Charlie Sykes (2:45)

Hey, Charlie Sykes here. Welcome to the to the Contrary podcast. Today it is just me. It is solo and lots of questions from subscribers. Like, for example, we have questions about the dumbing down of America, Pete Hegseth murders at sea, Signal Gate, Marco Rubio's North Korean style suck up to Donald Trump. Hey, if you have not seen this, stick around for this. Questions about splits in the Republican Party, Mike Johnson's political lifespan, questions about who's the dumbest member of Trump's Cabinet, lots of questions about the midterm elections, whether or not Donald Trump is a lame duck, the Jeffrey Epstein Files, Questions about ICE and accountability. And by the way, in case you missed it, this is going to get a lot worse. So stick around for that and I'll try to get to as many as possible. But first, a quick note. Look, I know that a lot of you listen to and watch this podcast, but for some reason are not yet subscribers to my to the Contrary newsletter. And you really ought to be, because it's free and it is daily, comes out every day, there's no paywall, but if you choose to be a subscriber, it comes down to about 27 cents a day. And there are seven newsletters, three podcasts, one or two live streams every single week. And again, as I repeatedly do, I do not promise you a safe space. Just straight, sober, sane, occasionally snarky commentary. It's been kind of snarky lately. So when you're done here, make sure you go check that out so that you can continue to keep up with things during this completely insane period. And we'll try to get to as many of your questions as possible. And trust me, it's going to be interesting.

Charlie Sykes (4:41)

Okay, time for your questions. By the way, people should know that I get lots and lots of mail and lots and lots of reactions. If I don't get back to you, I apologize. I sometimes get overwhelmed, you know, even on social media. Like, I don't know, just the other morning I posted something about RFK Jr. The guy that once ate a barbecue dog, has brain worms, stashed a bear in a park, and is running our health services, engaged in kind of a nasty scandal that somehow has Left him unscathed. And I got this lovely note back from somebody on X, the insidified version of Twitter. Charlie, I see that you are a paid agent of big pharma. Just wait until Director Cash Cash Patel, has the FBI break your door down, handcuff you, put you on trial, then imprison you for life.

Charlie Sykes (5:35)

To which I responded, you sound nice and not at all like a complete fascist. Okay, so let's get to these. These questions. First question is, how much trouble is Pete Hegseth in? Excellent question. Look, he's not going anywhere, at least for the time being. Clearly, Donald Trump has his back. There's a lot going on. That inspector general report about Signalgate, you know, it's not the smoking gun, but it is not good. It is not good that the Secretary of Defense was so reckless that he endangered the lives of servicemen. And as for the ongoing spin about what's going on in the Caribbean, as you know, the admiral in charge has testified that, no, there was a no kill everybody, kill them all order. But that doesn't change the underlying fact. And this is important to sort of step back from the fog of spin. There's the fog of war, and then there's the fog of spin, which can be even murkier. I mean, it really boils down to the fact that there were men in the water. They were not fighting, they were not armed. They posed no threat. That's number one. Number two, there was a conscious decision to fire again. Now, we don't know how many times they fired, but they fired again to kill them, unarmed survivors of the boat. Now, this is kind of. You know, I was reading this on Substack. You know, the legal theory is, like, we kill them to stop someone else from picking up drugs later.

Charlie Sykes (7:07)

Not sure that that is what the law actually says. So, again, there are these two main options that we need to keep our eye on, keep kind of focused on. If this is a real armed conflict, if it really is a war, then attacking shipwrecked survivors is very explicitly prohibited. If it's not a war, if they're just criminals engaged in illegal activity, they're suspects at sea, because, of course, they've not been arrested or charged with anything, then killing them is, well, that's extrajudicial murder. So we're going to see, as far as Pete Hegseth, Donald Trump seems to have decided that he's going to stick with him. And so I don't think he's going anywhere. All right, here's another question. What is going on With Marco Rubio. Okay, I'm going to keep this answer short because we could. I could go down all kinds of rabbit holes. Have you actually seen this story? This is, and I, and I confess every once in a while, and I, I openly admit this, that I'll see a story and I'll think, okay, that's got to be a. That's got to be a fake, right? That can't be real. That's. That's a parody. That's. That is a spoof. This is not a spoof. Do you remember when they shut down the United States Institutes of Peace? This is an important institution that's done a lot of good work over the years. It is the United States Institute of Peace. Marco Rubio, doing his best North Korean anchorman sycophant suck up thing, announces on X the other night that President Trump will be remembered by history as the President of peace.

Sequoia Capital Podcast Announcer (8:44)

New.

Charlie Sykes (8:45)

He's new. It is time our State Department display that. And so they announced this morning, the State Department renamed the former United States Institute of Peace to reflect. Oh, boy. The greatest dealmaker in our nation's history.

