political space is waiting for someone to fill this vacuum

1:06:00 The system is screwed up, but we shouldn’t burn it all down

1:11:00 ToddCast Time Machine - Where America embraces socialism

1:12:30 Socialist policies have come from presidents of both parties

1:13:45 FDR signs the Social Security Act - Nixon announces price & wage controls

1:14:45 Americans worry about prosperity, not ideological consistency

1:17:15 Capitalism was being questioned after the Great Depression

1:17:45 FDR wanted to repair, not replace capitalism

1:18:30 Social Security started as a much smaller program than it is today

1:19:15 Congress continued adding to the program over the years

1:21:15 America imposed price & wage controls during WW2 that went beyond Nixon

1:22:00 August 15, 1971 - Nixon announces price & wage controls

1:23:15 Nixon was desperate to stop inflation

1:24:15 Administration announced ceilings on meat prices, caused shortages

1:25:30 The controls were lifted right before the election

1:26:45 We have plenty of socialist policies called by another name

1:27:45 The policies give the sense of individual control

1:28:30 Americans are allergic to government control over their choices

1:29:15 Government under Trump is acquiring stakes in American companies

1:31:00 America has always been more socialist than we like to admit

1:32:45 Ask Chuck

1:33:00 Are college educated Republican voters on the journey leftward?

1:37:00 How should Abdul El-Sayed respond to racist & Islamophobic attacks?

1:45:30 Do candidates on the same ballot create measurable coattails?

1:50:00 Any chance Republicans voted for El-Sayed thinking he’d be easier to beat?

1:53:00 Was Pirro’s dropping of Reflecting Pool case an offramp for Trump?

1:56:00 How does an everyday person help make real political change?

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Chuck Todd opens with the Greenland oil expedition, an episode so strange it borders on parody: an American oil company drilling in defiance of another country's laws, with Trump's blessing, and — the detail that breaks the brain — Dr. Phil hired to document the whole thing. It's a fitting overture for a week in which the Senate confirmed Todd Blanche as Attorney General 50-49 at four in the morning before fleeing town for recess, with only Collins and Murkowski defecting. Chuck admits he was wrong; he never thought Blanche would actually get there. What galls him is the surrender it represents. Bill Cassidy's rationale — that Trump "needs someone to tell him no" — is laughable given that Blanche has said outright that the rule of law belongs to Trump and the DOJ won't be independent. John Cornyn's shrug that "there's nothing we can do to rein in the president" is, Chuck argues, the confession of a coward: senators possess the authority and simply refuse to use it, giving away what little leverage they had. The debate has now been reduced to whether the Attorney General is the people's lawyer or the president's.

Then takes on the question of why Democratic voters keep rewarding progressives whose politics they don't actually share, and his answer is that half the Democratic electorate did not suddenly become socialist — they're furious about 2024, and specifically about leadership deciding the nominee for them. They didn't dislike Harris; they wanted a choice, and they'd watched the establishment coalesce around Biden in 2020 to produce a presidency that ended with Trump's return. Progressives are the only Democrats willing to say the party screwed up, and voters will give you enormous latitude on the cure if they trust your diagnosis. Chuck illustrates it with a Washington Post story about the Conn brass instrument factory in Ohio, bought by Trump-supporting, tariff-championing investor John Paulson and now closing as production moves offshore — where the disillusioned employees don't plan to vote at all, because they feel the system has failed them for decades. He believes the opening in American politics right now isn't centrism, it's breaking up an establishment that voters believe is more worried about losing donors than losing their votes. He wonders aloud whether the answer is a military leader — he's intrigued by retired General Chris Donahue, essentially Captain America on paper, pushed out by Trump and Hegseth, with credibility across the aisle. Americans are exhausted by being told the other half of the country is the bad guy, they're desperate for honesty and a reboot of a captured government, and the space is wide open for someone to fill it. But Chuck’s closing caution matters: the system is badly screwed up, and that still isn't a reason to burn it all down.

Then, Oscar-nominated documentarian Rory Kennedy joins the Chuck Toddcast to discuss Freefall: A Reckoning for Boeing, her Netflix follow-up to 2022's Downfall premiering August 19th — a film built around the death of whistleblower John Barnett and the current and former employees who came forward after it. Kennedy's central finding is damning in its simplicity: at the end of Downfall, Boeing swore it had learned its lesson and changed its ways. It hadn't. More incidents followed, whistleblowers reached out to tell her conditions had actually gotten worse, and she says she believes Boeing bears responsibility for Barnett's death. Kennedy walks Chuck through the structural rot she sees behind the headlines — a near-total lack of competition, a revolving door between the FAA and the company it's supposed to regulate, a McDonnell Douglas merger that reoriented the entire culture around quarterly earnings instead of engineering excellence, and the decision to leave Seattle in search of a non-union workforce — which matters enormously, she notes, because unions are what give workers real whistleblower protection. Boeing is simultaneously one of the most heavily subsidized companies in American history and, right now, one that isn't being held accountable in any meaningful way.

