Chris Cillizza: Male Friendships, Political Posturing, and the Death of Shared Sacrifice

Summary

---

The Gist (Peach Fish Productions)

Episode: Chris Cillizza: Male Friendships, Political Posturing, and the Death of Shared Sacrifice
Host: Mike Pesca
Guest: Chris Cillizza
Date: March 15, 2026

---

Overview

This episode of The Gist features a lively, candid conversation between Mike Pesca and political journalist Chris Cillizza. The discussion touches on the challenges of adult male friendships, the nature of political posturing in today’s media environment, and the broader question of whether America has lost its sense of shared sacrifice. The hosts explore contemporary events—from the Iran conflict and U.S. war popularity to legislative theatrics around voter ID—placing them in the context of abundance, political cynicism, and generational shifts in values.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Challenge of Male Friendships in Adulthood

Timestamps: 05:33 – 10:38

• Chris Cillizza reflects on how forming and maintaining male friendships becomes uniquely difficult as men age.
  • “I think we're bad at Friendships, they require work and you know, and like men are somewhat, I mean, I want to stereotype a little bit lazy…” (Chris Cillizza, 07:21)
• Both hosts share anecdotes about awkwardness and passivity in male friendship formation.
  • Pesca jokes about being publicly declared a ‘friend’ and how it legitimizes social interaction:
    “Because in print you were called a friend. He's like, okay, now I guess this is what friends do…” (Mike Pesca, 09:18)
• Both note a societal lack of vehicles for male bonding outside things like “fantasy sports” and pickup basketball.

2. War, Public Opinion, and the Politics of Sacrifice

Timestamps: 10:38 – 24:17

• The conversation shifts to the Iran conflict, referencing historical precedents like the Grenada invasion and how presidential communication shaped public support.
  • Pesca explores Reagan’s approach:
    “He laid out his case in a cogent way, in a calm way, in a somewhat slow way, in a way that held up to structure and syntax. That's important.” (Mike Pesca, 13:41)
  • The duo compares this to Trump’s more transactional and less truthful rhetoric, quoting a recent message:
    “So when oil prices go up, we make a lot of money. But a far greater interest and importance to me as president is stopping an evil empire, Iran from having nuclear weapons…” (Trump, paraphrased by Pesca, 15:50)
• They discuss whether Americans today have lost any meaningful sense of shared sacrifice.
  • “Our wars have been characterized by. We send our troops to war, we go to the mall.” (Mike Pesca, 19:42)
• Cillizza proposes that the problem may not be the people’s willingness, but a lack of leadership capable of demanding and inspiring sacrifice.
  • “Trump isn't that guy… He's not really in the business of like hard truths.” (Chris Cillizza, 18:18)
• Pesca gives the example of the early COVID-19 pandemic, where sacrifice was both requested and, briefly, delivered.

3. “Video Gamification” & Generational Detachment from War

Timestamps: 21:39 – 24:17

• Cillizza notes how the modern White House’s social media messaging about war sometimes echoes video game aesthetics, making the stakes feel theoretical rather than existential for young Americans.
  • “On social media it does have those kind of like, video game vibes to it. Like, look at this cool we're doing kind of thing.” (Chris Cillizza, 22:35)
• Both agree that for most young, upper/middle-class Americans, these conflicts feel distant and abstract.

4. Political Rituals and Cynicism: Voter ID and the SAVE Act

Timestamps: 33:09 – 41:33

• Cillizza recounts GOP Sen. John Cornyn’s flip-flop on the filibuster in pursuit of Trump's endorsement, exemplifying politics over principle.
  • “It doesn't have anything to do with the fact that I'm trying to win Donald Trump's endorsement… but I think we should get rid of the legislative filibuster for the SAVE Act. I shouldn't be taken aback by the transparency of that and the politics over principle. And yet I was. Is that weird?” (Chris Cillizza, 33:51)
• The hosts dissect the actual substance and political theater of the SAVE Act (federal voter ID), noticing how it’s become more symbolic than substantive.
  • “It's only because it's dead that it's so important. Because if it's actually passed, I think would have almost no effect.” (Mike Pesca, 36:26)
  • They observe that voter ID is common worldwide and in most U.S. states; and both parties exploit the issue for fundraising/mobilization, exaggerating its impact.
• Both criticize the oversimplified media narratives (“poll tax” vs. “commonsense reform”), arguing for more nuanced discourse.
  • “There's more nuance in almost all of these things than I think the political conversation, the political dialogue allows.” (Chris Cillizza, 40:13)
• Pesca further notes the self-reinforcing cycle—fear and indignation drive engagement and turnout, regardless of policy reality.
  • “So all these Democrats who are saying to you, this is how they steal the election, they're wrong… but the fact that you think that is going to get a whole lot more people out to vote.” (Mike Pesca, 38:09)

5. Abundance, Spoiled Sensibilities, and Class Filters in Politics

Timestamps: 29:26 – 32:32

• They muse on how modern conveniences and abundance have made Americans (including themselves) less tolerant of friction or sacrifice in daily life.
  • “We are just so… Chris Alyssa of 2002 would look askance at Chris Liza 2026 for the things I get annoyed by.” (Chris Cillizza, 29:58)
• Cillizza reflects on how class and geography (urban vs. rural) filter one’s sense of what matters in politics—most in his circle don’t know anyone who serves in the military, have large families, etc.
  • “Your bubble indicates so much of what you… how you see the world.” (Chris Cillizza, 31:58)

6. Shifting Political Coalitions

Timestamps: 43:06 – 44:57

• Discuss a recent Texas Democratic primary upset where affluent, white suburban liberals outvoted minority, working-class blocs—signaling continued realignment of party coalitions.
  • “It is fascinating to me that this party that was once kind of like working class and minority… is now like affluent whites, suburban and, and urban.” (Chris Cillizza, 44:34)