Charlie Sykes (9:05)

Welcome to the. This is not a parody. Welcome. Welcome to the Donald J. Trump Institute of Peace. The best is yet to come. Oh, I know it's early in this podcast, but for fuck's sake, really? Is Donald Trump gonna just basically name everything for himself? It's sort of like my dogs need to, like, pee on everything to show ownership. And by the way, for those of you that wonder, I do these podcasts from my office, and virtually every time we do them, I have a very, very large dog underneath the desk. So if you hear snoring, it's not because I'm bored or anything. I have to tell the guests that all the time. When you have 140 pound German shepherd underneath you, there's a certain unpredictability. But the one thing is that Eli generally falls asleep and he makes a lot of noise. So just. I want to mention that. Okay, so back to the reader questions here. I'm old enough to remember. I'm old. That's always great. I'm old enough to remember you're writing on education higher and lower and schools in general. I wrote a book called Dumbing Down Our K. Those kids have now grown up and maybe have kids of their own. Is there some kind of connection between the educational system then and our partisan politics now?

Charlie Sykes (10:18)

Okay, not being snarky here, but what do you think? What are the. If we were having this conversation 20 or 30 years ago and we said, well, what would the consequences be if we dumbed down our standards, if we dumbed down our standards of literacy, if kids read fewer books? What would happen if we stopped teaching civics in school? What if we made history an elective? What would there be any consequence for civil society, for democracy? Unfortunately, yes. And I think one of the tragedies of our time is that, frankly, neither political party seems particularly interested in addressing some pretty horrific numbers. And I'm not just talking about the test scores, talking about the fact that if you talk to teachers at any level in education, they will tell you that it's harder and harder to find kids who will read long form work and engage in critical thinking. So, yes, that has a lot to do with what's going on. And unfortunately, we have an entire political culture I think that feeds on that ignorance, on that dumbing down. And I think social media contributes to the dumbing down and isolation. Okay, more questions here. Why can't Europe do more with regard to Ukraine? Why don't they unfreeze those Russian assets for Ukraine? I would call your attention to the podcast that we did earlier this week with Ed Luce from the Financial Times, who talked about that specifically. And he said in the next few weeks, maybe before Christmas, the European leaders have to decide whether or not they're basically going to pull the pin and seize $200 billion worth of Russian assets and then turn it over to Ukraine. And he says that will change the weather because that will show how serious they are in defending Ukraine, standing by Ukraine, and it would have real world impact.

Charlie Sykes (12:14)

Especially in Donald Trump's world where it's all about money, where everything is about money. Okay, Charlie, is the split in the GOP real? And is Mike Johnson going to survive? This feels like a tricky question because we've been talking about and waiting for splits in the GOP for the last 10 years. There's a, look, I'm one of the guys that has, you know, we played Lucy in the football so many times that I'm, I'm a little jaded, I have to admit that. But I also have to tell you that it does feel that there's something going on right now. When you lose Marjorie Taylor Greene. Something is different. I mean, the weather is in fact different. But it's more than that. There are more and more knives out stories that you're reading, members of Congress and other Republican officials who are pointing the fingers at one another. Some of them are going after Mike Johnson, some of them are going after Donald Trump. Most of it's off the record, but you're seeing an increasing willingness to push back. I think the Epstein file vote might have been a little bit of a turning point, but the big turning point, because these are politicians, was the those November elections in Virginia and in Virginia and in New Jersey and in other places that frankly have scared the shit out of Republicans. I mean, they see where things are going. They tried their gerrymandering stunt. I think it's dawning on them that that may not have worked and may in fact have backfired. As for Mike Johnson, you can see that he's really losing his own caucus and he doesn't have much room to go. He only has a few vote margin. Nancy Pelosi was able to hold that together. And Johnson has been more successful than I thought he would be. Let's be honest about it. I mean, he has been more successful, but you're starting to see people taking shots at him and they're taking shots at him sometimes from the maga. Right. And I think that's important too, because you're starting to see that elbow jockeying for position in the post Trump Republican era. So, you know, watch the polls, watch the special elections. One of the key moments, I think Jonathan Martin pointed this out the other day on television, is wait until a lot of these senators are waiting until the filing deadline next year, which I know seems kind of insider and esoteric. They want to see whether or not they're going to have a primary, whether they're going to have a MAGA primary opponent. Because most of these guys and women aren't afraid of losing in the general election. They're afraid of losing in the primary to somebody who's backed by Donald Trump if they show any sort of independence whatsoever. So I do think that that's something to keep an eye on. You're also seeing these new polls out. There's a Politico poll out showing that a larger number, rather surprisingly large number of Republican voters, Trump voters, are now blaming him for the high cost of living. And in case you haven't noticed, Donald Trump hasn't figured out how he's gonna handle that yet. Maybe that's because he's living in his own bubble. He's living in his own world where he's increasingly out of touch. And the people that he's hanging around with, they don't see any problem. I mean, they're looking at the stock market, they're not looking at the grocery bills. You know, most of the people who he's hanging out with at Mar A lago don't do their own grocery shopping. Okay, all right. Lots of questions about ICE and accountability.

