Who Blinks? Episode 35

This week on Alternate Shots, John Ellis and Richard Haass examine a world discovering that technology, politics, and war are moving faster than institutions built to manage them. They begin with Iran, where Haass argues Washington should have led with economic pressure, not military escalation, and where coercion now tests which side can endure more pain. From there, they turn to Ukraine’s drone advantage, America’s dated defense posture, and the need for something like a second Pentagon built for cheap, scalable systems. They also weigh deficits, vaccines, anti-vax politics, Democratic enthusiasm, Trump’s health, and the uneasy state of the WNBA. Finally, because equilibrium must be restored, there is golf: Winged Foot, Phil Mickelson, and the value of low expectations.

Hosted by John Ellis and Richard Haass

News Items on Substack

Home and Away on Substack

Produced by Dale Eisinger 

Transcript

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SPEAKER_01 0:00

Hello and welcome back to Alternate Shots, America's fastest growing podcast. I'm John Ellis. I'm 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_00 0:17

I'm Richard Haas. I am the author of a single newsletter, Home and Away, also to be found on Substack. And let's get on with it, John.

SPEAKER_01 0:28

So before we get to the meat, so to speak, I want to posit a hypothetical. There are nine of us. We're on the tarmac, and there's a there's a possibility that the plane is going to be shot down. The nine of us are you, your longtime communications assistant, Iva Zoric, a number of your partners from Centerview, and myself and Dale, our producer. You get, as the leader of this group, you get uh into the catering uh container and move to a separate plane. You have the choice of two people to join you. Who would they be?

SPEAKER_00 1:13

And just for to specify your wife and mine are not are not in the neighborhood?

SPEAKER_01 1:18

Uh no, they're on the plane. They're with us. Yeah. So it's eleven.

SPEAKER_00 1:23

So, John, I'm gonna protect you then.

SPEAKER_01 1:26

It's eleven.

SPEAKER_00 1:27

The threat would not be that the plane would be shot down. The threat will do that be that we do this podcast, and you don't specifically say that you're gonna protect your wife's life.

SPEAKER_01 1:37

That is that I'm not asking the question of me. I'm asking the question of you. I know what I would do. Well, John, you've just made it wives.

SPEAKER_00 1:46

You're expendable, first of all.

SPEAKER_01 1:49

Well, good to know, I figure.

SPEAKER_00 1:51

John, you're the first to board the plane.

SPEAKER_01 1:53

Well, let's just put it this way, Richard. Would I, who's the greatest communications uh Eva, excuse me. Would Eva, the greatest communications person that I've ever met, would she get would she get on the uh container truck? Uh absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 2:07

I think I think uh my wife and Eva would get on the uh container cart with me.

SPEAKER_01 2:12

So Dale and I get shot down, so to speak.

SPEAKER_00 2:15

But it's but I want you both to know that I'm I'm gonna miss you. And I'm not quite sure how I'll produce this podcast without either of you, certainly without Dale. Uh John, I don't know. That might not be so hard.

SPEAKER_01 2:30

All right. Well, we have to move on. Uh so on Monday, the memorandum of understanding.

SPEAKER_00 2:37

No, John, I think before we get to that, I think we have to continue on this important story. Yeah. Which is, as I think just about everybody knows, the United States re- received threats of now controversial credibility or lack thereof that there might be uh an attempt on the president's plane, which presumably at this point was the Qatari Air Force One rather than the Boeing, the original Air Force One. And to make a long story short, as you were saying, the president surreptitiously got off the plane, taking advantage of a catering cart. We've yet to learn, by the way, what else was on the catering cart or catering truck, with several of his aides. What's interesting was who uh he left behind, including Stephen Miller, uh, and the secretaries of Treasury and State, which might make the next cabinet meeting a really interesting meeting in terms of uh where to where do people uh stand. He took the woman who does all of his uh posting.

SPEAKER_01 3:45

The human printer.

SPEAKER_00 3:46

The human printer. Can't remember. Uh I think he took Pete Heggseth, the uh Secretary of War, as he uh likes to call himself. And I think one other person I can't remember.

SPEAKER_01 3:56

Yeah, his communications director whose name is like Chong or something.

