Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics,
Speaker 1: where we discussed the top political headlines with some of
Speaker 1: today's best minds, and of political polls. As seventy two
Speaker 1: percent of Americans think there's too much money in politics,
Speaker 1: we have such a great show for you today. The
Speaker 1: Lincoln Project's own Rick Wilson joins us to discuss Trump's
Speaker 1: Golden Cap. Then we'll talk to Iowa State Auditor Rob
Speaker 1: sand about his run for governor.
Speaker 2: But first, Somali, the people are pissed because they love
Speaker 2: their SSRIs and RFK Junior is threatening to come take them.
Speaker 2: We long heard this rumor. People brushed it away, said, oh,
Speaker 2: you're so paranoid. This is in nineteen eighty four.
Speaker 3: Ed.
Speaker 2: No, Now we have very credible reports that he really
Speaker 2: wants to do this.
Speaker 1: Let me explain to you how fuck this is OURFK
Speaker 1: Junior is doing a lot of very unpopular stuff, and
Speaker 1: this is probably the most unpopular. I don't know, but
Speaker 1: he basically is obsessed with SSRIs and wants to make
Speaker 1: it so that people have to come off of them,
Speaker 1: which is like an insane thing that literally nobody wants.
Speaker 1: And it's just like one of the most fucked up things.
Speaker 1: Kennedy is blaming the country's mental health crisis, not on
Speaker 1: our guns, not on our lack of therapy, not on
Speaker 1: many many things that are a problem in this country,
Speaker 1: but on the one thing that maybe helping people, and
Speaker 1: that is SSRIs. I mean, I have to tell you,
Speaker 1: this guy is such a fruitcake and it makes me
Speaker 1: so angry, and it's just insane. And there's someone who
Speaker 1: has had great success taking effects or and who is
Speaker 1: the child of two people who took SSRIs and had
Speaker 1: it saved their lives. This is just really absolutely insane
Speaker 1: and it's terrible, and I mean, I'm very curious to
Speaker 1: know at the polling on this is because I bet
Speaker 1: the American people fucking hate this.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And you know, the other really crazy thing is is
Speaker 2: the details of what it's like to get off these
Speaker 2: pills are not not pretty details, right.
Speaker 1: No, No, I mean the whole thing is completely But
Speaker 1: it's also like, why should we go off for SSRIs
Speaker 1: because RFK Junior, a guy who we saw to a
Speaker 1: zin and who tans I mean, and this doesn't exist
Speaker 1: in a vacuum, right. We also know that this HHS
Speaker 1: has made it so they're trying to bring flavored vapes
Speaker 1: back on the market, flavored vapes which are used primarily
Speaker 1: by children. And they are also trying to make it
Speaker 1: so that underage people can use tanning beds, tanning beds,
Speaker 1: which is something that causes cancer. You know, they're trying
Speaker 1: to bring Roundup back. I mean, these guys do not
Speaker 1: give a fuck about your house. What they care about
Speaker 1: out is whatever they're weird agenda is, and so you
Speaker 1: know it's anti vacs, anti anti antidepressants, pro smoking, pro tanning,
Speaker 1: pro I mean these guys pro chemicals and roundup, and
Speaker 1: I mean, these guys are fucked and their idea of
Speaker 1: health is insane and no one should listen to them.
Speaker 1: And you know, this guy should be fired tomorrow, agreed.
Speaker 2: Speaking of people who should never have been hired and
Speaker 2: should be fired tomorrow, we have Janeine Piro Janin Piro
Speaker 2: really demonstrating what you're starting to hear. John Ossuf and
Speaker 2: Graham Platner explain really well. I think on the campaign
Speaker 2: trail that the rules for Trump and his friends are
Speaker 2: a world apart. They don't even resemble the rules for you,
Speaker 2: and you're the people, you know, because she thinks that
Speaker 2: the penalty for anybody who's involved with them.
Speaker 3: They should just really be late.
