Hi everyone, Joe for jasperjasecasebreaks.com. It's just been all mosaic today, so mostly. 2019, 2020, Panini Mosaic basketball. This time we're doing a third of a case. Four boxes, random team break number one from jasperjasecasebreaks.com. Big thanks to these folks right here for getting into it. All teams are in. Let's roll it, let's randomize it. Four and a five, nine times for each list. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, and nine. Got Matt Snyder down to Megan after nine. Nine times for the teams, and ninth and final time. Subtray, yeah, Nick is about to do some magic tricks for you. He's gonna conjure up one-of-one Zion Williamson's. All right, Matt with the Suns, Tyler with the Kings, Kenny with the Pistons, Brian with the Wizards, Nicholas with the Nuggets, Chris Bay with the Pacers, Quinten with the Hawks, Nick with the Grizz, Kevin with the Cavs, James with the Hornets, Anthony with the Clippers, Bradley with the T-Wolves, Justin with the Celtics, Matthew with the Spurs, Matthew B with the Knicks, James with the Sixers, David J with the Bucks, Curtis with the Raptors, Matthew with the Pels, Matthew B, Matthew S with the Pels, Matthew B with the Bulls, Matthew S with the Snyder. Different, three different Matthews right here. The Golden State Warriors, Brandon Tribblers, Dan Tyson with the Magic, Josh with the Rockets, Anthony with the Mavs, Danny with the Jazz, Brian with the Heat, Scott with the Thunder, Quinten with the Nets, and Megan with the Los Angeles Lakers. All right, so let's sort by column B by team. And while you're considering trades, I'll actually drop the group break checklist into the chat for you. Can you roll the dice? And this to Nick.  But these were left base heavy. What's that? Heavy. Yeah, they're heavy. Yeah. Not a lot of base, but harder to figure. And that was gonna be quicker, but I was thinking. All right, so you wanna make stacks of four? All right, so we're gonna go one, two, three, four, five, six. One, two, three, four, five, six. And it's four. One, two, three, four, middle. Middle four. No, because we're just gonna do break two right after that and break three right after that. Back to back to back. Cam will start opening. Nick's gonna start opening right here. There should be a Nick Cam right here. Anyone for the Kings? Cavs? Heat? We don't really do selling of teams, Tyler.  And then you'd have to complete that deal with the other party. We can't be the middleman on that. All right, TWC trade window closed. Looks like no offers for Tyler. Sorry, Tyler. Let's print and let's rip. Balcony? That would be awesome. Balcony breaks. That would be awesome. We're about to do a break outdoors. Wouldn't you do a beach break? Beach break would be amazing. Beach is open. Did they open it? Yeah. Oh, nice. I'm gonna go the beaches for you, Tyler. All right, looks like Tricky's lagging a little bit. Trade window closed, unfortunately. Jason Kidd, the autos have been fire out of this. Nice Jason Kidd autograph, going to the Dallas Mavericks edition. Yes, Rex. I made an executive decision. Those mini breaks, I mean, don't really need it. It's not urgent to do those tonight because those are to unlock bigger breaks and we're not gonna break those bigger breaks tonight. So we're just gonna push those tomorrow in order to do a couple more mosaics tonight. An all-card ship in this, ladies and gentlemen. There's Hatchimura, Cronthony Towns, and all these LeBron James' little ship, of course. Everything ships. A lot of value in all this sort of stuff. Nice John Morant MBA debut, John Morant. We're going by the checklist on those team USA cards according to groupbreakchecklist.com and guys like Vince Carter will go to the Raptors. No Zion autos. We got some Zion pink parallels, Zion blue parallels, Zion silvers. Got multiples of those, but no Zion autographs. In fact, I don't think we've seen too many rookie autographs, to be honest with you. Wow, John Morant silver. See, the thing is, with the way things have been trending lately, like that John Morant silver is gonna be almost as good as covering the cost of, well, the cost of the spot, I'm sure, in this random team break. So I'm glad that it's just not just all about the autos. Cam red should 25. Bowl, bowl to 99. The stained glasses I've been hearing are doing very well in the secondary market, too. Stained glass James Hardin for Josh Proust and the Rockets. All four boxes right here, ladies and gentlemen. Here's box two. Here's box three. Here's box four. Right here in four box. Random team number one. Two and three coming up back to back right after this. Laurie Markin and bowls. That goes to Matthew B. Zion blue chips, nice. NBA debut silver, RJ Barrett. It's a nice LeBron James parallel, too. There's the Zion right here. Another pelican for Matthew Shearer. And an NBA debut. NBA debut, Zion. Got a red Kobe white. Those aren't numbered, but they are pretty cool. Kyrie silver. Ooh, ooh. And a pink, I'm sorry, these are purple, actually. Purple John Moran. 24 out of 49. We saw the Zion version, purple parallel. Someone says going for a few thousand dollars, maybe more. So Nick Kova and the Grizzlies with the purple John Moran. I think we'll go as much as Zion, but it'll go for a lot. Second year Luca Donchiches are also doing well. I think for the most part, people are enjoying the mosaic Jeremy 33. We haven't been able to keep it in stock. What the allotment that we got is now gone. So people seem happy with it. I'm happy they're happy. Paul George, Blewd, 99. Is this the next prism? I mean, I think prism will always have its name and brand. Which is long, you know, which is long standing. But I mean, prism and select, and I think optic are still up there. But I gotta say, mosaic. This is their first year doing full mosaic, just mosaic. I think it's part of that conversation. Clay Thompson, Clay Thompson's a little, back of that's a little weird. Try to find another Clay Thompson for you, Matt Snyder, nicer one. Aaron Gordon, Brad Zekis, Lebron M.B.P.'s. Tyler's lagging behind. That's actually a purple job, by the way. I feel like these will, I feel like these cards look pretty sturdy. I hope they grayed out nicely. That I don't know. I'm hoping, hoping so. Jaylen Noel of the 25. William St. Bill Mosher saying, has there been any conversations about the 2020 draft and how, and not many people know any of these kids? Well, not unless you're a basketball fan. Listen, last year everyone said it was just Zion and RJ, and that was it. John Morant was even on the radar for a lot of people. So I'm not that concerned. I feel like last year everyone said it was gonna be a soft draft class, but guys like Hachimura and Zion, or Zion was already hyped up, but guys like Hachimura, Tyler Hero, Kendrick Nunn, John Morant kind of came out of nowhere. PJ Washington stuff will still sell. Kobe White, you know, it was great. So I think those became names, you know what I mean? I mean, even think about two years ago, Luca Donchich here, right? Everyone was just like, all right, Luca Donchich, like whatever, some kid who played in Europe, you know, who knows what he could be, but then he turned out to be pretty incredible. So I'm not too concerned about people not knowing about an NBA draft class like going into it. As long as they perform, you know, there'll be hype that gets built. So I'm not that concerned. It'll just be different. I think we got a little spoiled last summer because there was just like Zion hype even before he was even drafted, you know what I mean? So there was that Zion hype all throughout, all throughout the summer, the spring, the summer league, so on and so forth. And that drove the product. It's gonna be a little different. I think it'll be more like 18, 19 where it'll be kind of like a wait and see sort of thing. But someone always emerges. There's Deer and Fox, a fox in the box. I mean, you can't always have Zion every year. It'd be a little naive to think that that's what it'll be all the time. All right, Tyler. Tyler Hong with the Sacramento Kings gets the out of 10 Deer and Fox, a fox in the box. Jeremy 33 saying sell now, it's peaking. And then buy the dips, ladies and gentlemen, for the next peak. There's Schofield, it's 99. Where Yannis is, Yannis Eye, Hall of Fame, Zion, an NBA debut red is pretty cool. Nice NBA debut Zion for the Pels. That'll be for Matthew Shearer. Jared Nectar, do you think mosaic being its own product will affect positive or negative value of prism mosaic from previous years? I mean, they're kind of the same thing. It's just branded differently, you know? Instead of panini prism mosaic basketball, it's just panini mosaic basketball. But I mean, it still says prism on the back of some of the cards. So it's in kind of, it's in the same family. But I don't know, positive, negative? I'm not sure, that I don't know. Wait, oh yeah, they even say prism on the front. I don't know if it says prism on the front. Nice, NBA debut, another jam ran at the end. Two NBA day, one silver. This one's regular, regular. This is mosaic international men of mastery cards, which I think look really sharp. I personally like this insert set. Giannis, and there's the silver NBA debut, John Moran, pretty sweet. That goes to the Gris, that will be for Nick Koba. The redemption is gonna be, bam, James Worthy. Autographs, that's for the Lakers. Big game, James, going to Megan and my Lakers. There you go, Megan, something for you at the very, very end. And some of those Lebrons in there as well. I think there were a handful of those. Nothing parallel-wise, but some nice stuff in there, Megan. And there you go, boys and girls. That was a four box, random team number one from jaspeaskasebreaks.com. The brand new prism mosaic, well not prism mosaic anymore. I think all that conversation got me confused. Mosaic basketball, started off with that Jason kid. So excellent stuff. Another four boxer coming up, jaspeaskasebreaks.com. I'm Joe, I'll see you next time, bye bye.


