Debate, Trump, Pitino, and Top News Stories/Analysis

Speaking with TJ Walker, the show where we dissect how and what world class leaders communicate. Welcome to this special weekend edition of Speaking with TJ Walker. No guest today, but a look at the top stories of the week, how people communicated, newsmakers, what they're doing right, what they're doing wrong, what messages are resonating. This is right in the thick of the presidential campaign, 2016, here in the United States. And accordingly, it's another bizarre, bizarre week. I have watched every single televised presidential debate. Well, general election, presidential debate, some like the Kennedy Nixon debate, not live because I wasn't born yet, but I have watched all of them on video. And the one this week, the third debate, it was one of the most bizarre. Now, those of you who are regular listeners, you heard my analysis just moments after that debate. And folks, I can get it wrong. I did get wrong. My analysis of the first debate in 1984. I didn't see how out of it Ronald Reagan looked. So one of the challenges when you're analyzing presidential debates is you really have to suspend all judgment, all prior attitudes about each candidate and look at it from scratch, which I now try to do because I've learned the hard way you can, you bring too much baggage in, preconceived notions, you'll miss things. But I did get it right. I said just moments after the debate that the main headline is going to be how Donald Trump refuses to acknowledge if he loses the election, how he will not, in fact concede. He'll only recognize the validity of the election if he wins. Now, folks, this is where there is just a problem with traditional journalism, not just in the United States, but anywhere there is a presumption of serious seriousness among presidential candidates of major countries. And even when reporters don't necessarily believe everything that candidate says, there's still a presumption that these are serious people who have the betterment of the country at their heart. And I think that's true in most democracies. And unfortunately, it just doesn't work very well if you're dealing with a candidate who is emotionally stunted and acts like a two year old baby. Now, some of you are going to say, well, T.J. you're just biased, you're anti Trump. Look, folks, I have voted for people of varying political parties. I in fact voted for Rudy Giuliani when he was Republican running for reelection in New York City. I have in fact said that Mitt Romney beat Barack obama in the first presidential debate of 2012. So you can't just write me off as some kind of political hack who's trying to spin communication, analysis to fit the politics, that just isn't the case. So when I say that Donald Trump is acting like a spoiled rotten two year old and is acting in a deranged fashion, I'm not trying to spin you on the politics of being pro or against affirmative action or climate policy or abortion policy or nafta. It really isn't about that. It goes much deeper, deeper than that. And so that's the problem the traditional media has had in this election. Finally, the shackles have come off. During this last debate, you essentially saw all the media, not just the so called mainstream media, the New York Times, cbs, but even Fox News. And a lot of conservative news outlets went with the headline of Donald Trump refusing to accept election results, refusing to acknowledge that, or being willing to concede if in fact he loses. And he's just taken the idea of we'll see, the election results are valid if I win. If not, I'm going to scream that it's rigged. Now, it's one thing to do that after the election if it's really close, it's another to do it after the election if you lost by a respectable margin, 1, 2, 3%, still close. But to just say before the first ballot has ever been cast on election Day, yes, I understand that absentee ballots have been cast. In fact, I've already cast mine. But to just say weeks before 95% of the ballots have ever been cast, that the election is rigged against you and it's unfair and it's this massive conspiracy really left the media with no choice other than to essentially suggest that Donald Trump was a wildly deranged madman who doesn't believe in democracy and is unfit for office. Having said all that, still, Donald Trump didn't seem to lose any points in the polls this week. Sometimes it takes a week or so for this to trickle down, but he's already down on average seven points. And if you take the position that a ham Sandwich would get 40% of the vote for either party as a nominee, Donald Trump has been hovering in this 36 to 42 range. And quite often it's 38% or below. So you get the point at some point where he can't really go below that. There's just a certain percentage of people who say, you know what, I'm so much against the other party and I'm not going to vote for a third party, that my party has the vote no matter what. But a truly bizarre way, and now we've had so many women coming forward saying that Donald Trump has either groped them, grabbed them, made them feel wildly uncomfortable, made salacious comments their way, that now it's almost an odd, it's almost a good day