WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.259 November 19th. It's for most people just another 00:00:03.259 --> 00:00:05.620 Tuesday, right? But if you go back a hundred 00:00:05.620 --> 00:00:08.720 and sixty some years November 19th 1863 that 00:00:08.720 --> 00:00:11.779 was the day of the Gettysburg Address a moment 00:00:11.779 --> 00:00:15.140 defined by this huge fundamental Conflict over 00:00:15.140 --> 00:00:17.219 what America even was and that's such a good 00:00:17.219 --> 00:00:18.780 frame for the sources You've sent over because 00:00:18.780 --> 00:00:21.480 you can see these echoes of that same structural 00:00:21.480 --> 00:00:25.059 battle today. It's just it's masked by all this 00:00:25.059 --> 00:00:27.839 high stakes political drama. So I think for this 00:00:27.839 --> 00:00:30.199 deep dive, our mission is to sort of untangle 00:00:30.199 --> 00:00:32.840 three big areas. We've got this political surrender 00:00:32.840 --> 00:00:35.820 on the Epstein files. Then there's this really 00:00:35.820 --> 00:00:38.100 transactional deal making with the US and Saudi 00:00:38.100 --> 00:00:40.159 Arabia. And the big one. And the big one, yeah. 00:00:40.719 --> 00:00:43.060 The foundational fight over gerrymandering, sort 00:00:43.060 --> 00:00:45.640 of an arms race. Okay, let's unpack this. Let's 00:00:45.640 --> 00:00:47.820 start with what was probably the biggest domestic 00:00:47.820 --> 00:00:50.880 headline. the House vote on the Epstein materials. 00:00:51.320 --> 00:00:54.960 The whole story just shifted so fast from if 00:00:54.960 --> 00:00:58.820 the administration would block it to why they 00:00:58.820 --> 00:01:01.560 suddenly just folded. The initial vote was, I 00:01:01.560 --> 00:01:03.820 mean, it was almost unprecedented. You had 534 00:01:03.820 --> 00:01:07.019 members of Congress, a near unanimous vote to 00:01:07.019 --> 00:01:09.459 demand the release of these files. That kind 00:01:09.459 --> 00:01:12.620 of unity, you know, against a sitting administration, 00:01:13.019 --> 00:01:15.760 it's a huge signal of institutional pressure. 00:01:16.319 --> 00:01:20.900 And yet there was one single No vote. Representative 00:01:20.900 --> 00:01:25.319 Clay Higgins from Louisiana. Why? Why him? Why 00:01:25.319 --> 00:01:27.900 stand -alone? Well Higgins gave a really detailed 00:01:27.900 --> 00:01:30.650 reason. He argued the bill, and this is a quote, 00:01:31.010 --> 00:01:33.709 abandons 250 years of criminal justice procedure 00:01:33.709 --> 00:01:36.510 in America. How so? His point was that you're 00:01:36.510 --> 00:01:38.489 forcing the release of files from an ongoing 00:01:38.489 --> 00:01:41.030 investigation. And he claimed that doing that 00:01:41.030 --> 00:01:43.890 risks injuring thousands of innocent people, 00:01:44.290 --> 00:01:46.170 witnesses, family members, people who just provided 00:01:46.170 --> 00:01:48.689 alibis by making all their confidential info 00:01:48.689 --> 00:01:51.129 public. So his argument is all about process, 00:01:51.450 --> 00:01:53.409 about protecting innocent bystanders. Exactly. 00:01:53.590 --> 00:01:55.739 But of course, A source has immediately jumped 00:01:55.739 --> 00:01:57.640 to the political angle. Sure. They're suggesting 00:01:57.640 --> 00:01:59.739 he's either, you know, positioning himself as 00:01:59.739 --> 00:02:02.540 a loyalist to the former president or he's basically 00:02:02.540 --> 00:02:04.640 laying the groundwork, the legal argument for 00:02:04.640 --> 00:02:07.280 them to hide the files later. And what's so fascinating 00:02:07.280 --> 00:02:10.020 is how the Senate handled it. It gets over there 00:02:10.020 --> 00:02:12.620 and the minority leader, Chuck Schumer, pushes 00:02:12.620 --> 00:02:15.620 it through with unanimous consent. Yeah. Can 00:02:15.620 --> 00:02:17.340 you just break that down for a second? Why is 00:02:17.340 --> 00:02:20.689 that move so important