Speaker 1: Okay, So Judge Box of Wine, you may remember her
Speaker 1: from being on teav on Fox News, says that a
Speaker 1: lobbyist who embezzled one million dollars should get no more
Speaker 1: than twenty four months in prison. Why because this guy,
Speaker 1: Jonas Murphy says a romantic relationship prompted his crime. Yes,
Speaker 1: Jeanine Pierro, the US attorney for the District of Columbia,
Speaker 1: recommended that a lobbyist who admitted to abasling more than
Speaker 1: a million from his employer's political committee, received no more
Speaker 1: than twenty four months in prison, according to a sentencing
Speaker 1: memorandum a wild Thursday. So he is the former director
Speaker 1: of the National Venture Capital Association, and FYI he used
Speaker 1: their capital for his venture. Oh, I have longed to
Speaker 1: make such a joke. Yeah, I mean, look, this is
Speaker 1: they don't think of white collar crime as crime because
Speaker 1: there's a reason for that. Do you know what the
Speaker 1: reason for that.
Speaker 2: Is because it's their business model.
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, and right exactly, there you go. That's a
Speaker 1: good line.
Speaker 2: So, speaking of their business model, this is the reality
Speaker 2: TV in Fox News administration. So Sean Duffy, who has
Speaker 2: a job that he's been not doing very well and
Speaker 2: just believes Pete boota judge all day for every problem
Speaker 2: he encounters. He decided he has enough time to have
Speaker 2: a reality TV show, since that's the world he comes from.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, look, these are actors. These people are
Speaker 1: not politicians, they're not legislators, they're not cabinet members. They're actors,
Speaker 1: and they're not very good actors. So Sean Duffy was
Speaker 1: over the last seven months not working in the Department
Speaker 1: of Transportation, which he was ostensibly, at least supposed to
Speaker 1: be the secretary of. No, he was doing The Great
Speaker 1: American Road Trip, which will air for free on YouTube
Speaker 1: ahead of America's two hundred and fiftieth birthday. He says
Speaker 1: it costs zero taxpayer dollars were spent on my family
Speaker 1: and he did not receive a salary, though he did
Speaker 1: receive a salary. Can you guess what he did receive
Speaker 1: a salary for, Oh, I know, being the head of
Speaker 1: the Department of Transportation. Also, let me just add I
Speaker 1: know that since these guys all they do is cryptocracy,
Speaker 1: we don't really think about that much anymore. But like
Speaker 1: the sponsors. Okay, so these are companies which sponsored a
Speaker 1: television show which features the head of the Department of Transportation.
Speaker 1: These are companies now that have like a special relationship
Speaker 1: with the head of transportation in the government. Do you
Speaker 1: understand how fucked this is? So Boeing and Shell and
Speaker 1: Toyota and United Airlines and Wereal Caribbean sponsored this? So
Speaker 1: does that mean that Airbus doesn't have the same relationship
Speaker 1: with our government because they did not sponsor this great
Speaker 1: American road trip? Do you see what I'm saying? Like,
Speaker 1: this is why you can't fucking do this? You need right?
Speaker 1: It is because you can't. We cannot have a government
Speaker 1: that does deals with some people and get uses those
Speaker 1: deals to you know, do their little side hustles. And
Speaker 1: it's funny because it goes back to what Obama said, right,
Speaker 1: Obama said, we need to have a president who doesn't
Speaker 1: do side hustles, like who doesn't do real estate, who
Speaker 1: doesn't have crypto, who doesn't do you know, who isn't
Speaker 1: making money five different ways? And there's a reason for
Speaker 1: that because this is our money, This is taxpayer money
Speaker 1: and should not be used to enrich or to use
Speaker 1: the people who serve in government is just cleptocracy all
Speaker 1: the fucking way down. Also, the hilarious, the truly hilarious
Speaker 1: part of this is that gas is like ten million
Speaker 1: dollars a gall.
Speaker 3: Yeah, great stuff.
Speaker 1: So it really does remind you that gas is ten
Speaker 1: gazillion dollars agall.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I can't wait to see another TSA shortage
Speaker 2: or another air traffic controller shortage, and it's like, no,
Speaker 2: I have to be taping my road trip.
Speaker 1: It's just ridiculous.