if only one or two women have come forward. We've truly never seen anything like this in terms of crisis communication situation for a political candidate. Now many Donald Trump supporters will say, well, D.J. you forget about Bill Clinton. Here's the thing about Bill Clinton. You had allegations of him having a romance of an improper nature with Jennifer Flowers in 1992. The whole Monica Lewinsky thing, let's not forget that was well after the last election Bill Clinton ever stood for. That did not come out in the 92 or 96 election. The whole Paula Jones thing was, was not on anybody's radar when Bill Clinton ran for president in 1992. Juanita Broderick had not surfaced at that point. So those claiming that anti Trump forces have selective memories themselves have selective memories because there was certainly not, there was certainly no videotape of Bill Clinton talk bragging about grabbing women's private parts. And I'm going to keep it clean here on this podcast. So, again, just a bizarre, bizarre week. Communication. And folks, I was wrong. I predicted that the third presidential debate would see a dip in ratings. It didn't. It went up. It had more people watch it than the second presidential debate of 2016. Preliminary estimates were that 71 million people tuned in to the third and final presidential debate of 2016. That's up from about 66 million for the second. Why that is, I have no idea. I, of course, watched all three, as I assume a lot of you do. Because if you're listening to a show like this, chances are you're gonna watch a presidential debate. Let's not kid ourselves. So what's gonna happen in the future? What are the, what are the real lessons from this bizarre, bizarre communication series of events that have happened in 2016? I'm going to make several predictions. One, we're going to see a whole lot of Republicans running for president, running for other offices, who will simply act as though Donald Trump didn't run for president in 2016. He was not the nominee. Anybody who suggests otherwise was crazy. I think they're going to simply act as if Mitt Romney had the presidential nomination for the GOP in 2012 and in 2016. And when other candidates, when opponents, when the media ask them to defend the nominee or to account for Donald Trump's more bizarre statements, they're simply going to act like the questioner is crazy. And we've essentially already seen this. We did see this with Mike Pence in the one and only vice presidential debate against Tim Kaine. He simply acted like none of the bizarre statements, policy positions made by Trump had ever been made, ignored it. So I think that's clearly one tactic that we're going to see from the standpoint of Republican candidates in 2018 and in 2020. And a lot of people have commented on, many commentators have suggested that, believe me, I get no brownie points for original thought there, but I do think it's a valid point. Now, here's the thing that I am going to put out there that you have not heard other people suggest. And I'm not saying it's a purely original idea, although I haven't heard other people say it. There are very few original ideas in the world. But here's what I think is the most fascinating repercussion from 2016. The mere fact that Donald Trump can get a major party nomination completely upends most people's concepts of how major parties would give out nominations. The conventional wisdom has been for more than 100, 150 years that if you want to have the nomination of a major party, then you either need to be a senator, a governor, or win a major, major world war or civil war. That's traditionally been the criteria for about 150 years, both parties. And even if you were a member of Congress, a speaker of the House, that wasn't considered good enough. Newt Gingrich never, in many people's eyes, seemed even credible because he could never get elected to statewide office. Well, Donald Trump has obviously upended this whole political theory. It's now been rendered meaningless. So connect the dots here. What does that really mean? I think in 2016, you have, you think there was chaos with 16, 17 candidates running for president and GOP this time. Just wait till next time. And yes, folks, I am assuming that Donald Trump is not going to be the next president and that Hillary Clinton will and it's going to be an open nomination in 2020. Here are my predictions. You are going to have Alex Jones, Glenn Beck, Michael Savage, Sean Hannity and Bill O'Reilly all run for president of the United States running for the GOP. No. And some of you are saying, well, T.J. that's ridiculous. They're just talk show hosts. Well, how is being a talk show host someone who deals with serious public policy issues, has taken positions on issues, how is that less serious than being a reality show star? Donald Trump's main claim to fame. If anything of any of those people I just mentioned could make the claim, they're a lot more serious about public policy than Donald Trump. I should add one more name. Rush Limbaugh. Why not? Now you could say to all of those people, well, why would they want to give up their easy, cushy life being a talk show host? It's easy. They're giving up all that money. Here's