Welcome back to Think Tech. This is Community Matters more specifically. This is a preview of our Legal Chicken, Legal Egg program, which takes place as a webinar on September 30 at 10 o'clock in the morning. So if you want to register, you know, to see that, go to thinktechawaii.com's registration link. And one of the one of the six players in that program is Kimi Ide Foster. He joins us today. Hi, Kimi. So what do you think? You know, this program is interesting. It features you as moderated by Avi Stoifer. You're going to talk about abortion in America. Avi Stoifer moderates. As I said, Chris Marvin on the mainland will talk about gun violence prevention. Richard Walsh, a professor at UH Law School, talked about the challenges of climate change. That's what he teaches. And we have Sylvia Albert, Voting Rights in America. He was going to be with you, but she can't make it this morning. And Jeff Portnoy, beyond insurrection, five heavy hitters and five really critical and threatening issues. So what I wanted to do is the first thing I wanted to do, Kimi, if you'll permit me, is to play our promo on this. It's a couple of minutes long, so that people can get a handle on what we're saying about it. Okay. All right, we'll do that now. In transitional times, every action has a reaction. This cycle gives us an echo chamber. New events lead to legal changes of course, and legal changes lead to new events. Yes, it is chicken and egg. And these days, could it be that the interaction time is faster than before? Your host for this conversation is Avi Soyfer, Professor and Fuller Dean of the William S. Richardson School of Law at the University of Hawaii in Manoa. Panelist Kimi Ide Foster is a partner in the law firm of Chun Ker in Honolulu, Hawaii. In this program, she will discuss abortion in America. Panelist Chris Marvin is a former military helicopter pilot and principal of Marvin Strategies, a strategic communications firm specializing in cultural advocacy through socially-minded narrative building. In this program, he will discuss gun violence prevention. Panelist Richard Walsgrove is an assistant professor of law and co-director of the Environmental Law Program at the William S. Richardson School of Law at the University of Hawaii in Manoa. In this program, he will discuss the challenges of climate change. Panelist Sylvia Albert is the Director of Voting and Elections at Common Cause in Washington, D.C. In this program, she will cover voting rights in America. Panelist Jeff Portnoy is a partner in Cade Shadee, a law firm in Honolulu, Hawaii. In this program, he will cover insurrection and beyond. Come join us for this important discussion. You can register to attend on ThinkTechHawaii.com. Please do, and we'll see you there. Aloha. Okay, you know when we first conceived of this discussion with Avi, we came up with the legal chicken and legal egg thing. And nobody understands that. What are we talking about chicken and egg? But hopefully you do, and we'll be able to make people who watch this program understand that the law is not static at all, especially at these times. And it moves quickly, and sometimes, you know, regrettably, it moves in what you and I would consider the wrong direction, and then you have to correct it, and then you have to deal with the consequences of that, and so forth. It's a spiral, not clear whether it's a spiral up or down. That's one of the baseline issues of this program. So abortion in America is, you know, it's really at the top of the list in the sense that, you know, you have the decision of the Supreme Court repealing Roe v. Wade, and then you have all this other legal action going on. And that foments, aside from unrest, it foments other legal action, and then you have this tit for tat sort of thing, and the federal, you know, system is deteriorating. And oh my God, you have a very difficult discussion to organize, Kimmy. So can you tell us your thinking? Can you tell us your thinking going in about where it is, you know, and how the country has reacted to it, and how the country will react to the reaction, and so forth? Yeah. Thanks, Jay. I first of all, I do really appreciate the opportunity to be a part of this, like you said, a really heavy hitting panel. Any time that I can spend in Dean Cypher's illustrious presence and learning more is time well spent, as far as I'm concerned, so I'm really excited about that. But yeah, probably a little bit about kind of just abortion and the fact that I think we're talking before the show in November elections coming up, abortions on the ballot. What do you want it to be or not? I think we've seen some states that have tried to not talk about it, and they're like, you know, maybe if we just don't say anything, people will forget that we tried to strip their rights away, and that's just not an option, especially with social media and with the national coverage covering everything. And I think I don't want to sound overly optimistic here because that hasn't really worked out the last, you know, six years or so. But I do think that with the Dobbs decision, the GOP may have overplayed its hand just a little bit. You know, it's one thing to have a theoretical discussion about abortion bands, and it's one thing to have kind of this like idealistic, you can say, well, I think abortion is wrong, and you don't actually have to go to the mat for it. You get to kind of have this like safe, cozy, like I'm a good conservative Christian, and I think it's wrong. And then Dobbs came down and took away Roe v. Wade, and all of a sudden, your face was very real world consequences. And I'm completely blanking on who the senator is now, but he came out in a minute, he's like, I'm sorry, when I voted for this, you know, when I voted against abortion access in my own state, when I did this year, I did not think about the, you know, the nine-year-old girl that's raped and has to carry a child, the young woman who wants to be a mother. And there's something horrifically wrong with her child. And if you don't have an abortion, you're both going to die. You know, and it's like, I think all of a sudden it became very, very real for people. And it has kind of pushed in the opposite direction. I mean, like, look at Kansas. Kansas is one of the most conservative states in the union. And when they put it up to a vote, people of Kansas were like, no, this goes too far. You know, it's one thing to be able to say it and kind of be abstract from another to look at very much in the eye and be like, oh, these are real people. These are, this is our mothers and our daughters and our sisters and the girl down the street. And this isn't, this is like kind of abstract for anymore. It's not the bogeyman. So like you said, it's kind of action reaction, right? It's Dobbsville or Robey Waite fell with Dobbs. Some states put a trigger bound to effect immediately. And then you started to see a whole mess of other things, medical professionals, thinking to use about what to do. There's a mass exodus of some people from other states. I don't think that they fully appreciate yet how much strain this is going to put on their social services in the next five to 10 years. You're going to force these women to have kids, then your foster system better be up to par. Your medical system better be up to par. And we all know it's not because these aren't states that put money into this kind of thing. So it's going to be just kind of this constant like, where does the ball is going to keep rolling and rolling and rolling and rolling? And it's like, well, where is it going to stop? And what's going to happen at the end of all of this? So I think it's a very, I think it's a very appropriate topic for your chicken and egg discussion. Yeah, well, it's not going to come to an end anytime soon. You know, you have some states doing the trigger laws that's really horrendous. And they will regret that for sure. They and all the people in them, because they're all the me I offer this all the people in them are human beings.  And then you have the states that are trying to beat the rap, you know, trying to get out from under it.  It's like, you know, when, when the Supreme Court did this, it had no perception of the consequences. None, none whatsoever. It's, it's, it's kind of shocking to think that these people who are charged with sitting on the highest court in the land, well, you have to, I mean, the personal politics aside, you have to believe that there is a somewhat common degree of common sense amongst these people. And it just doesn't show here. I mean, it's, it was stocking, it was shocking to me. Because like you said, they obviously didn't think this through. And then what really, sorry, digressing a little bit, like really, really burns me is the GOP did this whole like, well, let's return it to the state, the state's right issue. You know, if you, if you, if you don't like it, like, like Clarence, Justice Clarence says, then take it to the voting box. But then you have states like Indiana, where the people were also conservative state, but the people were vocally against an abortion ban. And they said, you know what, actually, we're not going to put on the ballot box. We're just going to pass it by legislative special session. It's like, so this has nothing to do with taking it to the people. You don't care about individual rights.  Well, to say that it's really not a matter of federal law, let's put it on the states, is creating chaos. Because it means at the end of the day, you know, you'd need some kind of chart, a graph and a chart for every state. And the results will be different for every state. And the need for further legislation to accommodate it will be different for every state. So, you know, the federal system has essentially been torn asunder when some states, the women have rights and other states, they don't have rights. And in the middle, all their rights are different. It's shocking.  