Speaker 2: So this is another one of those articles that we
Speaker 2: could have predicted really easily that this was happening, but
Speaker 2: we now have proof. FEMA club blocking grants the states
Speaker 2: that didn't vote for Trump.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and he said he was going to do it, right,
Speaker 1: he said, I'm going to block grants for blue states.
Speaker 1: I mean, this is this is how it works with
Speaker 1: Donald Trump. Right, he is the president for the people
Speaker 1: who voted for him, and that is it. So FEMA
Speaker 1: has been deliberately delaying grants to blue states. The Washington
Speaker 1: Post reported that FEMA significantly decreased the amount of hazard
Speaker 1: mitigation grants to Democratic led states last year. I mean,
Speaker 1: this is the agency appears. I mean, this is just
Speaker 1: exactly right. California received only eight hundred and thirty thousand
Speaker 1: dollars from FEMA. Since July twenty twenty five, Colorado has
Speaker 1: not received anything. Experts say this is deliberate and targeted.
Speaker 1: A deliberate and targeted decision. I mean, there you go,
Speaker 1: ladies and gentlemen. Very unsurprising. This is how it is.
Speaker 1: This is Trump World in a nutshell. Hey, it's Molly
Speaker 1: john Fast here. My memoir How to Lose Your Mother
Speaker 1: is out now on paperback, arriving just ahead of Mother's Day.
Speaker 1: How to Lose Your Mother has garnered a lot of
Speaker 1: praise from Good Morning America, then Your Kind, Book Review, Vogue,
Speaker 1: Vanity Fair, and a lot of other outlets Washington Post.
Speaker 1: The book is about what it's like to be part
Speaker 1: of the Sandwich generation, to take care of your mother
Speaker 1: and your children. And I talk about being a mother
Speaker 1: and a daughter and the relationship I have with my
Speaker 1: mother and all of its complexities. It's funny and it's fraught,
Speaker 1: and it's sad, and it's about life. My story, this story,
Speaker 1: the story of How to Lose Your Mother, follows a
Speaker 1: year in which my mother, Erica Johng, is diagnosed with dementia.
Speaker 1: My husband faces a life threatening illness, and what unfolds
Speaker 1: is a really honest story about what happens when the
Speaker 1: shit hits the fan and everything goes wrong. As The
Speaker 1: Washington Post said, the book is filled with lines so
Speaker 1: good you won't just want to underline them. It's a
Speaker 1: memoir that continues to resonate, so please pick it up
Speaker 1: the news. Rick Wilson is the founder of the Lincoln
Speaker 1: Project and the host of the Lincoln Podcast. Welcome, Welcome,
Speaker 1: Rick Wilson.
Speaker 3: Hey Molly, how are you now?
Speaker 1: I am. I do not have a gold statue of
Speaker 1: May not yet. Uh explain this?
Speaker 3: Why you don't have a gold statue yet?
Speaker 1: Because people don't love me the way they should? Can
Speaker 1: you explain the gold statue story.
Speaker 3: Down at Durral? Yes, there has now been created a
Speaker 3: It is a twenty two foot tall which, if you're
Speaker 3: using biblical terms, that's fourteen point four to seven cubits.
Speaker 3: I had to golden statue of Donald Trump. It was
Speaker 3: inaugurated by having a group of maga religious figures come
Speaker 3: and praise and bless it now as it has been
Speaker 3: a long time since Divinity class. But I do recall
Speaker 3: thou shalt have no other God but me was very
Speaker 3: early one of the prohibitions that the Lord in Exodus
Speaker 3: laid out pretty clearly. But this is a example of
Speaker 3: outright idolatry. This is an example of how MAGA has
Speaker 3: become a religion. And you know that it hit home
Speaker 3: because immediately after it, a lot of the MAGA pastors
Speaker 3: were suddenly racing to the Internet writing five thousand word
Speaker 3: screeds like oh no, no, no no. Even though we're
Speaker 3: all talking about how Trump is better at the Bible
Speaker 3: than the pope and and understands everything better than everyone
Speaker 3: else and has magical powers, we're not really worshiping like
Speaker 3: a god, except that we built a golden statue to it.