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “This is not what we were planning to talk about, but I do think it's a real thing…” (Chris Cillizza, 09:52)
• “We send our troops to war, we go to the mall.” (Mike Pesca, 19:42) — crystallizing America’s disconnect from actual conflict.
• “Our political conversation oversimplifies in ways that is bad for the American public.” (Chris Cillizza, 40:13)
• “It's only because it's dead that it's so important…” (Mike Pesca, 36:26) — on the legislative theater around the SAVE Act.
• “If it were to pass, I don't think the wal walls would come tumbling down.” (Mike Pesca, 41:03)
• “There's a business and scaring the out of people and telling them we're. We're Germany in 1933… Unfortunately, I think a lot of people get sucked into it.” (Chris Cillizza, 42:31)

---

Important Segment Timestamps

| Segment/Topic | Timestamp | |--------------------------------------|---------------| | Male friendship & social dynamics | 05:33–10:38 | | War, Grenada, Reagan, and sacrifice | 11:05–19:48 | | COVID-era sacrifice & generational mindset | 19:48–21:39 | | Video gamification of war messaging | 21:39–24:17 | | Abundance and expectations | 29:26–32:32 | | Voter ID, filibuster and political theater | 33:09–41:33 | | Class filters and shifting coalitions| 31:58–32:32; 43:06–44:57 |

---

Tone & Style

The tone is witty, self-aware, and slightly cynical but never dour. Both hosts use humor and personal anecdote to dig into larger societal and political themes, frequently questioning their own biases and the received wisdom of news narratives.

---

This summary provides a comprehensive and engaging guide to the key issues, moments, and takeaways of the episode—useful for listeners and non-listeners alike.

Transcript

[Chris Cillizza]

From unsolved mysteries to unexplained phenomena, from

[Mike Pesca]

comedy gold to relationship fails.

[Chris Cillizza]

Amazon Music's got the most ad free top podcasts included with prime because the only thing that should interrupt your listening is, well, nothing. Download the Amazon Music app today. Underwear drawers are like the Wild west of wardrobes. You never know what pair you're gonna pull out or what shape it's in. It's time to upgrade your underwear drawer

[Mike Pesca]

with the buttery, soft comfort of Meundies.

[Chris Cillizza]

Meundies signature fabric is as soft as a warm hug from your favorite sweater. Plus, it's breathable and oh so comfy, making it ideal for all day wear. Get 20% off your first order, plus free [e-mail] comfort Enter promo code comfort that's meundies.comfort code comfort.

[Mike Pesca]

Hey, it's Saturday. It's the Saturday show. And a couple days ago I talked to Chris Soliza. I really enjoy talking to him. In fact, in the first part of the talk, it's maybe a little too much about how much we enjoy talking to each other. But I hope you enjoy us talking to each other about talking to each other. I'm going to play, I think, 2/3 of the conversation just to fit in with the time parameters of what I like to air on the Sunday show. If you want to subscribe to the substack, there's all of it. It was a substack live, as I say, and that's at mike pesca.substack.com it shall go all the way to. It was a little over a full hour and some of the, some of the things that we talked about at the end were what I was talking about the top of the show on Thursday with Donald Trump and sacrifice and the assertion that high oil prices are good for America. They're not. Fact check. Not true. Even if you're Rex Tillerson and still have a lot of Exxon stock. All right, enjoy me. Chris Cillizza, the Saturday Show. Ed can be really distressful. All these are distressful. It's right there in the word dysfunction. But with the E, it's especially so. But I want you to know that Ed is more common than you think and simpler to treat than than you think. Through hims, you can connect online with a licensed provider to access personalized treatment options discreetly and on your terms. It's not a one size fits all care that forgets you in the waiting room. It's your health with real medical providers making sure you get what you need to get results ED treatment from hims, offering options ranging from personalized products products to trusted generics that cost 95 less than brand names. To get simple online access to personalized affordable care for ED, hair loss, weight loss and more, visit hims.com the Gist that's hims.com the Gist for your free online visit hims.com the GIST Feature products include compounded drug products which the FDA does not approve or verify for safety, effectiveness or quality. Prescription required. See website for details, restrictions and important safety information. Actual price will depend on product and subscription plan I am a big user of claude, the AI tool that goes the extra mile. The next step I've used Claude to build out a system that suggests funny, quirky, but not just obvious stories. For the GIST list, Claude is the AI for minds that don't stop at good enough. It's the collaborator that actually understands your entire workflow and thinks with you. Whether you're debugging code at midnight or strategizing your next business move, Claude extends your thinking to tackle the problems that matter. So just a couple of deep research assignments I gave Claude. I wanted it to tell me Gina Gershon's top grossing movies as adjusted for inflation, but also set against the cost of production. So this is not something that the IMDb will get you. This is something that is not maybe that hard, but it really could take me an hour and a half to do. It took it 10 seconds and the answer, by the way is face off by far and away $287 million not as non inflation adjusted. Ready to tackle bigger problems? Get started with Claude today at Claude AI/The Gist. That's Claude AI/The Gist. And check out Claude Pro, which includes access to all of the features mentioned in today's episode. Claude AI slash the gist. This 24 7, 365 cycle of news might be burning out your soul. So here's a pick me up for your ears. Love Letters from Our Friends at the Boston Globe In Love Letters, host and longtime reporter Meredith Goldstein explores how real people navigate their lives in this crazy cuckoo world. She tells stories like the husband who turned 40 and decided to build an adult sized ball pit for himself in his basement. And Meredith, as the good reporter, asks, how might that affect one's marriage and does that count as a midlife crisis? They have lessons for everyone and just make the world feel like a better place, a more human place. So find the Boston Globes Love Letters. Wherever you get your podcast, maybe you'll find you have A story to tell, too.