But I have friends who are doctors in Texas. I have friends who are doctors in Florida. And they kind of are like, you're upending an entire system. I mean, especially some of the doctors, like in Texas, for example, like, they've been instructed if they have to choose to choose the life of the child. They cannot perform it, you know. And my friend was looking and she was like, my very first oath is to do no harm. And if a woman's bleeding out of my operating cable, arrest me, I'm not going to let it happen. You know, and it's like you're interfering with a whole bunch of disciplines and belief systems. And it's like, this is crazy. And like you said, it's insane that it varies state by state. So if for whatever reason, you get stuck in a red state or one of the one of these trigger law states, you're screwed. You can't do anything about it. You know, it's wild. And it's, it's not an issue that we can afford to have that kind of state by state chaos. This is too, it's too important. It's too dangerous. When you and I, we sit down and try to figure out all the implications and the need for what you would call it, corrective action. It's huge. And it's everywhere. And it goes beyond just the issue of abortion. It's an attack on the federal system. It's an attack on uniformity among this thing. It's an attack on human rights, civil rights, personal rights, privacy, all that. And really extraordinary violence that this ob's case did. Thank you, Clarence Thomas. We really appreciate your concern for the lives of women. But let me, let me start, you know, drilling down on some of the, just some of the things you mentioned. I mean, for one thing, implication is the Supreme Court, they may have to be, the Supreme Court has shown that it's not, it doesn't care about consequences. You know, that is flawed to do a degree that we have to, you know, change the number of judges, change the tenure of judges. And that's got to be one implication of this. This calls for a reform of the Supreme Court. Before we talked about that in the abstract. Now we're talking about it as a real possibility, a real need. That's just one thing. If this is all in your wheelhouse, Kimmy. I wouldn't go that far.  So how do you fix that is a million issues in the States in this 50 of them. They're all different. Yeah, it's crazy. You know, this is something that we actually were talking about it. I just came back from Planned Parenthood board retreat last weekend, something like that. And we were talking about just kind of like, fly in the sky. If money and time and the fact that the country's on fire, we're not a pressing issue. You know, how do we fix, how do we fix what we've become? Because like you said, it goes well beyond abortion. I mean, I don't want to say we're irreparably broken. The country is showing some serious, serious cracks. But so much of it, at least I think goes back to we need to do something about the public education system in this country. I know I've said this on the show before, but I think we are largely in the mess we're in right now, because the average person off the street could not pass a fifth, like a sixth grade civics test if you put a gun to their head. I mean, look at the number of people that thought Trump could just stay president by just staying in the White House. Like, did you miss social studies? Did you miss any of those classes? And the sad answer is probably yes, because they went to a school that is either underfunded or doesn't prioritize it because there's no, there's no like national effort to have a curriculum that covers these things. And then undereducated kids turn into over aggressive teenagers who turn into adults that have these like, well, I know everything and I don't need to learn anything else about this. And it's like, you don't actually, you have a terrible grasp of how the country's supposed to work and run. And you're voting. Like, but it just, that's, I mean, to me, fixing our public education system would go a long way. That's, that's high in the sky. And like I said, if the country weren't on fire with about 10,000 other issues. Well, there's also the thing, you know, that goes to, you know, like Halloween tricks, like the electoral, the fraudulent electoral ballots, like all the, well, the insurrection itself. I mean, to me, all these subjects we're going to talk about in this program, they're all connected. And as you say, they all have a fundamental set of problems, you know, where the country is broken. You think of one, you can hardly not think of the others. And so I suppose, you know, you're, you're really right about that is that we have to, you know, dig deep and find the fundamental problems and change them. But that requires a reorientation of the citizenry. And, you know, talk about education.  Absolutely. One of the, you know, there's a program, Ken Burns program on the Holocaust I was mentioning to you. Half of it was, you know, one night, the other half will be on another night. And what is extraordinary about this is that Hitler understood that you had to educate kids your way. And he created Hitler Youth, which was very effective to build, you know, a citizenry that would, that would follow him, that would support him no matter what. And very chilling to make the comparison between what happened in Germany. We've been thinking this for a long time, but it is emerging now. And the Burns film gives you footage and concept that makes the connection all the, all the more clear. So yes, it's a five alarm fire. But we don't have 10 or 20 years to fix it. Exactly. And that's the thing is it's like, I completely agree with you. The only way this is going to get fixed, we need a sea change. We need to start all the way at the ground and kind of redo this. That's, that's not, we don't have the time. And we don't have the resources.   That doesn't serve their purposes at all. Yeah, it's hard to, it's hard to figure out what motivates them, but you know, it's not the same, the same motivation that the country has had over these years, the social compact of the country, you know, where everybody believes in the same form of government in the same moral structure, if you will. You know, it's like, you would have thought after Dobbs, you would have thought that it would rise up in every state and say, what are you doing to the women in the state? You can't do that. That's not what happened. It went into chaos immediately. I mean, Donald Trump likes chaos and his friends is autocratic, autocratic supporters like chaos. So what you have now is legal chaos. And that's a problem. And I'm resting this on your doorstep. The problem is, if you have different people in different states, different legislatures, different, everything, everywhere in the country, a complete chaos, you're not going to have a fix. If you have, you know, chaos is not a fix for anything. I want to go on record about that. So then when you have chaos, here's the question, Kimi. What follows? You know, I don't know. I've actually, I just recently had a very similar conversation with my dad, who is a wonderful, wonderful man. Probably one of the best, one of the best people I've ever known in my whole life.  So a lot of, there comes a lot of privilege with that. And he was kind of one of those people that in the early days of Trump, he only got elected. He was like, well, it's, it won't like stop catastrophizing Kimi. It won't be that bad. You know, this country's not going to fall apart. Kind of like, you know, downplaying it. And when, I mean, when all the things had happened, then when dogs happened, I had this discussion with him where I was like, do you see it now? Like, do you see what this man has created? I mean, he's completely upended American values. He like, we can't agree on anything anymore. The anniversary of 9-11, which should have been an amazing momentous time for the country to come together. It felt like all the media outlets were trying to trick us into feeling that way. Like, hey, remember when we all liked each other?  And I just don't know. I mean, this is going to sound so, so, so dramatic. I don't know if the multiple fact comes to America can be made whole. I don't know if we're going to splinter into a bunch of different smaller groups. I don't know. Like, I just don't know how the federalist system that we have, but you were just talking about how does it go on when you've got a state like California on one side and Texas on the other. You don't share values. You don't share agreement on how resources should be allocated. You don't share any agreement on how problems should be fixed. And so, to answer your question about what comes after the chaos, I think it's just more chaos. I don't know what the endpoint is or what the natural stopping point is other than we all go our separate ways. And I don't like to think of that as a realistic option, so she could also intertwine at this point, but it just seems like we're getting further and further and further apart. It does. I mean, is the solution to, you know, the fundamental problem that we're reaching for, is it, is it leadership? Is it some president strong, maybe stronger than Joe Biden? Although his, his talk to 60 minutes was pretty good this week, I have to say, surprising on some levels. His staff was surprised about some of the things. But suffice to say, if we had a really, I'll pull one out of history, JFK. If we had a JFK kind of president who everybody liked, everybody followed, he had a magic about them. You know, could that help alleviate the chaos? It would go a long way. It would go a really long way. I think you're right. We have not had a charismatic unifying leader in a long time. Of course, that kind of depends on who you ask, right? Because I thought Obama was great, but it totally depends on who you ask. But that would go a long way. I just also don't know if, I mean, part of why JFK was so charismatic and successful is that they got to write the narrative about themselves. They got to create Camelot. They got to, you know, I don't know if that era exists anymore because so much of what Donald Trump did was he stripped away kind of that shiny, even newer respect that we accord to people in the elected office. And he exposed this really awful underbelly of everything. And now you're kind of like, well, how do I, how do I trust elections? How do I trust that these people really, I'll have my best wishes at heart, you know. And I would like to think that sure, if one of the parties could put together, put forward a candidate that actually has the chance to unify the country, that'd be great. That's a huge start. I just don't know if they're out there. If you have chaos around the country, it's really hard to bring it back to where it was.  