SPEAKER_00 4:01

So Stephen Chong, yeah. And so it raises uh and by the way, he didn't take his spokesperson, who's now his former spokesperson. And I don't know if that is simply coincidence or if there's actually a connection between the uh two. Lots of interesting things here uh in terms of not notifying certain this the press and others that they were, if you will, being used as decoys. I also think it raises a slightly more serious question about whether the United States ought to be in the business of assassinating or targeting foreign officials and leaders. Uh as we've seen in Iran, their successors may be worse. As we've seen with Iran, it can be difficult to negotiate in these circumstances. And as we've uh as we also know, we actually operate a relatively open society. So it's not immediately obvious to me, at least, that it's in the comparative interest of the United States for targeted killings and assassinations to become more commonplace. I would think we are quite uh vulnerable, particularly now because we're living in an age of drones that can identify and target individuals. So I actually think this raises all sorts of issues going down the road beyond the specifics of not telling people they were a decoy and leaving several people in the chain of succession to the President of the United States in harms and potentially in uh harm's way. I'd say there's one other serious issue here, which is reportedly, I could be wrong here, John, so correct me if you if I am, that the Israelis passed on this intelligence about the uh vulnerability of the plane because Israel is, shall we say, put itself in a controversial position because of the war uh and its role in uh advocating for this war in February. I expect that there will be some journalists looking into the Israeli intelligence that was passed along and how uh robust it is and whether it stands scrutiny. And I would just say the last thing, I'm not suggesting anything, I would just simply say the last thing this relationship needs right now are questions about the quality of the intelligence that was passed along. So that's what I have to say on this uh on this uh subject.

SPEAKER_01 6:25

Well, to your point about an open society, I remember visiting with President George W. Bush uh shortly after 9-11, and we were talking and we went out to walk the dogs uh about 9.30 at night, and we looked over, or he looked over, and there was a plane going into Reagan International, and he turned to me and said, Do you know how long it would take for that plane to turn around and hit us? And I said, No, and he said, a minute and twenty seconds. So, you know, add drones to that mix, and it's uh vulnerable, the White House is, let's put it that way.

SPEAKER_00 7:01

There you go. Okay, now we can segue to Iran. I apologize for interrupting.

SPEAKER_01 7:06

Well, the memorandum of understanding uh expires. That's a little bit of an overstatement, according to you, but uh it expires on August 17. Yes. The uh Secretary of the Treasury has adopted essentially the Haas position, which is uh blockade and strangle them as much as possible through sanctions and other means. What are the other means that would would make economic life in Iran even more difficult than it already is?

SPEAKER_00 7:40

Just to say first, I'll answer that. What the Secretary of the Treasury is doing is good, but I wish he had done it five or six months ago. Right. One, I think the administration made a massive error by making this a kinetic military operation rather than pressuring Iran economically at a time it was extraordinarily vulnerable under its previous leadership, and I believe might well have uh capitulated to many things we're interested in. Second of all, anytime you turn the economic screws tighter, that's a form of what is broadly known as coercive diplomacy. And that's all well and good, but anytime you coerce using economic tools or military tools or any tool, coercion leaves the side that you are pressuring in the position of deciding whether or when to say uncle. So economic coercion on Iran, we can tighten the screws and we can do it through the blockade. We can make it very difficult for Iran to sell oil and gas. We can introduce sanctions that would create secondary sanction, if you will, against those who buy Iranian oil and gas. Uh the so-called Lindsey Graham legislation has a version of that. If my memory serves me right, it would do it largely through tariffs, which is unfortunate. But my point is simply there's there are steps we can take to turn up the economic pressure on Iran. The question, though, is how you know their willingness to suffer pain. My my sense is the priority for this Iranian leadership is not the welfare and comfort of the Iranian people. Uh those 90 million plus people are not their principal concern. So I think they could hold out for some time, particularly by the way, they continue to be able to sell some energy, and at the at various times in this crisis, we've allowed them to sell some energy. So they've they put some money in their account. So we still get into the relative situation where who's better able to bear pain over time? And if we have the straight, not completely closed, but say 80% closed for another couple of months, and just the energy prices are where they are now or slightly higher, and the same holds for things that use energy for fertilizer and the rest. Uh, where will inflation be? What will be the political effects here, and how willing is the president to pay that price? That's where we are. And by the way, it's a version of where we've been for some months, the the military interactions notwithstanding.

SPEAKER_01 10:11

I think we have the same conversation every week or so.

