Transcript
Zain
0:01
This is a strategist episode 1812. My name is Zain Velji. With me as always, of course, it's Stephen Carter and Corey Hogan. Guys, I hate to interrupt you. You're
Corey
0:10
You're the sanctity of Canada Day. You
Zain
0:13
Not only just the sanctity of Canada Day and congratulations to all those celebrating. Way to go, Canada.
Zain
0:19
Way to go. How old is this place now? Fuck, who cares?
Zain
0:23
Yes, it's not important.
Carter
0:24
More than 100, less than 200. Closer
Corey
0:26
Closer to the grave than the cradle.
Zain
0:28
That's what I would say.
Zain
0:32
It's good. It's not a bad episode title either. I hate to interrupt not just your Canada Day, but this is one of our, is it six? I think we take six vacations during the summer, this podcast. Yeah.
Zain
0:43
Now, we also take about 20 vacations during the year, this podcast does. But this is one of our six summer vacations, Carter, so I hate to interrupt it. I'm pretty pissed.
Zain
0:52
pissed. And make you record on this fine Monday night. And you seem pissed. We're
Carter
0:55
We're not happy about it. Yeah. I've got many anger issues today. Yeah.
Zain
1:00
Well, there's a reason, right? There's a reason, Corey, because Joe Biden, you know, was part of an elder abuse case on live television. So that happened. He
Zain
1:11
He went out on TV and showed people his true age. His campaign tried to clean it up. Donald Trump, turns out he's got a bunch of immunity now. So all acts are presidential and all presidential acts are now immune. So there's that. that uh rishi sunak um is is uh packing up to move to california on july 4th so that's also happening uh and justin trudeau um isn't reading any letters sent by mps of his own caucus encouraging him to resign so that's a lot going on cory which is probably why no
Zain
1:45
no one picked up on our news release nobody
Corey
1:47
nobody picked up on our news release we we spent good money on this yeah
Carter
1:51
this was real dollars
Corey
1:51
dollars good money well i think
Corey
1:54
think we spent a lot of
Zain
1:56
yes okay so first of all how do we want to do this to listen we have to talk about obviously throw out all
Corey
2:01
all those other issues this is this
Zain
2:02
this is going to be the press release okay yeah
Zain
2:05
those those issues i mean we can knock them off in seconds with the most insightful takes than any podcast at any side of of any border would give but we're not going to jill there why would we stoop so low No, come on.
Corey
2:18
on. Those issues are well canvassed,
Zain
2:19
canvassed, right? Well canvassed with poor takes by amateurs. Instead, what we want to talk about is the money we spent to do a poll about our very own country. Zane, do you know how much we spent? Is this going to be a live react?
Zain
2:35
This is going to be a live react. I don't think
Carter
2:37
think we went to him for approval. Oh,
Zain
2:38
Oh, we didn't? You said it was a small
Zain
2:45
It's all right. I've grown up in the Northeast. Yeah. Right? So I don't know. Small sum to me,
Zain
2:52
$6, $7 with inflation.
Zain
2:56
So, Corey, with that in mind, I'm now going to just sit back in this chair and live react to how much this poll cost. And if it's $12, I'll try to contain myself. Well, it's
Corey
3:07
it's not just the poll, Zane, because when you do the poll, you then need to distribute the poll through what we call the wires. Sure. So, like, I'll be comfortable with a quick 15 bucks, sort of thing. Yeah. So, the poll was pretty cheap, actually. Pretty affordable. It was only $1,200. So, that was the...
Corey
3:26
Plus GST. Don't forget the GST. But that's input tax credit eligible, Stephen. No, don't worry. Oh, okay. Good.
Zain
3:32
So, like, we just wrote it off. So, it's actually, like, it's an investment. It's basically just $1,200. Brilliant. Okay, so $1,200. I'm now comfortable. Extremely comfortable. I assume there's no additional cost. Well,
Corey
3:42
Well, the wire service,
Corey
3:44
which we only paid for the basic. I want you to know, we didn't go nuts, right? But we did want to make sure that the outlets across Canada were aware of the news release.
Corey
3:57
before tax. Fuck off. What did
Zain
4:00
You spent $2,000. Okay, so to be clear, you spent $2,000. $2,005. $2,005 plus taxes.
Zain
4:07
Well, again, the taxes. Taxes are coming back. You can put tax credits. I don't even care what this poll is about. out we'll get into it maybe at this point i may just want to get onto the finances of it
Zain
4:16
we might just do a whole financial debriefing on the poll um to to put out a poll that got now i'm assuming 10 20 20 articles written about the poll i haven't looked at i i i
Zain
4:28
try to disconnect when we're on one of our vacations so how many uh how many articles did that yield for us correct well Well, it didn't yield any yet.
Corey
4:36
Didn't yield any yet.
Corey
4:39
But I'm hoping. So wait. You know, it is very Canada Day themed. So it's 9.17 p.m. Oh, okay, so it's not evergreen. So tomorrow, the good chance it won't yield, we'll probably find out. It's definitively zero. Well, it's
Corey
4:51
it's a big country. There's a Pacific time zone to the west of us. So I think we've still got like three and a half hours to figure this out, to clean this up.
Zain
4:59
Yeah, Carter, this is a unmitigated disaster. Disaster. Hold on. $2,000 of
Corey
5:04
of patron money. Unmitigated
Zain
5:06
learning opportunity. No, I don't think that's true. This is $2,000, which is a lot to some of us. Some of us who drive a 2005 Corolla. Are
Carter
5:15
you still driving that piece of shit? Oh, my God.
Zain
5:18
You mean that reliable vehicle?
Carter
5:20
vehicle? You know what? Yeah.
Carter
5:21
We should buy him a new car, Corey.
Corey
5:23
Don't have the money anymore.
Zain
5:26
Shitty. You know what?
Zain
5:27
We should buy a car. Next time we accrue $2,000. bucks. This
Zain
5:31
This podcast should buy a vehicle. We
Corey
5:33
We probably should. That's
Corey
5:34
That's a good and legitimate use of our money. We're
Zain
5:37
We're not going to do any domain names, but if people want to know where they can find this news release, they can go to Canada.org.nz. That is our standard
Corey
5:46
standard news release domain. We're not shitting people. People can go to Canada.org.nz. Why would you assume that people
Corey
5:52
people would think we were making that up? Because
Zain
5:54
Because five seconds before I said we're not going to spend any more money on domain names because we're going to save up for a car.
Carter
6:02
but we already know can we
Carter
6:04
we talk a little bit about the sincerity problem
Carter
6:07
because we did we did have a journalist a real honest to god journalist who said it's not real but it's hilarious it was real was
Zain
6:15
was that worth two thousand dollars
Carter
6:17
it was real worth it for you you know what it's how much is this compared to the bus bench cory
Corey
6:24
don't like to talk the bus bench is about three thousand dollars a year from From the strategist. So why
Carter
6:29
why is all this money going out
Carter
6:32
We should really start to consult with Zane before we spend this money.
Zain
6:35
God. Okay, okay, okay. So hold on. You did a poll on a whim about Canada Day. So it's got a limited lifespan. We've got zero hits about it. The only journalist responding. Zero hits so far. No,
Carter
6:45
No, hold on. You have lots of hits. No one's picked up the story.
Zain
6:48
Yeah, yeah. That's true. A lot of people have read it. It's
Carter
6:50
It's been read by quite a number of people. Yeah, like
Zain
6:52
like 80. Oh, my God. Is this an indictment of the wire service?
Corey
6:56
service? For $805, you get a lot of metrics.
Corey
6:57
metrics. Is this an indictment of the wire service, more so than anything? Oh, I think so. I mean, I think the wire service has to look in the mirror here.
Carter
7:04
you think at some point we should maybe mention what the question was? Nope.
Corey
7:08
Oh, there was just a single question, not questions. I didn't get questions. Oh, I'm sorry. Actually, I think our listeners would be interested to know that you can purchase from a company like Leger, Omnibus, SurveyQuestions. Don't try to
Zain
7:21
to make this a
Corey
7:21
a learning opportunity. This has become a board meeting of the shareholders.