Speaker 3: The minute someone says that I'm not engaged in idolatry
Speaker 3: and idol worship, they are engaged in idol worship.
Speaker 1: It is also like, you know, Trump, this week, we
Speaker 1: had Marco go over and try to smooth things out
Speaker 1: with the pope, and it is like Trump constantly runs
Speaker 1: a foul with the pope, which shouldn't be something that
Speaker 1: a president does.
Speaker 3: One should not attempt to run a foul of the
Speaker 3: pope in a deliberate way.
Speaker 1: What I think is interesting though about Trump running a
Speaker 1: foul with the pope, is that the pulling on Trump
Speaker 1: putting himself in an outfit to look like Jesus is
Speaker 1: as like the maga no like maga no likey. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Look that has caused another one of these other And look,
Speaker 3: I keep telling people like, never expect a single day
Speaker 3: where fifty percent of manga goes. I'm done, But it's
Speaker 3: half a percent here, a percent there, two percent here,
Speaker 3: two percent there. And the religious stuff with Catholics fighting
Speaker 3: with the Holy Father going up against the Vicar of
Speaker 3: Rome is historically a bad debt politically. Yeah, and Trump
Speaker 3: keeps doing it. Yeah, Marco going over there and giving
Speaker 3: the pope a tiny crystal.
Speaker 1: Football and didn't he say didn't he say? Oh wow?
Speaker 3: Yeah? The Pope was like oh wow.
Speaker 1: The interesting thing about the Pope is, so this is
Speaker 1: young American pope who speaks English and who became pope
Speaker 1: because of his work in South America and his ministering
Speaker 1: to the poor. And he was not, you know, a
Speaker 1: celebrity minister. He was a you know, he had a
Speaker 1: small parish that was really you know, involved in in
Speaker 1: sort of fighting poverty. I think this is relevant.
Speaker 3: I mean, I mean good works amongst the poor and
Speaker 3: deserving rich. No private didn't get a private jet out
Speaker 3: of it.
Speaker 1: You mean right, it's relevant when you're the administration that
Speaker 1: is filled with kleptocrats and billionaires to be to have
Speaker 1: run a foul with the pope who is known for
Speaker 1: quiet service to the poor.
Speaker 3: There is a broad there's a broad area of Catholicism
Speaker 3: that is about those good works amongst the poor. There
Speaker 3: is a very different aspect of American evangelical Christianity that
Speaker 3: is about prosperity gospel and who gets the biggest jet
Speaker 3: and God wants you to be rich if you'll donate
Speaker 3: to my church and all that stuff. I think that
Speaker 3: culture clash in some ways really represents a It sort
Speaker 3: of exemplifies what's going on in America right now, Molly.
Speaker 3: This country has a choice to make. Broadly speaking, are
Speaker 3: we going to do like that hard work of democracy
Speaker 3: stuff which is more akin to what the pope does,
Speaker 3: or are we going to do the cheap sugar rush
Speaker 3: of you know, a church that has fireworks in it
Speaker 3: on Sundays and smoke machines and trapeze guys. None of that,
Speaker 3: to me is clearer than when you see, you know,
Speaker 3: this pope who came out of a very strong tradition
Speaker 3: of faith and works versus the American evangelical movement, which
Speaker 3: got what they wanted in Trump, which was a new kind.
Speaker 1: Of god right prosparity, and that that.
Speaker 3: Statue going up there, you know it is it is
Speaker 3: people are making the North Korea analogy that just doesn't
Speaker 3: get there. Maga feels about Trump with a sense of
Speaker 3: he has supplanted God in their faith structure.
Speaker 1: So I want it go from there to hear because
Speaker 1: I both agree with you and also want to add,
Speaker 1: which is I think that when these people go to
Speaker 1: the gas pomp, they are starting like so again to
Speaker 1: this idea you don't get. You know, it's not going
Speaker 1: to be one day that they all turn, but like
Speaker 1: you're definitely like if using the huge number of truckers
Speaker 1: sixty plus percentage of truckers voted for Trump, diesel is
Speaker 1: as expensive as it has ever been, right, diesel is
Speaker 1: breaking records and there are a number of reasons for that,
Speaker 1: but the biggest is because Donald Trump decided to go
Speaker 1: into Iran, so to bomb the Iranians. So yeah, and
Speaker 1: close the straits and diesel. So I do think that,
Speaker 1: like if you're a trucker who is, people are are
Speaker 1: smart enough that they understand that four weeks ago or
Speaker 1: five weeks ago. And by the way, Trump today, I'm
Speaker 1: true social did this war is not nearly as long.