Kennedy is unusually direct about the practical takeaway: she won't fly on a 737 MAX and actively chooses flights on other aircraft, pointing out the counterintuitive reality that older model planes are often the safer bet — a consumer shift that has hit budget airlines hardest. She and Chuck get into the incidents that never made national news, including oxygen masks that failed to work, and she's blunt that the Trump administration hasn't provided anything resembling adequate regulatory oversight while families of the 346 crash victims are still fighting to hold the company responsible. Kennedy sees this fall's elections as a genuine chance to put people in place who care about the flying public, and reflects candidly on how she's feeling about American politics generally — that this administration is making choices that are hurting a lot of people. There's also a lovely detour into Ethel, her documentary about her mother, which she says holds a special place in her heart, plus a look at what she's working on next.

Finally, Chuck hops into the ToddCast Time Machine to revisit two different but related events: the signing of the Social Security Act by FDR, and Richard Nixon announcing price and wage controls to combat inflation. Chuck argues that America has always flirted with socialism even if we call it by another name. He also answers listeners questions in the “Ask Chuck” segment. 

Upgrade your everyday. Go to https://Quince.com/CHUCK for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. 

Play ball and swing for the fences on FanDuel, an official partner of the MLB at https://FANDUEL.COM. 

For free and unbiased Medicare help, dial (980) 734-3985 to speak with my trusted partner, Chapter, or go to askchapter.org/chuck / *Paid Partnership

Chapter and its affiliates are not connected with or endorsed by any government entity or the federal Medicare program. Chapter Advisory, LLC represents Medicare Advantage HMO, PPO, and PFFS organizations and stand alone prescription drug plans that have a Medicare contract. Enrollment depends on the plan’s contract renewal. While we have a database of every Medicare plan nationwide and can help you to search among all plans, we have contracts with many but not all plans. As a result, we do not offer every plan available in your area. Currently we represent 50 organizations which offer 18,160 products nationwide. We search and recommend all plans, even those we don’t directly offer. You can contact a licensed Chapter agent to find out the number of products available in your specific area. Please contact Medicare.gov, 1-800-Medicare, or your local State Health Insurance Program (SHIP) to get information on all of your options. 

Timeline:

00:00 Chuck Todd’s introduction

00:30 Trump’s crazy Greenland oil adventure 

01:15 Trump is just ignoring the laws of another country

01:45 Craziest detail is oil company hired Dr. Phil to document the expedition

02:15 Trump has gone out of his way to alienate European allies

02:45 Oprah gave us Dr. Oz & Dr. Phil… which is not a good thing

06:45 U.S. senate leaves town for recess after passing funding bill

07:15 Todd Blanche is now the confirmed AG for the United States

08:00 Republicans passed none of the things they said are priorities

09:00 GOP has a trifecta and still can’t get anything done

10:00 Was wrong about Blanche, didn’t think he’d actually get confirmed

10:45 Confirmed 50-49, not surprising Collins & Murkowski defected

11:45 Cassidy’s rationale was “Trump needs someone to tell him no”

12:15 Cassidy’s rationale is laughable

13:15 Even Bill Barr had a line he wouldn’t cross with Trump

14:45 The senate gave away what little leverage they have with Trump

16:00 John Cornyn says “there’s nothing we can do to rein in the president”

16:30 These Republicans are cowards, won’t exercise their authority*

17:00 These senators need to do their job

18:00 Blanche said the rule of law belongs to Trump, DOJ won’t be independent

19:00 Debate is now if AG is the people’s lawyer or the president’s lawyer

19:45 If he were alive, Trump would have nominated Roy Cohn

20:30 You don’t want presidents deciding who gets investigated

21:30 Trump got involved with Reflecting Pool vandal case THIS WEEK

22:30 Trump’s entire life has been about wearing people down

23:15 Republicans have politicized DOJ more than any previous admin

23:45 MAGA’s premise is that two wrongs do make a right

24:15 Does anybody in congress understand the constitution?

25:30 Confirming Blanche will cause more public distrust in DOJ

26:30 Founders never wanted the president to determine rule of law

27:00 Senate didn’t get crypto or college sports bill passed before recess

27:45 Republicans claim SAVE act is existential, didn’t pass it

28:45 Why do voters entertain progressives that don’t align with them?

