The Strait, the Summit, and the Slush Fund: Episode 28

In this week’s Alternate Shots, Richard Haass and John Ellis begin with Iran, which remains suspended in the uneasy territory between war and peace.  Washington appears to be inching toward a revised nuclear arrangement that resembles, in substance if not in branding, the very deal Donald Trump tore up in his first term. Also emerging are growing tensions between Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who may come to regret advocating for a war that has created growing problems for Israel's relations with its most important patron. In Asia, Trump’s remarks on Taiwan raise unsettling questions about whether support for Taiwan could be traded off in exchange for increased access to China's market. The conversation then turns to Ukraine, where mounting Russian casualties, strikes deep inside Russian territory, and growing signs of political anxiety around Vladimir Putin suggest the war may be nearing an end on terms closer to Ukraine's than Russia's. Domestically, Senate Republicans might finally be balking at the political excesses and corruption of the Trump administration, which is turning into a political liability with all but hard-core Republican voters. The episode closes, as always, with sports, which thanks to the Knicks and the PGA provide an upbeat final few minutes.  

Hosted by John Ellis and Richard Haass

News Items on Substack

Home and Away on Substack

Produced by Dale Eisinger 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hello and welcome back to Alternate Shots. I'm John Ellis. I am the founder and editor of two Substack newsletters. One is called News Items, the other is called Political News Items. You can find them both at news-items.com.

SPEAKER_01 0:15

I'm Richard Haas. I am also the uh author of a newsletter, in this case called Home and Away, about matters domestic and international. And in the past, I used to be uh the president of the Council on Foreign Relations for some two decades, following more decades than that in the U.S. government. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_00 0:32

Why don't we start with Iran, as we always do, and our growing audience seems to have a growing interest in the subject. Where do you think we're what the situation is as of right now? Or is this stalemate just going to go on? Is it going to be the Haas plan where we just open up the strait and then we argue about everything later? Where do you think we're at?

SPEAKER_01 0:54

Well, once again, John, since we last did an episode, I've lost count, there have been so many.

SPEAKER_00 0:59

Twenty-eight.

SPEAKER_01 1:00

The president threatened the use of military force and then backed down. And he attributed his back down to uh the entreaties, such as they were, of friendly local states such as the so uh uh Saudi Arabia and several others. I don't know if that's uh true or not, though. It what is true is the local states have no desire to see hostilities resume because they fear they will bear the brunt of Iranian retaliation. So that leaves you with two with two options. One is where we are now, which is neither peace nor war, the twin blockades, and as you describe it, the nuclear stuff literally sitting there, or a deal. My sense is it's only it's a question of when and not if we move from the status quo, which is sitting there, and we move towards a deal. And supposedly the pace of diplomacy, such as it is, is heating up, or as the British would say, hotting up. Pakistanis and others are passing messages. And yeah, I think we're gonna end up with I don't I don't know if it's the Haas plan, but it's the Haas prediction, which is some sort of an arrangement to reopen the strait. The uh nuclear, very loose framework for that, essentially followed by months, if not longer, of negotiations with an understanding that we will live by a ceasefire so long as we do not detect that Iran is changing the status of its nuclear materials or equipment and moving closer to uh Obama. The embarrassing thing for the president will be that whatever the situation is with the strait, it won't be as good as it was on February 27. Iran will be, will have greater control, probably some ability to charge for passage. And the nuclear at some point will probably end up with what you might call JCPOA 2.0, some Trump version of the agreement that Obama negotiated and Trump in his first term called horrible, where there's certain ceilings on our Iran's nuclear capability, but it will not mean the permanent end to its nuclear program. The other thing to say, John, and it's a side story this past week, carried uh in the Wall Street Journal and I think on Axios, is there was a conversation between President Trump and uh Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, which was not a warm, friendly conversation. But what's clearly coming through is the Israelis' sense that this president more and more wants a deal, wants to put this behind him for all the obvious economic and political reasons, but that would tie Israel's hands because it would commit it to a ceasefire. And it would probably mean that some of Israel's concerns, Iran's ballistic missile inventory, its drone inventory, its support for groups like Hamas and Hezbollah, would probably not be meaningfully affected by any peace accord. So what this suggests is that US and Israeli interests are increasingly on different pages. They're they're diverging, which is uh I I uh I note in the this week's uh Home and Away, which will appear on Friday, a real irony that this was a war that Israel encouraged. The two countries have tactically been closer than ever before, but it might leave them with a real rift in terms of uh how they see the situation.