here? It's a procedural 00:02:20.689 --> 00:02:23.370 shortcut, really. It lets a bill pass without 00:02:23.370 --> 00:02:26.030 a formal roll call vote as long as no single 00:02:26.030 --> 00:02:28.909 senator objects. So it's fast. It's fast. And 00:02:28.909 --> 00:02:31.729 it lets every single senator avoid having to 00:02:31.729 --> 00:02:34.530 go on the record. Taking a politically risky 00:02:34.530 --> 00:02:37.949 vote on something this explosive, it's the clean 00:02:37.949 --> 00:02:41.270 way to apply maximum pressure with minimum personal 00:02:41.270 --> 00:02:43.819 risk. And the pressure clearly worked. Because 00:02:43.819 --> 00:02:46.039 then we see this complete reversal from the former 00:02:46.039 --> 00:02:48.439 president. One minute, he's fighting the release. 00:02:48.860 --> 00:02:50.580 The next, he's publicly supporting the bill. 00:02:50.860 --> 00:02:52.780 Right. And this pivot, this sudden surrender 00:02:52.780 --> 00:02:54.560 kicked off a bunch of theories and the source 00:02:54.560 --> 00:02:56.500 material trying to explain what happened. Yeah. 00:02:56.539 --> 00:02:58.759 And the theories are really telling. One is purely 00:02:58.759 --> 00:03:01.139 strategic. They call it the Ukraine playbook. 00:03:01.159 --> 00:03:04.639 OK. The idea is, if bad stuff is coming out anyway, 00:03:05.259 --> 00:03:08.039 you release it yourself. You control the narrative. 00:03:08.300 --> 00:03:10.139 And then you tell your base it was a perfect 00:03:10.139 --> 00:03:13.319 move all along. Exactly. You gaslight them. But 00:03:13.319 --> 00:03:15.479 does the administration really have the discipline 00:03:15.479 --> 00:03:17.419 for that? I mean, their crisis management hasn't 00:03:17.419 --> 00:03:21.419 always been sharp. It hasn't. Which is why the 00:03:21.419 --> 00:03:24.740 other theory, the one based on psychology, feels 00:03:24.740 --> 00:03:26.960 a little stronger. The idea that he just can't 00:03:26.960 --> 00:03:29.860 stand to look like a loser. Right. Psychologically, 00:03:30.180 --> 00:03:32.460 he's just incapable of admitting he lost a fight. 00:03:32.960 --> 00:03:35.680 So if he can't stop it, he has to pretend it 00:03:35.680 --> 00:03:37.939 was his idea the whole time. So those theories 00:03:37.939 --> 00:03:40.800 explain the public pivot, but the consensus and 00:03:40.800 --> 00:03:43.060 the sources seems to be that this is all just 00:03:43.060 --> 00:03:45.780 a setup for a concealment strategy. That's it. 00:03:45.919 --> 00:03:48.219 They're just buying time and changing the battlefield. 00:03:48.860 --> 00:03:50.580 And there are two main ways they could try to 00:03:50.580 --> 00:03:52.740 hide the information. OK, what's the first? The 00:03:52.740 --> 00:03:54.479 attorney general could just claim the files are 00:03:54.479 --> 00:03:57.620 part of an ongoing investigation that legally 00:03:57.620 --> 00:03:59.680 shields them. It's basically the new, my taxes 00:03:59.680 --> 00:04:02.400 are under audit excuse. And the second way involves 00:04:02.400 --> 00:04:05.120 Congress itself, using that same argument from 00:04:05.120 --> 00:04:07.460 the one dissenting vote. That's the more subtle 00:04:07.460 --> 00:04:10.919 play. Once Congress has the files, members aligned 00:04:10.919 --> 00:04:12.800 with the administration can just start quoting 00:04:12.800 --> 00:04:15.979 Clay Higgins. We have to protect the innocent 00:04:15.979 --> 00:04:18.819 witnesses, the families. So they can justify 00:04:18.819 --> 00:04:22.439 redacting huge chunks of it. Huge chunks. And 00:04:22.439 --> 00:04:25.060 the big win for transparency becomes... You know, 00:04:25.100 --> 00:04:27.180 an empty gesture. They give you a stack of blacked 00:04:27.180 --> 00:04:29.800 out pages. OK, so let's shift from domestic pressure 00:04:29.800 --> 00:04:32.720 to these high stakes foreign deals. The recent 00:04:32.720 --> 00:04:35.060 White House