Zain
7:25
don't try to make this a learning opportunity for the listeners you can literally
Carter
7:29
pull on anything you
Corey
7:30
you can pull anything uh
Carter
7:31
questions right now what type of car could
Zain
7:33
we have bought for two thousand dollars i want to know that autotrader.ca is probably
Carter
7:37
probably a better tour on corolla i'll tell you that how
Zain
7:39
how about you how about you guys do this you guys start explaining to people you
Zain
7:43
you start explaining to people what this poll is about i'm gonna try to find this podcast a new vehicle okay okay
Corey
7:49
okay wait yeah maybe we should work up to the the pole what do you think steven he's busy he's not gonna do it yeah
Carter
7:54
yeah i mean we can do whatever we want like okay take me where you want to go well
Corey
7:58
well uh you know there was um you were doing some questions i was
Corey
8:03
doing some omnibus survey and you had some space right i
Carter
8:05
i did well i did and i said to myself who could use the space and you reached out
Corey
8:10
out to to yourself well
Carter
8:12
well i called you because you're the president and acting ceo that's
Corey
8:17
and acting is it just acting well
Carter
8:19
well we don't really have a ceo we
Carter
8:21
we only have a president so
Corey
8:25
so uh yeah we started saying what could we do with an extra question which would be a mere twelve hundred dollars i mean you think about it asking the whole country how they think about something for twelve hundred dollars is that's
Zain
8:36
i just want to just interrupt you there so so you you paid two thousand dollars for one poll question and the release of it and
Carter
8:44
and the release of the information you can't make it like we just Just learn something. Come on.
Zain
8:48
For $1,500, I can get you two cars.
Zain
8:53
What are you going to do with two cars, Zane? You're one person.
Zain
8:57
I'm just... The podcast would owe two cars in case we ever need to shuttle back and forth. We could have a fleet. In case the patrons needed a vehicle, we could just have it. It could be one of our patron
Corey
9:08
At the $10 level, you get access to the strategist's ride share. Which
Corey
9:12
just the keys are in there. No,
Zain
9:14
Just leave the car in. They get access to the 2007 Ford Focus,
Corey
9:21
good- You just put
Zain
9:21
put an air tag in it, and the patrons get to use it however they want. That's two years newer. Don't
Corey
9:25
Don't you think that's
Zain
9:25
that's more value to them than the
Corey
9:27
Well, we'll have to put out a poll to the patrons and find out, because- Didn't
Carter
9:31
Didn't we give the patrons the actual access to the poll already? We did. Like, if you're a patron, you get access to the car. Very little uptake
Corey
9:38
uptake even from the patrons. Two
Zain
9:40
Two cars. Yeah, because they wanted the car. You fucking
Zain
9:45
Okay. Keep going. I just want people to know there could have been two cars that were purchased for people. A 1996 Subaru Legacy, which
Zain
9:53
which I bet is a steal. Well, look, we knew that- $750.
Corey
9:58
It's probably stolen, literally, but here's
Corey
10:03
Okay, tell us the thing. It was an opportunity that presented itself. How often does this opportunity present itself?
Corey
10:09
Literally every week. Daily. But
Corey
10:12
we thought we would spend the money this time, and we would get the poll question out. And we knew that the results were coming just before Canada Day.
Corey
10:19
And, you know, we
Corey
10:22
we thought, what would really kind of illuminate our understanding of this nation? And I was thinking about something that Stephen said.
Corey
10:30
It was the only time I've ever thought about something Stephen has said after the podcast. and it was when he was talking about the country and he said canada you know and i thought yeah that's funny i don't really say canada like that i say more like canada
Corey
10:45
so i wanted to understand i'm
Corey
10:47
i'm sorry no i don't understand or
Carter
10:55
which do you say which do
Corey
10:56
do you say they're both the same no
Carter
10:58
no they're not they're totally no no
Corey
10:59
no wonder there was no pickup on on this here they're
Zain
11:02
they're both the same i don't okay keep going all right
Carter
11:05
averaging by the way people want to read
Zain
11:06
read the full news release it's canada.org oh i was i was going to read it to
Zain
11:11
to the mall but i'll read it to the mall yeah they don't have to go to canada.org.nz.nz
Corey
11:17
yeah that is what makes it new zealand
Corey
11:19
zealand for housing our fault okay so listen we got these results back and they were juicy these were good results they told me something about this nation of ours nation in quotes nation in quotes i wasn't entirely sure that we could call ourselves a nation after these results because i'll tell you something zane we got them back simple
Corey
11:37
asked 1600 canadians how do you pronounce canada 52
Corey
11:41
52 say can uh duh 44
Corey
11:44
44 say ca na da and
Corey
11:48
and three percent don't know three
Corey
11:50
three percent don't know how they pronounce the name of their country it's
Zain
11:55
yeah how is that not 97 how is that not in every outlet it across the country yeah
Zain
12:01
this is a good question it should be
Zain
12:02
front page news but this is an indictment of the wire service this
Corey
12:05
this is an indictment
Zain
12:05
indictment of the media as
Corey
12:07
as we get to it this
Corey
12:09
good it's very meta i like this uh-huh this is a very expensive takedown but i'm liking
Zain
12:12
liking where you're going
Corey
12:16
we put out a news release on the wires now
Corey
12:19
now to give it a big
Corey
12:21
big sexy headline zane we wanted the hook right
Corey
12:24
right i'd like to
Corey
12:25
it we didn't want people just to kind of see it on the wire and say yeah i'm not gonna bother opening that so
Zain
12:32
can you explain to people carter before
Zain
12:33
before cory carries on what the hell is the wire the
Carter
12:36
the wire is essentially an email
Carter
12:38
email service that sends out news releases uh at eight hundred dollars
Corey
12:42
dollars a pop we can log into it too you can like just scroll through stories yeah it's
Carter
12:46
it's it's it's where stories go to die really i think my next
Carter
12:53
next corporate gig i'm just gonna recommend we put all our press releases on the wire and and we won't have to worry about anybody picking anything up. It'd
Zain
13:01
Corey, do you want to continue in this expensive... It's
Carter
13:05
It's not really that expensive,
Zain
13:06
expensive, Zane. At this point, quite pointed takedown of the media. Go ahead. Big, sexy
Corey
13:11
Okay, what's the sexy headline?
Corey
13:16
poll shows a divided country can't even agree on its name.
Corey
13:23
Then it goes on to say, just in time for Canada Day, A new poll commissioned by the popular political podcast, The Strategists. That's
Carter
13:29
That's where we lost people.
Zain
13:33
Yeah, this is good. Is this now just an examination of how we fucked up?
Zain
13:36
Yeah. Okay, good. Yeah, this is the accountability session. I think I'll take that spirit into the rest of the conversation. Yeah.
Corey
13:40
Anyways, yada, yada, yada. Go to canada.org.nz for more details here. But ultimately, it gave a little bit of the demographic breakdown, Anglophone, Francophone, phone uh liberal versus conservative and quotes from me quote from steven you weren't available for a quote so we just uh told people they had to subscribe to the patreon to hear your thoughts
Zain
14:05
maybe we had to help
Zain
14:05
try to dig us out of debt on this poll yeah well that's good this
Carter
14:09
this is if this doesn't make money i don't know what will yeah
Zain
14:12
yeah do you want to tell anyone the results here no
Carter
14:14
no i did 52 to
Zain
14:16
to 44 to three is there anything oh i'm so sorry i forgot it was just one fucking oh yeah like
Corey
14:20
like uh so conservatives are
Corey
14:22
are more likely to say canada yeah
Corey
14:25
okay and that's in part because francophones 85 to 13 are more likely to say canada and uh anglophones prefer canada 65 to 30 there's a big divide here yeah
Corey
14:39
interestingly enough a third of english canada
Corey
14:44
says it differently from the other two-thirds of english canada which
Corey
14:48
is that possible? I don't think anything about this.
Zain
14:51
How is this possible?
Carter
14:52
How is it possible? I
Zain
14:54
I mean, this is- Starter, what
Zain
14:55
what would have been the game plan if someone said, we'd love to have you on? Would the two of you have taken different sides and debated this? Actually, I think that's the mistake of your wire release here, is that you didn't actually say that there's two members of this podcast who disagree, and they're available for a live panel debate.
