The Chuck ToddCast

Former Ohio Governor John Kasich joins Chuck Todd and J.A. Adande to share his firsthand experiences with Ohio State football, from his friendship with legendary coach Woody Hayes to his relationships with Bo Schembechler, Jim Tressel, and Urban Meyer.
Kasich shares behind-the-scenes stories about Ohio State's greatest coaches, including the time he encouraged Urban Meyer to let Joe Burrow leave Columbus. He also discusses the Buckeyes' heated rivalry with Michigan, Ryan Day's relationship with Ohio State fans, Archie Griffin, and the changing landscape of college football with NIL and the transfer portal.
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Chuck Todd’s MVP of the midterms is John Roberts. In the first Super Tuesday after Democrats swept the House, the Senate and a majority of governorships, Chuck and Chris Cillizza go straight to superlatives — five best-run campaigns, five worst, five most overrated ideas, five biggest ironies — and the thread through all of them is that Republicans beat themselves. Mid-decade redistricting is Chuck’s worst campaign of the cycle: maps drawn off Trump’s 2024 numbers blew up in South Texas and South Florida, while the Court’s gutting of the Voting Rights Act helped produce what may be the largest Black midterm turnout on record. Plus the best-run campaign nobody mentioned on election night, the case that polling isn’t broken (paying for polling is), why Trump’s voters showed up and declined to vote Republican, what Stephen Miller replacing Susie Wiles means for the next two years, and a personal account of Miami’s loss at Notre Dame.
Timeline:
00:00 The first post-election show, and the five best-run campaigns of the cycle
08:00 Ayotte, Colom, Andrews, Ossoff — and why Talarico didn’t make the list
14:00 Five worst campaigns: redistricting, Paxton, and Vivek Ramaswamy
20:00 Marshall, Platner, and whether any Democrat actually blew it
25:00 Overrated ideas: vouchers, third parties, and super PAC money
30:00 Polling isn’t broken, and the Roberts court as a turnout machine
36:00 Voter ID everywhere, a red undertow, and the Schumer question
44:00 Media winners and losers, and Silicon Valley’s failed bet
50:00 Why the Miller pick is catastrophic, and the Sun Belt’s takeover
56:00 South Bend: the call, Catholics versus Convicts, and the ghosts of 1988
1:04:00 Notre Dame deserved it, a tribute to a friend’s mother, and 100,000 subs
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British historian Joel Nelson — a former Kennedy Scholar and Foreign Affairs editor — joins the Chuck ToddCast to discuss Kennedy’s Only Hero, out this month, which argues JFK’s obsession with Winston Churchill shaped everything from his worldview to his speeches to his daily habits. Kennedy discovered Churchill’s books as a teenager, studied old newsreels to learn how he commanded a room, and used Churchill’s influence to break from his father Joe’s appeasement politics — a rupture that turned tragic when Joe’s deepest fear, losing a son to war, came true in 1944. Nelson traces how Kennedy took a “what would Churchill do” approach to the Cuban Missile Crisis, and reveals the painful asymmetry at the heart of it: Churchill never grasped how deeply he was admired, and privately worried Kennedy wasn’t ready for the job.


Timeline:
01:15 Why write this book, and the depth of Kennedy’s obsession
03:30 Joe Kennedy, appeasement, and the break with his father
09:30 The loss of Joe Jr. and what it cost the family
12:00 Reaching out to Churchill from the White House
13:15 “What would Churchill do” and the Cuban Missile Crisis
16:15 Democracies, sacrifice, and preparing a country for the Cold War
19:30 What Kennedy and Churchill would make of this moment
27:00 Losing the generation that lived through the World Wars
33:15 How Kennedy actually prepared to be president
38:30 The admiration ran one way — Churchill’s private doubts
42:15 Fake Churchill quotes and tumultuous British politics
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Chuck Todd argues Trump still isn’t hearing what voters said — he’s essentially telling the customer they’re wrong. The clearest evidence is Stephen Miller replacing Susie Wiles as chief of staff: Miller was the architect of the immigration backlash that helped produce the tsunami, and if you cared at all about voters’ concerns he’d be the last person you’d hire. Todd warns Wiles was among the final guardrails, that the coming months could be genuinely dangerous, and that Vance and Rubio may be all that’s left. His argument is that only Republicans can rein in a delusional Trump — and if they don’t excise him, the party dies. He sees early signs in Ted Cruz acknowledging the disconnect, and flags DeSantis’s Amendment 3 as a disaster waiting to hit rural Florida counties where local government is the biggest employer. On Democrats: tariffs first, then healthcare, investigations are mandatory, and Schumer should leave leadership on a high note.
Finally, Chuck hops into the ToddCast Time Machine to retell a story of local government, a beached whale carcass and dynamite. He also answers listeners’ questions in the Ask Chuck segment and recaps the weekend in college football.