[Chris Cillizza]

Okay, we are live. That is Mike Pesca. I am Chris Cilliza. We try to do this once a month, and it was supposed to be. If you're a very close observer of all this, it was supposed to be last Thursday, but we both had previous commitments. So, Mike, I have just jetted back in from scenic Ohio, and you have. You have jetted back in from slightly warmer climbs. So we are. But we're here. We're doing it. It's all happening. So we're. Mike and I are trying to do this once a month, basically through the end of the year at a minimum. But we just. We like to. I think we both like to talk to each other, and we figured, why not do it publicly?

[Mike Pesca]

Is that.

[Chris Cillizza]

Is that a fair summation of how this came about?

[Mike Pesca]

I think this is how men bond. We say things like, I think we like to talk about each other, and to each other. We look to the other one and, like, he's not objecting. We might be friends. I don't want to say, but, you

[Chris Cillizza]

know, I wrote a thing. It was one of the. It was. It was. You know, sometimes when you, like, do something where you don't expect it to do anything, like, you're just like, oh, I've been thinking about this, and since I. Since I work for myself, I can do whatever the hell I want, so I'm gonna do this. I wrote a thing about. And this is probably 18 months ago now, I wrote a thing about how hard. Or how hard male friendship is as an adult and how bad I specifically am at it. And. And I wrote about it because I was thinking, my dad passed away in 20. Not to make this maudlin. My dad passed away in 2020, right? The start of the COVID epidemic. Not because of COVID but Connecticut, where my parents live. You weren't allowed to have funerals at that time. No public gatherings of any sort. And I actually thought, man, that might be a little bit of a blessing, because, like, I don't know if any. I mean, I knew family would come, but I don't know if I. If you said, name your dad's five closest friends at the point at which he was, you know, in his 70s. Yeah, five closest male friends, man, I'd be pressed to name five. And so I was just thinking about that, and I was like, you know, women, at least my wife and I feel like this is true. Broadly. Do a much better job, more socially acceptable. Like, I. I don't know. I think we're bad at Friendships, they require work and you know, and like men are somewhat, I mean, I want to stereotype a little bit lazy, but like, I don't know, I want to be one of those guys who, I see these people at the coffee shop near me, there's like five 70 plus year old guys just shooting the, about the news and, and, and like it's legit, like 7:15 in the morning, like they clearly have been up. But like I want to be one of those guys. And I think you have to work at that.

[Mike Pesca]

I think, yeah. Right now if you said name your dad's five friends and he's in his 80s, I'd say, oh, Phil O'Reilly, Bill Mitchell. I'd name all these guys who had died five to ten years ago and they're also his friends. One four from college, one from high school and college. So there is something about. We did make friends in our youth, right? I know we did make friends when we were in college. And maybe it's the erosion theory of friendship where if you're just in a place long enough, affable fellows such as ourselves, if exposed to others, we will be eroded like a rock. And it turns out, okay, I guess we're friends. I'll tell you a funny story. There's a funny journalism story. A publication wrote a profile of a friend of mine who's a somewhat prominent journalist. And I was identified there as, and I don't think I said this to the journalist Mike Pesca, friend and colleague of the guy, the subject of the profile. And I then started getting more texts from him. Hey, you wanna hang out? I got a couple of the friends coming.

[Chris Cillizza]

You had been publicly identified as a friend, so he felt comfortable. Oh, it's so true.

[Mike Pesca]

And my wife, who understands friendship is like, you guys are so freaking crazy.

[Chris Cillizza]

Yeah.

[Mike Pesca]

Because in print you were called a friend. He's like, okay, now I guess this

[Chris Cillizza]

is what friends do is I, I really do think it's a thing. Like I, I, I, and I think we're bad at it. And I think society doesn't sell for it. Really. Do you know what I mean? It's like, yeah, well, this is the

[Mike Pesca]

male friendship crisis is supposedly, you know, the loneliness epidemic. Of course, everything gets elevated. Yeah. To me it's like epidemic is solved by joining two more fantasy football leagues.

[Chris Cillizza]

I know. And that's the thing is like, what are the vehicles? Like there aren't as many obvious vehicles for men. It's like fantasy, fantasy sports. Sure. Like I used to play pickup basketball all the time in D.C. and that was good. Not because I had like a, like people I hung out with outside of that, but I'd see them a couple times a week and I knew all of them and like that was like a good friend. I don't know. I just don't. This is not what we were planning to talk about, but I do think it's a real thing because.

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah.

[Chris Cillizza]

Piece I wrote other than writing about religion. I've never gotten more feedback. And, and, and I don't mean negative feedback. It was mostly people being like, hey, good piece. Or like, this is what I do to try to like keep up for. Anyway, it was fascinating. All right, let's.

[Mike Pesca]

But this is our situation now. It's either friendship or meniscus injuries. Choose one.

[Chris Cillizza]

So true. It's so true. It's like, do I risk tearing my Achilles to have friends? All right, let's talk about Iran because we, for people just to go behind the curtain. Mike and I just very briefly exchanged like, oh, what if we talked about this? We've talked about this. And I said to him, look, obviously Iran is like a huge topic. I don't totally have like the smartest angle on it, but you suggest something. So let's go into that because I do want to talk about that.

[Mike Pesca]

Okay. So I don't know if Iran was a good idea. I strongly suspect that as an idea as it's been executed and by the people in charge of this idea, I have my doubts. I think it's a bad idea to treat the media and to talk like Hegseth does. But I was thinking about, there was this story in the New York Times that Iran, unlike other wars, is unpopular with the public. And I was looking at the charts and the polls and I was surprised to see that Grenada only registered at 53% popularity. And I remember the excursion. Invasion of a small Caribbean island.

