Speaker 1: Let's instead try. George from Virginia. George from Virginia. Welcome.
George from Virginia. You're on. George from Virginia, you almost certainly have the wrong
audio device selected. Speaker 5: Oh.
Speaker 1: There you go. Now you're back. Going. Speaker 5: Oh. Sorry about that.
Um, so, yeah, Thanks for taking my call. I really enjoy your show.
I wanted to bring up something that's kind of been bothering me lately.
Um, if you look at, like, the media and even, like, independent creators in the
last space. Sure. I've seen a lot of fawning over people to judge. Mhm. And I wanted to ask you,
do you think there's like a tendency for people and especially the media to kind of focus on like
the, you know, he does so well in interviews like he owns Republicans so well. But if you look at
his job performance, it's I'm just not seeing it. Speaker 1: You're saying that as secretary of
transportation, you don't think his performance has been good?
Speaker 5: Exactly. Yeah. Speaker 1: So here's the thing. There's
two different conversations here, George. Right. One conversation is, do we think that in terms of
image and performance, he's the type of person who could win an election? And then secondly is the
analysis of how do we evaluate his job performance as secretary of transportation. On the second
part, I don't have an answer in the sense that he's been getting blamed for stuff that really
has nothing to do with him, to be totally honest, including like, for example, the global supply
chain issues like that's not buthe judges fault the FAA thing. I don't know. From what I've read
it, it doesn't really seem like it's his fault. But let's let me put that aside for a second.
What I think makes Pete Buddha judge an interesting potential presidential candidate
is that he has a number of characteristics that make him a good modern presidential candidate. And
what I mean by that is, yes, he is very good in adversarial think on your feet positions,
particularly with bad faith right wingers. That actually matters right now when you
think about how you become the nominee and eventually the president. Number two,
he has enough policy ideas in enough areas. You can talk to people to judge about
transportation, electric cars, foreign policy, China, education, Latin America. And he's not
going to get embarrassed on any issue. And he'll probably have at least an idea to put forward on
any one of those issues. That's really important. He won't come off as a buffoon on any issue.
He's well-spoken, you know. So. So do you understand the difference
between the two analyzes that we're doing? Speaker 5: Yes. Yeah, I understand. So I'm just.
Speaker 1: Worried and willing to entertain the job performance things you're bringing
up. I think they are basically, at this point, for better or worse, completely divorced from
whether he would be a good candidate. It's sort of like Gavin Newsom. I'm not like a huge fan
of Gavin Newsom's politics necessarily, but I do think he has an attitude that is useful for
Democrats to have when it comes to Republicans in 2023. So he's the type of guy who might do
well in a campaign, even if he's not like the uber progressive or the guy. I would say this
is who I would love to see as president. Speaker 5: Yeah, I think you make a lot of
valid points. But just to end my opinion here, I just wanted to say like I'm a little bit worried
because there's so many Americans who have been impacted by the airlines situations.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Speaker 5: And if Democrats push this
guy center stage, even if he speaks well and all that, people might be like, no, this guy sucks,
you know? The airlines were horrible under him, and I feel like it could sabotage the
Democrats if they choose a guy like this. Speaker 1: That's always possible. I mean,
now you're making a prediction and I'm terrible at predictions,
so you may well be right. It may end up being a terrible self-sabotage or not. I just don't know.
Speaker 5: Well, I really appreciate your opinion and thank you very much.
Speaker 1: All right, George from Virginia, appreciate the discussion very, very much.