Charlie Sykes (15:41)

Somebody was asking here, is ICE out of control? Is it getting worse? Will Stephen Miller, Kristi Noem and company ever be held accountable? Okay, there's a lot going on there.

Charlie Sykes (15:54)

On one level, it feels like ICE is out of control, but ICE is very much in control. I mean, it's under the control of the real ideologues in this administration, Stephen Miller, who is pushing this aggressively xenophobic agenda. You know, when. When Donald Trump lashes out at foreigners, non white foreigners, let's be honest about this. When he goes after Somalis or Afghans or Muslims or people from shithole countries. And by the way, you know, every day it might change. There might be a different target. It's usually because, you know, Stephen Miller is feeding him lines about, you know, this dark Asiatic horde that is going to take over America, that's invading America, and he buys this bullshit and spews it out just parenthetically. I spoke to a travel Group in Washington, D.C. earlier this week, and there were people from all over the world. And I figured I might as well be blunt and honest about it. And I said, you know, one of the realities is you have to understand that non white foreigners face significant hostility in this country. And that's also true of American citizens. You're an American citizen. You're going to be asked of a Latino extraction, and you should expect to be asked to show your papers. I don't know whether you saw this story. And again, this is one of those stories that is an indicator that things are not getting any better. It's a story out of Miami. This is from the Miami Herald about a woman who apparently worked at a hospital. A woman in medical scrubs who was driving on US 1 in the Florida Keys Wednesday morning, was stopped by federal immigration agents and forcibly removed from her car. Despite screaming that she's an American citizen, she can be heard screaming as the agents attempt to handcuff her. I'm a US Citizen. Please help me. She shouted after the agents forced her to the ground. This is unfair. Why are you doing this to me? After agents removed the woman from the car, they found her driver's license in the vehicle, ran it through their system, and confirmed that she is, in fact, a US Citizen. My wife showed me that video and I said, you know.

Charlie Sykes (18:00)

This is the kind of thing that's gonna bring this regime down. It is one. Okay. You're saying, Charlie, this is the irrational exuberance you promised you Weren't gonna have no. People react to the stories, they react to the images, they react to these videos. And I think it offends an innate sense of American decency. I think there's sometimes a disconnect between our politics, the way we deal with one another, or even the politicians we support, and our actual values. I continue to be baffled by the fact that we allow Donald Trump to get away with things that we would not allow anybody that we work with. You wouldn't hire him as your lawyer, as your babysitter, as your dog walker. There's nothing a team in America that would hire Donald Trump to be a youth coach. He wouldn't be hired at any educational institution. I challenge any. Any publicly held corporation, whether they'd make him the CEO. And yet you tolerate him being the commander in chief. But in any case, what I'm getting at here is that I think stories like this are contributing materially to Donald Trump's decline in support. And you're seeing that, particularly with the Hispanic Latino community. One thing that I think that we underestimate is how many people in this country right now go out with fear and anxiety, because ICE is about fear and anxiety. And I think it's going to get worse.

Charlie Sykes (19:30)

I actually promised this group the other day, I said, I have some good news and some bad news. And I, of course, start with the bad news. And I think they were going, hey, Charlie, when are you going to get to the good news? Well, here's a little bit more bad news here, is that normally in a normal political universe, when you would see how politically disastrous stuff like this is, you'd pivot away from it, right? You'd say, hey, the masked agents beating up grandma and pulling moms out of the car, this is not working for us. Right? It's not working for us. But in Trump world, particularly with Stephen Miller and that whole universe, they're absolutely committed, and they're about to dump a shitload of money into it. Over the next four years, $150 billion. This will mean that ice will be better funded than most of the world's militaries, including Israel. The budget of ICE will be larger than the US Marine Corps, larger than the military budget of Italy, and they're going to be adding 10,000 new agents. And I really want you to think about this. 10,000 more ICE agents. Now, how do you think they're recruiting them or other way? Who do you think they're going to be hiring, and how will they be trained? And what happens when they run out of really, really bad guys to go after. So this is one of the reasons why I think these kinds of abuses are going to continue ticking up. Okay, so. Da, da, da, da. Okay, who's the dumbest member of the Trump cabinet? Okay, trick question. That is a trick question. Are multiple answers acceptable? I was actually thinking about this the other day because when I was on the plane coming back from Washington D.C. to Milwaukee, we had to wait while they loaded my fellow Wisconsinite, Shawn Duffy, who is the secretary of transportation, who had to get on the plane first with his entire security detail, you know, on Southwest Airlines open seating. But everybody had to wait, including all of the, you know, the pre board people. And so I was actually thinking, you know, because I've known Duffy for some time, actually knew his wife. I was kind of a fan of his wife for a walk for a while in the before times known Sean Duffy, and the guy's as dumb as a box of rocks. So I actually did ask myself that question. Who is the dumbest member of this cabinet? I mean, there's some pretty deplorable characters, but, you know, he'd have to be up there. But the competition is really, really fierce. I mean, he's there, but you also. I mean, Kristi Noem is going to give him a run for her money. And by the way, you can't go to the airport, as you know, without seeing. Seeing a video with her. Here's a question. Do you think GOP senators have any buyers remorse about confirming Hegseth Patel, RFK, etc.