Carter
15:13
Zane, first of all, I reject the premise. There were no mistakes in this news release.
Corey
15:19
going down how he fucked
Zain
15:21
Yes, okay. Reject the premise. Keep going. What was the plan, Carter? If someone would have successfully reached out to you, I think you wrote it too jokey, too, Corey. I think if you'd written it
Corey
15:31
it a little bit more straight. You think it should have been more serious.
Zain
15:32
I think if you'd written it more straight, if you weren't so in love with yourself and the writing that you put into this news release, we could have actually gotten a media hit. This is why you consult me.
Zain
15:43
No, we didn't do that.
Carter
15:44
We really need a media hit, though.
Carter
15:47
now I've come to the conclusion we never wanted
Carter
15:50
Is that the conclusion? Remember that time I got kicked off QR-770?
Corey
15:55
Oh, yeah, that was pretty recently.
Carter
15:58
Remember that time I got cut off CBC?
Zain
16:01
were fired on Labor Day.
Zain
16:06
Carter, what would have been the plan should you have gotten a media hit here?
Carter
16:09
I think that the plan would have been to immediately throw all the media requests to you and then see how you would have done. time
Zain
16:15
yeah i would have done great yeah
Zain
16:17
yeah i would have brought you to lie i would have not even
Carter
16:19
even knowing what the news release was would have been spectacular all of a sudden you start getting media calls that would have made me that would have made my canada day i
Zain
16:27
i really should have but it didn't
Zain
16:28
didn't and you spent two thousand dollars no
Corey
16:30
no i was saying none
Corey
16:31
we spent two thousand dollars is
Zain
16:33
is this like a public humbling
Corey
16:34
humbling like what is the point of any of this well
Corey
16:37
well this happens in the real world sometimes you put out a news release sometimes it doesn't get the pickup you you want you
Corey
16:43
you got to say you got strategic choices now right what are what are the sunk cost you could argue it's a sunk cost we move on with our lives we certainly don't spend an entire podcaster in a very busy political season talking about it that's one strategy okay
Corey
16:57
okay strategy two is you say how do we salvage how do we take this down for scraps how do we make this useful for ourselves again and
Corey
17:03
and uh and how do we propel this forward how do we get the country talking about the fact that the country doesn't know what the country's called zane i'm
Carter
17:12
i'm thinking hear me out here i'm
Carter
17:14
i'm thinking i don't even know what i campaign where
Zain
17:19
where can we swap the bus bench of
Zain
17:21
of course we can but oh my god i think we won't i think okay
Zain
17:27
you for rejecting ideas oh
Corey
17:29
oh wait there's no
Zain
17:30
ideas zane keep going we could buy another bus bench i'm
Zain
17:34
i'm willing to do that carter
Zain
17:37
this is this is now going back into shareholder meeting mode do you want the 1996 subaru legacy or do you want an additional bus bench oh
Carter
17:46
oh i think we should buy a car i'm loving the car share idea just
Carter
17:50
just leave the keys in the car people
Carter
17:52
people can air tag in or however they get in like it'd be fantastic insurance
Zain
17:59
stopping us doing that yeah insurance the law insurance
Zain
18:03
no but like okay let's get through that hurdle but we could get a car insurance is still cheaper than insurance is like maybe what like one-fifth the question let's
Zain
18:12
let's say we buy insurance for for
Zain
18:15
for a month air
Zain
18:17
air tag the car and just leave it the patrons have done us a tremendous
Zain
18:20
patrons would i think the patrons would
Corey
18:22
would be into it
Corey
18:22
okay maybe we should ask them you know what
Corey
18:25
you're losing focus on what's important here which is making the entire country is
Corey
18:29
talking about our poll.
Zain
18:32
Carter, is there any way to salvage it? Because I can't salvage this segment any further.
Carter
18:37
Well, I think that we need to invest more money in it.
Carter
18:41
I think what we need to do... A classic
Corey
18:42
classic Stephen Carter double down.
Carter
18:43
down. Yeah, what we have to do is we have to push this even further. I'd like us to re-release it on the... Different
Zain
18:50
Different wire service. On
Carter
18:51
On a different, better wire service. An international
Carter
18:54
Yeah, and here's what we're going to do. We're
Carter
18:55
We're going to put the headline, Headline, why don't the media care about the dissolution of our country?
Carter
19:02
And we rewrite the release.
Carter
19:05
That's pretty good. Okay.
Zain
19:07
In fact, do we want to give people a chance to help us rewrite it?
Carter
19:10
Oh, I think we should.
Zain
19:12
Corey, can we allow people, can we just set up a Google Doc? Yeah,
Corey
19:15
Yeah, we can make it at Canada.org.nz.
Zain
19:21
help us edit this new wire release least that we will uh definitely be getting
Corey
19:27
to the existing and we'll uh yeah
Corey
19:29
yeah we'll do both we'll
Corey
19:30
we'll do both we're
Corey
19:31
all of it that's
Zain
19:32
anything else on this yeah
Corey
19:33
yeah i guess so i guess um i
Corey
19:37
guess the other thing we really have to ask ourselves is should we be spending some time working the phones do we need to get out there and maybe talk about and is the audience right do
Corey
19:46
do we maybe need to talk to international audiences and make it these stupid canadians as the story should we turn against our country i
Carter
19:53
i think we should i
Carter
19:55
think we start off by uh sending this to great britain in the united states they got nothing else going on how
Zain
20:01
france do you think we translate do you think we pay a translator or do and translate this throw this bomb
Zain
20:07
bomb right into their their parliamentary elections i feel like that just throw it right in there yeah oh
Carter
20:14
they're in the run-offs could
Carter
20:15
could be great this could become the story okay
Corey
20:17
okay well that's another option too maybe russia maybe russia would run some stories some of our
Corey
20:22
geopolitical foes might find it interesting i
Carter
20:24
i don't mind nothing but i have some great russian contacts
Zain
20:29
now before we before we do that i just wanted to highlight one thing um as we close off is um
Zain
20:36
the 2011 toyota highlander now
Zain
20:38
is this is available for eleven hundred dollars that's
Corey
20:41
that's a really good
Corey
20:43
20 000 clicks on it's still i mean i feel like the salvage value has got to be more than that i
Corey
20:49
i feel like i feel like there's some deals waiting to happen and i feel like we're wasting them right hey you know i think that with the benefit of hindsight where we screwed up is i'm not really sure what our goal was with the press release yeah
Corey
20:59
yeah i don't know i think you guys did this on a whim
Zain
21:01
didn't consult me what
Carter
21:02
what was your goal i wanted to keep the country together we'll
Zain
21:08
we'll leave it there for that segment let's move it on to our next segment cory what the fuck do you want to talk about you've you've brought me out of vacation yeah to do this well i've
Zain
21:18
i've done what i wanted to do so i'm okay with this episode pretty much it for me you could you want to do this at 20 minutes i
Zain
21:24
i let's do let's do two minutes on on each of the other things okay i'm willing
Corey
21:27
willing to do 20 minutes on each of the other things okay
Corey
21:30
okay i'm willing to make this the longest episode we've done great
Carter
21:36
great because i don't need to go to bed if
Zain
21:38
if carter let's just do like two to five minutes i don't i don't give a shit um let's talk about biden carter oh good let's just go with some of the questions that i um that have been circling around my head number one inside job from his campaign yes or no hold
Corey
21:55
did something happen besides the news release did you
Carter
22:00
you remember that time cory that we were texting back and forth about the fall of the united states oh
Corey
22:05
oh yeah yeah it was yeah that's what we're going back to so you're talking about the thursday debate the thursday joe biden yes
Zain
22:12
think people know what we might be talking about i'm
Zain
22:14
you know there were a few things going on with
Corey
22:16
with joey b joey b did
Corey
22:19
did a did a conference today he
Corey
22:21
did another press conference yeah
Zain
22:22
yeah great excellent we'll talk about carter let's go back to thursday was it an inside job i
Carter
22:27
i had to be i mean someone close to him and i'm looking at jill um had to take that guy down because he's been a bundle of energy for this entire campaign and uh And I watched him walk out, and I'm not going to lie to you, I turned it off, probably not six minutes later, because it was just too painful to watch. It was an old man making an ass, you know, not doing well. And I'm not talking about Trump, who also did not do great, but he spoke a lot. Corey,
Zain
22:56
actually an inside job? Do you believe that line of thinking, that someone in the Biden camp wanted to expose this because they couldn't actually get anyone to listen? And that, you know, a pre-August
Zain
23:07
-August debate before the convention is exactly what needs to happen so that they have time and this exact conversation can happen out in the open? Okay,
Corey
23:17
Okay, well, let's just say there's a few possibilities here. Maybe let's throw a couple on the table. One is the party line, which is he just had a really bad night. He had a cold.