SPEAKER_00 4:03

And the political rift here at home is likely to grow wider, given there's a story at the New York Times website today uh which reports that U.S. missile defense support for Israel is astonishingly high given the fact that our sto have been drawn down so dramatically. So Mr. Netanyahu is not really in a position to tell Donald Trump what to do because given that we have uh contributed so much to Israel's air defense, if we we can argue, it can be argued, that the U.S. has put itself at risk in doing so. Certainly, Mr. Netanyahu can't say, well, you have to keep doing so. I mean, from Trump's point of view, he has to say, look, you you take what we do or you leave, basically.

SPEAKER_01 4:51

There's also a political reason. Bibi Netanyahu faces an election between now and October. His biggest strength going into the Israeli election is his closeness to Donald Trump, who's quite popular in Israel. So the last thing Bibi Netanyahu can do is pick a fight with Donald Trump. Also, it was one thing to pick a fight with Joe Biden, and you could do an end run around Biden and go to the Republican Congress and get invited to give a speech, or you could go see Donald Trump. Well, the problem with having Donald Trump in the White House is you can't do an end run around it. What are you gonna do? Go to Chuck Schumer? Uh so Netanyahu's hands, his options are are tied, his options are limited. So I actually do think Trump has the uh the upper hand here. And again, the the more that the president of the United States wants a deal at almost any cost, it it increasingly looks like Israeli concerns, particularly their ballistic missile concerns about Iran, which more than anything else with the Kazas Beli that brought this war about, are going to go unaddressed. So I think you could have a situation in both countries, in the United States and Israel, where the critics say, hey, this war left us worse off. What's going on here? And I think that could be a problem potentially for both leaders.

SPEAKER_00 6:04

We didn't have a chance to talk about the uh G. Trump summit uh from last week. But I wanted to ask you that one of the things on the flyback, on the plane back to the U.S., I guess, President Trump gave an interview to Brett Baer from Fox News, and he said that support for Taiwan was a good bargaining chip, that that was you know basically indicating that the policy of strategic certainty, uh the policy of strategic ambiguity, or the Hassian policy of strategic clarity was maybe not on the table, and something sort of poker, if you will, uh was the new New Deal. Tell us about that, because I think there's a couple of things going on here.

SPEAKER_01 6:50

There's a $14 billion arms deal pending for Taiwan that's been postponed. You now had the summit finally also postponed, but finally came about. So, as you say, this interview with Brett Bear was fascinating. And among other things, the president said he hadn't made up his mind on the arms deal and suggested it could be traded off. Well, that's quite extraordinary. He already discussed the issue with uh Xi Jinping, that in and of itself, some would say, is a violation of one of the assurances historically we'd given to Taiwan. Also, the president mused publicly twice in the interview, John, about how Taiwan was, what, 59 miles from China and 10,000 miles or so from the United States. All of that suggests that our ability to or willingness to go to war for Taiwan is, shall we say, far from certain. And you're right, we've had a policy of strategic ambiguity, but the ambiguity meant two things. Taiwan couldn't be certain we would go to war from them. And that's I was meant to discourage them doing anything provocative, like declare independence. But it was also meant the ambiguity so that the mainland couldn't assume we would not go to a war for Taiwan. They couldn't dismiss the possibility. And the president seems to be increasingly signaling the mainland that our appetite for war is uh is finite. So it was a it was an unsettling interview. And people are gonna look really closely at whether this arms sale, whether it goes ahead now, whether it's postponed even more, whether perhaps the president shaves it, maybe he takes out some systems so to reduce the scale of it or the quality of the arms. Does he ask anything in return? I mean, Xi Jinping, if you recall, did not agree to all the commercial deals the president wanted. So, you know, what people like me are asking, is it possible that you could have a scaling back or a further delay of the arms deal in exchange for greater commercial access to the Chinese market? And if that were to happen, the signal it would send to Taiwan, not to mention Japan, not to mention South Korea and others, would be truly uh, what's the word, unnerving for them. Uh in some ways it would recreate in Asia what we've recreated what we've created in Europe, which is real doubts among our partners and allies about whether we are prepared to be there for them. So I I actually think a lot is uh a lot is in uh in in play here. Uh every once in a while you you feel that there's a little bit of history in the making. And this is potentially one of those moments. This decision on this arm sale could have all sorts of uh consequences for what is the most important bilateral relationship in the world between Washington and Beijing, but also for the part of the world, the so-called Indo-Pacific, Asia-Pacific region, which is where most of the people are, most of the wealth is, most of the arms are. This has been the most successful part of the world for decades now, and potentially we are putting it in play.