SPEAKER_00 10:17

You're exactly right. And I hope we're not we may not be the world's fastest or America's fastest growing podcast for long. If people get tired of this conversation as to who's better positioned to hold out longer, but I think it does open up, John, the possibility, which is this goes on for some time, that the energy prices have gone up, but not nearly as dramatically as many predicted, large part because China is probably 5 million barrels a day of consumption down. Some others, including ourselves, have ramped up production, pipelines are carrying a lot of uh oil. So the role of the Strait of Hormuz is more than a little uh diminished. So I think it opens up the possibility that a version of the status quo remains a version of the status quo a week from now or a month from now or or two months. I don't I don't rule that out.

SPEAKER_01 11:12

There is a story in the Wall Street Journal today. We're gonna switch to uh Ukraine but stay on warfare. There was a story uh in the Wall Street Journal today concerned a war game that took place in Germany, and U.S. Army troops were there to to uh do battle with Ukrainian drone operators. And unfortunately, the Ukrainian drone operators won. This gets to our theory that basically we should buy the Ukrainian drone operators, or at least have some private equity firm like, for instance, Centerview, uh acquire them and and make them uh at the dispo put them at the disposal of the U.S. government. Did this story strike you as as stunning as it struck me?

SPEAKER_00 12:03

Pretty stunning. Just correct the record, we are not a private equity firm. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Uh the Carlisles and the Blackstones of the world would take Umbridge at what you uh at what you uh said. It is quite easy. On one level, it's stunning. Even worse, John, it's not. What I think it highlights is what you and I think just about all of our listeners know, which is that the United States is several, what's the word? Almost words generation or phases or or something behind that we're we still have a force posture that's very much configured for traditional wars. And Ukraine and Israel and others have moved on and in this proliferation of relatively uh inexpensive, effective, unmanned uh systems. I mean, Ukraine is producing what, six million drones a year, plus or minor? And you know, we we can't we have trouble producing six thousand a year. Uh, or certainly sixty thousand a year, we can't do. Even if we wanted to give Ukraine patriots to shoot down these Russian missiles, we don't have them to give, and we can't produce them fast enough. Uh we we have, I mean, this is a scandal that crosses Democrats and Republicans, multiple administrations. It involves Congress, it involves the services, it involves the defense contractors, that we've uh essentially not modernized or adapted our military close to uh enough. So we're gonna be playing catch up for a long time. And yeah, I think it's kind of in the meantime, what you said facetiously isn't crazy. Uh we ought to enter into some type of a relationship with Ukraine. I mean, for months there were stories that this administration was resisting Ukraine's offers of help. That is nuts. We ought to be begging Ukraine to help. I think I remember reading about a month or six weeks ago, the Saudis entered into a deal with Ukraine. Right. Uh, but I think what you're gonna be seeing is more and more countries doing that, whether it's Israel, Ukraine. If I were Taiwan, you know, I'd be looking uh at this. But this is this is the new era of warfare. There's a revolution in military affairs. You know there were previous revolutions, for example, when highly accurate precision guidance munitions came along. Well, this is a major revolution in military affairs. And we are unfortunately playing catch-up. We're not nimble at this kind of uh thing. There'll be a lot of cultural and political resistance. A lot of people are wedded to airplanes, big ships, and tanks and other sorts of uh equipment. And that's true of Congress, again, the contractors, as well as the services themselves. About a year ago, Eric Schmidt and I were having a conversation. Eric's been quite creative in this area, really important with some of these startups. I remember somewhat sarcastically saying to him, maybe we've talked about it, if I'm repeating myself, I apologize, that we need two defense budgets. We need a traditional defense budget, say we make it 75%, 80% of our current release, and we need a new defense budget that essentially does all the uh innovative stuff and startups and drones and anti-defense missiles that go after other missiles or ships or aircraft that are cheap and can be produced at scale. And but I almost feel we need, you know, if you will, a second Pentagon. Uh and and what and I think we're beginning to see, and people are critical of Hegeseth for good reason. We're beginning to see some signs of life in this uh Pentagon, not nearly enough, but uh some. Even the contractors. I read a piece the other day, John. I thought it was kind of curious that a lot of the big defense firms have basically become venture capital firms. And they are investing in all sorts of defense startups to get them to do this sort of stuff. So I think it's gonna take time, it's gonna take too long, but that's clearly where we're heading. But in the short run, yeah, we ought to uh franchise out some of our defense to Ukraine.