[Chris Cillizza]

Short term excursion, as Donald Trump has described Iran.

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah, just a, just a, you know, island hopping. I remembered it as popular, not even so important to America. In fact, it became a little bit of a punchline. Right.

[Chris Cillizza]

Totally.

[Mike Pesca]

We're an empire and the only thing we invade is Grenada. But I remember it and it was 83. So I was 10 years old, 11 years old. So I was following the news as a popular thing. So why Was it only 53% popular? And then it went back. I don't know if you realize that. You probably do, Chris. So Sunday the barracks in Beirut are bombed and 241American military lose their lives. And 50 French.

[Chris Cillizza]

I think it's good to go over this timeline because I vaguely remember it, but not well.

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah, two, okay. Tuesday, pre dawn invasion, America invades Grenada. Classic wag the dog, if you will. But on the other hand, there are American medical students who are in danger. And the very left wing government, getting more left wing with a whole bunch of Cuban advisors, is threatening the populace. I'll cut to another polling piece of data. 89% of the populace wanted the Americans to invade. So Sunday, Beirut. Tuesday, Grenada. First polling on Grenada, which the times ran, said 53% popularity. I found other polls that showed it more unpopular than popular. Thursday, Reagan goes on TV and addresses the nation. And so yesterday, for the gist, I watched that speech. And as typical of so many Reagan speeches, it wasn't perfect, but it was a great speech. It was a great speech for a couple of reasons. He spoke cogently, he had good speech writers. You know, Peggy Noonan was in the shop, a lot of the other greats. I think Gergen was writing for him maybe at the time.

[Chris Cillizza]

And that had been towards the end of the first term. Yeah, I think that's right.

[Mike Pesca]

And, and he laid out his case in a cogent way, in a calm way, in a somewhat slow way, in a way that held up to structure and syntax. That's important.

[Chris Cillizza]

And that watching it 40 plus years later, you're like, okay, like I can, you know, with, with the benefit of hindsight, you can be like, okay, like, sure, yeah.

[Mike Pesca]

And, and also the primetime address is something that I'm sure got 60 million viewers.

[Chris Cillizza]

Right? Absolutely.

[Mike Pesca]

Everyone watch it. We weren't conflicted for our attention, but after that speech, the war's popularity goes from maybe 50% to 75%. So he turned us around. Other things happened to contribute, like the war. The war, the invasion of Grenada goes very well. And we're out. And he does press conferences with leaders of other Caribbean states saying we really wanted him to come. And some of the arguments there cannot be applied to Iran. Like all the countries in the region which don't have armies of their own, were begging us to come. This is all true. But I also think that one thing he asked us to do was sacrifice. And I think Americans, when given a good reason, when called upon, will sacrifice. And especially if the sacrifice is not my son or your son, but the idea of our sons and daughters.

[Chris Cillizza]

Right?

[Mike Pesca]

And so he asked us to sacrifice and sacrifice in some small way. We did. Or at least he turned around our conception of the war in a way that Donald Trump hasn't and maybe couldn't given our circumstances. But what I said to you was this truth that he put out. And I thought it was very telling.

[Chris Cillizza]

He truth this out. I always think it's such a weird like verb, but you're right.

[Mike Pesca]

I mean, yeah. And, and what he wrote is the United States is the largest oil producer in the world. I'm not gonna bore you with what he puts capitals on. You want to guess other than United States? There are three capitals in the sentence.

[Chris Cillizza]

The United States is the largest oil well world would definitely have to be capitalized. Yeah. And largest, I would guess oil producer. My favorite thing is the caps and then the quotations, the unnecessary quotations, the scare quotes. But yes, ok, largest oil producer in the world.

[Mike Pesca]

Yes, by far. So when oil prices go up, we make a lot of money. But a far greater interest and importance to me, importance to me as president is stopping an evil empire, Iran from having nuclear weapons and destroying the Middle east and indeed the world. I will never let that happen. So this is perhaps a call to sacrifice, only he has to preface it with a lie that is that no one is going to believe. Oh, oh, higher oil price is good, that's good for us. It's such a see through lie that he's really not asking for a sacrifice. What he's really doing is saying think about the interest, long term interests of our country, which I think is good to think about. But also realize this pain that you're experiencing. Not really pain, it's good for us. Not a sacrifice at all, just good things upon good things.

[Chris Cillizza]

It's. You know what's so interesting? I was, I was doing TV the other week and the question was, and it was around the Ron War and it was right in the same space. The question was, have we lost this? The truest sense of patriotism vis a vis sacrifice. Basically I'm on. And you know, the point I kept coming back to was like, I don't know that Trump is like, I don't know that. Right. I mean you always hear these stories. Like During World War II, everybody was sacrificing because it was, you know, we were fighting the Nazis and it was good versus evil. Obviously we live in a much more complex world right now than we did. But I was like, I don't know if it's that we've, we want our cake and eat it too. And therefore our leaders try to pretend like Trump is doing, like everything is great and we're solving this geopolitical threat or have we just not? And your point gets to this. Have we just not had a leader or leaders who are capable of saying, it's gonna be hard for a while. I mean, I was, I was thinking of Iran, I was thinking of Jimmy Carter. Like, I mean, remember during the energy crisis, Jimmy Carter, like wearing the sweater and saying like, you need to lower your thermometer, your thermostat and your husband. People like, fuck this guy. Like, I mean, and so that's the hard thing. It's like you kind of. It's not just about calling on the American public to like turn your heat down, whatever the hell it is. It's also about like a leader, like a Reagan, whether you liked Reagan, you hated Reagan. Like a leader who's able to get buy in for it. Right. And like Trump isn't that. Trump isn't that guy. Right. I mean, right. He's a salesman, right. He's in the business of telling you what you want to hear. He's not really in the business of like hard truths. It's like, oh, the wars, we've already won the war that ever. Their navy's been destroyed. You know, he's not really. So I don't. It's that hard. It's that split between like, are we as a people because we've grown soft or whatever the hell, are we unwilling to sacrifice or do we lack leaders who like, can coalesce us behind some sort of broader patriotism? Now? I don't know the answer to that because like, even, even 1983 political America versus 2026 political America are so radically. You know what I mean? Like, yeah, well, we live to make a comp.

