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