SPEAKER_01 16:08

Aaron Ross Powell My theory, or my idea, I guess, is uh that we should take DARPA, the Defense uh Advanced Research Project Agency, and make it Pentagon 2.0 and then you know oversee this uh 20 percent that uh you know takes $200 billion of the Pentagon's budget and you know builds uh the fighting capability for the future. It seems to me like a reasonable thing to do. I will say Steve Feinberg, who is uh I think Deputy Secretary of Defense, uh is is trying very hard to sort of unglue the Congressional military uh political complex. Um, but that's turning around a battleship is very, very difficult.

SPEAKER_00 16:55

Trevor Burrus, Jr. Literally and figuratively, it's turning around a battleship. I he also has the problem that reportedly in the press, his boss is throwing him under the bus. Yeah. Blaming him for the uh what what I haven't seen, John, is the urgency. I would think that this ought to be our top defense priority. If we're worried about what China could do against Taiwan, what Russia could do elsewhere in Europe, if we want to defend our partners in the Middle East against Iranian drones, which is something we have to do to protect the energy infrastructure, but also reduce Iranian leverage, we have got to come up with these uh systems. So I would say that this ought to be priority one, two, and three for the five-sided building. And this ought to be this ought to be the product, the priority right now. And I don't unless I've missed it, I don't quite see it happening.

SPEAKER_01 17:44

Yeah. I mean I I the urgency is not there. The urgency is not there on the, you know, the budget deficit, on the coming uh bankruptcy of Social Security and Medicare. You would think that people would be running around like chickens with their head cut off looking at this stuff, and it's like, well, you know, we'll deal with it someday. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_00 18:05

We're going up two billion a year. The politics make it almost impossible to deal with either side of the equation, the spending side or the tax side. There's several people out there or important voices out there who are basically saying we don't need to worry because AI will lead to rates of economic growth that will be so high that while they won't reduce the size of the deficit, they will move the relationship or the ratio between the deficit and GDP in a desirable direction. But meantime, and you follow this closely, if one looks at uh, you know, what the 10-year bonds, they're telling us something. Yeah. And uh it's one of those things, you know, was it uh Herbert Kahn, who once said that which can't go on forever won't. This is a version of, and the problem is this is gonna go on until the afternoon it stops. And then we're gonna be faced with some truly unpar unpalatable realities and choices. But I just don't see in this political environment on either side the will to sit down and say do a version of what was done, what was it, the early 80s on Social Security, a kind of bipartisan commission. Right. I just don't see the kind of uh political will on any on any side. And things are so divided and so toxic, everyone's so scared they get hammered on social media or in their next primary. I just don't see it happening. So my guess is we're just gonna simply wait until the crisis comes and then we're gonna have to deal with it on the worst possible on the worst possible terms.

SPEAKER_01 19:39

Aaron Powell I want to segue here to uh science, which I think it's safe to say this is an administration that is not uh funding uh scientific research to the degree that the U.S. has in the past. I think that's what maybe an understatement. Um but this week was weird because uh the president seemed to latch on to the anti-vax movement. Uh and particularly odd was the separation of the what is it called? The the MMR uh vaccine, which measles, lumps, and rubella. Yeah, you can take it all at once and in the way it is now, and now they want to separate it into I guess three separate trips to CVS or whatever. What do you make of that? I mean, it it just seems it it given how busy people are you know, going to your doctor or CVS three times instead of once just seems uh uh crazy.

SPEAKER_00 20:39

There's that. There's also the fact that we now have all this large amount of this vaccine, the three in one. So what? The now manufacturers are gonna have to start producing them separately? There's obviously a cost and a lag to that. Plus, several vaccines were removed from the recommended list of what kids ought to get. Look, it it it it both reflects and reinforces a lot of the anti-vax politics that gained so much momentum during COVID-19. Uh, I defer to you on this. Let me just put it this way. There's no scientific evidence justifying any of this. The links with autism and all that are simply non-existent. So, what I take on this, sorry, uh I tend not to ascribe motives, but I'm gonna do it here. This seems to me this is pure politics. And basically, the president has alienated a chunk of his base because of the Iran War or some other issues. So he's now playing to one of the uh elements of his base and going into the anti-vax conspiracy uh crowd. And so I see this as a fairly uh desperate effort to garner some political support that's been uh that's been falling off. But at a cost, because this will this will affect health and lives. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:58

The big uh you know, the big problem. The Republicans have going into the midterms, obviously, is the lack of enthusiasm of the R vote, of the red vote. You're looking at a situation where as many as 15% will either not vote at all or blank Republican candidates if they do go to the polls and vote locally, obviously. Whereas Democratic enthusiasm is is fever pitch. So one of the things I think the administration is trying to do is figure out what are the buttons to push that uh drive turnout for the midterms. And the way it is right now, if it goes this way, if if what's where things stand now is where things stand on Election Day, then there will be a blue wave. It's just a question of how high.