[Mike Pesca]

So I have a, I have an answer to that. I don't know if it's definitive, but yeah, 1983, we were living a lot closer to the bone. And I don't know if it was an age of abundance we live in. This is more of our problem now. Once, once you live in an age of abundance, too much stuff is the problem. Too much ease. I do think we have the leaders who can ask for sacrifice and get it. And I'm not thinking any of our wars. Right. Our wars have been characterized by. We send our troops to war, we go to the mall. That's.

[Chris Cillizza]

Yes, totally. It doesn't affect our daily lives in any way. The vast majority of our daily lives in any way, shape or form.

[Mike Pesca]

Right. And there's no draft. And who serves in the war is not at all a cross section of society. Absolutely. All true. But during COVID especially in the beginning, before it got very politicized over masks and then I think quite legitimately over when schools were going to open. But in the very beginning, especially governors did call upon people to sacrifice. Mike DeWine in Ohio, where you just were. He did this, he did this effectively. And I specifically mentioned a Republican governor because I know how it broke down on political lines. But yeah, I think there was a cult sacrifice. People had no choice. But it also was how they thought about things like we're gonna have to lock down for a while or we're gonna have to ride this out for a while and we're gonna have to think communally and about our old people. And for a time we did it. And then it all crumb fell apart for a number of reasons. But we can do it. It's just, you know, this war, this war in Iran for the United States is not existential. For Israel it is. And that's a people who know how to sacrifice and that's a people who do all serve in the army and that's a people who actually have. This is weird, really excellent mental health. And their youth aren't not just distracted, but are in aimless. And I think a real reason is when the stakes are real. This is in a way a society of abundance. But also people who know there are real stakes and there's something really that can be lost. It concentrates the mind. It makes people think more seriously this, you know, our youth who have given over their attention to brain rot or just crazy videos or YouTube personalities who are clearly full of. Yeah, doesn't really happen in Israel.

[Chris Cillizza]

Well, yeah, it's, it's. I think you're totally right about that. I think the. I was thinking about this on the plane actually because I, I was weak. Of course. We're like the classic plane travel. We're like about to take off and no, they shut the engines down. They're like, all right, we got a 40 minute ground stop because this like crazy storm was like coming through through the. From the Midwest to the east anyway. So I'm like, Well, I got 40 minutes to do nothing. And I watched, I do follow the White House on, on X. And so I watched it and there is like what they put out for the last day or two and, and there is this kind of like my word not theirs video gamification of like how they're selling the war at least on social media. I don't watch a whole. It's not like I'm watching the CBS evening News, right? But like, like on social media it does have those kind of like, video game vibes to it. Like, look at this cool we're doing kind of thing.

[Mike Pesca]

Right?

[Chris Cillizza]

And I do think for a lot of people, particularly young people, there is that remove. Right. They're, they're, they're, they're not going to get drafted. They are, you know, middle class to upper middle class. They're not going to probably volunteer. Right. They're not going to go to the Army, Navy, Air Force, Coast Guard, whatever. And so I think there is this, like, hey, watch us blow stuff up. That, that to me, like hegseth really embrace. I was gonna say epitomizes. That's probably the wrong word. But like, embraces that side of it. Like we're kicking ass. Look at all this cool stuff. And I. Right. And I do think there's some of that kind of like, it doesn't feel real for a lot of. Of people, particularly young men in America in a way that it obviously does in Israel or even if you're in, you know, Qatar, Bahrain or, you know, I mean, Kuwait, any of these places are being hit by these drones from Iran. I mean, it was like a real threat. But if you're 30 years old, 25 years old in this country, when, when did you feel. I mean, I guess if you're, if you're, if you're 25, you were born, you know, in the year of September 11th. But most of these people have no sense of any of that stuff, you know, like. Right. And I do think that matters, like a sense of the stakes because they, the White House, are clearly trying to sell this war to the public because it to your. Go back to where we started. It is the least popular military engagement the US has been involved in in a very long time. Even Vietnam was more popular than this at the start. So I think they need to sell it. But the way that they sell it, I think is revealing about who they think we are. I don't know if it's who we are, but they certainly think we are.

[Mike Pesca]

And I'll be back with more of Chris Cilliza and some more of our conversation that occurred on a substack live. Imagine you're a business owner relying on a dozen different software programs. Each one is expensive, overly complicated, and

[Chris Cillizza]

worst of all, none of them are connected.

[Mike Pesca]

It can be incredibly stressful right now. Picture Odoo CRM accounting, inventory, manufacturing, marketing, HR and more.

[Chris Cillizza]

Odoo brings all the tools your business needs into one simple platform.

[Mike Pesca]

And all seamlessly connected.

[Chris Cillizza]

Everything works together, giving you the peace

[Mike Pesca]

of mind that your business is running smoothly from every angle.

[Chris Cillizza]

Odoo's open source applications are user friendly

[Mike Pesca]

and designed to scale with your business, saving you time and money. Say goodbye to juggling multiple platforms and hello to efficient integrated management. Stop wasting resources on complicated systems and make the switch to odoo today.