29:15 Half the democratic electorate didn’t suddenly become socialist

30:30 Democratic voters are pissed off, think party messed up in 2024

31:00 Voters are mad leadership decided who the ‘24 nominee would be

31:30 Voters didn’t dislike Harris, but they wanted a choice

32:30 In 2020, the establishment coalesced around Biden

33:15 Biden’s presidency was a failure since it resulted in Trump returning

34:00 Progressives are the only Dems saying the party screwed up

35:30 Like Trump, the progressives are saying leadership is full of shit

36:15 Voters will give you latitude on the cure if they trust your diagnosis

37:00 WaPo story about Conn factory closing & private equity

38:00 Factory is in Ohio, been making brass instruments

38:45 Factory is closing and laying off all the employees

39:30 Conn was bought by John Paulson, Trump supporter who supports tariffs

40:30 Paulson is moving production offshore after arguing against it

42:00 Plant employees were completely disillusioned with politics

43:00 Employees feel like the system has left them down for decades, won’t vote

44:30 Romney’s loss was due to millions of white voters sitting out entirely

45:15 Trump’s appeal brought those voters back into the electorate

47:15 Voters reward candidates that can diagnose & call out their problems

48:00 Trump proved politically dormant voters can be reactivated

48:30 There’s always a third destination for voters… the couch

49:00 If the two parties don’t reform themselves, they risk being replaced

50:15 The opening isn’t centrism, it’s breaking up the establishment

51:15 Politics requires huge amounts of money, results in capture

52:15 Voters believe reps are more worried about losing donors than their vote

53:00 Competence and morality are not the same thing in politics

53:45 Leaders need to admit that they screwed everything up

54:30 Americans are desperate for a reset & are embracing revolutionaries

55:00 A military leader might be exactly what we need in next president

55:45 Intrigued by retired general Chris Donahue & his resume

56:45 Donahue is basically Captain America & was forced out by Trump & Hegseth

58:15 Someone like Donahue could have the credibility across the aisle

59:30 Politics won’t acknowledge failure if they think it helps the other side

1:00:00 Americans are desperate for honesty & morality in politics

1:01:15 It’s exhausting being told the other half of America is the bad guys

1:03:15 Voters want to preserve the Republic, but don’t trust the leadership

1:04:00 Voters want a reboot, and a government that isn’t captured

1:05:00 The political space is waiting for someone to fill this vacuum

1:06:00 The system is screwed up, but we shouldn’t burn it all down

1:13:00 Rory Kennedy (Freefall) joins the Chuck ToddCast

1:14:30 Documentary “Ethel” about her mother holds special place in her heart

1:15:30 It became evident that Boeing knew about faulty systems on 737 MAX

1:16:15 Boeing swore they’d change, then more incidents happened

1:17:15 Believe Boeing is responsible for whistleblower John Barnett’s death

1:19:15 Lack of competition is one of the reasons Boeing has been sloppy

1:20:15 There’s a revolving door between the FAA and Boeing

1:22:00 Are Boeing’s problems coming from a single source, or multiple?

1:23:45 Boeing has long been a foundational American company

1:24:30 Parts for Boeing planes come from all over the world

1:26:00 Whistleblowers reached out to say problems had gotten worse

1:27:00 Right now, Boeing isn’t being held accountable

1:27:30 Haven’t seen Boeing make significant changes

1:29:15 Focus on profits and quarterly earnings outweighed safety

1:30:00 Boeing is one of the most subsidized companies in US history

1:31:00 McDonnell-Douglas merger has contributed to Boeing’s downfall

1:33:30 Wouldn’t fly on a 737 MAX and choose flights on other planes

1:36:00 Consumers choosing not to fly on the 737 MAX hurt budget airlines

1:37:00 Older model planes are actually safer

1:38:30 Decision to leave Seattle was to find a non-union workforce

1:39:45 Unions protect workers, give them whistleblower protection

1:41:00 Airbus is a better run company than Boeing

1:42:30 Boeing and Airbus are the only two options

1:44:45 The Trump administration hasn’t provided proper regulation for Boeing

1:45:15 Families of crash victims are still trying to hold Boeing responsible

1:48:15 Elections this fall could put people in place who care about the public

1:49:45 Incidents where the oxygen masks weren’t working

1:51:30 How are you feeling about politics these days?

1:52:00 Administration is making choices that are hurting a lot of people

1:53:30 What projects do you have coming up next?

1:56:00 Had a screening at Boeing with top executives

1:57:15 ToddCast Time Machine - Where America embraces socialism

1:58:45 Socialist policies have come from presidents of both parties

2:00:00 FDR signs the Social Security Act - Nixon announces price & wage controls

2:01:00 Americans worry about prosperity, not ideological consistency

2:03:30 Capitalism was being questioned after the Great Depression

2:04:00 FDR wanted to repair, not replace capitalism

2:04:45 Social Security started as a much smaller program than it is today

2:05:30 Congress continued adding to the program over the years

2:07:30 America imposed price & wage controls during WW2 that went beyond Nixon

2:08:15 August 15, 1971 - Nixon announces price & wage controls

2:09:30 Nixon was desperate to stop inflation

2:10:30 Administration announced ceilings on meat prices, caused shortages

2:11:45 The controls were lifted right before the election

2:13:00 We have plenty of socialist policies called by another name

2:14:00 The policies give the sense of individual control

2:14:45 Americans are allergic to government control over their choices

2:15:30 Government under Trump is acquiring stakes in American companies

2:17:15 America has always been more socialist than we like to admit

2:19:00 Ask Chuck

2:19:15 Are college educated Republican voters on the journey leftward?

2:23:15 How should Abdul El-Sayed respond to racist & Islamophobic attacks?

2:31:45 Do candidates on the same ballot create measurable coattails?