meeting with Prince Mohammed bin 00:04:35.060 --> 00:04:37.720 Salman. Yeah, MBS. They pulled out all the stops 00:04:37.720 --> 00:04:40.759 for him. I mean, Marine Corps band and F -35 00:04:40.759 --> 00:04:43.579 fly over the whole nine yards. The ceremony really 00:04:43.579 --> 00:04:46.199 matched the prize thereafter. The whole visit 00:04:46.199 --> 00:04:49.800 was about a massive transactional arms deal selling 00:04:49.800 --> 00:04:54.220 300 American tanks and crucially F -35s. to Saudi 00:04:54.220 --> 00:04:56.100 Arabia. And this is where the sources get really 00:04:56.100 --> 00:04:58.420 critical. The deal was made with, and I'm quoting 00:04:58.420 --> 00:05:01.560 here, no strings attached. Which is just malpractice. 00:05:01.699 --> 00:05:03.579 Diplomatically, you would think a skilled negotiator 00:05:03.579 --> 00:05:06.779 would use those F -35s as leverage. Right. To 00:05:06.779 --> 00:05:08.959 push Saudi Arabia to normalize relations with 00:05:08.959 --> 00:05:11.100 Israel, that's a huge U .S. priority in the region. 00:05:11.480 --> 00:05:14.250 But that condition was just gone. Not even on 00:05:14.250 --> 00:05:16.589 the table. And on top of that, the former president 00:05:16.589 --> 00:05:19.829 gave MBS these huge political gifts. You're talking 00:05:19.829 --> 00:05:23.009 about Jamal Khashoggi. He publicly defended MBS 00:05:23.009 --> 00:05:25.350 over the murder of Khashoggi, which remember 00:05:25.350 --> 00:05:27.949 the CIA says MBS ordered and he's out there saying 00:05:27.949 --> 00:05:31.329 MBS knew nothing about it. He even called Khashoggi 00:05:31.329 --> 00:05:33.949 extremely controversial. And he didn't stop there. 00:05:34.029 --> 00:05:35.930 He also suggested the Saudi government had nothing 00:05:35.930 --> 00:05:38.430 to do with 9 -11. A claim that just flies in 00:05:38.430 --> 00:05:41.100 the face of, you know. Two decades of evidence. 00:05:41.379 --> 00:05:43.620 So after giving away all that leverage, all that 00:05:43.620 --> 00:05:46.399 political cover, what did the US actually get 00:05:46.399 --> 00:05:49.819 in return? A massive, almost laughably huge, 00:05:49.860 --> 00:05:52.100 financial promise. Yeah. MBS said he would up 00:05:52.100 --> 00:05:54.819 his investment in the US from $600 billion to 00:05:54.819 --> 00:05:58.800 $1 trillion. A trillion. Just pause on that number. 00:05:59.180 --> 00:06:01.920 Saudi Arabia's entire annual GDP is only about 00:06:01.920 --> 00:06:04.519 $1 .2 trillion. The idea that they're investing 00:06:04.519 --> 00:06:07.660 nearly their entire country's output, it's a 00:06:07.660 --> 00:06:10.339 rhetorical tool, not a real. So even if we take 00:06:10.339 --> 00:06:13.199 a more realistic number, say 300 billion over 00:06:13.199 --> 00:06:16.399 a decade, the term investment itself can be tricky, 00:06:16.600 --> 00:06:18.660 right? It's not necessarily building factories 00:06:18.660 --> 00:06:22.279 here. Oh, it could be the exact opposite. The 00:06:22.279 --> 00:06:24.519 sources warn that MBS could use that money to 00:06:24.519 --> 00:06:27.040 buy controlling shares in strategic American 00:06:27.040 --> 00:06:30.680 companies. Think chip manufacturers or even an 00:06:30.680 --> 00:06:33.220 iconic brand like Ford. And once they have a 00:06:33.220 --> 00:06:34.959 controlling interest, their people are on the 00:06:34.959 --> 00:06:36.970 board. They can change priorities. They can push 00:06:36.970 --> 00:06:39.649 to move R &D offshore, force the company to share 00:06:39.649 --> 00:06:42.269 trade secrets. It's basically a legal way to 00:06:42.269 --> 00:06:45.029 gut American industries from the inside. It is 00:06:45.029 --> 00:06:48.269 transaction foreign policy at its most raw. But 00:06:48.269 --> 00:06:51.189 the sources all point to one truly concrete, 00:06:51.610 --> 00:06:54.389 undeniable win. And it was for the family. Absolutely. 