Charlie Sykes (22:17)

Short answer, they sure as hell ought to. I mean, imagine being one of those senators that cast the deciding vote. I mean, you know, do you really want to be a senator so much? Yes. And the answer is yes. But, you know, you foisted these grotesquely, obviously unqualified chodes onto the American public. So, you know, you have Senator Cassidy from Louisiana, who's a medical doctor. I mentioned that because he knows better, but he voted. He voted for RFK Jr. He, you know, believed RFK when he said, no, I'm not gonna do any crazy shit with vaccines. And so he votes yes. What does RFK Jr do? He does crazy shit with vaccines. What does Cassidy do? What do any of these guys do? Is Thom Tillis, you know, lying awake at night thinking, what was I thinking? Voting for people like Tulsi Gabbard? I'm just doing this off the top of my head, Pete Hegseth, I don't know. But the problem is, when you buy into this sort of thing, you Buy in all the way. Okay, some more of these questions. And again, I really appreciate all of you that added the questions in the chat. Okay, here is a couple of questions about the midterms. If Democrats take the house in 26, do you really think the Trump administration will be letting anyone testify or answer to a subpoena? Good question. Answer is probably not. But then the question is, I was wondering what your opinion is on whether or not Democrats in Congress should impeach Trump for one or more of his abuses of power and probable crimes if and when they regain power. If so, should they focus on corruption, abuse of power, or war crimes, human rights violations? My answer there is yes, all of the above. If not, should Democrats focus more on investigating his Cabinet, like Higgs war crimes, Kristi Noem's human rights violations, and ignoring direct judicial rulings? Tom Homan's taking 50 grand in cash in a paper bag, RFK's, damage to the public health, babies dying, a whooping cough and the measles. Well, this is gonna be the problem. You know that there's gonna be tremendous pressure for impeachment. And you know that impeachment will end the way the other ones did. He will be impeached and then he will get off in the Senate and it will be a massive distraction. And is there any alternative? The problem is that when the Supreme Court gave President, any president, including Donald Trump, basically blanket immunity for their official actions, the only constitutional check that remains is impeachment. And, of course, the investigations by Congress, there's going to be tremendous pressure on Democrats.

Charlie Sykes (25:01)

To go to the max. And anything they can do to highlight all of this I think is good. And again, I will understand the arguments, the prudential arguments. I mean, do you really wanna waste time on an impeachment that's not going anywhere? I don't know. The thing about the midterm elections is if, in fact, Democrats do win, and that's a big if. I'm not chuffing the Hopium here, and I don't sell it to you, but if they win big, that's the moment when Donald Trump really becomes a lame duck. And that's not necessarily completely good news, because if you've listened to me, you know what I'm going to say here, right? I think I told Susan Glasser that for Donald Trump, lame duck may just be another word for nothing left to lose. And that means he is still extremely dangerous. We've seen the vast powers of the presidency, the power of pardoning, the power of using the Department of Justice as a cudgel, his control over the military. And clearly, Donald Trump is not governed by any norm or any red lines. You know, and again, we could spend an entire program talking about the pardons. I was gonna say he's outrageous pardons, but outrageous doesn't seem like strong enough war, does it? I mean, it's like our language is straining here that Donald Trump is. He's pardoning.

Charlie Sykes (26:21)

Drug kingpins from Honduras. He's pardoning crypto crooks. He's pardoning, you know, one after another, any corrupt politician in America is turning their lonely eyes to the White House thinking, you know, we are in this post scandal era, we're in this post character, post morality era. Maybe I can get a get out of jail free card. And that's just part of it. So how will we know when Donald Trump is a lame duck? Well, when you start to see the 2028 campaign beginning when Republicans basically say, yeah, this guy's a loser, 2026 is going to be.

Charlie Sykes (27:01)