[Chris Cillizza]

Visit odoo.com o d o o.com and

[Mike Pesca]

discover how Odoo can simplify and streamline your business operations. Odoo Modern Management Made simple what does it really mean to have a good life in our politics, Our work, our relationships? If you care about social justice, science or the search for meaning, you'll find courageous, practical con no Small Endeavor the Signal Award winning and Ambie Award nominated podcast produced by our friends at Great Feeling Studio. We've talked about no Small Endeavor in the past. Host Lee C. Camp leads thought provoking conversations with artists, philosophers, politicians and beyond. Where do politics and justice meet? The pursuit of the common good? Find out with no Small Endeavor available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen so this is me talking to Chris Cizza. We are back and like I said, if you want the whole convo, It's Mike Pesca substack.com so those videos might be less demand side dictated. In other words, we think this is what the audience want than supply side. Just the people making them are probably the 25. Totally with brain rot.

[Chris Cillizza]

Right? Big, big balls from Doge Looking for something to do. Yeah.

[Mike Pesca]

Younger than 25. And also I looked at that polling about how unpopular the war is and I guess the takeaway would be so there's something wrong with the war or there's something wrong with the logic of the war. But you know, the other than Grenada, the other unbelievably unpopular war was Kosovo, which only saved a few hundred thousand lives at no cost to the United States in lives now already Iran seven dead, unless that's changed in the last two hours. Yeah. And so no Americans lost their lives in Kosovo. Again, all of these situations are different. After the Kosovo air bombing, there were NATO troops that were able to hold ground and that might not even happen here. But yeah, it doesn't mean just because the public is against a war that the public's right. I also think that if you polled the public on anything where essentially the question was how do you feel about this short to medium term sacrifice for a long term gain. Yeah. Like the debt. How do you feel about cutting this program in favor of the debt? It would be extremely unpopular. Yeah, you know, I don't know how many examples of sacrifice would Ever be popular?

[Chris Cillizza]

Well, one of my favorite, to your point, one of my favorite. I tell the story all the time because it's so reflective of how we think about things. So like, I think I was at the Washington Post back then. I can't remember. I think it was the Post. And they would do polling and they would do focus groups as part of it. And like they would let us sit, occasionally sit in. And this was like in Iowa or New Hampshire, I can't remember. It was some early state. The person. So we're behind. For people who don't know, you know, you're behind this one way Glass. These people are like out in the conference room and someone is leading the conversation. And so there's like 14 people or 16 people, you know, who are there. And, and the, the mediator or whatever the person leading the conversation says. How many of you raise your hands if you think it would be a good idea for health care in America to cover every single person, regardless of financial status. And of course everyone's like 15, 16, all of them. The next question is, and raise your hand if you'd be willing to have your taxes increased only marginally in order that to happen. And people are like, because, I mean, this is the thing. It's like, yeah, of course. Like, yes, I would like, I would like a long term gain, but I don't want any short term pain. Can I get short term gain coupled with long term gain? We're not, not good at that. That is not a thing. It's. It is, it's the age of abundance that we live in. Right? Man, it's like, you know, it's, it's. I hate to bring commerce into this, but it's like, I mean, if you told me 20 years ago, when I was 30, even so, so not that long ago this century. If you had told me you can order toilet paper on your phone and within three hours it'll almost certainly be delivered by Amazon to your door. I believe. Like, what, how, what's Amazon?

[Mike Pesca]

And, and so like, how do I get into this? How do I get into this circumstance?

[Chris Cillizza]

Exactly. What the hell? I really gotta, gotta plan better on my.

[Mike Pesca]

I got a Sports Illustrated sneaker here.

[Chris Cillizza]

This one right here. I'm still texting by pressing 2 repeatedly. But my point is, is like, because every, I mean, I, I feel this myself. My mom has a home off of the coast of a vacation home off the coast of Long Island Island. It's literally an island where there's no cars. You have to take a ferry over There, it's lovely. But if the WI fi isn't working super fast on the island, I'm like, what is this bullshit? And it's like, man, we are just so. Chris Alyssa of 2002 would look askance at Chris Liza 2026 for the things I get annoyed by. And it's like I try to be aware of it. It. But I think it is this. We are so used to having everything we want when we want it, with almost no friction, that the idea that there are things that require sacrifice almost doesn't compute.

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah. Is it Fire Island? Is it Plum Island?

[Chris Cillizza]

Yes, Fire Island. Fire Island.

[Mike Pesca]

Lots, lots of good deer there. The other one, big one is Plum island, which is also a bio research facility.

[Chris Cillizza]

It's a lovely, lovely, lovely place.

[Mike Pesca]

You know, it's all like that Simpsons meme where principal.

[Chris Cillizza]

No.

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah. Principal Skinner's mom is telling the checkout girl, I want it all in one bag, but I don't want it to be heavy. Yeah. Although advanced to 20 years. The answer is actually, screw that, I want you to deliver the bag. But I mean, I don't want them.

[Chris Cillizza]

It really, it really is pretty remarkable. And I do, I do think, look, these. I always think we, we wrongly, we. We make a mistake when we try to take these big events, you know, whether it's an election or attack in Iran or anything outside of the culture in which it lands. Like, it just the nature of how we think about ourselves and what we want and who we are. And of course it impacts how we think about these things. Even if you couldn't place Iran on a map, which, by the way, I think most people can't. It doesn't even matter. It's like how you approach it is totally dependent on your kind of situation. I have, I don't know anyone whose kid is deployed actively because I am in an upper middle class, affluent community.

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah, yeah.