2:36:15 Any chance Republicans voted for El-Sayed thinking he’d be easier to beat?

2:39:15 Was Pirro’s dropping of Reflecting Pool case an offramp for Trump?

2:42:15 How does an everyday person help make real political change?

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Oscar-nominated documentarian Rory Kennedy joins the Chuck Toddcast to discuss Freefall: A Reckoning for Boeing, her Netflix follow-up to 2022's Downfall premiering August 19th — a film built around the death of whistleblower John Barnett and the current and former employees who came forward after it. Kennedy's central finding is damning in its simplicity: at the end of Downfall, Boeing swore it had learned its lesson and changed its ways. It hadn't. More incidents followed, whistleblowers reached out to tell her conditions had actually gotten worse, and she says she believes Boeing bears responsibility for Barnett's death. Kennedy walks Chuck through the structural rot she sees behind the headlines — a near-total lack of competition, a revolving door between the FAA and the company it's supposed to regulate, a McDonnell Douglas merger that reoriented the entire culture around quarterly earnings instead of engineering excellence, and the decision to leave Seattle in search of a non-union workforce — which matters enormously, she notes, because unions are what give workers real whistleblower protection. Boeing is simultaneously one of the most heavily subsidized companies in American history and, right now, one that isn't being held accountable in any meaningful way.

Kennedy is unusually direct about the practical takeaway: she won't fly on a 737 MAX and actively chooses flights on other aircraft, pointing out the counterintuitive reality that older model planes are often the safer bet — a consumer shift that has hit budget airlines hardest. She and Chuck get into the incidents that never made national news, including oxygen masks that failed to work, and she's blunt that the Trump administration hasn't provided anything resembling adequate regulatory oversight while families of the 346 crash victims are still fighting to hold the company responsible. Kennedy sees this fall's elections as a genuine chance to put people in place who care about the flying public, and reflects candidly on how she's feeling about American politics generally — that this administration is making choices that are hurting a lot of people. There's also a lovely detour into Ethel, her documentary about her mother, which she says holds a special place in her heart, plus a look at what she's working on next.

Upgrade your everyday. Go to https://Quince.com/CHUCK for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. 

Play ball and swing for the fences on FanDuel, an official partner of the MLB at https://FANDUEL.COM. 

For free and unbiased Medicare help, dial (980) 734-3985 to speak with my trusted partner, Chapter, or go to askchapter.org/chuck / *Paid Partnership

Chapter and its affiliates are not connected with or endorsed by any government entity or the federal Medicare program. Chapter Advisory, LLC represents Medicare Advantage HMO, PPO, and PFFS organizations and stand alone prescription drug plans that have a Medicare contract. Enrollment depends on the plan’s contract renewal. While we have a database of every Medicare plan nationwide and can help you to search among all plans, we have contracts with many but not all plans. As a result, we do not offer every plan available in your area. Currently we represent 50 organizations which offer 18,160 products nationwide. We search and recommend all plans, even those we don’t directly offer. You can contact a licensed Chapter agent to find out the number of products available in your specific area. Please contact Medicare.gov, 1-800-Medicare, or your local State Health Insurance Program (SHIP) to get information on all of your options. 

Timeline:

00:00 Rory Kennedy (Freefall) joins the Chuck ToddCast

01:30 Documentary “Ethel” about her mother holds special place in her heart

02:30 It became evident that Boeing knew about faulty systems on 737 MAX

03:15 Boeing swore they’d change, then more incidents happened

04:15 Believe Boeing is responsible for whistleblower John Barnett’s death

06:15 Lack of competition is one of the reasons Boeing has been sloppy

07:15 There’s a revolving door between the FAA and Boeing

09:00 Are Boeing’s problems coming from a single source, or multiple?

10:45 Boeing has long been a foundational American company

11:30 Parts for Boeing planes come from all over the world

13:00 Whistleblowers reached out to say problems had gotten worse

14:00 Right now, Boeing isn’t being held accountable

14:30 Haven’t seen Boeing make significant changes

16:15 Focus on profits and quarterly earnings outweighed safety

17:00 Boeing is one of the most subsidized companies in US history

18:00 McDonell-Douglas merger has contributed to Boeing’s downfall

20:30 Wouldn’t fly on a 737 Max and choose flights on other planes

23:00 Consumers choosing not to fly on the 737 Max hurt budget airlines

24:00 Older model planes are actually safer

25:30 Decision to leave Seattle was to find a non-union workforce

26:45 Unions protect workers, give them whistleblower protection

28:00 Airbus is a better run company than Boeing

29:30 Boeing and Airbus are the only two options 

31:45 The Trump administration hasn’t provided proper regulation for Boeing

32:15 Families of crash victims are still trying to hold Boeing responsible

35:15 Elections this fall could put people in place who care about the public

36:45 Incidents where the oxygen masks weren’t working

38:30 How are you feeling about politics these days?

39:00 Administration is making choices that are hurting a lot of people

40:30 What projects do you have coming up next?