Corey
23:28
Doesn't seem that excusable to me, but let's put that one on the table there. there one is that the people around him are so partisan
Corey
23:35
partisan and so in the tank and so delusional and so deep in their partisanship they couldn't actually see what all of america and you know all of canada and all the rest of the world would see when he's out there like they they start to tell themselves i think there's been like frogs in water they've seen him slowly decline but they're like oh that's old joe and joe's still sharp every now and then and you know he's got his moments and they didn't realize just how terrible it would show up when he was in front of the media you
Corey
24:00
third option is exactly that where people said i think there's two flavors of it one is where they were intentionally actively saying we got to change the fucking ticket so let's pitch this strategy and let's get them out there and let's cause some trouble i don't necessarily believe that's what happened but you could convince me to say number four is where they say i don't know if joe's got it anymore and
Corey
24:23
and fuck it we better find out now rather than later And so then they go out and they just say, Jesus, take the wheel. And if Joe Biden shows up, great. And if he doesn't, well, then a conversation can start. And the conversation has started, obviously, in the days since then. So that's four theories I'll throw on the table. There's probably more flavors of it. But those are the obvious ones to me when a debate performance like that happens. Carter,
Corey
24:47
Carter, if they knew this is who he was, is
Zain
24:50
is this political malpractice at the highest order from a strategist perspective? perspective yeah
Carter
24:54
yeah i mean there is there was no reason uh to put it to put him into this situation it was even kind of expected that there may not even be debates uh and there could be this yeah
Corey
25:06
yeah it's crazy you
Carter
25:07
you know like the the the the this
Carter
25:10
was this was not something that had to happen that you know the the expectation was that joe biden could uh campaign in the early afternoon which i understand you know i need a snoozel uh i'm up at nine right now that's uh 11 eastern but other people you know joe can't that's okay you know work around him work around his nap schedule work around whatever he needs to do but political malpractice uh is putting him forward when you know he can't perform and i'm not sure what he looks like in regular life i'm not sure what he looks like in regular you know in his regular meetings or his interactions with his wife life um his interactions with his children um but this interaction with the the population of the country was tragic
Carter
25:56
tragic from the moment he hit the stage from the moment he hit the stage and then the mumbling uh i mean it just it
Carter
26:04
just got worse as the evening progressed yeah
Corey
26:08
yeah i don't even think it's okay that the president of the u.s maybe can't show up at 9 p.m eastern like geopolitical crises occur on some sort of timetable i think that's a really really big problem and so if that's your defense i think your defense is pretty fucking damning and it tells you just how deep the hole is that you're in where the better solution for people is no he's not always in cognitive decline just sometimes in cognitive decline like this was i think this was a really really troubling debate and uh it has been kind of maybe even i'll say alarming to me how quickly the the machine has gone back into spinning and talking and saying, oh, everybody who saw it and didn't like it is just a bunch of bedwetters. And Joe Biden's really delivered for us. And yeah, OK, Joe Biden's team and the overall White House has delivered on a couple of files for sure. I will absolutely concede that. That was fucking scary to see that Joe Biden, the man who controls the fate of the free world, in a sense, more real in this election than any any in my life, any in all of our lifetimes, any arguably in the history of the United States going back to at least the Civil War. That was what he brought to the game. The whole fucking job is communicating. The whole fucking job is taking in information, synthesizing it and distilling it into really impactful, strong strategies going forward. Because I'll tell you something, it's not a fucking pop quiz and you have people around you who are going to help you through those strategic decisions. What is the job of president if not to decide and communicate? And he showed no ability to even decide on the spot how he was going to respond to trump and how he was going to communicate attacks against trump that you have to imagine he was trying for a very very long time so i wasn't even going to watch this debate and steven called me or i called steven and it was about the poll results that were coming in and something i was kept in the dark on yeah for yeah because you know we wanted to we wanted to get those media strategies together yeah you're You were preparing spokespeople
Zain
28:03
spokespeople in case there was like an overflow
Corey
28:05
demand. Yeah, yeah, for sure. And Stephen says to me something along the lines of, are you watching the debate? And I said, no. And he says, don't. It's a fucking disaster. And so, of course, I had to then turn on the debate. Yeah. But I mention this because that
Corey
28:18
that was a lot of America. Like, this thing was viewed by 50 million people more. How many of them were train
Corey
28:25
train wreck on Channel 4, right?
Corey
28:27
right? Like, this is what everybody is talking about right now. and now he can do no right and everything is going to be interpreted through this lens even his remarks today at one point he was quoting one of the justices i can't recall which and at the end of the quote he said end of quote which in normal times we would just say he meant to say end of quote because it's the end of the quote he wants to make clear it's the end of the quote the internet's decided it's an example of him only being able to read a a teleprompter and that his his brain is gone and
Corey
28:58
and unfortunately for him that is everything he does from now on and
Corey
29:03
and american democracy and the western world's on the line so not super i
Corey
29:08
don't know where this started but i wanted to get that all out yeah
Zain
29:10
yeah carter i'm going to talk to you about the spin in a second especially on the um with
Zain
29:15
with the premise that people can't unsee what they saw and when when it's when it's observed with their own eyes at scale yeah how you actually spin been through it. But before I get there, has
Zain
29:28
what you observed on Thursday and subsequently thereafter changed any of the conventional wisdom for you around the importance of debates? We've for a long time talked on this show about debates and their importance and have not necessarily given them all that import. In this case, it's a unique case, but how? Explain to people how in your mind, both of you, I want to get your take on, has this changed any of their conventional wisdom on debates? I
Carter
29:50
I still think the debates are overrated. this was the anomaly debate this is the the debate that proves the rule um because it
Carter
29:59
it does stand in my mind as one of the uh the real misses of of debate prep the real misses of the
Carter
30:10
operationalizing of the of of making this making this actually real i mean you don't send somebody out into the into the to the ring that can't do the fight and in
Carter
30:21
in this particular case they they sent somebody out who couldn't do the fight and that to me is is is where the the you know you called it zane i think campaign campaign mal malpractice well that's where the the malpractice lies is that normally like when
Carter
30:39
when the conservative party of canada knows that their their candidates can't do debates you know what they do they
Carter
30:44
they say don't go to the debates right
Carter
30:47
if you think that you're going to lose a debate then you
Carter
30:52
know don't don't don't send your people to the debate and they sent him to the debate so that was where i think this is an anomaly but does did this change the change the race absolutely i mean you go and take a look at uh at the polls coming out i mean we expected that the criminal conviction would have some impact on the polls you really can't see that now i mean you see a little bit of of of blue line over top of red line for a moment or two but now with this debate performance you're actually seeing a significant step forward for trump um and significant of course being one or two points because uh the united states remains incredibly polarized and the number of people who are voting against trump compared to the number of people who are voting for Biden is still kind of one of those unknown elements of the way people are making their decisions.
Zain
31:44
Corey, talk to me about, has this changed anything for you in regards to how you view a debate?