And unfortunately, they've been deteriorating. But one thing it offers, and if you look deeply into Trump's mind and possibility is that we wind up with an autocracy. We lose the democracy and a strong leader emerges not on the democratic side, but on the autocratic side. And then we, then we have the 1930s. We have a diminution of civil rights, human rights. We have horrible actions by the state against the citizens. We have concentration camps. We have disappearances, all the things that we have felt that, you know, would never happen here. That's, I think, one possible solution because you keep on spinning around in chaos and a strong autocratic leader emerges, such as Trump or some of the, you know, the autocrats of the 20th century. And now it's a natural progression, isn't it? It is. I think you're, I mean, I think you're right. I think it's more likely we're going to find someone like that and someone that unifies the country in a good way. Because that's who thrives in chaos, right? People who have dreams of kingship and grandeur. And it's, I also think it's true on the flip side that the population, it's mob thought, right? You get scared. So you follow somebody that you think is going to make things better. And it's also like you said, where people are like, well, that can happen here. And it's like, it can. It does already in some states. And it's, I think we talked about this in the last show I was on with you, but it's very much to me like that World War II poem about, you know, first they came for the clerics. And I didn't say thanks. I'm not cleric. And then they came for the teachers. I didn't say anything. I'm not a teacher. And then they came for the Jews. I didn't say anything because I'm not a Jew. And then they came for me. And there was no one left to say anything. And that's to me, that's kind of the direction that I unfortunately see us going in. Going circling full circle, you're back to the job decision. The very first thing a lot of people knows was like, oh my God, they're coming for the gates next.  And if you don't think that's true, you're not paying attention, you know? Well, I, yes, I think it is true. And it's coming faster than we think. You know, it's, it's going to explode in a little while, maybe in November, who knows. But one thing I want to ask you is this, let's assume, you know, that Dobbs is really a statement of civil rights, of the rights of women, the rights of citizens. And Dobbs represents much more than abortion. It represents, you know, civil rights. On the autonomy, 100%. Yeah. And so if that happens, this is very scary now. What is the role of the lawyer? What is the role of the bar association? What is the role of somebody who, you know, practices business law, but who is conscious of these issues like you are? What happens in the, what happens in the profession? They're supposed to be not only the merchants of words, but, you know, the protector of the precedent, the protector of the rule of law that changes things.  I think that's the second thing. The first thing we do is, is kill all the media. And that is part of the scenario in this Holocaust movie, by the way. But it's very scary that the, those who are bound professionally to, you know, protect and preserve our civil rights will be at risk. And we'll have a burden, perhaps, that the average person won't, because, you know, the citizens haven't taken social studies, but the lawyers have, or most of them, what happens? Yeah.  I think, but it's, and I think, at least what you're alluding to is, I think it's our duty and our obligation. You know, more than the average person, you have taken these classes. You, someone has to stand up and say something, do something. And you become responsible for that.  You have a fundamental set of tools that the average person does not. And you need to, you have a responsibility to share that and do it responsibly and make sure your friends and your family, the people who may not be, like you're saying, is up and up on the news or is up and up on like, look, these are real consequences. This is not just about abortion. This is not just about X, Y, and Z. Like, make people aware of that and make them realize what they can and can't do. So, I don't know, maybe that's an overly optimistic role for attorneys. Well, I mean, we saw the question is, what do the attorneys do? They do with those skills, the special skills that would allow them to do. They go to court, they argue in front of judges who may, who may be political appointees, such as that judge in Florida. They may go to the legislature and find that the legislature is in the other camp. That is, it hasn't taken social studies. They have a, you know, a burden and they may not be able to, you know, correct these problems. Furthermore, even in the state of Hawaii, the GOP is very organized and there are more GOP candidates this year in Hawaii than before. It's really interesting. And so what you have is an organized campaign on the other side of the issue who would support Trump and, you know, all those GOP destructive... In a heartbeat. Yeah. So, yeah, all I'm saying is in order to get back, in order to counteract what has happened and the implications of what will happen under DOBS, there's a lot of work to be done and there's a lot of opposition to it. And as you said, we're in a kind of, you didn't use the term, but a kind of civil war over that. And so it's not so easy to fix it. And, and furthermore, the fixing may result in a situation that needs more fixing. Yeah. Yeah. Very true. Okay. Well, where does it come to an end? And on September 30 at 10 in the morning, Akeemah Idea Foster is going to tell us he's going to have this worked out. I don't know. I can't imagine how she's going to have it worked out. But she will be discussing the logical conclusion of all these considerations and, you know, phenomena that are now in place, now happening, now changing. The dynamic is impossible to watch. And Akeemah, I guarantee you that in the time, the two weeks time between now and September 30. Something else will have happened. Yeah. Yeah. 100%. Yeah. Thank you. Well, thank you for having me, Jay. Yeah. Thanks for talking to me this morning and thanks for participating in the program. Have a good one. Thank you so much for watching Think Tech Hawaii. If you like what we do, please like us and click the subscribe button on YouTube and the follow button on Vimeo. You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn, and donate to us at thinktechawaii.com. Mahalo.


with the traditional classroom approach. There is a teacher, there are many students usually in fixed spots, the bell rings after the period is over and so on. Many of us are now also familiar with various e-learning contexts like you see in some of these images. You can also think of other examples of e-learning that you may be familiar with. Now that we have considered both these approaches, let us compare and contrast these two approaches. Here for example, what is the role of the teacher in each approach? What does the learner actually do and who are these learners? Who does the majority of the work? Who bears the primary responsibility? How flexible is it in terms of time and place? Who chooses the content and so on? Pause this learning dialogue, write three differences between a traditional approach and an e-learning approach. When you are done writing, please resume. Let us discuss some of the key differences in the features between the traditional approach and an e-learning approach. Some of you may have considered the nature of the roles of the teacher and learner to compare the two approaches. In a traditional approach, the roles are rather fixed. The teacher is the provider of knowledge in terms of content, information, skills, techniques and so on. The teacher also has a physical presence along with the learner and the group of learners. In contrast, in the e-learning approaches, the teacher does create and design the content with the instructional designers of course. But once that is done, the teacher may not be visible to the learners. In terms of what the learners do, in a traditional classroom, the learner's primary role is to receive the knowledge. They may follow the instructions of the instructor, do the activities and so on, but they are primarily receivers of knowledge. By contrast, in an e-learning approach, the learner's roles are more varied and the learner bears more owners for the learning. Why is this so? It's a learner who has to choose what to do next. Some sequence may be provided, but it's still the learner's choice. It's the learner who has to actually decide that, yes, I need to go and learn from this e-learning content. So there's a lot more responsibility on the learner's part. There is nobody to monitor the learner on a day-by-day basis or not even on a minute-by-minute basis. While thinking of the reflection spot, some of you may have visualized or imagined the two learning environments. A traditional learning environment necessarily is a relational and interactive experience between a teacher, one learner and a group of learners. There is a direct physical presence, a direct physical contact between these people and there is a lot of mediation in terms of discussions, in terms of communication, which is very direct and physical. Learning approach, however, not all interactions are synchronous. There may be some synchronous activities such as face-to-face interactions via hangouts or video conferencing, but a lot of the activity in e-learning approaches can be asynchronous where the content is created at one point, at one place and the learner accesses it somewhere else at some other point. In terms of who the learners are, in a traditional classroom, again, there is more of a homogeneity especially in a school or college setting because we know who our students are. They may be 30 engineering students or 7th grade students in a particular school and so on. In workplace scenarios or workshops, there may be a little bit more variation, but by and large, we know who the learners are and they are more or less similar to each other. By contrast, in an e-learning scenario, the diversity or heterogeneity among the learners is very high. For example, in online courses, we do not know who might enroll for the courses. In workplace settings, you have people with varied backgrounds and knowledge and so on. So, there is a high diverse difference in diversity of the learners. In terms of the flexibility again, there is a difference in the two approaches. Like we said, the traditional environment is fairly fixed, rigid in terms of the place where it occurs and also the time at which it occurs. In e-learning scenarios, both the place and time are more flexible because it can happen with personal devices. It could be in a lab or a classroom, but it could also be in a public place or it could be in the learner's homes and so on. There are a lot of studies comparing the effectiveness of the traditional approach with the e-learning approach and the results are actually very mixed. One reason is that there is such a variation in terms of the features of the two. The benefits are different and the challenges are different. So, what we will do in this course, especially in this learning dialogue, is to look at some of the key challenges present in the e-learning approach and then later we will see ways to address them. Before going ahead, let us pause