the thing, though, even for people who are really greedy and hey, I'm as greedy as anyone at some point, if you've got more money than you know what to do with and you think of yourself as a genius and you like power, well, you want absolute power. And there's only so much media or so much power you have as a media commentator, and they have a lot of power. But to actually be present of the United States, I think all of those talk show hosts and commentators I mentioned have certainly looked in the mirror before and said I could and should be president. But at some level, they always thought, no, it's too much of a stretch. Pat Buchanan tried and yeah, he got 35% or whatever in New Hampshire. But come on, let's not kid ourselves. Talk show host, media figures, they end up jokes like Herman Cain and Alan Keys, and it's just a sideshow to try to get a talk show, a bigger talk show. It's not something you do if you've already made it. That's been the conventional wisdom. But here's the thing with all these people I just mentioned. Most of them are so fabulously wealthy now that, you know, their grandkids are going to have the luxury of being heroin addicts if they want to be. They have so much money. And at some point, I think they say, to heck with it. I've got a better argument than Donald Trump did. I might not win, but I can at least go down in history as winning a major presidential nomination. And who knows, Hillary's unpopular, maybe anybody who gets the nomination will win. I have to think that someone like Sean Hannity has that going on in his head because folks, and I don't have privy to, I'm not privy to his personal tax returns. But at some point you do the math and you look at Sean Hannity's perch at Fox News and his audience of 15 million, and you got to figure a guy like that, it's got to be worth north of a hundred million dollars. And at some point, how many mansions and cars and boats can you buy if he really craves power and has a vision for society. And he does. It's not my vision, but he does have a vision of society. Why not go for the top job President? And let me tell you, folks, if this happens, it's going to make what happened this year look like calm serenity. It's going to make it look like 1984 for the Republicans, which was about as calm and serene as you can imagine Ronald Reagan running for reelection, destroying Walter Mondale in not only an electoral but a popular vote route. Because imagine if you've got 20 governors, 20 senators, and 20 major talk show hosts and commentators running for the GOP nomination in 2012. It is going to be absolute chaos. Where it ends, nobody knows. But I can tell you, I, for one, am sure looking forward to to it. And the Republican Party, they can't be happy with that. There's no way they can say to themselves, wow, Sean Hannity is the answer to our prayers. That can't be what any what the Koch brothers, what Reince Priebus, what anyone who has an interest in the Republican Party actually get governing wants. But that's the new reality. Donald Trump has changed things. He has opened up people's ideas to new possibilities. And it's not necessarily going to be about governing or winning the White House, but he's definitely opened people's eyes to new possibilities when it comes to who's going to be deemed as credible when it comes to running for office. Now, let's look on the other side. Are there people who are Democratic sympathizers and on the liberal, progressive, Democratic side of things who would take the same viewpoint? Well, Bill Maher now conclude, hey, if a TV guy like Trump can get the Republican nomination, maybe I could get the Democratic nomination. Will Michael Moore say, hey, I can win the Democratic nomination? I don't see that. I'm just not, folks, I'm not saying the Democratic Party doesn't have flaws, but there's just no indication that they're willing to turn over their nominating process to people who haven't proven themselves at the ballot box. Bernie Sanders, you can say he's a bit of a gadfly. You can say he's out of the traditional mainstream of the Democratic Party. But he is in the United States Senate. He's been elected again and again and again statewide and in other offices, as a mayor, as a member of Congress, which has been statewide in his state, and as a senator. And that, of course, precludes liberal talk show hosts, and it precludes Bill Maher. It precludes you know, Daily show cast members. So I don't see changes there on the Democratic side. We'll see. What do you think? What do you think of my prediction? Do you think we'll see more and more fringe characters, someone like Alex Jones? You've got to figure if it's a crowded race, 20 people running for president, 30 people running for president, maybe 40 on the GOP side of things, maybe an Alex Jones who is an absolute fanatical, drooling, extremist head case in most sane people's mind. He clearly could get 15% of the vote, I think, which may put him, may put him number one. If it's a cast of characters that large running for a Democrat for a Republican nomination, it's going to be fascinating. There's absolutely no doubt. Who do you think is going to run for president next time? And folks, again, I'm