SPEAKER_00 9:45

What did you make of the summit, by the way? I was surprised when I woke up to do news items on Monday morning that there was so little coverage of it, given, you know, given that it's such, generally speaking, a huge deal when the leaders of the two most important nations get together to talk about things, but there seemed to be not much that came out of it. What what was your view of it?

SPEAKER_01 10:06

Pretty much yours, that not much came out of it. It seemed actually pretty normal, which I didn't mind. For me, the risk in U.S. Chinese diplomacy and summitry is that, again, going back to our previous conversation, we give away too much. This is a president of the United States who values things commercial above all else. For him, the business of foreign policy is business. For Xi Jinping, the business of foreign policy is Taiwan. A summit that accomplishes too much, I fear, could easily leave us worse off. So I was actually mildly relieved that the summit wasn't uh didn't accomplish or didn't do all that uh much. And it's only subsequently, you know, with the bread bear interview you you already mentioned, against the backdrop, if if you recall, when the president landed in China, the Chinese government put out this very strong statement about Taiwan and the dangers there and how this was going to be critical to Chinese relations. It was a totally unsubtle message to President Trump that what we care about is Taiwan. And if you if you want to get the things you care about, you're gonna you're gonna have to take our interests into account. It was uh very uh in your face. So the summit itself, again, was uneventful. There were very few quote unquote deliverable uh or anything like that. But what we're beginning to see is now the aftermath. And that's why, again, what will be historic about the summit won't be what what happened there. It'll be what is decided on the Taiwan arms uh question.

SPEAKER_00 11:30

Just a quick question for you about where things stand in the Ukraine war. What's your view of the John?

SPEAKER_01 11:37

Are you sitting down? You're sitting down.

SPEAKER_00 11:39

I am always sitting down when I'm talking to you, Richard.

SPEAKER_01 11:42

Uh for the podcast. So, John, I'm gonna surprise you now. And I I I don't know what capacity I have to surprise you. But here we are in the fifth year of this of this phase of the war, in the middle of this fighting season. I actually think the tide is turning. What we're seeing is uh Russian casualties are based are happening at the rate of about a thousand a day, more deaths than injuries. We're seeing Ukraine increasingly take the war to rook to Moscow and other parts deep inside Russia through missiles and drones. Ukrainian defensive drones are able to neutralize a good deal, not all of Russian attacks. The actual territorial distribution, which has pretty much been constant over these four plus years, I think Russia's gained about 1% of more of Ukraine's territory, is actually now slightly moving in Ukraine's direction. So I think it's uh I actually think when we look back at this, this is going to be seen as something of a turning point where the uh human and political and economic costs of this war are going to increasingly move against Mr. Putin. And after all, think about it, this is a war of choice for Putin. And yes, he had fever dreams about Ukraine, but the only thing he cares about more than Ukraine is himself and his physical safety and his continued rule. So I actually think the idea that he will try to spin it and declare victory at some point and opt for a ceasefire, I don't think that's now out of the question. I actually think it's more a question of when than if. So I don't know if it's going to happen after this fighting season, this winter, next year. But I think we are finally moving in the direction of what might be uh a ceasefire, not a peace, because neither side is prepared to give up its territorial positions. But could we f could we see a ceasefire in the next year or so? I think it's uh it's quite conceivable. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_00 13:28

One of the things of doing news items is you read the stories about Ukraine every day, and there are websites that are devoted to it. And one of the things that's happened in the last six months is the stories which were basically nonexistent about Ukraine reaching into Russian territory are now basically the top five stories every day. And the the one that's most interesting is the damage they're doing to Russia's energy infrastructure, which is just astonishing that they're so successful. And more astonishing is that the Russians seem unable to mount much of an air defense to stop these drones and these mid-side drones from, you know, blowing up gas tanks and infrastructure pipelines and stuff. It's amazing.