briefly at one more reflection spot. What you see are a number of features in the e-learning approach which according to you are challenges to the teaching and learning process. You can choose one or more than one option, pause this learning dialogue and once you are done choosing the options, you can resume. In the e-learning approach, there are several challenges which often could lead to poor learning outcomes. Some of these challenges could be due to the struggles on the part of the learner. Other challenges are inherent in the format of e-learning itself. Yet others could be due to the lack of training or the lack of knowledge by the instructional designers. Let us look into each category of these challenges and delve a little deeper into them. One category of challenges in e-learning are the difficulties faced by the learner. For example, motivation, self-motivation becomes a very crucial issue in an e-learning scenario. This is an essential requirement and without self-motivation, learners often are known to drop out of the course or whatever they are supposed to learn or they may not complete the assignments and this challenge is something which the designers as designers we have to keep in mind. Another challenge for some learners is that of digital literacy. Learners should be able to navigate, evaluate and work with content in the technological medium using a variety of tools and if learners lack the background knowledge to be able to do so, it becomes a stumbling block for them to access the content to actually do anything to interact with the content. One more challenge which learners might face is because of the unfamiliarity of the medium itself which leads to a very new learning experience. Switching from a face to face classroom scenario with physical presence of other learners and the teacher to an online scenario where there is e-content maybe just one on one with a device, this sort of a switch is an unfamiliar learning experience and that could lead to discomfort and sometimes even resistance to the new format. Again this challenge is something we have to keep in mind and see how to address. One more challenge that learners face is that of time management which in fact is the flip side of flexibility. Time management is known to be difficult for learners because they may have other priorities and other commitments. While it may seem that this is a burden of the learners, it is something that instructional designers and teachers and content creators can address to some extent in terms of how they sequence the material, how they chunk it, how they give supports and so on. A very important challenge that becomes, that looms in e-learning is that of pedagogical considerations.   What is very important for effective learning and as teachers we know this are learning theories, pedagogical design principles and we know how to implement them in a classroom, many of us know that. What is a key challenge is that these pedagogical considerations go missing in the e-format. What are some of these pedagogical considerations? They could be related to the learners such as learner engagement with the content, learner motivation and so on. They could be related to the interaction, the discussions, the feedback given, the scaffolds provided. They could be content related also such as alignment between the content and the goals and actually alignment between the goals and the content and the assessment or real world examples. What are some of the reasons for these pedagogical considerations to go missing? One major point is that of transactional distance and this comprises not only the physical distance in terms of time and space in e-learning, but also the disconnect in terms of communication. For example, what the instructor may have wanted to convey, what the expectation of the learners are and what finally the learners take away. Another reason for these pedagogical considerations to go missing is the lack of knowledge of learning theories and how people learn or maybe the lack of importance that a content creator gives to it. Even if the e-learning content designer knows about theories of how people learn, translating it, operationalizing it into the e-learning setting comes with its own challenges. Another category of challenges for some e-learning scenarios is that of diversity and individual differences. This becomes especially important with adult learners and in the workplace. Diversity in terms of gender and age, but also educational background, prior knowledge, language, cultural differences, background with e-learning format and the purpose with which the learner is actually interacting with the content. Even for teachers in a standard school or classroom setting, something like language or cultural differences can become important. For example, in what examples an instructor decides to give, which is relevant to her learners. A very simple example is if I am creating content for a primary school fractions in a circle, should I talk of a chapati or should I talk of apple pie? To summarize, we saw challenges on many fronts. Learner struggles, pedagogical considerations, not being present in the e-content, diversity. Now, this seems like a lot of challenges and for many of us, this seems daunting. So, what do we do at this point? What you can start doing to begin with is which of these challenges are important in your context, which is relevant for your learners. For example, if you are a teacher, perhaps the pedagogical consideration of learner engagement with the content is more important than the diversity in terms of age or gender. On the other hand, if you are a trainer in a learning and development division in some industry, the individual differences and diversity might take precedence. If you are an instructional designer in an tech industry or you are a content creator in MOOC, again, the learners familiarity with the medium might become important, learners engagement and attention becomes important. If you are creating e-content for an NGO that works in rural areas, digital literacy might be primary. Each of these challenges brings about a set of requirements that as designers, we need to make sure is present in what we design. So, in this course, what we will focus on are some of these requirements. They may address some of these challenges. The key requirements that we will pay attention to are learner engagement with content in terms of interactivity, in terms of how learners reflect. What sort of support we can give learners in this new medium, support in terms of prompts when the learner faces doubt or difficulty or in terms of interaction between peers and discussions, we will discuss a lot about the requirement of learning by doing, how to promote active learning in an e-learning scenario. We will also touch upon a little bit requirements that come from the content end, such as alignment between the goals and content and assessment and the technology tools. But most of our focus will be on the pedagogical considerations of learning by doing and the design principles that underlie it. Thank you.


It's almost inevitable that Donald Trump is going to be prosecuted either in a state court or a federal court. And I think that when that moment comes, that's going to be a watershed for Joe Biden. The fate of Richard Nixon in many ways defined Gerald Ford's presidency. And when he pardoned Richard Nixon, he ended up losing to Jimmy Carter in 1976. I think the stakes are just as great here for Joe Biden. That was our guest Chris Whipple, the author of The Fight of His Life Inside Joe Biden's White House, the first major book to take aim at the Biden presidency. I'm Mark Up to Grove. And I'm Mark Lawrence, and this is With the Bark Off. Chris Whipple is an author and Emmy award-winning documentary filmmaker. He appears frequently as a political analyst on MSNBC, CNN, and NPR. And his previous books include The Gatekeeper, How the White House Chiefs of Staff Define Every Presidency, and The Spy Masters, How the CIA Directors Shape History and the Future. For The Fight of His Life, Chris spent two years talking with White House insiders, including Joe Biden himself, to provide a look at how the administration is faced enormous and, in many cases, unprecedented challenges. Some that came in the wake of the chaotic Trump presidency, and others that have arisen since. Chris, welcome and thanks so much for joining us on With the Bark Off. Before we jump into the Biden presidency itself, I think it's important to talk about the transition, this extraordinary transition between the Trump and Biden White Houses. This certainly had to be the most challenging transition in all of American history, since Trump, of course, never conceded defeat and refused to cooperate with Biden or his team. I wonder if you could put that moment in historical perspective, and perhaps talk about the strains that this situation placed on Joe Biden and his team. Well, as you say, I mean, it was the most fraught and contentious and dangerous transition since the Civil War. And it's an incredible story. You would think at this point that you've read everything that could possibly be told about that story. And yet, I found to my amazement that a key part of the story hadn't been told, and so I devote a couple of chapters to it in the fight of his life. And what happened essentially is that a small group of Trump officials in the White House carried out the transition as a sub-Rosa operation under Trump's nose and without his knowledge. And principally, there was a deputy chief of staff named Chris Liddell, a New Zealander who came to the U.S., wound up running the Romney transition, ended up in the Trump White House, and if not for this guy Liddell, who quietly kept the wheels of the transition turning during the final days of the Trump presidency, we might not have had a transfer of power. So it's an amazing story, I think. Again, I was surprised that nobody else had told it. What is the greatest revelation about the transition that you came upon? The Chris Liddell thing, Chris, is amazing, just knowing that there was somebody who was working surreptitiously to ensure that there would be a smooth transition despite Trump's orders not to cooperate. But what did you find that was most revelatory as you dug into this? You know, Mark, it's hard to single one thing out. It was just such an astonishing sequence of events. And, you know, I even have a, one of the scenes I like is the private Zoom session that Ron Klain had a month before the inauguration with 19 of the 22 living White House chiefs of staff, after which, in the wee hours of the morning, Trump tweeted out, be there, be wild. It's going to be wild, as we