Corey
31:49
Well, debates are moments with a lot of eyeballs on them. And I think maybe we need to acknowledge that that makes them somewhat important. But I will say it doesn't fundamentally changed my thinking about them because the importance didn't come from the debate it came from the eyeballs right it could have been if the same number of people were watching him in any number of settings and like just to be clear about what i mean like nobody's talking about the wins and losses in a debate context no one's talking about the style points in a debate context they're not talking about the substance of the debate they're not even talking about trump and his fucking batshit answers his fucking crazy answers which are lie after
Corey
32:27
cost it in yeah
Corey
32:27
they're talking about how deteriorated joe biden seems and how not up to the task he seems at holding donald trump to account but they're not actually talking about the debate like the debate became a vehicle for another story and and to me that is like the
Corey
32:45
question i have right now which i think in some ways is the answer to your question is if
Corey
32:50
we saw the same joe biden at the dnc a
Corey
32:54
a couple of weeks from now would we not we'd
Corey
32:57
we'd have the same freakout reactions right if if joe biden was on stage with people and seemed totally lost and his voice wasn't there and he tried to land some attacks on trump and it was just kind of like silence or non-constructive don't you think it was in part the comparative factor
Zain
33:11
factor to trump i know he was saying
Zain
33:13
crazy things but he was saying crazy things strongly he had retorts in real time around biden's medicare answers saying yeah you're right you did kill medicare or some version of
Zain
33:24
don't you think there was like a trump element to it that even contrast it showed you in some well just i i
Corey
33:31
i don't credit trump for it i think you could put literally up on anybody up on stage with joe biden and that would have been the reaction that people had right that like we were talking via text last week about there's this analytic it's used in basketball for sure i think it's used in baseball it's called vorp value over replacement player like if and you know it's it's a metric that kind of moves with time so it's not a perfect analogy but if you think about like in-season vorp here like if joe biden was replaced by just generic democrat off the street would
Corey
34:02
would that be a net improvement or a net downgrade and generally like superstars are supposed to have very positive vorp joe
Corey
34:09
joe biden had about the lowest vorp i've ever seen on a stage of that size right Right. Like I could imagine a first year, you know, political science student on stage with Donald Trump doing better than that. And and that's really, really alarming. And so, yes, Donald Trump looked comparatively much better. He certainly seemed sharper. He you know, he's four years younger. He's in his late 70s, not early 80s. Right. But I don't even think it was that. I don't I think it was more it wasn't that Trump did well. It's that Biden did poorly.
Corey
34:42
Carter, talk to me about the spin.
Corey
34:44
Is it working for the team Biden right now?
Zain
34:48
The calls that they're doing to donors, the rally the next day, the rationale for how he performed the way he did, the accepting of, you know, it wasn't a great night, sending out Kamala, sending out Gavin Newsom, sending out the surrogates. Is it working? And if it's not working, why is it not working in your mind? And building this factor around the
Zain
35:09
the fact that people observe this, right? It's not like you're trying to debate on something that is hard to decipher. A lot of people observe this, and it was very clear cut. And what makes it so challenging in that regard? if we're going to believe a lie if
Carter
35:25
if we're going to believe something that is you know is true isn't true if we're going to you know kind of create this this uh this
Carter
35:33
this little trickery on ourselves and there's many instances where we believe lies we all believe certain lies about ourselves we all believe certain lies about our families and and and maybe our you know who what religious group we're a part of or whatever there's all kinds of different lies that we choose to believe. Those lies, we
Carter
35:53
we have to want to believe. And
Carter
35:55
And we have to want, so we would have to want to believe that Joe Biden performed poorly just for one day, just for one time. It was a one-time-off thing. And the problem
Carter
36:05
problem is that most of the Democrats don't want to believe that. They want to believe that Joe Biden doesn't have any bad days. Because to Corey's point earlier in the the in the episode this is this
Carter
36:18
is the commander-in-chief this is the guy who who has the largest arsenal at
Carter
36:23
at his fingertips of any person in the world in world history right
Carter
36:27
right this is a man who can destroy the world many times over and he didn't look like he has the capacity to figure out how to you know pull his depends up properly you know like this is a this is a guy who was struggling to the nth degree and he
Carter
36:44
he he let us down and and there was no also there was no preparation for it there was nothing that said you know this thing starts at nine o'clock on eastern time uh nine o'clock eastern time is not his time right like every show i prep right this is past my bedtime why do i do that so when i fuck up i got the capacity of saying well i set a stage i set the stage for this um cory knew that i was gonna fuck it up somehow definitely
Carter
37:13
but this is this is we expected him to at least do as good as he has done in the past and he
Carter
37:21
there's no willingness to believe this particular lie there's no willingness for my up from me there's no willingness from corey like i want joe biden to be the stronger candidate i want joe Biden to win. I want Joe Biden to win way more than I ever wanted Jeb Bush to win. But he's
Carter
37:37
he's not going to win.
Carter
37:40
He can't win behaving like this.
Carter
37:44
I don't want him to win if he's the guy who showed up at that debate. And that's the real problem.
Zain
37:51
Corey, talk to me about the strategy.
Zain
37:56
And I don't know if it's all that connected, because there's voices coming out of every corner of formal and and informal Democratic circles to replace Joe Biden.
Zain
38:05
And the mechanism of how to do an open convention, give it to Kamala, walk away, does the money that the campaign has fundraised get transferred to any other candidate that isn't Kamala Harris? All
Corey
38:16
things are now out
Zain
38:16
out in the open. These are not conversations we were having literally five days ago, six
Zain
38:21
six days ago, I guess.
Zain
38:24
What should their consolidated strategy be if you were assuming they were a consolidated group. And I'm not even talking about all eyes go to an open convention. But in terms of messaging, in terms of appeal, in terms of air war, this is now an inter-family fight in some ways that is going to come with leaks and back and forths and surrogates and panels, and MSNBC will get involved and officials. What are you kind of thinking of if you're now squarely in team replace well
Corey
38:54
well you're right about the intra-family fight and i think that that is one of the things that's the most fascinating about this because after a debate assuming everybody does manage to keep their pants from falling around their ankles on the stage if they don't absolutely blow it in some sort of epic fashion the teams go out and the team spin for you and they say no we won you know like the the most obvious thing that always happens is the team it says they've won the debate and we We saw tweets from that. We saw emails from the DNC saying, wow, isn't Joe Biden making you proud that we're clearly pre-scheduled? They were not related to what was going on out there. And they went out, right? You want to believe. You are prepped to believe. You are just looking for your lines, even like a voter who's a partisan, like a heavy partisan vote. Just tell me why my guy won the debate and I'll go tell, I'll just rub it in Uncle Joe's face, you know, Uncle Bob's face probably should have picked a different name. Pick a different
Corey
39:47
but it's a different, different Uncle Joe. joe yeah although
Zain
39:50
although joe is a very common
Zain
39:52
although that uncle joe might
Zain
39:54
might have been a little bit better on
Corey
39:55
on stage maybe uncle random uncle joe probably would have been better on stage but you
Corey
39:59
want to believe another great poll question we
Corey
40:02
we should we should get that one out there for sure that's good okay but
Corey
40:04
but here's the problem nobody
Corey
40:07
nobody could find a way to believe like people were having existential crises on cable television in real time and it wasn't like Because I've seen this before. I'm sure you all have, where it's like one panel has somebody who says something and other members of the panel sort of agree, and there's a bit of an iconoclast. But it was every panel. It was a contagion that spread across all networks, all channels, everywhere.
Corey
40:33
where they're supposed to
Zain
40:34
to be. They were talking about Joe Biden's virtues and how great a man he is, but no one was talking about the fact that he fucking nailed that. No, everywhere.
Corey
40:42
And the problem was, it didn't look like an off day to anyone. We've known Joe Biden a really long time. You know, he first ran for president in the 80s. He has been part of American public life since the 70s. And so to see, you know, to see all of this, we didn't think off day, we thought, this is a very alarming trajectory from the last time we saw Joe Biden on a stage like this from four years ago. And of course, people are going to cast forward four years and say, if you give this guy another term, what's it going to look like? God, you don't even need to look four years ahead. You could say four months ahead when he's debating Trump again, what's this going to look like? And so people really were in their feelings on this one after it happened. And there was just no getting past it. Like, it was not spinnable. And then, of course, what happens is a day later, everybody goes to ground and it becomes spinnable. But on that night, their real emotion showed through, which is Democrats don't think he's got it. They don't think he can do it. And the fact that we are now doing some sort of massive cleanup of that, I think people should really question the
Corey
41:47
dose of partisanship they're digesting at this particular moment. And you can see right through it,
Zain
41:53
it, right? I'm not saying it's the same people that were, you know, being emotional on TV Thursday night were the same ones coming above ground Friday morning, spinning it and being like, I've had a change of heart. No, but it was from the same family, right? It was from the same group of folks, right? Being like, you know, no, no, our side of the debate, like, this is what it is. He's great. But they didn't have that material ready on Thursday night. And that tells
Corey
42:17
like did you see harris like she was she went out there with her lines kamala harris she was pretty
Zain
42:21
pretty good but like she
Corey
42:22
she was clearly like holy
Corey
42:25
though like there was no hiding how people felt about that yeah
Zain
42:28
yeah yeah yeah there was no there was no forceful stop having this conversation other than newsom who kind of tried to be like well this is not helpful he didn't he didn't say that biden killed it he's like this is not helpful what we're talking about um and then people have started to adopt that sort of light you know why newsom
Zain
42:44
has to say that but Of
Zain
42:46
Of course. Of course. Carter, what's your thought? If you were guiding this group strategically, if you could get all of them on a conference call, all the folks within the Democratic establishment, formally and informally, and say, this is how we do it.