Timeline:
00:00 Chuck Todd’s introduction
04:30 Trump tells voters the customer is wrong
06:45 Every broken promise and the decisions that made it worse
10:30 The 60 Minutes answer on his own wealth
16:00 Why Stephen Miller is the tell
20:30 The architect of the backlash gets promoted
25:30 Wiles was a guardrail — what happens now
31:00 Only Republicans can rein in Trump
36:00 The GOP’s shot at a post-Trump future
42:30 Cruz, Pence, DeSantis and a civil war turning personal
58:30 Hegseth’s impeachment video and the Dana White rumor
1:01:00 Why Amendment 3 will backfire on DeSantis
1:10:00 What Democrats should do first: tariffs, healthcare, investigations
1:15:00 A change election means Schumer can’t stay
1:22:30 A couple of Substack recommendations
1:26:00 ToddCast Time Machine
1:26:30 A beached whale in Oregon was blown up with dynamite
1:28:00 Local government thought blowing whale up was best solution
1:31:15 Explosion sent huge chunks of blubber everywhere
1:34:00 This story was internet gold before internet gold existed
1:34:45 Event was memorialized by naming a park
1:35:30 Ask Chuck
1:36:00 Will Trump be there to pass off power on inauguration day?
1:38:00 What’s happening with disputed Missouri election map?
1:40:00 Issues with majority support that wont stand test of time?
1:43:15 Will diversity of Dems elected cause infighting?
1:47:15 Will the national popular vote compact get enacted?
1:50:30 College football recap
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Chuck Todd argues Trump still isn’t hearing what voters said — he’s essentially telling the customer they’re wrong. The clearest evidence is Stephen Miller replacing Susie Wiles as chief of staff: Miller was the architect of the immigration backlash that helped produce the tsunami, and if you cared at all about voters’ concerns he’d be the last person you’d hire. Todd warns Wiles was among the final guardrails, that the coming months could be genuinely dangerous, and that Vance and Rubio may be all that’s left. His argument is that only Republicans can rein in a delusional Trump — and if they don’t excise him, the party dies. He sees early signs in Ted Cruz acknowledging the disconnect, and flags DeSantis’s Amendment 3 as a disaster waiting to hit rural Florida counties where local government is the biggest employer. On Democrats: tariffs first, then healthcare, investigations are mandatory, and Schumer should leave leadership on a high note.
Then, British historian Joel Nelson — a former Kennedy Scholar and Foreign Affairs editor — joins the Chuck ToddCast to discuss Kennedy’s Only Hero, out this month, which argues JFK’s obsession with Winston Churchill shaped everything from his worldview to his speeches to his daily habits. Kennedy discovered Churchill’s books as a teenager, studied old newsreels to learn how he commanded a room, and used Churchill’s influence to break from his father Joe’s appeasement politics — a rupture that turned tragic when Joe’s deepest fear, losing a son to war, came true in 1944. Nelson traces how Kennedy took a “what would Churchill do” approach to the Cuban Missile Crisis, and reveals the painful asymmetry at the heart of it: Churchill never grasped how deeply he was admired, and privately worried Kennedy wasn’t ready for the job.
Finally, Chuck hops into the ToddCast Time Machine to retell a story of local government, a beached whale carcass and dynamite. He also answers listeners’ questions in the Ask Chuck segment and recaps the weekend in college football.

Timeline:
00:00 Chuck Todd’s introduction
04:30 Trump tells voters the customer is wrong
06:45 Every broken promise and the decisions that made it worse
10:30 The 60 Minutes answer on his own wealth
16:00 Why Stephen Miller is the tell
20:30 The architect of the backlash gets promoted
25:30 Wiles was a guardrail — what happens now
31:00 Only Republicans can rein in Trump
36:00 The GOP’s shot at a post-Trump future
42:30 Cruz, Pence, DeSantis and a civil war turning personal
58:30 Hegseth’s impeachment video and the Dana White rumor
1:01:00 Why Amendment 3 will backfire on DeSantis
1:10:00 What Democrats should do first: tariffs, healthcare, investigations
1:15:00 A change election means Schumer can’t stay
1:23:30 Joel Nelson joins The Chuck ToddCast
1:24:45 Why write this book, and the depth of Kennedy’s obsession
1:27:00 Joe Kennedy, appeasement, and the break with his father
1:33:00 The loss of Joe Jr. and what it cost the family
1:35:30 Reaching out to Churchill from the White House
1:36:45 “What would Churchill do” and the Cuban Missile Crisis
1:39:45 Democracies, sacrifice, and preparing a country for the Cold War
1:43:00 What Kennedy and Churchill would make of this moment
1:50:30 Losing the generation that lived through the World Wars
1:56:45 How Kennedy actually prepared to be president
2:02:00 The admiration ran one way — Churchill’s private doubts
2:05:45 Fake Churchill quotes and tumultuous British politics
2:14:00 A couple of Substack recommendations
2:17:30 ToddCast Time Machine
2:18:00 A beached whale in Oregon was blown up with dynamite
2:19:30 Local government thought blowing whale up was best solution
2:22:45 Explosion sent huge chunks of blubber everywhere
2:25:30 This story was internet gold before internet gold existed
2:26:15 Event was memorialized by naming a park
2:27:00 Ask Chuck
2:27:30 Will Trump be there to pass off power on inauguration day?
2:29:30 What’s happening with disputed Missouri election map?
2:31:30 Issues with majority support that wont stand test of time?
2:34:45 Will diversity of Dems elected cause infighting?
2:38:45 Will the national popular vote compact get enacted?
2:42:00 College football recap
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.