43:00 Had a screening at Boeing with top executives

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Chuck Todd breaks down a primary night that scrambled the Senate map, starting in Michigan where Abdul El-Sayed edged Rep. Haley Stevens by roughly 20,000 votes — overcoming a nearly 8-to-1 spending disadvantage in what became the most expensive Senate primary in American history. He argues the narrow margin was actually the best thing that could have happened to El-Sayed, and while Michigan is now a harder general election for Democrats against Mike Rogers, El-Sayed can absolutely win it. The most fascinating data point buried in the results: El-Sayed carried Grand Rapids and Kent County, a place that was solidly Republican for decades, evidence that there's a growing white progressive vote reshaping the Midwest. He pushes back on the sloppy way analysts label party factions, preferring "movement" versus "governing" factions to the usual progressive-moderate shorthand, notes that electability is always situational, and cautions that money makes races competitive without guaranteeing wins. He flags that Wisconsin is now the next big test, where nobody should assume Francesca Hong runs away with it. He also spotlights results that flew under the radar: pastor Adam Hamilton beat ten other Democrats to become nominee Republicans will struggle to caricature against Roger Marshall, meaning Kansas joins Iowa as a genuine pickup opportunity in a cycle where Trump's tariffs have wrecked agricultural states. Republicans, meanwhile, leaned into Islamophobia against El-Sayed on day one, which Chuck suspects could badly boomerang. He argues the GOP would love to be rid of Max Miller, whose personal issues could drag down Bernie Moreno, though even replacing him may cost the GOP three to five points — and closes on the surreal spectacle of a president losing an increasingly global war while obsessing over his reflecting pool: Jeanine Pirro thought she could say one thing publicly and another in court, Trump says she "choked" when really she choked on reality, and Chuck’s read is that Trump wanted a headline more than a case, may be lashing out precisely because he's lost control of everything else, is desperate to get out of Iran, and might find that handing over the Strait is the least humiliating option left — all while his grip on his own voters keeps weakening. 

Finally Chuck presents his ToddCast Top 5 most vulnerable Democratic seats… and couldn’t make it to 5. He also answers listeners’ questions in the “Ask Chuck” segment. 

Link in bio or go to https://getsoul.com & enter code TODDCAST for 30% off your first order.

Play ball and swing for the fences on FanDuel, an official partner of the MLB at https://FANDUEL.COM. 

Protect your family with life insurance from Ethos. Get up to $3 million in coverage in as little as 10 minutes at https://ethos.com/chuck. Application times may vary. Rates may vary.

For free and unbiased Medicare help, dial (980) 734-3985 to speak with my trusted partner, Chapter, or go to askchapter.org/chuck /*Paid Partnership

Chapter and its affiliates are not connected with or endorsed by any government entity or the federal Medicare program. Chapter Advisory, LLC represents Medicare Advantage HMO, PPO, and PFFS organizations and stand alone prescription drug plans that have a Medicare contract. Enrollment depends on the plan’s contract renewal. While we have a database of every Medicare plan nationwide and can help you to search among all plans, we have contracts with many but not all plans. As a result, we do not offer every plan available in your area. Currently we represent 50 organizations which offer 18,160 products nationwide. We search and recommend all plans, even those we don’t directly offer. You can contact a licensed Chapter agent to find out the number of products available in your specific area. Please contact Medicare.gov, 1-800-Medicare, or your local State Health Insurance Program (SHIP) to get information on all of your options. 

Timeline:

(Timestamps may vary based on advertisements)

00:00 Chuck Todd’s introduction

04:45 Review of Tuesday’s primary results

05:30 Michigan now harder for Dems in general, but El-Sayed can win

06:30 Wisconsin primary will be next big test of divide in Democratic party

08:45 Almost losing was the best thing that could have happened to El-Sayed

09:30 Republicans don’t have many senate pickup opportunities

11:30 El-Sayed’s winning margin will be less than 20k votes
13:00 El-Sayed won the race in Grand Rapids