00:06:54.689 --> 00:06:57.170 The focus snaps right to the $2 billion investment 00:06:57.170 --> 00:06:59.209 fund that the Saudis gave to the former son -in 00:06:59.209 --> 00:07:02.170 -law Jared Kushner. Right. And from MBS's perspective, 00:07:02.509 --> 00:07:05.730 this is a brilliant low cost investment. He pays 00:07:05.730 --> 00:07:08.310 what is, to him, a pittance, these exorbitant 00:07:08.310 --> 00:07:10.850 management fees, and in return, he gets influence 00:07:10.850 --> 00:07:13.910 and access. That $2 billion fund, that's framed 00:07:13.910 --> 00:07:16.110 as a real win for the family. Let's pivot now 00:07:16.110 --> 00:07:18.250 to the structural foundation of our democracy, 00:07:18.689 --> 00:07:20.990 gerrymandering. And we can start with a really 00:07:20.990 --> 00:07:23.449 surprising lesson out of California, Proposition 00:07:23.449 --> 00:07:27.529 50. Yeah, that 64 % to 36 % vote is so telling. 00:07:27.759 --> 00:07:30.160 It really suggests that for Democratic voters, 00:07:30.560 --> 00:07:33.160 playing fair is not the top priority anymore. 00:07:33.279 --> 00:07:35.579 They just want to win. They want to win any way 00:07:35.579 --> 00:07:38.740 that is legal. And that feeling, that shift... 00:07:38.730 --> 00:07:41.470 is putting enormous pressure on Democratic leaders 00:07:41.470 --> 00:07:44.810 to just abandon unilateral disarmament in these 00:07:44.810 --> 00:07:47.689 mapmaking wars. And this puts a huge target on 00:07:47.689 --> 00:07:50.250 states where Democrats have total control. All 00:07:50.250 --> 00:07:52.649 eyes are on Governor J .B. Pritzker in Illinois. 00:07:52.990 --> 00:07:55.029 Right, because Illinois is a Democratic trifecta. 00:07:55.230 --> 00:07:57.310 They have the governor's office and supermajorities 00:07:57.310 --> 00:08:00.910 in the legislature. Yeah. And this is key, they 00:08:00.910 --> 00:08:03.379 do not have an independent commission. So Pritzker 00:08:03.379 --> 00:08:05.519 literally has the power to draw whatever map 00:08:05.519 --> 00:08:08.319 he wants. And he's positioned to set this new 00:08:08.319 --> 00:08:11.000 hyper aggressive standard. The threat is that 00:08:11.000 --> 00:08:13.360 he could draw a map. that eliminates all three 00:08:13.360 --> 00:08:15.600 Republican districts in the state. Imagine him 00:08:15.600 --> 00:08:18.319 bragging that he created a zero Republican delegation. 00:08:18.579 --> 00:08:20.519 But ironically, as Democrats are gearing up to 00:08:20.519 --> 00:08:23.019 go on offense, the Republican side of this arms 00:08:23.019 --> 00:08:25.459 race has been hitting some major roadblocks. 00:08:25.660 --> 00:08:28.579 That's right. In Kansas and Indiana, for example, 00:08:29.120 --> 00:08:32.720 their efforts to draw these super GOP friendly 00:08:32.720 --> 00:08:36.429 maps just stalled. Not because of a court challenge? 00:08:36.690 --> 00:08:39.090 No, because of fear of the voters. Legislators 00:08:39.090 --> 00:08:40.830 were afraid that if they drew maps that were 00:08:40.830 --> 00:08:43.210 too obviously partisan, their own voters would 00:08:43.210 --> 00:08:44.950 punish them at the polls. They got scared of 00:08:44.950 --> 00:08:47.049 their own shadows. And the news was even worse 00:08:47.049 --> 00:08:50.289 for the GOP in Utah. Much worse. A judge just 00:08:50.289 --> 00:08:53.070 flat out threw out their map. And the new court 00:08:53.070 --> 00:08:56.029 ordered map creates a heavily Democratic district, 00:08:56.429 --> 00:08:59.690 D plus 24. Former Congressman Ben McAdams is 00:08:59.690 --> 00:09:02.350 running there. That looks like a guaranteed GOP 00:09:02.350 --> 00:09:05.769 seat loss. But the biggest blow... the real bombshell 00:09:05.769 --> 00:09:07.990 came out of Texas. That was supposed to be the 00:09:07.990 --> 00:09:10.429 crown jewel of their redistricting effort. Absolutely. 