You know, to say that it's important is putting it mildly. All right, back to your questions. When Biden, When Biden was in office. Feels like a long time ago now, right? Doesn't it? All I heard about was the Biden crime family, but now we have the biggest grifter ever in office. And crickets. Why do we hear more about the corruption in plain sight from the Trump family? Excellent question. Because I think in part, this is one of those consequences of flooding the zone. It's just hard to keep up. And I also think that there's kind of a lag time. It's like, it is so brazen. It is so obvious. It is on such a massive scale. They are not making any pretense that they are not doing this, that I think, you know, the normal watchdogs are either gone or just kind of shocked into silence. But also, this is one of those things where I think that, you know, another indication is Republicans are better at messaging these very simple concepts. The Biden crime family. The Biden crime family. Okay, so Hunter was a bit sleazy, but it pales in comparison to the Jared Kushner's of the world, the Donald Trumps of the world, the Donald Juniors of the world, the deals they're cutting, the open bribery of the president, which is not a secret anymore. I mean, everyone has figured out, hey, you know what the smart move is? The smart move is to bribe Donald Trump. Give him whatever he wants, bring him gold baubles, give him airplanes, give him all kinds of stuff. Because you know, if you want to, you know, stay on his good side, you have to pay him off. Now, I know that there will be some of you that will say, well, Charlie, you know, corruption's been a problem in American politics forever. So, you know, is this different? That's true. This is different. We have never seen anything on the scale of what we're seeing now. But you want some good news? I did promise I would get to some good news. And I have mentioned. I have mentioned this a couple of times. The Jamie Dimon story. Do you know, are people familiar with this? Okay, well, just give me. Just give me a second on this one. Jamie Dimon is the CEO of J.P. morgan, one of the, you know, big Wall street guys. And he gave an interview recently where he said, you know, we're not gonna be contributing to that massive new Trump Ballroom, the $300 million ballroom, you know, the one they tore down the east wing of the White House for, because it might look like we're trying to buy influence and we have a lot of business with government. I'm paraphrasing this, but there may come a time when there is a Democratic Department of Justice that will look very different. In other words, Jamie Dimon is now starting to think post Trump, and the message he's sending is you all think that the smart move is to bribe Donald Trump. Well, it's smart until it's not. And this is one of the things that I think we need to keep our eye on. These guys are acting as if. And I'm talking about the Trump people, but a lot of the people who are sucking up to him, they're acting as if there will never be a change in power, that they will never be a Justice Department that says, hey, you know what? Bribery is illegal, and we're going to hold you accountable. The fact that JP Dimon. I'm sorry, that Jamie Dimon from JP Morgan recognizes that I think is significant. I mean, it's not determinative, but it is significant. And it sends a signal to every other corporation. Okay? Remember, there is a risk unless you assume that this is a, you know, the thousand year Trumpian Reich and you will never be held accountable. It might not be the smart thing. Okay, back to your questions. Ooh, this is cosmic one. Since we're getting to the end of the year, I'd like to know whether you thought that we as a country, whether you thought that we as a country weathered this first year of Trump 2.0 better or worse than you thought we would back in February when it seemed like they were off to the races doing Project 2025 as fast as they could. Okay, well, this is a complicated question, because there were those of us that were warning about Trump 2.0 for a very, very long time in a very, very graphic term. So we can't say that we were surprised by what they were doing. They said they told us what they were going to do. Every indication was that they had a plan, that the Velociraptors had figured out how to open the doors. And this time around, I wrote about it, I talked about it. You know, my friend Tom Nichols has written about it, David Frum wrote about, like, look, look, Trump 2.0 is going to be worse than, you know, exponentially worse than Trump 1.0. And yet it did feel in some ways worse than predicted. Not necessarily because Trump did anything we weren't expecting, because he did signal that he was going to do all of those things. And this is the thing about Donald Trump. I mean, there's that whole school of thought, he's not gonna do that. He's not gonna. So failure of imagination. The shock was the serial surrender of civil society. The number of people that we thought might be guardrails against Trumpian overreach, who decided very early on that they were gonna bend the knee. And it started with the law firm, started with the universities, when all of the tech oligarchs came in, you know, sucking up, you know, pulling on the Ford a lot to Donald Trump. And, you know, you know, pardon the language here, but one of the surprises was that you thought that if you were, you know, a multi billionaire, that if you had fuck you money, that you could say fuck you instead. It turns out, and Donald Trump perhaps had this insight, is that if you have fuck you money, you can't say fuck you to the President because you have more to lose. And so Donald Trump realized that if he could play upon their fears, let them know how much they had to lose by getting on his side and how much they had to gain by paying him off, well, they would follow the incentives. So, I mean, you just look at one after another, and it was not just Elon Musk, obviously. I mean, you're talking about Jeff Bezos and you're talking about Zuckerberg, and I mean, just go down that whole, sorry, sorry, listen. But it was that surrender, it was that that sort of shocked desire to appease that I think made things somewhat worse. So that the resistance did feel like it took a while for it to get off its, you know, off its back foot. That's a very nice way of, of saying what was going on. So in some ways, I feel that it was worse. I think that the damage was more extensive because we were not prepared. And I know that there are some of you who get all bristled and any criticism of Joe Biden, but Joe Biden had one job. The one job was to keep Donald Trump from coming back into power, and number two, to somehow fireproof the federal government to his return to power. And they failed. And the more I think about that, the more frustrating it is to realize that, you know, knowing what was coming, that we did not take the threat seriously enough to put in place those protections that would have prevented it and some of the damage that's being done. And I agree with Judge Ludig. In fact, I was, I chatted with Judge Kay. This is, I'm from Wisconsin, so I'm not one of the Washington guys. But. So this is going to sound like one of those Washington schmooze things. I was talking with Judge Ludig at Dick Cheney's funeral. This is actually what. And we were talking about the Justice Department. And my wife asked him, said, you know, how long will it take to fix this? And I remember his answer, shook his head, and he said, it's going to take decades or generations. These things are not easily fixed. So it's not as if, when Donald Trump leaves and the Republicans lose power, that we're going to flip a switch and go back to anything like normality, anything like the norms that we used to have because the China has been broken and it's going to be very, very, very difficult to putting it back. Okay, let's go back to some of these questions.