SPEAKER_01 14:13

Exactly right. And look, Russia has got a one-dimensional economy and it's gotten a bit of a boost thanks to this war. It's one of the other downsides or costs of this war is Russia, you know, when the price of oil went from what, 70 bucks a barrel to 110 bucks a barrel, Russia benefited. Then we, I think, twice suspended sanctions, again helping Russia. But I think this is beginning or increasingly being offset by just what you described, John, these uh successful Ukrainian strikes against Russia's uh infrastructure. Russia's retaliating in all sorts of awful ways against uh civilians in Ukraine and and the like. But again, Putin doesn't benefit at home for killing Ukrainian citizens or civilians. He pay he though pays a price at home if Russians get killed or Russian infrastructure gets killed. Right. So I I I don't think Putin is in a position to sustain this. Again, for Ukraine, this is a war of necessity. What choice do they have? But for Russia, this is a choice. This is a war they they elected or Putin determined to initiate. So I actually think uh at some point he's gonna have to call it a day in order to preserve his own position.

SPEAKER_00 15:22

Another thing that's changed in the reporting about it is uh, you know, a year ago it was uh Putin bossing the military people around and replacing this general with that general because he wasn't performing well. And now all the stories are about Putin is in his bunker and he's paranoid and he thinks a coup d'etat is near. And it's not just not just sort of the Institute for Study War stuff or the New York Times, but the telegram channels out of out of Moscow are just rife with the paranoid guy in the bunker fearing the coup. Um I think you're exactly right.

SPEAKER_01 15:59

You're exactly right. And those those images of the, shall we say, I'll be diplomatic here, much scale down VE day celebrations, where you basically had no equipment and Putin was hardly at all outside, and Zelensky sort of ostentatiously announced he would let them have their celebration. No bless oblique or whatever. It was uh it was quite quite telling. It was a real humiliation, I thought, of, of uh Putin. And that's something as uh as an authoritarian figure, I don't think he can withstand for long.

SPEAKER_00 16:31

Yeah. The ridicule is what tells you.

SPEAKER_01 16:34

Yeah, exactly right.

SPEAKER_00 16:35

All right, moving right along. This just in from our friends at the New York Times following report quote, Senate Republicans abruptly abandoned plans to take up a filibuster-proof bill on Thursday to fund President Trump's immigration crackdown, a stunning turn demonstrating that members of his own party were not willing to risk politically toxic votes to advance the President's personal agenda. That's the setup paragraph. This is the important paragraph. Though senators had widely been expected to bring their legislation to the floor before a week-long recess, as Mr. Trump had demanded, GOP leaders were unable to overcome, quote, deep concerns, end quote, within their own ranks around the president's plan to use a federal fund to pay people who claim to have been personally persecuted. Where are we on the $1.8 billion slash fund?

SPEAKER_01 17:32

Well, this is fascinating. If I have the it all together, and correct me if and when I'm wrong here. So the president had a $10 billion lawsuit against the uh IRS because one of his tax returns was uh leaked. The IRS wanted to take take the case, if you'll challenge it in court. The Justice Department essentially overruled it. In return, the idea was the president would be able to create this uh $1.78 billion uh slush fund to pay these poor people like some of the January 6th insurrectionists and others who felt they had been wronged by their government. And second of all, acting attorney general, also known as the president's former personal lawyer, essentially gave him and uh junior and the other son a lifelong immunity from um all sorts of legal action associated with their uh taxes. I can't remember if it's other business activity. Quite an extraordinary situation, essentially uh pre-pardoning himself and the boys against certain uh things, and this uh creating a slush fund essentially out beyond congressional control. Because the last I checked, John, I know it's quaint, but it used to be Congress that controlled things like authorization and appropriation appropriation, and that was part of Article I and all that. And essentially the president was abrogating this for himself. So what you suggest is potentially fascinating, because it would be the first time in Trump 2.0 where you had not the odd congressman or senator, but a sufficient number that would actually stop the president from doing something. So if this is true, it's interesting because it says to me that essentially Republicans, again, I defer to you here, this is your business more than mine, but that maybe they see their fate politically, particularly come November when they have to run against Democrats, not against fellow Republicans, that they see their fate increasingly separate from the presidents. Yeah, so maybe this is something of a turning point. It's odd that it comes within a week where the president has won all sorts of primary cases, races, where he has hurt those who stood up to him, whether it was on the Epstein files or on various votes. But this may simply reflect the uh the difference between when primaries are front and center and when general elections are front and center.