00:09:10.950 --> 00:09:13.799 A three -judge panel blocked their new map. the 00:09:13.799 --> 00:09:16.320 one that was designed to create five new Republican 00:09:16.320 --> 00:09:19.179 seats. The court said it was racially discriminatory. 00:09:19.320 --> 00:09:22.580 And they forced Texas to use the old 2021 map 00:09:22.580 --> 00:09:25.860 for the next election. So the GOP gets zero new 00:09:25.860 --> 00:09:28.299 seats for all that effort. But the wildest detail 00:09:28.299 --> 00:09:30.600 is about the Department of Justice. The court's 00:09:30.600 --> 00:09:32.740 opinion actually cited a letter from the current 00:09:32.740 --> 00:09:35.740 administration's DOJ. But then in the same opinion, 00:09:36.120 --> 00:09:39.000 they ripped that letter to shreds, calling it 00:09:39.000 --> 00:09:42.480 legally unsound and a mess. So you have this 00:09:42.480 --> 00:09:45.379 bizarre situation of a court ruling against a 00:09:45.379 --> 00:09:48.539 Republican map while also kneecapping the Democratic 00:09:48.539 --> 00:09:51.220 administration's legal argument. It's just a 00:09:51.220 --> 00:09:53.820 massive setback for the GOP. And this whole debate 00:09:53.820 --> 00:09:55.559 always comes back to the solution that, you know, 00:09:55.779 --> 00:09:58.889 77 percent of voters say they want. independent 00:09:58.889 --> 00:10:01.629 commissions. But as you said, the devil is always 00:10:01.629 --> 00:10:04.250 in the details of how you structure that commission. 00:10:04.330 --> 00:10:06.870 Right. If you look at California, their model 00:10:06.870 --> 00:10:09.470 is really hard to game because it focuses on 00:10:09.470 --> 00:10:11.789 getting partisans out of the selection process 00:10:11.789 --> 00:10:14.769 itself. They use a panel of state auditors and 00:10:14.769 --> 00:10:17.429 have strict rules like no partisan activity for 00:10:17.429 --> 00:10:19.649 10 years. And Colorado has a different kind of 00:10:19.649 --> 00:10:21.830 safeguard, right, to force consensus. Exactly. 00:10:21.950 --> 00:10:24.149 Their commission has 12 members and you need 00:10:24.149 --> 00:10:26.509 eight votes to approve any map. But here's the 00:10:26.509 --> 00:10:29.730 key. Two of those eight votes must come from 00:10:29.730 --> 00:10:31.929 the independent members. It forces the two parties 00:10:31.929 --> 00:10:34.250 to actually negotiate and find a middle ground. 00:10:34.649 --> 00:10:36.889 So let's talk scale for a second. Based on the 00:10:36.889 --> 00:10:39.250 sources, what would actually happen if blue states 00:10:39.250 --> 00:10:42.070 just go all in on this arms race? Follow the 00:10:42.070 --> 00:10:45.330 Pritzker model. The potential gains are just 00:10:45.330 --> 00:10:48.029 enormous. If you look at the states where Democrats 00:10:48.029 --> 00:10:50.350 already have a trifecta, they could potentially 00:10:50.350 --> 00:10:53.990 pick up 25 seats total. California alone is a 00:10:53.990 --> 00:10:56.750 nine seat prize. And the real prizes are the 00:10:56.750 --> 00:10:59.110 swing states where Democrats might win a trifecta 00:10:59.110 --> 00:11:01.929 soon. Arizona, North Carolina, Pennsylvania. 00:11:02.129 --> 00:11:04.350 Those three states alone could be another 29 00:11:04.350 --> 00:11:06.909 seats. And the level of detail they're going 00:11:06.909 --> 00:11:10.950 into is, it's surgical. We saw data for one hypothetical 00:11:10.950 --> 00:11:13.029 district in North Carolina where the difference 00:11:13.029 --> 00:11:15.750 came down to a single registered Democrat versus 00:11:15.750 --> 00:11:17.990 a single registered Republican. Just incredible. 00:11:18.029 --> 00:11:19.889 That's the level of this fight now. Which brings 00:11:19.889 --> 00:11:23.830 us back one last time to November 19th, 1863. 00:11:24.200 --> 00:11:26.919 to Gettysburg. Right. The ceremony itself was 00:11:26.919 --> 00:11:28.940 delayed until that date so the main speaker, 00:11:29.159 --> 00:11:30.879 Edward Everett, could finish his research for 00:11:30.879 --> 00:11:33.399 what turned out to be a two -hour speech. And 00:11:33.399 --> 00:11:35.399 Lincoln was, you know, almost an afterthought. 