14:15 Kent county was solidly Republican for decades

16:30 The moderate/Gerald Ford Republicans aren’t voting for the GOP

17:30 There’s a growing white, progressive vote

19:45 In 2016 many people voted for Bernie out of protest for Clinton

20:30 Fascinating that Grand Rapids became a progressive stronghold

23:00 Analysts have a hard time characterizing factions inside parties

23:45 Prefer the label of “movement” vs. “governing” factions

24:45 Electability depends on the state and the situation

25:15 Money makes races more competitive, doesn’t guarantee victory

27:30 Progressives will need a crowded primary in 2028 to win

29:15 Don’t assume Francesca Hong will run away in Dem primary in WI

31:45 Big questions loom over Wisconsin primary

33:15 Some big results in Kansas flew under the radar

34:45 Founders didn’t want judges to be elected & subject to voters

35:15 Kansas rejected elections for state Supreme Court

36:30 On day one, Republicans leaned into Islamophobia against El-Sayed

37:00 The Islamophobia could boomerang on Republicans

37:45 Dems keep putting more senate seats in play, Kansas is now one

38:15 Adam Hamilton is pastor of huge church in Kansas\

39:00 Hamilton has been a bridge builder, and beat 10 other Dems

39:45 Republicans will have a hard time making a caricature of Hamilton

40:30 Hamilton will have an unusual constituency going into the race

41:30 Roger Marshall has never had a stress test in a general election

43:00 Trump’s tariffs have caused huge problems in agriculture states

44:30 Iowa and Kansas are real pickup chances for Democrats

46:00 Missouri voters sent a message on the issue of taxes

46:45 Trump has long wanted to scrap income taxes

47:30 Voters reject a high sales tax replacing income tax

49:00 Tax credits for the KC Chiefs stadium was a political loser

49:30 Voters don’t like subsidizing rich people

50:00 More stories of Republican men behaving badly

50:15 Republicans would love to get rid of Max Miller

50:45 Trump always sides with the accused over the women

51:30 Max Miller has serious personal issues

52:45 Miller could have hurt Bernie Moreno politically

53:45 Multiple disgraced former members of congress in same race in Florida

55:00 Even if Miller is replaced, the party could face a 3-5 point penalty

55:45 Iran war is going sideways & Trump is worried about Reflecting Pool

56:30 Jeanine Pirro thought she could say one thing in public & another in court

57:15 Trump says she “choked”... she choked on reality

58:00 Trump doesn’t care the facts didn’t meet the case, wanted a headline

58:30 Maybe he’s angry because he’s lost control of everything else, like Iran

59:30 Trump is desperate to get out of the war

1:00:30 Chance of the war going global is uncomfortably high

1:01:30 Trump handing over the Strait might be least humiliating option

1:02:00 Reflecting pool may be the thing Trump feels he has control over

1:02:45 Trump’s grip on his voters has weakened

1:08:00 ToddCast Top 5 Vulnerable Democratic Held Seats

1:10:45 #1 Kansas governor

1:12:15 #2 Michigan senate

1:14:00 #3 Oregon governor

1:15:15 #4 Wisconsin governor

1:16:45 #5 None - There aren’t that many vulnerable Dem seats

1:19:45 Ask Chuck

1:20:00 Is presidential health the only thing an administration can hide?

1:23:30 Thoughts on the World Cup & sportsmanship displayed?

1:25:00 Thoughts on the Fauci hearings?

1:32:00 Do bipartisan letters to the White House actually work?

1:34:30 Has politics discouraged a better investigation into the Butler shooting?

1:38:45 Does growing physical separation between public & leaders heighten their bubble?

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Chuck Todd breaks down a primary night that scrambled the Senate map, starting in Michigan where Abdul El-Sayed edged Rep. Haley Stevens by roughly 20,000 votes — overcoming a nearly 8-to-1 spending disadvantage in what became the most expensive Senate primary in American history. He argues the narrow margin was actually the best thing that could have happened to El-Sayed, and while Michigan is now a harder general election for Democrats against Mike Rogers, El-Sayed can absolutely win it. The most fascinating data point buried in the results: El-Sayed carried Grand Rapids and Kent County, a place that was solidly Republican for decades, evidence that there's a growing white progressive vote reshaping the Midwest. He pushes back on the sloppy way analysts label party factions, preferring "movement" versus "governing" factions to the usual progressive-moderate shorthand, notes that electability is always situational, and cautions that money makes races competitive without guaranteeing wins. He flags that Wisconsin is now the next big test, where nobody should assume Francesca Hong runs away with it. He also spotlights results that flew under the radar: pastor Adam Hamilton beat ten other Democrats to become nominee Republicans will struggle to caricature against Roger Marshall, meaning Kansas joins Iowa as a genuine pickup opportunity in a cycle where Trump's tariffs have wrecked agricultural states. Republicans, meanwhile, leaned into Islamophobia against El-Sayed on day one, which Chuck suspects could badly boomerang. He argues the GOP would love to be rid of Max Miller, whose personal issues could drag down Bernie Moreno, though even replacing him may cost the GOP three to five points — and closes on the surreal spectacle of a president losing an increasingly global war while obsessing over his reflecting pool: Jeanine Pirro thought she could say one thing publicly and another in court, Trump says she "choked" when really she choked on reality, and Chuck’s read is that Trump wanted a headline more than a case, may be lashing out precisely because he's lost control of everything else, is desperate to get out of Iran, and might find that handing over the Strait is the least humiliating option left — all while his grip on his own voters keeps weakening. 