Charlie Sykes (35:24)

Bunch of questions on the Epstein files. Look, that has not gone away. Every once in a while, I, you know, get some, you know, frustrated subscribers or listeners who say, charlie, you know, we're talking about this because it's a distraction from the Epstein files. And by the way, when you think about how much political capital Donald Trump and Mike Johnson and other Republicans have spent on preventing the release of the Epstein file, you know, I don't know what it is, but there's something there and they're not going away. There's no way that they, that, that, that, that disappears. So this is one of those things where, you know, again, take kind of a deep breath.

Charlie Sykes (36:03)

That is coming back.

Charlie Sykes (36:06)

Charlie. A lot has been made of Donald Trump's unsanctioned attacks on Venezuelan boats that are expected to be trafficking drugs. And for Good reasons. However, if I'm being honest, I remember the drone bombing campaign that Obama conducted that were also unsanctioned. And I don't remember nearly as much uproar about it as we've seen today. I didn't like state sponsored assassinations then, and I like it even less now. Does this seem like a double standard?

Charlie Sykes (36:32)

Okay, that's a provocative question. And I do think that some of the things that Donald Trump is doing is shining a light on things that we have tolerated over the years. This, however, I think is different. First of all, and by the way, I think some of the criticism of some of the drone assassinations under Obama are legitimate, except that that was a real enemy. Those were real terrorists who posed real threat to American lives, American property, to American security. This took place in the decades after 9 11. There was an authorization of the use of military force that was passed by Congress. And fast forward to what's happening right now. There is no state of war, there is no authorization for the use of military force. And it is really still remarkably unclear who is being targeted and who is being killed. I mean, let's just say for the sake of argument that, you know, the people in the boats are in fact drug mules, that they're bringing cocaine or they're bringing fentanyl to this country. As long as we have the ability to interdict them, which we do, we what is the legal justification for summary execution of them on the high seas, any more than it would be in the United States, in Miami or Texas or Los Angeles? The more troubling question is, do we really know who's in those boats? I really, I mean, honestly, I mean, if they're drug dealers, I mean, I hope that we find a way to stop them and put them in prison and, you know, figure out who the drug kings are kingpins are. But number one, if they are drug mules. You've seen the movies, right, about how you go about breaking up a drug ring. You get the lower level guys and you arrest them and you turn them so that you go up the ladder until you find the big guys. You don't just kill them randomly. Thirdly, where's the evidence? I mean, how many press conferences have you seen on television where DEA agents or others or the FBI after a big drug bust? What do they have? They, they bring out on tables all of the drugs, all the white powder, all the needles, all of the, the guns, everything they seized. You have evidence. These were the names. This is what they were doing. This is what we seized this is what. I haven't seen this. I mean, maybe I'm missing something, but, you know, after. After the action, other than the sort of, you know, tumescent, juvenile excitement about seeing people blown out of the water, are they telling us, okay, did you recover any drugs? Where are they? Who were they? What is the probable cause? You need probable cause to stop someone, much less to blow them up. And we're just not seeing that. We're not seeing that at all. Okay. Another question. My question is, what happened to all the art, furnishings, architectural adornments from the East Wing? Is it all just a pile of rubble? If they packed it off the storage, why didn't we get wind of it ahead of the demolition? I honestly don't know the answer to that question. But it's interesting. And there's a story that is a news story. I also think that.

Charlie Sykes (39:51)

And again, I take a lot of the polls with a real grain of salt, but there's a case to be made that Donald Trump's real slide does coincide with those images of ripping down the White House. And this is also one of those moments where I kind of feel that. And I've given him credit, sort of credit. Here I'm doing the other things and having kind of a reptilian instinct about what plays and what does not play. I'm just not sure the insidification of the White House played. I don't think he gives. I don't think he cares. But I do think that that shocked people. In terms of what's in there. No, I don't think it's in the rubble, but it's a. It's a legitimate. It's a legitimate question.

Charlie Sykes (40:40)

Let's see. I'm sorry.

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Here.

Charlie Sykes (40:42)

Here's. Here's another one. Okay. Questions about Mamdani, the Mamdani model. Some of you are saying, why are you so critical of Mamdani? I apologize for getting the name wrong occasionally. And. And look, the fact is that.