SPEAKER_00 19:51

Trevor Burrus, Jr. My take on that is that the approval rating now, Trump's approval rating is somewhere between 35 and 40 percent. It's probably on the low end of that. Democrats uh despise him totally. Among independents, his approval rating is twenty between twenty-five and thirty percent, uh, which is dangerously low. And his approval rating among Republicans is somewhere between 80 and 90 percent. He has a firm grip on the party. If he says vote for this person, you know, the the primary electorates are voting for that person. If they say defeat this person like Tom Massey in Kentucky, sure enough, Tom Cass Tom Massey lost 55-45. And we'll see when the Texas primary comes up if Ken Paxton, arguably one of the worst people on the planet, defeats John Cornyn, the number two in the Senate leadership, you know, that's Trump power uh to the nth degree. The problem is for these Republican senators, Republican elected officials, is that 27% favorable rating amongst independents if they don't get some distance from Trump, and surely the Democrats are going to make each and every one of these elections a referendum on Trump. If they don't get some distance, then they're gonna pay a price in November. And the problem there is that the Republican base is sort of discouraged about uh this November. Uh they think, you know, they don't like the Iran war, they don't like all of the corruption stuff. Uh and so they can't be counted on to vote in the way in the numbers that they did in 2024. And of course, the Trump haters they'll eat glass to vote against Trump. So it's a very tricky position for these Republican elected officials, and they're trying to start the distancing process. That's what we call it, the distancing process.

SPEAKER_01 21:44

Yeah. And again, um you can't distance if you're up for a primary challenge, but you have to distance for the general election. This is where Hungary's interesting. What were the two issues that brought down Orbot? One was corruption, and the other was a mismanaged economy. Well, guess what? Both of Those are are beginning, shall we say, to show uh si significant strength here. So but I also think in the you know in the long run, the Republicans then, even beyond this November, it just there's a dynamic within this party which has become incre increasingly narrow and devoted. And the Republicans are gonna have some interesting reckonings. That the tension, if you will, between what it takes to win within the party as opposed to what it takes to win within the broader public. You know, Democrats have their own version of it, potentially on the left, but the Republican version seems far, far stronger.

SPEAKER_00 22:31

Yeah, the p after I mean, I think the most interesting time of the neck of these four years, of these four Trump years, will be the period right after the 2026 midterm elections, where presumably, we're not sure, but presumed that Trump will not continue to serve as president in you know after his term is up. So let's assume that he does in fact go away after the 2028 election. And well, he's the glue that holds this whole thing together. And if if everybody has in the view that, hey, he's gone, let's go get what we can get, then it's like one of those barroom brawls in a in a Western movie, right? Aaron Ross Powell, Jr.

SPEAKER_01 23:11

How's it like a barroom brawl on a western movie?

SPEAKER_00 23:13

Well, Rubio's fighting Vance and Vance is fighting Thune, and you know, I mean, you gotta work with me here, Richard.

SPEAKER_01 23:20

It's been a while since I I watched it. We're too busy watching the Knicks, John, to watch Western movies.

SPEAKER_00 23:27

Speaking of which, we're we're up for a lightning round of sports information and prediction and observance. And we start with the NBA, the Western Coast Finals, West Coast Finals. We have two of the great basketball players, Wemby, the French Phenom, and SGA, last year's MVP, who plays for the Oklahoma City Thunder. Your choice for MVP, even though SGA has already won the MBA.

SPEAKER_01 23:52

Can I say something? It's hard for me to talk rationally about this. I learned the other night, I think this is right. If not, someone, one of our growing number of listeners will correct me, because this is the world's fastest growing podcast.

SPEAKER_00 24:04

Correct.

SPEAKER_01 24:05

That the Knicks could have drafted SGA, but instead, it's again, it's good you're sitting down, John. They drafted Kevin Knox.

SPEAKER_00 24:14

Oh. I mean, really? Kevin Knox. There you go.

SPEAKER_01 24:22

Kevin Knox. We hardly knew you.

SPEAKER_00 24:24

So Wemby or SGA?

SPEAKER_01 24:26

I think I could see Wemby being the MVP, but I think it's hard for me to see how Oklahoma City loses. They are such a complete team. I do think they're the best team in basketball. Hard for me to say that. Doesn't mean they win either against San Antonio, who Wemby's unbelievable. That first game was one of the gr the overtime game was one of the great performances. Actually, we had several great games already, but Wemby's unbelievable to have his ability to operate near the basket with his uh three-point shooting is he's he's uh he's a one-off.

SPEAKER_00 24:55

Yes, he is.

SPEAKER_01 24:56

And it really is wonderful to uh to watch. But I I still think it's probably Oklahoma City in six or seven.

