Episode Details

Chuck Todd unpacks David Crowley's astonishing photo-finish win over Francesca Hong in Wisconsin — a race Crowley dropped out of, re-entered with Tony Evers' backing, and then won by roughly 3,200 votes — and argues national Democrats are far more relieved than they'll ever admit. Had Hong won, she'd have become a face of the party while being forced to spend the fall answering for past statements about defunding police, abolishing prisons, and canceling Thanksgiving rather than talking about the economy, handing Republicans an absurdly easy story to tell. Chuck credits Tony Evers for refusing to fence-sit and mounting what amounted to an emergency rescue operation, while noting Crowley isn't remotely "establishment" — he came from genuinely modest roots and ran a campaign largely defined by what he wasn't. Chuck identifies Hong's central unforced error as nationalizing her race in the closing weeks, a fundraising-driven instinct in an era where media appearances increasingly function as fundraising appeals, forgetting that the national online audience and the local electorate are not the same people. Mamdani stayed disciplined and won; Hong drifted into boutique cultural debates and lost. But Chuck cautions against reading this as a repudiation of the left: Peggy Flanagan won in Minnesota, progressives are doing better this cycle than they have in years, and the 2027 House will be younger and slightly further left. The real structural lesson is that progressives struggle in higher-turnout and open primaries, still face a persistent obstacle with African American primary voters, and — most tellingly — keep getting rejected by the working-class voters they orient their entire message toward, which is more than a messaging glitch. Abdul El-Sayed emerges a quiet winner here, now much harder to lump in with the DSA, and Chuck notes that neither AOC nor Bernie ever endorsed Hong.

The rest of the monologue is a run of results that keep pointing the same direction. Trump-endorsed candidates keep losing primaries: Mike Lindell was trounced in Minnesota, Darline Graham didn't clear a third of the vote and is no lock in her runoff, and Chuck's read is that Trump's grip is measurably slipping. Fourteen-term Congressman John Larson lost his primary, part of the highest incumbent-loss rate since 1970 — in a genuine wave, Chuck says, the House could see north of 25% turnover. On Iran, he echoes Chris Christie's warning that this war turns Trump into Jimmy Carter: Iran has issued a list of demands that amounts to an "F you" ransom note, is openly watching the American election calendar and timing its moves accordingly, and — just as in 1980 — the humiliation itself is the point. All of it, Chuck notes, was Trump's own choice. He closes somewhere unexpected: giving Mark Zuckerberg genuine credit. In his 6,500-word manifesto, Zuckerberg argued that the real danger of AI is the concentration of power, writing that hoping an absolute power will benevolently provide for humanity has historically never ended well — and committing Meta to a review process before models go public. Chuck notes the argument is being made by a deeply self-interested party and that the important parts got buried in what was really a debate with Sam Altman, but he singles out one thing worth emulating: Meta funneling data center tax revenue back into teacher bonuses and job training. Communities hosting this infrastructure have to win too, and he hopes more tech CEOs adopt that philosophy.

Finally, Chuck reveals his ToddCast Top 5 list of biggest non-presidential primary upsets, which David Crowley’s win taking the top spot. He also answers listeners’ questions in the “Ask Chuck” segment and weighs in on the highly suspicious sale of the Los Angeles Lakers to Jared Kushner’s brother.

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