Zain
42:58
What is this and what is the how? Well,
Carter
43:01
I think this is, we have to change the presidential candidate. And the how is, he needs to step aside or there needs to be, I'm not sure what the legal mechanisms would be that would be available to the delegates at the convention. But the delegates at the convention, I think, have some freedom within the methodologies that are available to them. But that would have to be, you know, motions from the floor, motions that are set up, and it would have to be people speaking against Joe Biden at his convention. and
Zain
43:38
let me let me ask you this before you because there's there's something there's a there's an assumption in your answer here which i like that you've gone to which is from
Zain
43:46
from a strategic perspective are you pushing this until convention is there any sort of relent is there any sort of okay we did our two weeks on this now it's just harming the party biden's not going anywhere jill's not able to convince him kamala says she's not interested newsom is giving the same line and no one who can make this decision is moving are these people at some point saying i'm throwing an arbitrary 10 days two weeks saying okay let's stop now
Zain
44:12
let's rally behind him he's he's ragged the puck enough that there's not enough time or are you taking this rhetoric and this messaging to the convention to me that's a strategic question i'd be interested to get your thoughts on
Carter
44:23
i'm fucking planning my bug out strategy i i am figuring out how what type of solar generation generation slash wind generation i need to power my tesla and i'm going to buy two big batteries a power wall and another another battery to keep charged at all times i'm figuring out which what you know like i have got this thing down to a fucking science i'm buying 10 500 pound bags of fucking rice just to make sure that we can survive okay uh if you're wondering white rice does travel better than brown rice uh i don't understand the racism either but it's a it's it is what it is i mean this is a this is i'm scared fucking shitless this isn't the supreme court and we're going to get there the supreme court's decision today coupled with joe bryden's decline if donald trump wins we are talking about saving democracy we're not talking about you know it'll be another four years of of that are rough we're not we're not talking about four years that are going to to be rough you know if if if donald trump is an incompetent leader who's surrounding himself with the
Carter
45:29
the world's worst people but this time he's going to surround himself with more competent world's worst people people who are more committed to undoing the foundational democracy of the united states we we've got supreme court justices out there opining about national religion we've you You know, like this
Carter
45:52
the Democrats don't fucking replace Joe Biden in the next 10 days, they have 10 more days after that and they have 10 more days after that and they have 10 more days after that and they have 10 more days after that. And if
Carter
46:03
don't fucking do it, then then then they are fucking morons.
Zain
46:09
cory do you agree with that strategy or is there a is there a fuck at some point we're doing ourselves damage by having this public conversation for the period of time that we're having it which is not now because they clearly don't believe now is the time where they should pull the shoot and stop having it but let's say two weeks from now three weeks from now or do you believe like carter nope you just keep pushing this until it's a natural conclusion at the convention you
Corey
46:34
you know i I am of two quite
Corey
46:37
quite mutually exclusive thoughts about this, and the last couple of days have really reinforced both of them for me. One is, what
Corey
46:44
what is going on in the Democratic Party that they've become so fatalistic about all of this, right? Like, it's like it's the weather. They're like, well, you know, Joe Biden's going to be here. I guess Joe Biden's going to be, like, they don't have any sort of say in it. Like, there aren't a million ways that they could put pressure on him remove donations change the rules of the dnc get the 25th amendment going if if it's actually that bad in the moment although i don't have any sense that it is right but does that surprise you culturally with the democrats who've
Zain
47:11
who've come like historically been known as the more sort of like meek
Zain
47:15
meek weak soft like not really doing what the killer instinct is required to do against their opponent perhaps sometimes and i
Corey
47:25
i don't care i don't mean to care well so that's Listen, that's one of my thoughts, right? One of my thoughts is, why
Corey
47:33
why are they acting like this? Like, this is so crazy to me. Why are they acting like this? They should take matters into their own hands and stop acting as though it's entirely up to Joe Biden. Joe Biden is a man he is a man within a system the system has a way that it can operate absent that man being able to operate and I'm talking about the party machine here the other thought that I have though is like almost like a
Corey
47:57
a cynicism about well now we see what politics is really like right because Joe Biden has gone out and he's gotten all these delegates and we have kind of this conceit that people get to pick the party leader and that's just how it is but you know know what, you're now seeing people talking about those rules and how you could have a motion to suspend with two thirds at the DNC and, and all of these things that would allow you to maybe have delegates just go and vote for free. And, and you start to think like, well, isn't this all just so very calculating and the people who actually control the DNC are now going to potentially assert themselves there. So when I say they're mutually exclusive, on one hand, I'm kind of bemoaning, like this notion that they're acting like it's the weather. But on the other hand, And I'm sort of bemoaning how undemocratic some of this is because Joe Biden did win all of the delegates, right? But Joe Biden won them in a pageant. He didn't win them in a contest. Nobody ran against him. And so this is how he's ended up with all of them. So people are going to have to make some choices. And ultimately- What would your choice be,
Zain
48:54
be, Corey? If you were a true believer of replacing Biden, like Carter is, would you say, fuck it, I'm going with the first lane I mentioned, doing whatever it takes to replace this guy, and I don't care if he's a sitting president or not? No,
Corey
49:06
No, you got it. like for me i i hear what steven says and but i think ultimately at a certain point you've just got to probably the convention for me it's just like well fuck it he's our guy right uh and i'm not saying that he's even the guy i want to be president but i know for fucking sure i don't want donald trump to be president and so if i can't bring myself to support joe biden i just put all of my efforts into tearing down donald trump but i just you think you don't think there there is like the greater of two lessers here right there's the evil of two lessers do
Zain
49:39
do you think people will have enough time to heal after taking a whack at biden for for for let's say weeks and perhaps even a bit more than a month or so and then come back
Corey
49:49
back in like rapid force and
Corey
49:52
because it's politics and that's how it always happens i
Zain
49:55
i know that we say that's conventional wisdom that the fractures heal but this is a unique circumstance carter you're You're shaking your head. You don't think so.
Carter
50:02
We're dealing with months here. I mean, we're dealing
Carter
50:05
with the future. With a few months, but not a ton of
Carter
50:08
either. I'm freaked the fuck out is what I am. I mean, I'm listening to Corey and his intellectual fucking
Carter
50:15
fucking gobbledygook, and I'm responding very emotionally because this is an emotional structure right now. This is emotional for me. this is emotional because you
Carter
50:26
know you if you have there's
Carter
50:29
there's three branches of the american government they already have the supreme court the supreme court's not behaving rationally is that fair to say they literally just approved well and we're getting to it but they literally just approved something that would say if joe biden officially decided to kill three of the conservative judges that'd be okay as
Carter
50:48
as long as it was an official action okay
Carter
50:50
touch and go but i'm I'm just, I'm, you know, I'm a little hyperbole, right?
Carter
50:55
I'm, I'm emotionally responding to this because the consequences and the stakes are so high. And this is something that can't be captured in polls. I mean, maybe everybody who's, who's saying they're going to vote for Trump finally comes to their senses. But at the same time, I didn't see a president up on that stage. I literally didn't see a president up on the stage. I saw someone who's lying all the time and someone who's near dying all the time. those are the two people that i saw on that stage and that scares the shit out of me well
Corey
51:25
well jill biden was on for a while too so
Carter
51:28
well then everything's okay could
Corey
51:30
could be a woodrow wilson situation i'm
Carter
51:32
i'm fine with woodrow wilson i know i know carter don't have them fucking debate
Zain
51:37
know carter wants to make this a scotus podcast and i'm gonna he always does yeah he's very into the scotus he loves Koda
Carter
51:44
Koda scares the shit out of me.