SPEAKER_00 25:03

So last year, the the last time the Knicks faced off with the Cleveland Cavaliers, uh they were ahead in game one, and then the lead evaporated, and it was this crushing sort of psychological blow, and the Knicks went on to lose the series. This time the Cavs were up 20 in the fourth quarter. 22, excuse me, 22. And the Knicks came back to win. Is this uh is this an early, is this like an exit poll? Is this gonna give us an idea of where we're where it's gonna go? Do you think the Knicks are gonna be able to pull it off?

SPEAKER_01 25:37

Yeah, I can argue this one round or flat. The fact that Cleveland managed to lose that game, no matter how many times I watch bits of it, I'm still shocked at the outcome. They literally could have sat on the ball and just had successive 24-second clock violations and probably won the game. I have never seen a team so unravel, almost collapse is a better word than unravel. The coach not using his timeouts, the players just running out of gas. I think that's, you know, the Knicks in a funny sort of way, the first three quarters of the game or seven-eighths of the game, the big story was the Knicks' rust. And the last uh quarter of the game or eighth of the game was the exhaustion of the of the Cavs. But I still think this series can go either way. The Cavs are a really good team. They could regroup. They could have said we had this game won. On the other hand, the Knicks were as cold as ice in shooting. So if they have a normal shooting game, they'd you know, it'd be they'd win it. So I'm still going with the Knicks, but I don't think the I I'd be surprised that that first game destroyed the Cavs psychologically. Uh you know, I'd be surprised.

SPEAKER_00 26:35

What'd you think of the PGA, aside from uh Mr. Ray's astonishing last 10 holes, where he did a number 30 strokes over 10 holes. The last 10 holes has got to be one of the great performances in the history of the PGA.

SPEAKER_01 26:50

Well, first of all, he and many of the other they play a different game than you and I play, let's just be honest. I kind of love he is Mr. Nice Guy, first of all. I mean, the to have a young man who is so respectful of his colleagues, his family, his parents. It's uh unbelievable. I mean, talk about a role model. You uh you gotta love the two kind of what's the word, unique characteristics that he wears these thick, they look like winter gloves. The kind of things you put on to throw snowballs.

SPEAKER_00 27:20

Right.

SPEAKER_01 27:20

He wears those when he plays, regardless of the temperature, which is kind of curious. And then my favorite thing is the iron covers. You know, for those of you who don't play golf, the woods in your bag you protect with these kind of thick, what are they? What are they made of? They could be made of fabric, plastic, whatever it happens to be, to protect your woods. I've never heard of anyone having iron covers. Yet he had he got his first set of clubs when he was very young, his father sacrificed or whatever for them, and he protected them with with covers, all of his irons. So all 14 clubs in his bag are protected, and I love that he he still does it. It's a kind of homage to his dad and to how things began. So he's a hard guy not to root for, John. I gotta tell you.

SPEAKER_00 28:04

Yeah. What's your take on the CBS broadcast group? Is it is it not as good as it used to be? Is it the same? Or I I have a very strong view on the subject.

SPEAKER_01 28:15

Well, let's hear your view, because in this case, I only watched Hyla I was in uh Spain. I was in Barcelona, so I I uh missed I missed most of the broadcast, so I'm not in a good position to uh to uh report. Indeed, I was I was busy playing at the course where they play the uh Spanish championship. Uh I will not be quitting my day job anytime soon. I want to report that. But tell me, what's your view? What is your critical view of the CBS broadcast?

SPEAKER_00 28:40

They talk too much.

SPEAKER_01 28:44

Do you think they say that about us?

SPEAKER_00 28:46

One of the one of the great moments in CBS coverage uh with Pat Summerall and Ken Venturi were the hosts. Pet was the host and Ken Venturi was the analyst, and they cover the masters every year. And at the end, somebody would be marching up the winner, uh, the would the person most likely to win the tournament would march up the 18th fairway, and CBS would do this wonderful camera shot from behind the golfer, and you could see people stand and start to clap and so on and so forth. And the announcer and the analyst said not one word for about 90 seconds or even two minutes. It was perfect coverage. And now there's not a single quiet moment in the CBS coverage of golf. It's a chat-a-thon.

SPEAKER_01 29:33

So, John, here's an idea. Why don't we experiment with a 90-second silent gap or moment in every one of our podcasts and see whether the world's fastest growing podcast becomes the even faster growing podcast that people might might welcome uh are holding back a bit.

SPEAKER_00 29:51

We're gonna edit all that out, Dale. Thank you all for listening, and we'll see you next time.

SPEAKER_01 30:01

Take care, John.