all know. But one of the fascinating things was Mark Meadows in the midst of all this, the final chief of staff for Trump who, again, I describe not so much a chief of staff as a kind of clad handing matriot D who would do anything Trump asked him to do. But he was a yes man to everyone. He wanted everybody to think he was doing their bidding. And astonishingly, at one point, the head of the Biden transition, Ted Kaufman, sends a fax to the White House. By law, the chief of staff is required to sign it along with the incoming transition director. Kaufman was convinced there was no way in the world this would ever happen. He'd be shot, you know, if Trump learned about it. And yet, suddenly, Ted Kaufman's fax machine clanked to life and in came this document signed by Mark Meadows authorizing the transition. Kaufman has it framed on his wall. He still can't believe it. Weird things like that were going on. Inexplicably, Meadows was giving this guy Chris Liddell, his deputy, the green light, to go ahead and do it. Just don't tell the boss. I should point out to our listeners that Ted Kaufman is Joe Biden's neighbor in Delaware and worked for years and years with Joe Biden on Capitol Hill at one point as his chief of staff. Very, very close to Joe Biden and one of the... Again, I was really lucky to have got access to most of Biden's inner circle and nobody knows Biden better than Kaufman and I got to know him pretty well. Chris, you talked about that Zoom call, that extraordinary Zoom call with 19 former chiefs of staff who are giving Ron Klain counsel as he attempts to take on the role for Joe Biden. That's got to be an amazing thing to have witnessed.  Talk about that conversation and what Ron Klain most took from it. I heard about it through my sources and this is a tradition that goes back to Rahm Emanuel when he came in as Barack Obama's first chief of staff. There was this tradition of all the former chiefs coming together and giving advice to the new kid on the block. So they did it for Ron Klain and it was in the middle of the COVID pandemic, of course. So it was all done virtually instead of in the chief of staff's office. But 19 of the 22 living chiefs were there including two of Trump's chiefs. Trump would not have been pleased if he had known this. And yet, so Mark Meadows was not there and neither was Ryan's previous, but Kelly and John Kelly and Mick Mulvaney were on the call. There was a lot of really interesting advice given to Klain, but one of my favorite things which you may appreciate was the advice from LBJ's chief of staff, Jim Jones, who was 28 years old, as you know, when he became White House chief of staff. LBJ didn't really have a chief, but that's a long story. But Jones had the title and his advice to Ron Klain was to, he was worried about Joe Biden's age. Jones was 82 years old at the time of the call and he said, you know, I recognize him. I see myself in the president, the incoming president. I'm an expert at stumbling, going up the stairs. I see it with this guy and you've got to take care of him and make sure he's rested and that he's up to this job. Chris, tell us a little bit more about President Biden's relationship with Ron Klain or perhaps a wider array of characters who surround Biden in his White House. How are these individuals shaping the Biden presidency and perhaps managing his appearances in public to cope with some of the kinds of problems that you're getting at? Well, it's an extraordinary collection of talent, I have to say. And in a way, you think back to JFK's, the best and the brightest. You know, it's a really competent, qualified group of people and maybe Ron Klain most of all. I mean, I think every living White House chief of staff would tell you that no one has ever been better prepared than Ron Klain to be chief of staff. He worked for nine, count them, nine previous White House chiefs of staff. He knows the job cold. He knew it coming in. He knows Capitol Hill. He's politically savvy. And he has a very, very strong relationship with Biden, which, and as you guys know, that's the most important relationship of all. They're kind of like an old married couple. You know, they don't see eye to eye on everything, but it clicks. And one of, when you ask Klain, ask Ron about it, he'll say, you know, I go in there. He's a lawyer and he says, I go in there and I'll give five arguments for option A and five arguments for option B. And the president will say, well, what about C? What about B plus? Biden tends to think in terms of his fingertips, his gut, anecdotes, people he's he's encountered. He has and claims kind of the straight ahead more lawyerly one of the pair. But it but it works. One of the many challenges, Chris, that Biden has faced from the Trump hangover is his discomfort in your words with the Secret Service, many of whom are mega sympathizers. You write that he had a strained relationship with the Secret Service to only get worse as he settled into the presidency. And that seems like a pretty big problem when you're the president of the United States. Talk about the state of the relationship between Joe Biden and his Secret Service detail. I was stunned to hear this. It's it's really a troubling thing as far as I'm concerned. And it really it really goes back to if you go if you rewind to the transition. Joe Biden has always had a very good relationship with his Secret Service detail and he was close to the head of his detail during the transition. That officer, for whatever reason, was transferred out. Biden ended up with a much larger security detail as president as presidents always do. And he quickly discovered that that some of some of that detail were mega sympathizers. Now, if you think about it, maybe that shouldn't be shocking because the Secret Service is full of white ex cops from the South who tend to be deeply conservative. And so it should maybe that shouldn't be surprising. But it bothered Biden on a couple of levels. I mean, he, you know, he felt that for one thing he always he always considered himself a real friend of cops. You know, he'd always had traditionally police unions were in his corner. They backed him for election. He he's proud of everything he's done to to increase police pensions and other things he's always felt comfortable with with cops. It's just bothered him. Joe Biden felt that he should be able to persuade these guys to be in his corner and a couple of major police unions back Trump during the 2020 election. So it bothered him on a couple of different levels. But to me, the most troubling level is the notion that that Joe Biden can't necessarily trust his Secret Service detail to keep his secrets. That's the way he felt. And I think that's a really troubling situation. So what do you do about that? Because if that's the case and you're president of the United States, how do you fix that problem? Well, that's it's it's a very good question. I mean, he certainly has he certainly can find ways of transferring agents out of his security detail, presumably. Why he hasn't done that in this case is is a is a very good question. And I'm not sure we know. And it could this is speculation, but he but it could well be that he doesn't want to he doesn't want to be perceived as somebody who's being political himself that we're trying to create some kind of Praetorian guard is loyal to him. That's speculation on my part. But what we do know, we know more than enough about the troubles of the Secret Service in recent years. And Trump tried to politicize and to some extent, succeeded in politicizing the Secret Service. All you need to know is that Tony or not, oh, his his most loyal agent was promoted to deputy White House Chief of Staff, which was a bald political move that tells you everything you need to know. So the Secret Service, I think, is in need of a shake up. And maybe while the Republicans under Kevin McCarthy are looking for Hunter Biden's laptop, maybe the Democrats of the Senate should be looking at the Secret Service. Chris, you've said that up to this point, the Biden story is, as you've put it, a tale of two presidencies year one and year two. Let's talk for a minute about year one, a period, as you see it of challenges of some setbacks. So this surely one of the most striking setbacks of that first year was the collapse of Afghanistan. Talk a little bit about that episode and why it turned into such a debacle, at least from a public opinion standpoint for Joe Biden. Well, it really is, I think, a tale of two presidencies, the first year and the second year. And in the first year, they came in facing the most daunting set of challenges since FDR's time, I think, only to be confronted with all sorts of unexpected crises from inflation to supply chain problems. The Delta variant and everything else. With Afghanistan, you know, Jake Sullivan, the National Security Advisor has a favorite expression that he stole from Mike Tyson, which is everybody's got a plan until they get punched in the mouth. Well, they got punched in the mouth by Afghanistan. Trump bears plenty of blame for leaving them in effect with Mission Impossible, I think, because he, by promising that the US would get out by May 1st. He really presented the Biden administration with an almost impossible situation. I think the Afghan Armed Forces were not going to last much longer in any event. But from the outside, obviously the Afghanistan withdrawal was chaotic and shambolic and choose your adjective, but from the inside it was even more fraught. And there was plenty of dissension and, well, there was certainly plenty of debate and disagreement, particularly in the immediate aftermath of the withdrawal. I don't know anybody else who's been able to sit down and quiz not only Tony Blinken and Ron Klain, but also Mark Milley and CIA director Bill Burns about this. But I was lucky enough to do that for the book, and I lay it all out or try to. And what it came down to, I mean, Tony Blinken said in no uncertain terms that everything we did in Afghanistan was based on an intelligent assessment that proved to be terribly wrong, which is that the Afghan government and armed forces would last for 18 months. I went over to CIA and talked to Bill Burns about that, spent an hour with him in his office up above Langley talking about this, and he had a very different version of that. I mean, he said that the CIA was clear eyed about the fragility of the Afghan government and armed forces.  