[Chris Cillizza]

Where that doesn't. I think it's very different. I mean, look, I'm driving through Ohio, right? And we're, we're at, we're at Denison, which is in Granville, Ohio. Beautiful town. And, you know, this little, like great university. 2500, 2500 kids, but you drive 10 minutes away and it's all farmland and there are Trump signs everywhere. I mean, it's a different. Just you. Your bubble indicates so much of what you. How you see the world. And like, I'm not in a good place to be. Like, this is. I. Like what you said at the top. I don't know if this is a Good thing or a bad thing? Because I'm not sure I'm in a place to judge that right now.

[Mike Pesca]

I'll give you another one. It doesn't. It seems just so obvious that you or I wouldn't know someone whose kid is deployed, although, you know, you live in D.C. and maybe there's some military personnel there or. Yeah, that seems quite obvious. Someone was saying on a podcast, quote, I don't know anyone who has more than three children. Like, is that. What. How could that. And then I thought about it, and I had to think very hard of some kind of unique individuals who. I know. But that's so weird, and that's so different from, I would say, much of America's experience and much of our experience.

[Chris Cillizza]

So different. And it just, it's. Anyway, let's, let's. I want. I. There's a couple things I want to talk to you about because we. When we do this monthly, there's a few things that I write down that I always want to talk about. I want to get your. I was coming back yesterday, and I saw this New York Post op ed that John Cornyn wrote in which he said, you know what? I've been against getting rid of the legislative filibuster my entire time in the Senate, but I've had a change of heart. And it doesn't have anything to do with the fact that I'm trying to win Donald Trump's endorsement in this prime, in this runoff against Ken Paxton. But I think we should get rid of the legislative filibuster for the SAVE Act. I shouldn't be taken aback by the transparency of that and the politics over principle. And yet I was. Is that weird?

[Mike Pesca]

No. It's good that you haven't totally become a globule of cynicism navigating through the world. But, you know, okay, total transparency. But the Save act is probably a good thing. And the, you know, I, I would think. Oh, sorry, the Save Act. Yes. The Save act might not be a good thing. I would think it would be interesting if he did it with the Stock Trading Act.

[Chris Cillizza]

Oh, I think the stock trading thing should pass. Yes. The Save act is like, I think there's a case to be made about voter id. Yes, I think. And, and I always say this to people, 36 states already require some form of ID. 24 of them require photo, official photo, government ID. 12 require some form of ID. It doesn't have to have your picture on it. So this is really about the 14 states that don't. But I. The Problem is, is like it passed the House, but then Trump was like, well, okay, well now we're also going to get rid of all mail in balloting. We're like, he, he's adding all these things to it. It's like, my thing about the SAVE act in general is it's not going to happen because they're. Even if they tried to change the filibuster rule, I don't know that there are 50 senators, like, so they have 53 right now. McConnell would vote against it for sure. Old time institutionalist, retiring. Right. Thom Tillis would vote against it. Murkowski and Collins, that's four right there. No Democrat is going to vote for it. So it's like we're having this debate and Trump's saying like, I'll never sign anything ever again. It's the most important piece of legislation ever. Ken Paxton is literally basically like saying, my price to get out of the runoff is this going through.

[Mike Pesca]

And it's like nailing himself to ballots.

[Chris Cillizza]

John Thune is like the only voice of reason here. He basically said, I mean, he said in not so many words. The math is, the math, like, this isn't going to work. And yet the left is. I find I get emails every day from people on the left saying, like, you need to cover this more. This is how he steals the election. I'm like, it's not going to happen. And then on the right, he. There's this total like, like they're living in a fantasy world where somehow these votes just occur. It's very weird to me how a piece of legislation that I view as effectively dead in the water has become this like giant thing.

[Mike Pesca]

It's. It's only because it's dead that it's so important. Because if it's actually passed, I think would have almost no effect. It's like the Republican redistricting that is. Be careful what you wish.

[Chris Cillizza]

Totally.

[Mike Pesca]

Because if you create all these R plus districts and it's a plus eight year, you're gonna lose. So this, beyond the 34 states, all the countries, you know, let's beat up America and we're a failing democracy or we're a partial democracy. All the countries above us as great democracies. Norway, not Sweden, but Finland, New Zealand, now the uk they require ID for voting. Quite.

[Chris Cillizza]

Dear Gore, it's not insane. It's not. I think the left, Left paints it as like they're trying to keep women and black people from voting. You know, like, I understand that, that, that there is an argument to be made there. But it is not insane when you look at the entire world to say

[Mike Pesca]

have an ID, but the right. So it polls pretty well. 70 something percent of Americans say that's fine. 70% of Americans live in states where they already do it. And with any. So there's a couple of truths, I was going to say truism, because it's probably both with voting laws. One is that it may be true that the people that the party that passes the law with a specific intent has a nefarious intent, but then there's always the opportunity to act against that intent. And if you look at all the voting laws, and even if you look at the, the crumbling of the Voting Rights act that the Supreme Court has presided over, and if you look at all of the predictions, almost none of them have come to pass in terms of dire circumstances for what this does with actual behavior because of counter mobilization, it becomes this huge issue. So all these Democrats who are saying to you, this is how they steal the election, they're wrong about them stealing the election. But part of the reason is they're wrong is they think the election's going to be stolen. Just like all these people saying in town halls married women won't be able to vote. No, you're wrong. But the fact that you think that is going to get a whole lot more people out to vote. So I'm not saying this is a gigantic nothing burger, but I really, really do think that A, no chance of passing, B, if it does pass, won't have a big effect at all. And the one other truism with all voting rules is when you ask the people who are elected under a set of rules to change those rules, they are very loathe to do it because these are exactly the people for whom the old rules worked.