Charlie Sykes (41:02)

He is far to the left of the center of American politics, and we need to understand that. That, yes, he can be a very charismatic candidate. He ran a very, very good campaign against absolutely appalling opposition. I mean, if there is such a thing as a Democratic establishment, what the fuck were you thinking putting up Andrew Cuomo? I mean, geez, what the hell? I mean, the Democrats have got to get over this idea of trotting out your old fossil retread, disgraced candidates. I mean, can we be done with that? However, this is the point that I make over and over again. And I've had a number of guests who've made this point. The majority makers are the people who can win in the swing districts. They're the ones who can, you know, win outside of New York City. It is, you know, it's one thing to, you know, you know, win in Manhattan, but are the same issues going to win in Minnesota, in Wisconsin, in Pennsylvania and in Michigan? And the reality is, is that, no, don't take the wrong lesson from that. Yes, the emphasis on affordability is brilliant and important. That does not mean that let's go with uber progressive left wing candidates who are frankly not going to be acceptable. Now, I commented briefly on this Tennessee 7. And again, I think both parties should learn something from this. This was very, you know what I'm talking about, right? I mean, the special election was a district that Donald Trump won by 22 points. In the special election, the Republican won by only nine points. Okay, Red lights for Republicans. This is consistent with the double digit shift in support from Republicans to Democrats. A lot of Republicans ought to be very, very nervous. On the other hand, there's a school of thought that suggests that if there was a candidate who was not quite so radical and she actually declared, I am a radical, you know, there was a lot of oppo research, you know, she was an abolished police candidate in a district that obviously was conservative. If you're going to win in a district like that, you need to be able to appeal across those lines. You just can't mobilize the ideological base. So there are people who think that, you know, again, big warning sign for Republicans, but also a lesson for Democrats that if you seriously want to win or come closer in those districts, you're going to have to come up with candidates who are closer to the center. And I actually think, I actually think that's, that's, that's true. All right.

Charlie Sykes (43:41)

Charlie, some of these questions are unanswerable. What in God's name did Olivia Nuzzy Nutzy See an RFK Jr.

Charlie Sykes (43:53)

Do not ask. See, I don't get some of this stuff. And I wrote about this for those of you who are not subscribers to the newsletter. I wrote about this in the Thursday newsletter where I suggested that maybe we ought to talk less about Olivia Nuzi and her former fiance and more about RFK Jr. I mean, one of the strangest parts of the story. Everybody knows the story, right? I don't need to go into the details about it. Star, star reporter. I mean, she was, you know, kind of a faux celebrity, journalistic force of nature. And Basically, her entire journalistic career blew up when it turned out she was having some kind of a dalliance with RFK Jr guy who's like 70 years old. He's kind of. He's like my age. And because it was so she got fired from her job. She's trying to resurrect her career by writing this book about it. But her former fiance is here on Substack. If you're on Substack, Ryan Lizza is. He is pulling out the dirty laundry. And the details are pretty horrific. There's stuff in there that you do not want to read while you're eating your breakfast. That, that is my fair warning. This is my gift to you. Don't read RFK jr's poetry while there's anything in your mouth. Trust me.

Charlie Sykes (45:14)

So, yeah, it's a sex scandal, but also it's a journalism ethics scandal. But the point I tried to make was, wait, wait, wait.

Charlie Sykes (45:24)

These two journalists, okay, this is interesting. It's salacious, it's sleazy, it's seeming. But they do not have the power over the nation's healthcare system. They do not have the power to, I don't know, affect the health and lives of millions of people like RFK Jr. This is a guy who the Atlantic magazine calls the most powerful man in science.

Charlie Sykes (45:49)

Which I thought was one of the scariest headlines. And you read these accounts of his character, what's going on? And you go, all right, why are we not asking him more questions? I mean, I understand there's a double standard, that people are more interested in her than in him, but he's the one with the power. And to say that there are troubling questions here is putting it mildly. And look, I understand why, you know, people said, well, why is RFK Jr. Skating in this big, you know, scandal, given his character? Well, I mean, two reasons. Number one, we're in a post scandal society. This is the Trump administration. You elect a president, you know, who grabbed women by the, you know what, who's been found liable for sexual abuse, etc. Etc. Etc. You know, all this. So in this administration, this doesn't kind of register.

Charlie Sykes (46:37)