Then, writer-director Michael Russell Gunn joins the Chuck Toddcast to discuss The Brink of War, his feature debut about the 1986 Reykjavík Summit, hitting theaters August 14th with Jeff Daniels as Reagan, Jared Harris as Gorbachev, and J.K. Simmons as George Shultz. The film's origin story is its own remarkable piece of history: Gunn interviewed Shultz before his death in 2021, and Shultz handed him the declassified summit transcripts that became the script — the first scene between Reagan and Gorbachev is verbatim from that record. Gunn's argument for why this story matters right now is simple and pointed: these were two men with every reason to hate each other who sat in a room and tried to build a better world, at a moment when Americans have gotten very good at yelling and very bad at talking. He walks Chuck through what most people get wrong about Reykjavík — that Gorbachev was far younger than memory suggests, with no personal recollection of World War II (he brought the last WWII-era Soviet general with him to Iceland), that adversaries are always more politically divided internally than we perceive from the outside, and that the summit is simultaneously remembered as a triumph and a failure because a deal to eliminate every nuclear weapon on earth collapsed over a single word. Gunn notes that Americans instinctively read everything through game theory — winners and losers — while the Soviets understood the talks as one point on a longer arc, which is why Gorbachev rushed to a press conference to declare the whole thing a success.

The conversation also works as a genuinely useful look inside how difficult political history gets made in Hollywood. Gunn explains that he assembled the actors and script first and only then went to a studio, that Simmons was hunting for a real challenge and nailed Shultz's accent on the first take, and that Daniels prepared by looping an hour of Reagan interviews through his headphones while biking around Chelsea, Michigan. He talks about the nervousness surrounding the idea of putting the two leaders alone in a room, the enormous goodwill Reagan carried into Reykjavík, and the fact that the whole world genuinely waited on that weekend with bated breath. Gunn is candid about the projects that didn't happen (he wanted to make a film about the Nunn-Lugar amendment and couldn't get it off the ground), the tradeoffs between film and limited series as formats, and why audiences have proven far hungrier for true history than the industry assumes. He and Chuck close on career advice — how Gunn broke in, why you have to "prove it" before anyone green-lights your dream project, and his observation that the things you don't get can end up mattering just as much as the things you do. And for anyone tempted to write off Reykjavík as a failure: the summit paved the way for the INF Treaty a year later, and the world's nuclear arsenals have since come down roughly 90%.

Finally Chuck presents his ToddCast Top 5 most vulnerable Democratic seats… and couldn’t make it to 5. He also answers listeners’ questions in the “Ask Chuck” segment. 

Link in bio or go to https://getsoul.com & enter code TODDCAST

for 30% off your first order.

Play ball and swing for the fences on FanDuel, an official partner of the MLB at https://FANDUEL.COM. 

Protect your family with life insurance from Ethos. Get up to $3 million in coverage in as little as 10 minutes at https://ethos.com/chuck. Application times may vary. Rates may vary.

For free and unbiased Medicare help, dial (980) 734-3985 to speak with my trusted partner, Chapter, or go to askchapter.org/chuck /*Paid Partnership

Chapter and its affiliates are not connected with or endorsed by any government entity or the federal Medicare program. Chapter Advisory, LLC represents Medicare Advantage HMO, PPO, and PFFS organizations and stand alone prescription drug plans that have a Medicare contract. Enrollment depends on the plan’s contract renewal. While we have a database of every Medicare plan nationwide and can help you to search among all plans, we have contracts with many but not all plans. As a result, we do not offer every plan available in your area. Currently we represent 50 organizations which offer 18,160 products nationwide. We search and recommend all plans, even those we don’t directly offer. You can contact a licensed Chapter agent to find out the number of products available in your specific area. Please contact Medicare.gov, 1-800-Medicare, or your local State Health Insurance Program (SHIP) to get information on all of your options. 

Timeline:

(Timestamps may vary based on advertisements)

00:00 Chuck Todd’s introduction

04:45 Review of Tuesday’s primary results

05:30 Michigan now harder for Dems in general, but El-Sayed can win

06:30 Wisconsin primary will be next big test of divide in Democratic party

08:45 Almost losing was the best thing that could have happened to El-Sayed

09:30 Republicans don’t have many senate pickup opportunities

11:30 El-Sayed’s winning margin will be less than 20k votes
13:00 El-Sayed won the race in Grand Rapids