[Chris Cillizza]

And I also, I also say, I always remind people this. I remember this is literally like 30 years ago. I had just started out and I was, I was talking to a guy in California who was like, you know, even back then, it's, it's a very low bar to get a ballot initiative on the ballot in California. Like, it doesn't cost a lot of money. You don't need that many signatures. It's why you have so many and why I think it's a problem, right? Because all the money gets taken out. You're like, oh, why wouldn't I support this? Why wouldn't I support that anyway?

[Mike Pesca]

Well, and also, like the focus groups, they pass laws like we will not be raising state income taxes and screws

[Chris Cillizza]

for 22, where's the money going to come from? But the point this guy made, and I always think of it, he's like, what you always want to have on these ballot initiatives or ballot measures, whatever the hell they are, they are. He said, you always want to. Your side wants no, because when faced with change of any sort, or I don't totally know what this is, people vote no. And so it's just so fascinating. It's a human condition thing. It's exactly what you said. It's like the incentive to change these things is not, not super, super high. Like, I.

[Mike Pesca]

Right.

[Chris Cillizza]

I don't know. I just. The SAVE act is a great example to me of how our political conversation, I'm not just going to put it on the media, but our, the media has a role here. But how our political conversation oversimplifies in ways that is bad for the American public. It's like, either it's a poll tax, and I see some people saying that. I see Nancy T. Saying, you guys are really underselling this threat. So it's either that, that or it's, I don't know why this makes perfect. This makes perfect sense. Like, you know, I don't know why we wouldn't do it. There's more nuance in almost all of these things than I think the political conversation, the political dialogue allows. That's why I like talking to you, because you're not predictably sort of like, oh, well, yes, the SAVE act is good and everyone should vote for it. The SAVES act is bad. And it's. They're trying to keep women from voting.

[Mike Pesca]

Like, look, if I was a member, if I was a senator, I'd vote against it because I think it's cynically proposed. But if it were to pass, I don't think the wal walls would come tumbling down. And I think that all of these acts, all of these ideas at the margins can affect votes a little bit. And it's a close country, but not every election is close, and this is not going to be close. And I also remember, don't you remember four years ago, all the panic over the mailboxes being taken offline? There's a little bit of that to this, right? It's very. When.

[Chris Cillizza]

When, yeah, I was just. There's a ton of it. The thing I keep getting reminded of, I remind people of, they're like, like, well, Trump's just going to cancel the election. I'm like, number one, he can't, because elections are local, state run, not federally run. And I don't see that changing. But also, if he was going to cancel elections, why wouldn't he have canceled 2025 where Democrats won across the board? They won the Virginia governorship. They won. They control the Virginia state house and Senate. They won the New Jersey governorship. They, the mom Donnie got elect like, why wouldn't they? They're like, oh well, he wouldn't waste it on just like a 2025 election. He's waiting for a big one. It's like, well, like at some point, like, isn't this a little chicken little situation? Sky is falling every day. And again, you and I have talked about this. There's a business in telling people the sky is falling. There's a business and scaring the out of people and telling them we're. We're Germany in 1933. Right.

[Mike Pesca]

Right.

[Chris Cillizza]

There's a, there's a business there. I get it. It. But unfortunately, I think a lot of people get sucked into it. Yeah.

[Mike Pesca]

And also I think that if everyone agreed with us, the globules of neurosyncism, it probably wouldn't be good for the countervailing. Countermeasures. Right. You need impassioned people. You need Timothy Snyder to say, actually we are becoming an autocracy. And I don't agree with him, but the fact that a number of people do is healthy for the republic.

[Chris Cillizza]

Right. Yeah, I totally agree. Agree. Nope. Do you have. Before I move off of Texas entirely, were you surprised that Tal Rico won?

[Mike Pesca]

Okay. So I read the Atlantic article and I listened to Kevin Williamson in the Dispatch because, you know, he's from Texas and so I guess not. But to get to that place, I had to probably do some deep rethinking of my priors, which is this is a well known media phenomenon in Jasmine Crockett and one of my. And so I, I don't pretend to know a lot about Texas. Yeah. But if you were to say this person who's essentially a household name and is where she is in the early polling and is where she is with the money, that's the person you usually bet on, not the, you know, thin choir boy unmarried dude who had a nice session.

[Chris Cillizza]

Yeah, I, I saw. I love Patrick Raffini. He's a Republican pollster. He does. He, he has a great substack and it's just thoughtful. It's not. And he did. He broke the vote down. Talarico versus Crockett. And basically the conclusion was, by the way, his thing is called the argument. And the conclusion was affluent white liberals turned out in higher numbers than Hispanics or African Americans. And they voted overwhelmingly for Talarico. Like it's, it is fascinating to me that this party that was once kind of like working class and minority, right, Hispanic and black, is now like affluent whites, suburban and, and urban. But, but suburban, affluent whites, even in a state like Texas, drive a lot of the, I don't know. I just, it's the, the flipping and the flopping. And this is to your point about how like unpredictability always has to be factored in when we think of these things. But like the fact that the coalition that, that, that coalition put Talarico in I just think is fascinating.

[Mike Pesca]

And that's it for today's show. Thanks Cory Warra, for producing this. We will talk to you on Monday. Safeway and Albertsons have made saving easier than ever with great savings on family favorites this week at Safeway and Albertsons.

[Chris Cillizza]

USDA Choice beef, boneless, tri tip, whole

[Mike Pesca]

or flank and style ribs bone in are $6.99 per pound member price and

[Chris Cillizza]

a sweet asparagus are 199 per pound

[Mike Pesca]

member price plus 16 ounce strawberries, 6 ounce raspberries or blackberries are 197 each

[Chris Cillizza]

limit three member price with digital coupon.

[Mike Pesca]

Hurry in. These deals won't last.

[Chris Cillizza]

Visit safewayoralbertsons.com for more deals and ways to save.