Zain
51:46
Let's talk about this. Corey, game theory, the Biden legacy question, if you were trying to convince him to leave. So he
Zain
51:54
he stays and he loses.
Zain
51:57
What's the like? Spit out the legacy. It's
Corey
51:59
It's 20. If he leaves,
Zain
51:59
leaves, does the person that replaced him have to win in order for the Biden legacy to not be in the shitter as if it were just a straight up loss head to head against Trump? Yeah. Help me game this out. How are you thinking about it? You know how I'm thinking about it? Yeah, lay it on me. I am saying...
Zain
52:17
saying... Kind of why
Corey
52:17
why I asked the question.
Corey
52:20
it's 2250, and somebody's picking up a textbook about when the United States stopped being a democracy. And there's a chapter about an incredibly weak president who didn't know when it was time to go. and he went in in absolute decline and got beaten by a man who was an autocrat, who was a liar, who was a thief, who was a fraudster, who was a sexual harasser. But he just did not know when the curtain call came. And how do you think that guy, how do you think that last Democratic president comes off in the history books, Joe? You were thinking about this far too narrowly, given the stakes that you yourself have defined here. Nobody talks great game about Franklin clint pierce and buchanan you know these these presidents before the republic started to fall apart uh before the american civil war you want to worry about your place in the history books i would be fucking terrified about my place in the history books when you have all of the signs you need to know you shouldn't be doing this and you do this and yeah that might still be the case you might still go down as that guy but you've got to give this republic a fighting fucking chance and that means finding somebody who can hold donald trump to account who can get that five percent more than you can get right now and you're not as good as you think you are joe you're not so it's time to start putting the republic and your legacy ahead of whatever the fuck this is right now that you're doing where you're just too proud to admit at 81 maybe it's time to retire maybe
Corey
53:48
maybe it's time to retire carter
Zain
53:50
i like that i like the messaging i like the the west wing in approach by cory a non-west wing gear um which is the official term yeah
Zain
54:00
believe believe um yeah no it is no you don't need to believe so i'm telling you it is okay
Zain
54:04
um hey tell me about this does
Zain
54:07
does biden's legacy does he like just completely clean it by walking away or does his replacement have to win like i'm just obsessed with that question show us what sacrifice is joe
Corey
54:19
here show us it's something you actually believe in his
Carter
54:21
his legacy is going to be defined in part by whether or not his successor wins his his legacy will be defined in part by whether or not he can win um but his so his legacy is going to be did he win the final election in the same way that brian mulroney's legacy is in part defined by did he win the final election but
Zain
54:41
but let's get game this out for me though if he said if he stays and he wins is
Zain
54:46
is that a win for him like sure that's
Carter
54:49
like sure if he stays if he wins at this point you're talking about in probabilities because he in in states that have senators that are going to be re-elected as democrats he is losing not
Carter
55:03
not not by a little bit he's losing and it's in the electoral college you know what we we wish we'd gotten rid of it but we haven't gotten rid of it the electoral college is still the way that people vote and it is going to generate an unbelievably close victory either for Biden or for Trump. But right now, it looks like it's going to generate it for Trump.
Carter
55:25
So this is four
Carter
55:28
four months to go. We've got time. Don't worry about it. It's time to fucking worry about it. Corey's case about what the legacy is going to look like, Joe Biden, he can't take the chance. If
Carter
55:41
If he somehow miraculously wins, what do the next four years look like? Can America survive? survive here's another thing that we haven't talked about here's another thing that we haven't started to think about can america survive the
Carter
55:54
the transfer of power to
Carter
55:56
to a black female president
Zain
55:59
well i hope hold that hold that thought i
Zain
56:02
don't know that let's go back let's go back to the simple strategic game theory of is joe biden's legacy better
Zain
56:10
with stepping away yes right right now yes
Carter
56:15
stepping away he can't win no
Corey
56:17
no i so no no zane to answer your question
Corey
56:20
winning but carter's right like this is a game of probabilities and at this point that is looking like a narrow probability and
Corey
56:27
and i think that the risks and the consequences not just to your legacy but to america are pretty fucking significant we're going to get to the supreme court but the supreme court has basically you know made the president a king while they're the president and so that's that's
Corey
56:42
that's a bit of a president technically including technically this president
Carter
56:45
president this president won't behave as a king good
Corey
56:47
good i sure hope not that's
Carter
56:48
that's fantastic i'm delighted i hope that no one behaves like a king
Corey
56:53
let's get into it the next guy will uh like listen like what joe biden what you're describing joe biden like running and going for it is like somebody saying i
Corey
57:04
i can win the most money if i just put it all on 35 on the roulette wheel if it comes up 35 i fucking walk out of here with all the money in the world yeah
Corey
57:15
think of my leg think of the legacy for my wallet if i hit 35 but is that smart is that probable are you willing to risk what you might be risking if you do that and in the case of the united states and in the case of the presidential election we're not talking about a hundred dollars we're talking about a guy in donald trump who has already said he is going to act like a dictator who is now enabled by a Supreme Court that said, yeah, basically, you're allowed to act like a dictator. So, you know, I think the stakes are pretty damn high here, Joe. And maybe it's just all rhetoric to you. Maybe you actually don't believe the hype here. But I'll tell you something I do. And so, fuck it, step down. Just move on with your life, please.
Zain
58:00
you. Now's a good time.
Zain
58:01
Carter, tell me about what happened at SCOTUS. Let's spend a few minutes on this.
Carter
58:05
i mean and i'm gonna i'm gonna bring some hyperbole into it but basically
Carter
58:10
you want to do it cory because i'll keep the hyperbole out you you can keep the hyperbole out no
Corey
58:14
no no no you do it and then i'll just clean
Carter
58:17
up my mess i'll
Corey
58:17
i'll judge you yeah yeah
Carter
58:19
yeah okay that's pretty standard um the the the supreme court today decided that uh donald trump was essentially essentially
Carter
58:29
protected legally protected from some of the decisions that were made in the uh in in in the official office of being the president and they have referred that back down to the lower courts to make a determination as to which you know how that actually applies so when i say donald you know president biden could execute uh three conservative judges is um that's what the lower court is now being asked to decide is well what official versions are you preemptively uh you know uh what's the word i'm looking for cory protected from but there's a better legal word that's not coming to my mind right now you're
Corey
59:10
you're talking about immunity immunity
Carter
59:11
immunity that's what it is now
Carter
59:14
now this goes against everything that should be the united states of america i mean everybody's equal and before the law is one of the founding you know uh ideas of of the of the country so if the president's not equal before the law then i'm not sure what the hell's going on um this would have been a really great ruling to give richard dixon uh you know but here we here we are here
Carter
59:39
here we are if
Corey
59:39
if the president does something it's uh it's legal famously
Corey
59:42
famously said by richard nixon well yeah
Carter
59:44
yeah i mean that's that's but that
Carter
59:47
that was proven to be not true by the actions of Nixon and by the actions of those around him.
Carter
59:53
The problem with this government at this particular point, the problem with the ruling that comes out of the Supreme Court, is that the framers never constructed a model where they assumed that the person was going to be significantly corrupt. I mean, they did put in place impeachment mechanisms. They thought that that would work. They didn't frame this Constitution in the framing of it it with extreme partisanship in mind. In fact, they warned against extreme partisanship. So, I mean, here we are. This is the natural outcome of extreme partisanship being applied to court rulings. I'm just, I'm absolutely baffled. I'll let Corey now come in and clean up my mess.