But if you told, if you told the CIA that the US would pull out two legs of the stool, namely the US military and the contractors who kept the Afghan armed forces up in the air. The prediction was nothing like 18 months. It was it was that would be real trouble almost immediately. Mark Milley gave me yet another assessment saying that that he, his recollection was that the intelligence predicted the Afghans folding around Thanksgiving. So, there was a lot of that behind the scenes which I think is original reporting in my book. At the end of the day, I think that this was a whole of government failure. I mean, it was a failure at every level. And you can argue about the decision to withdraw, but it was the execution that failed. And part of it was the US military being completely clueless about the ability of the Afghans to fight. And so I think another another major factor was that essentially we were trying to evacuate with only 700 troops on the ground. You can't do that. And that never would have happened if they hadn't expected the government to last much longer than it did. Clearly things got better in year two last year, as Biden found his rhythm in the White House. So what changed? Well, I think everything changed when Vladimir Putin launched the invasion of a democracy in the heart of Europe. I mean, this was the moment that Joe Biden was trained his whole life to confront. This is a guy who who spent his whole career during the Cold War taking the measure of then Soviets and now Russians. And he was uniquely prepared for this, I think. And I report a lot of previously untold stories in the walk up to the invasion, including a story involving Tony Blinken, eviscerating Sergey Lavrov at a ministerial meeting and Kamala Harris meeting privately secretly with with Volodymyr Zelensky and and fearing that she might never seem alive again. It's, it's a great story. A really important story as we all know. That was the beginning, I think of the change in Joe Biden's fortunes, but of course, he then was able to get on a roll with a number of bipartisan legislative victories culminating in the, the, the measure that really revived his presidency. And in my view, and that was the inflation reduction act that Chuck Schumer and Joe Manchin were able to hammer out. That's been portrayed as mansion and Schumer freelancing and coming to Biden's rescue but as I report in my book. And this was aided if not abetted if not orchestrated by the team in the White House, including Ron Klein, they were in it every step of the way. And so that's a great story as well. Chris, going back to year one, just for a minute talk about why it was that the Biden presidency had so much difficulty with build back better with this ambitious agenda of domestic programs. That, as you say, seemed to get somewhere in year two, but why was it such a struggle in year one? Yeah, the thing that hurt Biden that the most after Afghanistan during the first year was was that long, ugly tug of war over the bipartisan infrastructure bill and build that build back better as it was then known. This was a Capitol Hill sausage making ads at its ugliest. And it really was was a long. It triggered if or at least accelerated a long decline in Biden's approval rating. And one of the problems was that the two the two bills were were linked and the progressives didn't want bipartisan infrastructure without build back better and all of the progressive measures that went along with it. Biden as a result, sent mixed signals conflicting signals and I think he looked feckless and indecisive for months while that happened three times he went to Capitol Hill and the expectation was that he was going to finally put bipartisan infrastructure over the top. And and he didn't. And there's a great scene in the book, I think, when Joe Biden gets on a plane in October to go to Rome, and then the Glasgow empty handed without his the crown jewel of his legislative agenda which was built back better with all of its climate friendly provisions. And I went to see Ron claim that Saturday just as Biden took off and spent the afternoon with him and it was really stunning to me because it was as though Ron claim was was resigned to it. You know, Biden had just said that his presidency the fate of his presidency was linked to Congress passing these two bills. And they hadn't. And claim was telling me he he put the odds at 5050. He was basically telling me that, you know, the Biden presidency was was was in the balance. It seemed to me. So it's it's remarkable how they they were able to manage the turnaround. And as I say, I think it's a great story. I think the Biden presidency is a is a political thriller. And of course we don't know the the ending to that thriller yet. Clearly, one of Biden's greatest failings was the Afghanistan withdrawal. Chris, but what do you see as his greatest accomplishment. Well, I think, you know, there are there are a number of defining tests of this presidency and the first one would have to be the coven, the once in a century pandemic, and his handling of that. The second is is is Biden's rallying of NATO to face down Vladimir Putin and defend Ukraine. And there's a there's a third defining tests that he's yet to pass. And that is what happens to Donald Trump and the MAGA movement. And I think that it's almost inevitable that Donald Trump is going to be prosecuted either in a state court or a federal court. And I think that when that moment comes, you know, that's going to be a real. That's going to be a watershed for Joe Biden, you know, the fate of Richard Nixon in many ways defined Gerald Ford's presidency. And when he pardoned Richard Nixon, he ended up losing to Jimmy Carter in 1976. I think the stakes are are just as great here for for Joe Biden. But to answer your question of what what his greatest achievement has been, I think you'd have to say it was rallying Ukraine rallying NATO to defend Ukraine against Vladimir Putin. What is his view of Zelensky you you write in the book that it's there's there's a little bit of ambivalence there to talk about that a little bit if you would. Well, I think the Biden White House, no less than the rest of the world was was surprised by the way Zelensky rose to meet this moment. This, you know, again, everybody's used the comparative to Churchill. I think that surprised Joe Biden, it certainly surprised Kamala Harris who, who when she met privately with him at the Munich Security Conference right before the invasion was literally turned to a to an aid and said I wonder if we'll see him alive again. So, I think that Zelensky surprised Biden, just as we've all been surprised, but he's also been somewhat exasperating because there's Biden is trying to walk this geopolitical tightrope and avoid getting into a nuclear confrontation with Russia and and Zelensky no less than Churchill is determined to drag the US into this war, or at least get all the weapons systems he can possibly get and defend Ukraine's airspace. So I think that that's been a tricky path for Biden, a tricky tightrope for Biden to walk. I'm sure that I think he he's he's been surprised by by Zelensky's courage, like we all have. And Chris, it seems to me keeping that balancing act going is going to be no small challenge. What do you think are the, you know, the problems that worry Biden most in connection with Ukraine as we move forward into the second two years of his presidency. I think the thing that makes him lose sleep is the possibility that there still could be a use of nuclear weapons in Ukraine. I've talked to Bill Burns about this at length and the CIA director and Burns and Biden see eye to eye on this and it keeps them both up at night, I think. Burns talked to me about how he really feels that prevailing in Ukraine is almost existential for Vladimir Putin. And when at one point we were talking about it and he said, well, I wonder if now that Putin is withdrawn to those provinces in the east, whether he would, whether he would negotiate with with Zelensky and I said do you really think he would ever do that that he could find a modus vivendi a way of a way of coexisting with Zelensky and I said no, I don't think he would. In other words, he would eventually come back to trying to conquer Ukraine. So I think that nobody will talk about this but you can be sure that there's a constant wargaming exercises going on trying to anticipate what we would do in the event that Putin did the unthinkable. And I think that's for Joe Biden. I think that's his biggest challenge. Chris, let me go back to Donald Trump for a second. While Joe Biden succeeded Donald Trump as president, he is still very much front and center in the Biden presidency. And you write in the book, he knows his presidency will be and this is a quote from you judged on whether his attorney general chose to prosecute the former US president who tried to strangle democracy. I was interested in the book to first of all learn that Donald Trump left Joe Biden a very gracious note in the in the Oval Office after he left. We don't know the contents of that but we do know that Trump took three days to write that two page handwritten letter. But but give us a sense of Biden's view of Donald Trump and his stance on whether Merrick Garland should prosecute Donald Trump and for the for the crimes he's committed. Well, first of all, it that was an extraordinary scene of the discovering the letter from Trump as Joe Biden did on on his first day and that afternoon of when he walked into the Oval Office as president for the first time and was told about this letter and he opened the drawer and he pulled it out and he read it as his as his most senior advisors looked on and looked up and said that was gracious, shockingly gracious. You can only imagine what what he what Trump might have said I I of course want to know did he did he in that letter acknowledged that Biden was president. Did he, you know which he has has not done to this day. But you wonder if he had done that why Biden would not have revealed that to the American people as a means of showing the weakness of Trump's stance is his argument that he won the election. I was interested in that to Chris and I wonder if how generous you can be without conceding defeat. Well, you know the fact that the letter was was that there was a letter left for Biden has been publicly known. I revealed in the book that that he spent three days writing it. But none of us knows the the contents of that letter. I think that one thing I could tell you is that this something that shocked Joe Biden more than anything else probably during his presidency was the staying power of Trumpism. I think I know that from from the people who know him well that he thought this would pass. You know, it wasn't he wasn't that he thought this was Gore Bush in 2000. But he thought that he had a mandate he won by 7 million votes and that this would fade and it was shocking to him that it hasn't.  