00:11:35.559 --> 00:11:37.480 He was just invited to give a few appropriate 00:11:37.480 --> 00:11:40.899 remarks. But in two minutes, he completely redefined 00:11:40.899 --> 00:11:43.460 the entire American project. Starting with that 00:11:43.460 --> 00:11:46.850 first line, four score and seven years ago. by 00:11:46.850 --> 00:11:49.529 dating the country to the Declaration of Independence, 00:11:49.809 --> 00:11:52.470 not the Constitution. He completely shifts the 00:11:52.470 --> 00:11:55.029 focus, because the Constitution at that point 00:11:55.029 --> 00:11:57.750 protected slavery. It counted enslaved people 00:11:57.750 --> 00:12:00.330 as three -fifths of a person. But the Declaration... 00:12:00.330 --> 00:12:03.690 The Declaration defined the nation on the proposition 00:12:03.690 --> 00:12:07.669 that all men are created equal. So Lincoln reframes 00:12:07.669 --> 00:12:09.950 the war. It's not just about saving the Union 00:12:09.950 --> 00:12:12.950 anymore. It's a battle to redefine the nation 00:12:12.950 --> 00:12:15.799 around that idea of equality. And he calls that 00:12:15.799 --> 00:12:17.940 idea a proposition, something we're testing, 00:12:18.419 --> 00:12:21.379 testing whether a nation so conceived and so 00:12:21.379 --> 00:12:24.240 dedicated can long endure. He asks the living 00:12:24.240 --> 00:12:26.639 to dedicate themselves to the unfinished work. 00:12:26.840 --> 00:12:29.019 And he ends with that vow, that the dead shall 00:12:29.019 --> 00:12:31.100 not have died in vain, that the nation will have 00:12:31.100 --> 00:12:33.019 a new birth of freedom, and that government of 00:12:33.019 --> 00:12:35.159 the people by the people for the people shall 00:12:35.159 --> 00:12:38.860 not perish from the earth. That ideal feels So 00:12:38.860 --> 00:12:41.460 far away from the transactional deals and the 00:12:41.460 --> 00:12:43.299 cynical political games. We've just been talking 00:12:43.299 --> 00:12:47.700 about it does and yet There's this one core finding 00:12:47.700 --> 00:12:51.419 from your source material that is so counterintuitive 00:12:51.419 --> 00:12:53.379 It just sort of stops you in your tracks. And 00:12:53.379 --> 00:12:55.899 what's that? It's the idea that this current 00:12:55.899 --> 00:12:59.340 ugly hyper aggressive gerrymandering arms race 00:12:59.340 --> 00:13:01.320 that this might be the only thing that could 00:13:01.320 --> 00:13:04.379 actually force Congress to ban the practice for 00:13:04.379 --> 00:13:06.539 good. So it has to get worse before it gets better. 00:13:06.740 --> 00:13:09.440 Exactly. The theory is that the spectacle of 00:13:09.440 --> 00:13:12.259 both sides engaging in this mutually destructive 00:13:12.259 --> 00:13:15.179 map drawing Pritzker eliminating every Republican 00:13:15.179 --> 00:13:17.620 in Illinois Republicans doing the same elsewhere 00:13:17.620 --> 00:13:20.299 it will create so much public disgust that even 00:13:20.299 --> 00:13:22.259 the partisans will be forced to support reform 00:13:22.259 --> 00:13:24.779 just to save the institution's credibility. It's 00:13:24.779 --> 00:13:28.240 like political mutually assured. Which leaves 00:13:28.240 --> 00:13:30.879 a really provocative question for you, the listener, 00:13:31.019 --> 00:13:32.779 to think about. We've seen how partisan self 00:13:32.779 --> 00:13:35.100 -interest is just dominating everything, but 00:13:35.100 --> 00:13:37.860 if the only path to protecting government of 00:13:37.860 --> 00:13:40.320 the people, by the people, for the people, runs 00:13:40.320 --> 00:13:43.200 through an escalating retaliatory arms race, 00:13:43.620 --> 00:13:45.659 does that make this anti -democratic fight a 00:13:45.659 --> 00:13:48.080 necessary evil to achieve that new birth of freedom?