Corey
1:00:40
Yeah, it's a shocking and seismic ruling. It goes about as far as Donald Trump had any reasonable hope of the supreme court going and probably further than that still ultimately it says that if the president is doing something that's an official act then uh you can't you
Corey
1:00:58
you can't charge him with anything but beyond that you can't even use his official acts as evidence of motive in unofficial acts motive being fairly important in criminal law that that in its own right is it's pretty damning and you know it it creates an environment where people People can reasonably ask questions, as the dissenting justices did, like, well, what the fuck does this mean? Like, if SEAL Team 6 was ordered to kill a political opponent, could they do that? As one of the footnotes said in the dissent, you know, the question becomes, is it, yeah, so an official act is firing the AG, but would it be considered an official act to poison the AG to get rid of them? Like, you know, there's just so many troubling kind of natural consequences from the ruling. And often when you see a ruling like this, people will go to that kind of dramatic state and talk about these things in hyperbolic tones. But what's quite fascinating about this ruling is it really does take the
Corey
1:01:52
the guardrails off. Like the things that I've just listed here, they
Corey
1:01:56
they sound ludicrous, but
Corey
1:01:59
but they are technically allowable under the majority's opinion. And I think
Zain
1:02:04
think it's not just it's not just what Trump has done and what this is, what he's shielded from, too. It's it's got the go forward, Carter, which is the second part of our conversation after the poll, which is available at Canada.org. And Zed was about Joe Biden potentially losing the presidency. If Trump comes in, it's about what the go forward path now looks like for him. Much more frictionless than it was a mere 24 hours ago.
Carter
1:02:33
already saw a government under Trump where the rule of law was ignored in general. And that rule of law, you know, some cases, you know, it was mild corruption, you know, $2 billion here, $2 billion there from various governments coming in and flowing into Jared Kushner's pocket and those types of things where, you know, any other government would see corruption charges. I mean, if I were Joe Biden, maybe I'd direct the Department of Justice to bring charges against Clarence Thomas. I mean, they are the ones who opened this kettle
Carter
1:03:12
of worms. And I just, I'm
Carter
1:03:15
I'm trying not to go hyperbolic. I'm trying not to see in this the absolute,
Carter
1:03:21
you know, return to monarchy. But you cannot exempt someone from their official acts and say that they're all going to be legal. This is a country that already looks the other way. This is a country that, you know, has not signed on to international law around, you know, around killing
Carter
1:03:43
killing of leaders, right? Right. The drone strikes, the number of of kind of unofficial acts of what would be called terror if any other country was doing it. But the United States is doing it. So it's called some sort of justice that is already way outside of international law. And the United States stands outside of that, will not agree to be put to be a party to that because they they feel that their justice system is, in fact, equipped to take care of that. Well, their justice system is no longer equipped to take care of that.
Zain
1:04:14
Corey, let's end here because we can talk about this a lot more in terms of the fallout of this. Trudeau.
Zain
1:04:21
Trudeau, Westchats, Sunak. I mean, what are we going to do? What are we going to do? We're not making this for a few hours. This is our vacation. Carter's fading here. He's going to have a Biden-esque performance in about five minutes. No, you can't. I can go all night. That's the Biden. That's the Biden in you, Carter. That's the Biden in you talking. Okay.
Zain
1:04:43
Strategy question. 6-3 bench.
Zain
1:04:46
It's voting along partisan line. Three classic liberals, three now hard right conservatives, seemingly even harder writer as the weeks go by with some of these most recent rulings that they have administered over the course of the last, even the last week, I would say.
Zain
1:05:05
Biden, when he ran in 2020, said he would not expand the bench to try to even out the score, even out the numbers sort of thing. Others had different takes in that primary, if you recall.
Zain
1:05:16
Where do we go here? If you're trying to, whether it's depoliticize or even out, however you want to think about it, the Supreme Court, how
Zain
1:05:25
how do you think about this from a strategy perspective, Corey?
Corey
1:05:29
Well, they've got a real problem, don't because the supreme court is going to change slowly it's if if they continue doing the same thing they've always been doing it's effectively you've got nine justices and they're going to rotate out over time and it will take a very long time before this hard right majority is off the court and of course there's no guarantee that it won't just be replaced with more right-wing justices if yeah if the whole system is fucking crumbling and the conservative you know wings of the republican party are doing whatever they can to stay in power and you know play the games they did to get like amy coney barrett in the first place and and all of that right that's a real problem so
Corey
1:06:07
so i don't think that there's a simple solution to it here there are a lot of court decisions that are like
Corey
1:06:15
like even in the past week as you've been saying i think forcing us to assess just how much of law is really in the hands of of these individuals and a
Corey
1:06:26
democratic government is what they have right now they have a democratic president they have a democratic senate And they
Corey
1:06:32
can't do anything but sit there and sort of take
Corey
1:06:35
take the end of Roe v. Wade, take a president being like the president of the United States is Joe Biden. He should be somebody who benefits from these things. But like, yes,
Corey
1:06:45
clearly one sided and designed for, you know, for the benefit of one one side. like it's just it's going to erode confidence
Corey
1:06:53
confidence in the rule of law it already has pretty significantly everything seems very political no matter where you are everybody is feeling that right now and that's um and
Corey
1:07:03
and that's a real problem so if you want to have a judicial branch that is not so political what's your go forward and i think ultimately to
Corey
1:07:11
to answer your question in a very long-winded way it's got to be reform they've got to find a way to do this whether it's you've got got to increase the majority needed to get somebody on the bench or they need to every president gets every four year term gets like one nominee and you've changed like it will probably require either an expansion of the court or constitutional amendments or both but the current status quo you
Corey
1:07:34
you could elect democrats across the board it's not going to do any good as long as the court's decided the court's going to do what the court's going to do so So I think that Joe Biden's position of not stacking the court, absent a different strategy, is
Corey
1:07:50
is untenable. It's absolutely untenable. Carter,
Carter
1:07:54
Yeah, I mean, this is a court
Carter
1:07:56
court that's lost its way, to say the very least. And you know what? I think that we can move away from just absolutely slagging some of the justices. I think that you have two, at least, in Alito and Thomas, that have lost the fucking plot. lot and you know both of them could you know be impeached that that's supposed to be the mechanism by which these these uh issues are dealt with in in the system but
Carter
1:08:24
but they can't be impeached they literally are untouchable at this stage because there's such a gap in the partisanship and there's no way republicans would ever consider impeaching a republican justice it's just it's
Carter
1:08:38
it's just beyond the scope
Carter
1:08:40
scope of of consideration really well
Corey
1:08:43
well and the fact that we now think of them as republican justices rather than republican appointed justices is uh but
Carter
1:08:49
but they are republican justices it's
Carter
1:08:52
it is it is a dark day in history and i've got my bug out plans if people want a copy of
Carter
1:08:57
of how i've planned it um oh
Corey
1:09:00
oh is this at the twenty dollar a month at the
Carter
1:09:02
the twenty dollar a month patreon level i'll start sharing with people i'll bottom line it for you you start Start thinking about your sleeping, your eating, your hunting, fishing, gardening, water, where you're going to get water, chemistry plays a role, and then a lot of power discussions. So, you know, that's really how things kind of come together. So I'm prepared to send out my notes on all of that if you're subscribed at the $20 per month level.
Zain
1:09:26
And I know you're being sincere here, so I don't mean to underbind it with a joke, and this isn't a joke, but, and soon to be adding the 1996 Subaru Legacy, which can kind
Zain
1:09:34
of shepherd you. well
Carter
1:09:36
well between there's not gonna be any gas for it okay
Zain
1:09:39
okay well this is this is this is good he gets he gets very different after 10 yeah
Carter
1:09:44
is it after 10 yeah let's
Corey
1:09:46
move it over under our lightning
Zain
1:09:47
lightning round steven carter i'm gonna just spare you the additional questions the bullshit questions i'm gonna get to the heart of the matter there's only a single question i care about um was the pole and the subsequent uh wire service mistake yes or no no
Zain
1:10:00
no cory was it a mistake oh
Corey
1:10:02
oh Oh, absolutely not. I think it was a launchpad to a new crusade, a new mission. It is now the entire purpose of this podcast to make sure that Canadians know about the pronunciation differences of our nation.
Zain
1:10:16
them again one more time for us.
Carter
1:10:23
Yeah. I say, apparently, Canada. Canada.
Zain
1:10:26
Yes. However you say it, you just add it, .org, .nz, and you can find the poll. Thank you to our fine friends, Not Foreign Interference from New Zealand, housing our poll. And we'll leave it there. That's a wrap on episode 1812 of The Strategist. My name is Zane Velch. With me, as always, Corey Hogan, Stephen Carter, and we'll see you next time.