The Chuck ToddCast

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
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.

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 calls it the Trump Tsunami — a total repudiation whose consequences will last a decade. His core argument is that this was an “and” election, not an “or” one: no single explanation accounts for a wave this size, but Trump broke both of his central promises (no new wars, lower costs) and then spent two years dismissively gaslighting voters about their own lived experience. The polling era underestimated Democrats again, the direction was set months ago, and Republicans lost up and down the ballot — including Texas, which Todd argues Trump personally cost them, with school vouchers a major factor in Abbott’s defeat. Turnout hit its highest level in a century. Democrats actually left Senate and governor seats on the table, with a path to 60 that didn’t materialize. Todd’s verdict: the Trump era is officially over, there’s now a vacuum in the GOP, and voters endorsed change rather than any ideology — which is why he argues Chuck Schumer, as the embodiment of the status quo, can’t be the answer.

Then, DDHQ elections analyst Geoffrey Skelley joins the Chuck ToddCast to break down a genuinely seismic night. Democrats flipped both chambers, taking at least seven Republican Senate seats — Talarico over Paxton in Texas, Sherrod Brown in Ohio, Annie Andrews over Darline Graham in South Carolina, Troy Jackson unseating Susan Collins, El-Sayed over Rogers in Michigan — with Skelley arguing 56 seats is more likely than not once counting finishes. Texas Democrats swept every statewide race, Hinojosa beat Abbott, and Skelley calls the state officially purple and a plausible 2028 presidential battleground. The gerrymandering story is its own indictment: Republicans redrew five Texas seats and are projected to win one, while California’s Democratic map went five for five. Trump’s voters simply didn’t show up, young voters did, and Black turnout approached presidential levels.

Finally, he answers listeners’ questions in the Ask Chuck segment and previews the upcoming weekend in college football and reacts to the first College Football Playoff rankings.


Timeline:
00:00 Chuck Todd’s introduction
00:30 Thank you for watching The Projection
05:00 The Trump Tsunami and a decade of consequences
06:30 Why this was an “and” election with no single explanation
09:30 Comparing it to 2006, and how the polls missed again
13:00 Two broken promises and a president who dismissed voters
16:15 Big tech’s new political problem after betting on Trump
18:30 The Trump era is officially over — and he cost the GOP Texas
23:00 Mandates that weren’t, vouchers, and why Abbott lost
26:15 The battleground map has changed, and the seats Democrats left behind
30:30 Voters endorsed change, not an ideology
34:00 Will Democrats actually govern? And where Trump might deal
36:45 The fight for the GOP’s future and the end of JD Vance?
40:45 Why a change election demands new Democratic leadership
50:30 Geoffrey Skelley joins The Chuck ToddCast
52:00 How generationally seismic was this?
53:30 Peltola, Alaska, and the path to 56 Senate seats
58:00 The gerrymanders that backfired — Texas, North Carolina, Arizona
1:08:00 How everyone missed the size of the wave
1:14:30 2024 voters wanted the pre-COVID economy and rebuked Trump instead
1:18:45 Nine of the ten biggest states now have Democratic governors
1:20:15 Texas is purple, and the battleground moves to the Sun Belt
1:28:30 Trump voters stayed home, young and Black voters surged
1:34:15 Mississippi, South Carolina, Kansas and Ohio as new battlegrounds
1:44:30 Alaska, Murkowski, and a possible Colorado sweep
1:48:30 The brutal 2028 Senate map for Republicans & a bad day for JD Vance
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

DDHQ elections analyst Geoffrey Skelley joins the Chuck ToddCast to break down a genuinely seismic night. Democrats flipped both chambers, taking at least seven Republican Senate seats — Talarico over Paxton in Texas, Sherrod Brown in Ohio, Annie Andrews over Darline Graham in South Carolina, Troy Jackson unseating Susan Collins, El-Sayed over Rogers in Michigan — with Skelley arguing 56 seats is more likely than not once counting finishes. Texas Democrats swept every statewide race, Hinojosa beat Abbott, and Skelley calls the state officially purple and a plausible 2028 presidential battleground. The gerrymandering story is its own indictment: Republicans redrew five Texas seats and are projected to win one, while California’s Democratic map went five for five. Trump’s voters simply didn’t show up, young voters did, and Black turnout approached presidential levels.


Timeline:
00:00 Geoffrey Skelley joins The Chuck ToddCast
01:30 How generationally seismic was this?
03:00 Peltola, Alaska, and the path to 56 Senate seats
07:30 The gerrymanders that backfired — Texas, North Carolina, Arizona
17:30 How everyone missed the size of the wave
24:00 2024 voters wanted the pre-COVID economy and rebuked Trump instead
28:15 Nine of the ten biggest states now have Democratic governors
29:45 Texas is purple, and the battleground moves to the Sun Belt
38:00 Trump voters stayed home, young and Black voters surged
43:45 Mississippi, South Carolina, Kansas and Ohio as new battlegrounds
54:00 Alaska, Murkowski, and a possible Colorado sweep
58:00 The brutal 2028 Senate map for Republicans — and a bad day for JD Vance
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.