SPEAKER_00 22:56

John, were you surprised by events in Wisconsin when the uh I think she was Democratic, Socialist Francesca uh hung up lost at the in a very close race after the polls showed she had a pretty healthy lead. What's your reading of that in terms of both the dynamics between the the left and the far left and what it might mean for November?

SPEAKER_01 23:18

I think the left obviously is is uh insurgent, right? Then they've they're riding a wave. Uh they're riding a wave on Medicare for All. They're riding a wave on opposition to data centers, which is really sort of a proxy for uh opposition to the power of big tech. They're riding a very strong wave of getting money, getting huge billionaire money, huge pack money uh out of politics. Um there's a Elon Musk has committed uh to spend 40 million or 50 million dollars in the main Senate race, and that hands the main Senate uh Democratic Senate candidate the perfect issue because you can go on TV and say they're trying to buy the election. And if you don't think they are, you know, here's Elon Musk, he's spending $50 million. What do you think he's trying to do? He's trying to buy the election. Uh that issue really worked very well with El Sayed in Michigan. It didn't really work for uh Francesca Hong because the governor's race, you know, it was intramural, and you know, the it wasn't it wasn't like the other candidate uh uh had a lot of money or had a lot of corporate support. What got him over the finish line was the support of the incumbent governor. I thought that she was unlikely to win simply because of her stated position that Thanksgiving uh should not be observed, which you know, as long as you and I have been alive, Thanksgiving uh has featured the Green Bay Packers playing either the Chicago Bears or the Detroit Lions. Um in Wisconsin, that's that's about as close as it gets to uh you know Christmas Day, I guess. So now unfortunately, this year the Packers are playing on Wednesday night, so maybe she knew that. Um but oh I doubt it. But I doubt it. Uh and this, of course, led to the great headline hung jury. Oh, nice. There you go. So she almost won, but she came up short. Big, big break for the Democrats, because had she been the nominee, she would have certainly lost.

SPEAKER_00 25:36

Okay. Uh a lot of dad jokes there. A lot of potential dad jokes. Uh but we won't go there, John, because we will no longer be America's fastest growing if we go down dad joke line. So I will show some uncharacteristic discipline.

SPEAKER_01 25:59

So we have one last thing to talk about, which is kudos to the New York Times for finally publishing an article on its op-ed pages uh suggesting that the president uh has to be much more forthcoming about his health. I saw that. Um and I th I thought I'm one thing that amazes me about the press coverage uh since President Trump uh was inaugurated is that A, he's old, B, he looks awful, C, he obviously has, you know, medical procedures conducted on him or administered to him, given the the back of both hands and so on and so forth. His health is is a serious issue, and yet it gets zero coverage in the press. It's astonishing.

SPEAKER_00 26:46

And the double standard here because there was, shall we say, uh justifiable vigilance about his predecessor. But and to me the question is less the president's physical state than the mental uh and emotional potential repercussions of that. And that's a totally legitimate area. That's not a partisan comment. Well, we all have a stake in any president's health, all aspects of it. So yeah, I think it's uh again, it's it's interesting. The idea of the president with their personal physician, when the personal physician become, how would I put it, it's almost like a fed chair, ideally. You'd want the president's physician to be somebody who had the interests of the country as well as the individual. That wasn't someone who would sort of fudge everything or hide everything because he's protecting his patient. And what we have is, and it's grown up over the years, is the White House physician has become too much the president's personal physician. And uh this didn't get invented by Donald Trump, though like most other things, it gets taken to a new level. But as a result, the rest of us are left, shall we say, uh unprotected. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_01 27:53

It's funny because when I first started covering politics, the the rule was that the president you know had the annual physical. The results of the physical were shared with uh Dr. Lawrence Altman of the New York Times. And Dr. Altman would report on, you know, write up a report on the president's health. He would leave out stuff that was not germane. But that worked for a long time. I mean, that that was that was the way you had independent confirmation of the president's physical, and somehow it just went away.

SPEAKER_00 28:31

Yet another norm that has been shattered. It's good you're sitting down, John, because we haven't seen a whole lot of that. So it's good it's good you're kind of you're in a comfortable position.