14:15 Kent county was solidly Republican for decades

16:30 The moderate/Gerald Ford Republicans aren’t voting for the GOP

17:30 There’s a growing white, progressive vote

19:45 In 2016 many people voted for Bernie out of protest for Clinton

20:30 Fascinating that Grand Rapids became a progressive stronghold

23:00 Analysts have a hard time characterizing factions inside parties

23:45 Prefer the label of “movement” vs. “governing” factions

24:45 Electability depends on the state and the situation

25:15 Money makes races more competitive, doesn’t guarantee victory

27:30 Progressives will need a crowded primary in 2028 to win

29:15 Don’t assume Francesca Hong will run away in Dem primary in WI

31:45 Big questions loom over Wisconsin primary

33:15 Some big results in Kansas flew under the radar

34:45 Founders didn’t want judges to be elected & subject to voters

35:15 Kansas rejected elections for state Supreme Court

36:30 On day one, Republicans leaned into Islamophobia against El-Sayed

37:00 The Islamophobia could boomerang on Republicans

37:45 Dems keep putting more senate seats in play, Kansas is now one

38:15 Adam Hamilton is pastor of huge church in Kansas\

39:00 Hamilton has been a bridge builder, and beat 10 other Dems

39:45 Republicans will have a hard time making a caricature of Hamilton

40:30 Hamilton will have an unusual constituency going into the race

41:30 Roger Marshall has never had a stress test in a general election

43:00 Trump’s tariffs have caused huge problems in agriculture states

44:30 Iowa and Kansas are real pickup chances for Democrats

46:00 Missouri voters sent a message on the issue of taxes

46:45 Trump has long wanted to scrap income taxes

47:30 Voters reject a high sales tax replacing income tax

49:00 Tax credits for the KC Chiefs stadium was a political loser

49:30 Voters don’t like subsidizing rich people

50:00 More stories of Republican men behaving badly

50:15 Republicans would love to get rid of Max Miller

50:45 Trump always sides with the accused over the women

51:30 Max Miller has serious personal issues

52:45 Miller could have hurt Bernie Moreno politically

53:45 Multiple disgraced former members of congress in same race in Florida

55:00 Even if Miller is replaced, the party could face a 3-5 point penalty

55:45 Iran war is going sideways & Trump is worried about Reflecting Pool

56:30 Jeanine Pirro thought she could say one thing in public & another in court

57:15 Trump says she “choked”... she choked on reality

58:00 Trump doesn’t care the facts didn’t meet the case, wanted a headline

58:30 Maybe he’s angry because he’s lost control of everything else, like Iran

59:30 Trump is desperate to get out of the war

1:00:30 Chance of the war going global is uncomfortably high

1:01:30 Trump handing over the Strait might be least humiliating option

1:02:00 Reflecting pool may be the thing Trump feels he has control over

1:02:45 Trump’s grip on his voters has weakened

1:10:00 Michael Russell Gunn (The Brink of War) joins the Chuck ToddCast

1:12:30 How much time should elapse before telling a historical story?

1:14:45 How strong was Gorbachev viewed at the time of the summits?

1:15:30 We were saved by junior people/officers during the Cold War

1:16:00 We came very close to nuclear armageddon

1:17:30 Gorbachev is remembered as older than he actually was

1:18:30 Gorbachev didn’t have any memory of World War 2

1:19:30 Gorbachev brought last WW2 era general to Reykjavik

1:21:15 Adversaries are more politically divided than we perceive them

1:22:00 Reykjavik is considered both a success and a failure

1:22:30 There was a deal to get rid of every nuke, one word tanked it

1:23:00 Gorbachev rushed to a press conference to declare conference “great”

1:23:45 Reagan and Gorbachev built a relationship and some trust

1:24:15 This was one of the greatest diplomatic achievements in history

1:25:00 Americans view everything in a game theory context, winners & losers

1:25:30 Soviets viewed talks as one point in an arc

1:26:00 Transcripts of the meeting helped in creating the movie

1:28:00 Wanted to create a movie about the Nunn-Lugar amendment, but couldn’t

1:29:30 Visual of Reagan sitting across from Gorbachev was powerful

1:30:45 First scene between Reagan and Gorbachev was verbatim from transcript

1:32:30 There was something profound about their willingness to engage

1:34:15 There was nervousness about having them alone in a room

1:35:45 Reagan carried immense goodwill from Americans into Reykjavik

1:37:45 The whole world was waiting/watching the summit with bated breath

1:38:30 How close were we to getting rid of nuclear weapons?

1:39:30 We did end up reducing nuclear arsenals by 90%

1:40:00 How did Jeff Daniels prepare to play Reagan?

1:41:45 Difficulty getting mainstream actors to participate in political history?

1:42:30 How’d you pull off getting a difficult topic approved and made?

1:43:15 Got the actors and script first, then went to the studio

1:44:00 JK Simmons was looking for a real challenge

1:45:15 George Shultz is an unsung hero of American history

1:46:00 JK Simmons nailed Shultz's accent on the first take

1:47:45 You’re given more breadth in film, but not more time to produce it

1:50:30 What is the better format to tell a story? Movie, limited series etc.

1:53:00 Audiences have proven to be hungry for true history stories

1:55:15 What’s your dream project?

1:56:30 Need to “prove it” in order to get your dream project approved

1:59:15 Career advice? How did you break in and succeed in the business?

2:00:45 Things you don’t get can be just as important as what you do get

2:02:00 ToddCast Top 5 Vulnerable Democratic Held Seats

2:04:45 #1 Kansas governor

2:06:15 #2 Michigan senate

2:08:00 #3 Oregon governor

2:09:15 #4 Wisconsin governor

2:10:45 #5 None - There aren’t that many vulnerable Dem seats

2:13:45 Ask Chuck

2:14:00 Is presidential health the only thing an administration can hide?

2:17:30 Thoughts on the World Cup & sportsmanship displayed?

2:19:00 Thoughts on the Fauci hearings?

2:26:00 Do bipartisan letters to the White House actually work?

2:28:30 Has politics discouraged a better investigation into the Butler shooting?

2:32:45 Does growing physical separation between public & leaders heighten their bubble?

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.