You know, we're in a period right now where the kinds of misconduct that would have destroyed someone's career a few years ago. I kind of wonder what Gary Hart is thinking right now. Like, Gary Hart, can I have a refund on the 1980s. So in the Trump era, none of this stuff matters because, you know, they decided the character doesn't matter. Donald Trump doesn't give A shit about it. So the kind of the media shrugs. And then of course, it's RFK Jr. And I'm sorry. And again, I apologize for the language. Although if you actually were really offended, you wouldn't be listening at this point in the podcast. But it's not exactly breaking news that Bobby is seriously fucked up, right? I mean, this is a guy, you know, with brain worms. Somebody who, you know, threw a dead baby bear into a park who is, you know, has. Was photographed posing with a barbecued dog. And this is just like scratches the surface. Admits he's a sex addict, admits he's a drug addict. His, you know, one of his wives committed suicide after reading his journal about all of his affairs. So you kind of understand why, you know, people are going, well, if you define news as what is novel? There's nothing novel about the fact that RFK Jr. Is like a wacko conspiracy theorist guy who is just seriously messed up. Right? So, you know, but that's the problem with defining news is what's. What's novel. How about defining news is like what's right in front of us and poses a real threat to millions of Americans? I mean, you cannot read these accounts without thinking, holy crap, this guy is a complete nutball and a dangerous nutball. You know, some of the stuff about his wanting to control. I mean, I. Look, I'm not. I'm not trying to turn this into pornhub here, but, you know, talking about control and dominate and the way he dealt with Olivia and with apparently other folks, I mean, it is. If it's not disturbing, I don't know. You know, in this account, he may still be using drugs, which strikes me as newsy a little bit. I mean, a little bit newsworthy, don't you think? Just a little disturbing. There's a suggestion that maybe he doesn't believe some of this anti vax shit that he's been publishing, you know, been pushing. Well, that's also troubling, especially because they are, you know, putting the lives of many, many kids danger. And yet, is anybody even asking him about it? Is he being pressed? He's not saying anything about it. As one writer said. He's not talking about this because he's too busy giving kids measles. So what did Olivia see in him? No idea. I just. This is the one thing that I think is the most difficult, is that you have to make a decision. How much mental energy do you want to spend getting in the heads of people who are, I don't know, perhaps a little bit A little bit, A little bit disturbed. Okay. So I, I know that I didn't get to all of your, your questions. I mean, some of these. And I don't know whether people care about this. Somebody says, you know, Charlie, I thought you were getting off the hamster wheel of crazy. What is your work, you know, your work schedule like now? Okay.

Charlie Sykes (49:56)

Yeah. I mean, I, I think we all have the temptation to look away, say, do we really want to spend our lives, you know, with our faces pressed up against this fire hose of lunacy? On the other hand, this is it, right? I mean, this is the fight of our lives. What are we, what are we going to do that's more important or that is more consequential? So I do do the newsletter every morning. Originally, I was thinking that, you know what? I wouldn't leave it blank. Get up in the morning, see what's fresh, put something else out. But, you know, I started realizing that, that I was having those flashback dreams. Have you ever had those flashback dreams where, you know, you wake. You wake up and you. You're going to school and there's an exam, or you have to make a presentation and you realize you haven't, you haven't studied for it, or you haven't written, you don't know what to do. And I started realizing that that was kind of the feeling I was having. So I generally try to make notes on the newsletter every afternoon. In the morning, I will write the newsletter. Three times a week. We record this, this, this podcast, and we're going to continue to do this and stay tuned for some very significant changes. And by the way, when I record the podcast, as I mentioned at the beginning, I always have a very large dog at my feet. Can't explain what it is about the podcast. I'm not sure that he's interested in the conversation, but he's always here. So I just, in your imagination, just think that I have, you know, 140 pound Eli. And every time I finish these podcasts, and again, I don't know how the dogs do it. They know the moment that I am done because if I say thank you or whatever, he will come out from underneath this desk. Augie will be outside saying, okay, it's time. We have to play ball. So I split my time between trying to keep up with the crazy and spending as much time as I possibly can with my dogs. And we'll expect to do this. And, you know, I mean, look, we may dial down a little bit over the holidays. Usually during the holidays, I try to take a little time off. I hope you do as well. Unfortunately, that means that during the holidays, some really bad stuff might happen. We need to kind of keep our ears to the ground. I Remember after the 2020 election, do you remember this? That everybody thought, well, okay, that's all over. We don't have to really pay attention. What could possibly go wrong between November of 2020 and, I don't know, January 20th of 2021? Well, a lot of things happen, and I think a lot of journalists kind of were missing what was happening because they were doing what I usually do, which is to kind of dial down. So, again, we have to balance all of that. Now, listen, I apologize for not getting to all of your questions. Hopefully we can do this more on a regular basis. You know how to contact me, you know what my email address is, you know how to put things into the. Into the chat. And every single day we put out the to the Contrary newsletter. The comments section. By the way, the comment section is one of the strongest parts of the newsletter because one of the things that we have done, and I think this is kind of important about this new independent media. It's actually allowed the creation of community and, you know, in time. In my previous version of this newsletter and this one, I am blown away on a daily basis by the thoughtfulness and the quality of the writing and the reaction of the subscribers to this newsletter. And don't take my word for it. You can check it out any given day. You can go back into the archives. They're all open. There's no paywall, and you can see who's in this club, who's in this community. And I think that's always one of the things. When I used to do a radio show and I would talk to the producers about it, I said, one of the key things is especially bringing callers in. You want this to be a club that people want to be part of, as opposed to weirdos and cranks and lunatics and bigots and things like that. But if you look at the comments section, you realize that not only are you not the crazy ones, that there's an entire universe of incredibly engaged, thoughtful, articulate, even eloquent people out there who are reading the same things that you are reading. And again, I want to thank all of you for sending in your questions and all of you that comment on a regular basis to my newsletter to the contrary. And so thank you for spending time with me today going through these questions. As I said, we will go back to our regular format, but you know I'm going to try to do this more often and obviously if you like it, let me know. But you know, one way or another, we're going to keep. We're going to keep doing this because as you know, we live in a time when it is more important than ever to remind ourselves that we are not the crazy ones. Thank you.

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