SPEAKER_01 28:40

Aaron Powell So I wanted to talk about one other thing, which is uh we've heard a lot about transitioning and transgender politics and stuff. And I was thinking that, you know, had LeBron James not uh signed with the Philadelphia 76ers, he might have transitioned and become LeBronna James and dominated the WNBA. I know you're a big fan of the WNBA. Why are you a big fan of the WNBA if Labrana James is not playing in that league?

SPEAKER_00 29:14

Well, this will make us either America's fastest growing or fastest shrinking podcast. We'll find out. We'll find out in not that much time. I kind of I like watching the WNB game NBA games to a point. There's a lot of offensive talent. I'm old enough to remember when girls' basketball had all sorts of limits on how much they could dribble and which side of the court they could play on. And now women's basketball, girls or women's basketball is essentially the same thing, though there's considerably less defense than there is in the men's game. But watching teams like the Indiana Fever, which is what most of America is watching to the extent they watch the WNBA, is fantastic. You've got several great players, including, but not only Caitlin Clark and the shooting, the passing, the running game. It's it's it's really uh enjoyable. What is stunning about the WNBA, one is that you're getting at the transgender politics of it. The idea that you would allow people who have transitioned to play there, I think is just crazy and physically dangerous. And one of the players on the Indiana Fever, Sophie Cunningham, has said as much, and she said, this is just common sense. I tend to think she's right, but this has become a cause celeb. What's really also interesting is the officiating in WNBA, they are allowing several players, including Caitlin Clark and Sophie Cunningham, to get mauled on the court. The degree of uh the severity and frequency of the fouls is quite stunning. And I don't get it because to the extent we're talking about the WNBA and people are watching it, it's because of teams like the Indiana Fever. Caitlin Clark has, you know, almost like Tiger Woods, in some ways, mainstream golf for a lot of Americans. You could choose your athletor. Maybe it was Cassius Clay, Mohammed Ali, and boxing. They kind of brought a whole larger crowd into the sport. Caitlin Clark has done that for women's basketball. Yes, she has. And the potential for salaries to go up, for television contracts to be uh on a at a different order of magnitude is all is because of her. And the idea that she would be severely or permanently injured beyond the personal tragedy to her, it's nuts. This is there's no better way for this sport to get mainstreamed in a in an accelerated fashion. So I don't understand the way she and others are being treated. Uh, you know, I'm not going to go into all the analyses about race and other things, but it just seems to me the officiating is uh is woefully inadequate, and the commissioner either needs to step up or step aside.

unknown 31:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:57

But this is uh increasingly a game and a league out of control. And what I don't get it is it's gonna do itself in just to the time it ought to be taking off.

SPEAKER_01 32:08

Yeah. So a little bit like uh professional hockey where you know the the fighting uh was sort of part of the show. Uh and a lot of the purists were like, why do we have this as a part of the show and the play is so extraordinary?

SPEAKER_00 32:25

Yeah, I agree. This is why Olympic hockey to me is is often better than professional hockey. Because it's uh it's more of a skating game rather than such a uh, if you will, physical games. Too bad we run it, we've run out of time, John. I will spare you my experience at Wingfoot this week, but I had uh I had a great morning at Wingfoot, which is uh a majestic uh palace uh for golf.

SPEAKER_01 32:50

Did you play the uh East or the West Course?

SPEAKER_00 32:53

I played the West Course, the the famed Fab where six U.S. Okens have been played. I played respectably. Uh how'd you do on 18? Bogey. I did better than Phil Mickelson.

SPEAKER_01 33:07

There you go.

SPEAKER_00 33:11

I missed my par putt and got a bogey. So take that, Phil.

SPEAKER_01 33:15

There you go. Well, on one last golf note, our our good friend Tim Haggerty uh was the medalist and the qualifier for the mid-amate uh USGA uh tournament, which will be played uh this year at Sand Valley in Wisconsin. Um and uh Tim is a great, great guy, great golfer. Um and he missed qualifying for the U.S. Open, I think, two or three years ago when he lipped out a putt on the 18th screen at Sleepy Hollow, which is where he and his father are members. Uh so we wish good luck to Tim. Absolutely. And we thank you all for listening. And thank you to our great producer, Dale Isinger. When we post these on our uh separate uh newsletters, we include a link to Dale. Um so thank you, Dale. Thank you, Richard, and thank you for listening.

SPEAKER_00 34:08

Thank you, John. Enjoy the last twenty five percent of summer.