But I think it's just an inescapable political fact inescapable reality that everybody talks about this being a by the book decision that will be based on the law and the facts alone by. A very neutral person like Merrick Garland. That's just not the truth. And at the end of the day, it's a it's a it's a decision with tremendous political significance. And so I think that, again, it's it's a real test of the Biden presidency. I'm not saying that Biden will pick up the phone and tell Merrick Garland that hey, you've got to pull the trigger here. That's not the way it works. But that decision is going to be momentous. The 2022 midterm elections, of course, have been widely understood as at least a partial tentative indication that Trump is a maybe on the decline. Do you think that President Biden drew at least some confidence from the outcome of the elections that would affect his calculations with respect to how he should handle Donald Trump going forward or or frankly any number of other issues. Yeah, I can't. I can't say how I think it might affect whether or not Merrick Garland decides to prosecute Trump. But I think that the there's no question about the fact that the midterm elections were a very big deal at the White House. They really feel they have the wind at their backs. And I think that, you know, it's interesting. One of the stories I tell is that in the in the afterward to the book, we did a I did a hasty afterward right after the midterm elections. And but one of the stories I tell is how Biden during the midterms wanted to go everywhere and talk about everything. He wanted to talk about his his complete legislative record from day one to up to the midterms and Ron Klane and the political staff sat him down. And they said, Mr. President, you're going to go to the places where you're going to do the most good. Number one and number two, you're going to be talking about reproductive rights and MAGA and Biden to his credit took that advice and the rest is history. One of the most consequential decisions that Joe Biden has made was naming Kamala Harris as his running mate. And you write that she has chosen to model Biden's vice presidency under Barack Obama. But you quote, Biden is telling a close friend that he sees her as a work in progress. How would you characterize Kamala Harris in her current role? Well, the the relationship between Joe Biden and Kamala Harris is complicated and fascinating to me. You know, by all accounts, according to the people who were in the in these meetings and who who know them both well. Early on, Biden had a real there was a real warmth that he had that he displayed toward her. There was a real bond there. He appreciated that she brought a completely different set of views and world and experience to to the job. He when a meeting started and she wasn't there, he would look around and say, where's Kamala? They were thrown together in the beginning of the presidency by COVID. Neither was traveling much and they spent a lot of time together. But things got more complicated. When the troubles began for for Kamala Harris and particularly with the the assignment to take take on the northern triangle. The root causes of immigration to the southern border or trip to Guatemala, which was widely panned everybody's probably forgotten about it by now but it was. You know, she fumbled that question from NBC's Lester Holt about the border and and was was widely criticized. This took a toll on on the vice president's office and a number of her allies started saying publicly that she'd been given this impossible portfolio. It was it was it was too difficult. She had the northern triangle and she had voting rights and voting rights as we all know was a very, very heavy lift. Indeed. So word got back to Joe Biden that not only were these allies complaining but the second gentleman. Doug Emeloff was complaining to a lot of people. And this just annoyed the president. You know, he hadn't asked her to do anything he hadn't done as vice president. He was in charge of the northern triangle under Obama. But that was when he turned to a friend and said, you know, she's a work in progress. Now, having said that, I think, you know, their relationship may have improved. This was early in the first year. I know that he has has given her a number of important national security assignments. He's centered in the Munich Security Conference on the eve of the invasion. She's by all accounts, she's been hitting her stride in the national security issues. But it's a complicated relationship. Chris, the big question, of course, that looms out there these days with respect to Joe Biden is will he or won't he will he or won't he run for a second term? What's your answer to that question? I think almost without a doubt. Andy Carr had once told me something that that rang true and that is if anybody tells you they're leaving the White House voluntarily, they're probably lying to you. You guys, of all people should appreciate this because when was the last time a president walked away voluntarily. LBJ. There is something about being in that office and that makes presidents reluctant to walk away and and so I don't, I don't think there's any doubt about Joe Biden has spent his entire career. Every four years he has either thought about running for president or run for president since he's been able to and I think he's got unfinished business. Chris, just going back to the 2022 midterms for a moment, what do you think are what is what is Joe Biden's sense of his major assets when he's out on the campaign trail, you know, running for reelection that became clear perhaps to all of us as a result of what happened recently in the midterms. Well, he's always had this this this connection with the American people I think he's you know he's he's certainly we've we've all heard the cliche Scranton Joe I mean this is somebody who who knows how to speak to people about difficult issues in ways they can understand. I think that's that's been his superpower. But the other is that Joe Biden has been constantly underestimated at every turn throughout his his career. And I think that we're seeing an example of that as he as he's hit the two year mark. In an interview with Biden for the book, he told you, I'm quoting Joe Biden here, our democracy isn't perfect. It never has been, but every generation has opened its doors a little wider American history tells us that from some of our darkest moments we've made some of our greatest progress. It's the test of our time to do that again now. Do you think Biden has delivered on that promise. You know, let me just say about my interview with Joe Biden that that I thought he was really remarkably revealing. And this is this is someone who talks constantly about Charlottesville. And Joe goes back to Charlottesville in his mind. That was a president had said terrible things before, but they've never gone that far. This was as as Mike Donilon his wordsmith put it to me this was a door he felt he had to close. And so he hasn't. In a way that's an unfinished task, isn't it. He hasn't closed that door entirely. Donald Trump is running for president. He is more powerful. I think also underestimated more powerful than people. People like to think. Yes, he's had a rough couple of months or whatever it's been since he announced his reelection, but no one should underestimate Donald Trump either. And then the and the iron grip he has on on that Republican base and his willingness to do whatever he has to do to take down anyone who tries to take away the mantle. So I think he's still dangerous. I think Biden believes he's dangerous. But I'm not sure that's the that's not the only reason that Joe Biden is running. But it's it's one reason and he's beaten him before. Chris, I think it's obviously. Unfair to ask you about Joe Biden's legacy as president. Given that he's only halfway through his first term. But still, how do you think in 20 or 50 years will be talking and thinking about the presidency of Joseph Biden.  He didn't want to he didn't want to hear anybody talking about legacy too soon. He would he would be saying it maybe too soon to say what Joe Biden's legacy is. But I think I think that ultimately. Joe Biden will be remembered for the way he stood up to a dictator who invaded a democracy in the heart of Europe and put us all on the brink of of nuclear war. I there's no greater test that I that I can think of than that. I said at the beginning that when he came into office he faced the most daunting set of challenges since FDR will arguably this is as as dangerous a situation. Since since FDR. So, I think he'll ultimately be judged by that obviously the the pandemic. And and Trump. But I think ultimately Ukraine will be will be his legacy. Chris, what do you expect from the Biden presidency for the next two years until the election of of 2024. Well, I think that now comes the hard part. As if it wasn't pretty hard up to now, he he has to do a number of things he has to try to avoid a recession. He's got to try to bring inflation under control. He's got to implement all the legislation that was passed during the first two years because none of it matters really until the rubber meets the road. He has to confront. MAGA the continuing the fact that, you know, it may or may not be in its death throws. He's got to keep NATO. United against against Putin and in defense of Ukraine and that's that's no small task. And I think he feels that he's not done when it comes to his some of the progressive elements of his of his legislative agenda, some of the things that were thrown under the bus with build back better. I think he'd still like to achieve some of those things and and I don't. And I think he's a guy who who believes it when he says that he thinks he can get bipartisan stuff done. And he he succeeded in doing quite a bit in the second year. So he's got a full plate and it's but but the challenges are enormous. I think so it's going to be the next two years are also going to be a fascinating time. Well, Chris, we look forward to having you back for what may be part two. Well, Chris, thank you so much for helping us to think through the first couple of years of the Biden presidency. Indeed, we'll see where it goes from here. Congratulations on publication of the fight of his life inside Joe Biden's White House. Thank you so much for making time to be with us. Honored to be with you guys. Thanks for having me. My thanks to our sponsors, the Moody Foundation and St. David's Healthcare and as always to you for joining us. If you've enjoyed this episode, subscribe, rate and review us on Apple podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen to your podcasts. I'm Mark up to Grove. See you next time.