not trying to sound like Hillary's the greatest and impossible, but if she does become the next president and she's not impeached, there aren't going to be any serious Democrats running against her. In four years, Democrats are going to support an incumbent the same way Republicans generally do. So who do you think is going to run for president in four years? And who do you think is the best communicator? The thing I mentioned about those cast of characters, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly, Rush Limbaugh, they are all fantastic. Michael Savage, they are all fantastic communicators. Alex Jones to his followers, to millions of his followers, they are world class communicators, certainly better than the Marco Rubios of the world. And to me, that's the fascinating thing about the 2016 nominating process is the Republican Party went with somebody who was a better communicator at communicating a particular message. They didn't let pesky little details like traditional credentials get in their way. And if that's the precedent you would have to put, I think, at the top of the list of potential presidential candidates. Those ones I just mentioned, all of them, talk show host, all of them, professional communication communicators, not professional politicians. All right, switching gears, what else is in the news? This isn't nearly as exciting, although it's still pretty exciting to a lot of people. And that is the story coming out of Louisville where their head coach Rick Pitino is ensnared with scandal. There, the NCAA has come out with revelations that that players and recruits for Louisville were essentially bribed with prostitutes. Now, folks, I don't follow NCAA basketball or certainly NBA basketball as closely as some of you. Although I do follow NCAA basketball because I was big fan of Duke basketball and still am and used to sit about three feet behind Coach K my freshman year, which was Coach K's only second year at Duke. So I still have a soft spot in my heart for college basketball. But I have to tell you, when I see stories like this, it just reminds me that for whatever reason, anytime big time sports is in play at the professional level, and let's not kid ourselves, college basketball is professional level sporting, good sporting. People just go insane. People go crazy. And buying prostitutes for teenage young men suddenly becomes a smart, obvious thing to do. And is Rick Pitino guilty of. Did he know? I have no idea. All I can tell you is if you call something a sport and you put it on TV and you start paying some people $5 million a year to win because that's what Rick Pitino is paid, then all sorts of other craziness, illegality, bribery, licentiousness. I sound like prude when I say that. That's not what I mean. Just all sorts of disgusting behavior is going to occur and if you don't like it, and then stop throwing money at big time sports. To me it's a lot more despicable than buying prostitutes for teenage young men. Is how city after city around this country will spend tens, hundreds of millions of dollars, sometimes a billion dollars, building stadiums for professional sports teams. Meanwhile, their roads are rotten, rotting their streets, their schools are falling apart. But they use tax dollars for billionaires who own sports teams. And college sports isn't that much difference. Maybe it's not subsidizing billionaires, but when you see all the goodies and money that flows from state organizations, state tax, taxpayer funded schools, and ending up for someone like Rick pitino to make $5 million a year. And my own beloved Coach K, who I don't think is particularly corrupt, but at this point, the tens and tens, if not hundreds of millions of dollars he's made. Granted, Duke's a private school, but still all the public money that flows to any private school through government grants, through federally guaranteed loans to students, it's all tied in and it's all ugly and unseemly. The NCAA has a fantastic way of sweeping all these things under the rug. And the public has an amazing capacity to forgive and ignore any scandal that involves sport. So I'm not particularly optimistic about where this is going. The worst, of course, is Penn State and how they just swept child molesters, crimes under the rug for years. At least they, they did get some taint. Is this going to be a crisis that that really soils the reputation of Rick Pitino and Louisville? I'm not particularly optimistic, although I think it should. I'm C.J. walker. These are my views. What are your views? I'd love to hear from you and by the way, I'd love to hear about your opinions of future guests you'd like me to hear. We are shifting our focus slightly broader for the guest coming up in the next few months. The whole position of this show now is that it's really about what and how the most interesting and influential people in the world communicate. So if you have suggestions for a guest I'd love to hear from you, let me know. You can send the suggestions on Twitter J. Walker or post comments on the blog, Facebook, YouTube, wherever you're hearing or seeing this show. Thanks. Have a great weekend. Thanks for listening to speaking with T.J. walker.