Speaker 1: You talk about that, go I knieve.
Speaker 3: Donald Donald making the analogy and somehow trying to convince
Speaker 3: people that either the war is over or that other
Speaker 3: wars are much longer, and why not give me more time?
Speaker 1: He's disciplination I'm having.
Speaker 3: Right. And as you and I talked about before, there
Speaker 3: are things in the world that you just can't spend,
Speaker 3: even if you're the biggest Trump fan in the universe.
Speaker 3: You stit there at that gas pump, and there's no
Speaker 3: way that the gas that is six bucks that you
Speaker 3: can say to yourself, I just paid two bucks for gas.
Speaker 3: You can't say that it's not real, yea. And the
Speaker 3: pain of the economic stuff. With global oil supplies now
Speaker 3: reaching a record low, we've only got about three weeks
Speaker 3: or so before we start having big energy shortages around
Speaker 3: the world because of all. Yes, and here in America
Speaker 3: as well.
Speaker 1: And what I think is pretty interesting is that you
Speaker 1: can tell that Trump gets that, and you can tell
Speaker 1: that he is like, I want to end the war now,
Speaker 1: because you're starting to see he's starting to say, well,
Speaker 1: it's over. We got a one we got this one
Speaker 1: page piece agreement. By the way, just because our leader
Speaker 1: can't read doesn't mean they can't read. Like they could
Speaker 1: give him five pages. You know, they could give the arrangement.
Speaker 3: Somebody I could summarize. Somebody could summarize it for Trump
Speaker 3: in one page. But most diplomatic agreements in the world
Speaker 3: have some complexity and some depth and some granularity to them.
Speaker 3: And this idea, there's a one page agreement. For me,
Speaker 3: once again, that smelled like Trump trying to pump the
Speaker 3: stock market rather than sealing a real deal that memorializes
Speaker 3: America's defeat against Iran.
Speaker 1: But when we were talking before, I was thinking so
Speaker 1: much about, like how we've had these moments in American
Speaker 1: democracy where you and I and people on television, all
Speaker 1: of us have said, you know, this is about American democracy.
Speaker 1: American democracy is important because of debat deat debt, and
Speaker 1: people will be like, yeah, I guess, but we didn't
Speaker 1: like the woman candidate, or no, I guess, but like
Speaker 1: people don't actually vote on democracy, or at least they
Speaker 1: don't in the way and they don't vote enough like
Speaker 1: they might vote in the midterms on it, but they're
Speaker 1: not going to defeat Trump on it now, especially.
Speaker 3: Now with the economic economic pressure being so high on everybody.
Speaker 1: But now that Donald Trump has just completely failed to deliver,
Speaker 1: he basically has done the opposite of everything he ran. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I do think people are I mean, like the polling
Speaker 1: is gonzo, like it is literally like the strongly talk
Speaker 1: us through the polling because you are and look, I.
Speaker 3: Want to say so many Democrats really quickly. I know
Speaker 3: everybody's kind of depressed about the redistricting stuff. Nothing has
Speaker 3: changed about the polling environment in the country right. A
Speaker 3: lot of these things that they've done are going to
Speaker 3: help them a little, but they have a problem that
Speaker 3: is so much bigger that you can't redistrict your way
Speaker 3: out of.
Speaker 1: And it could hurt them, right because if you were
Speaker 1: an R.
Speaker 3: Plus four now you're in an R plus two or two. Yeah.
Speaker 3: So I think one of the biggest things to consider
Speaker 3: right now is his numbers on economic performance are at
Speaker 3: record lows. They are where Biden's numbers were in the
Speaker 3: worst when we had ten percent inflation. They are really, really,
Speaker 3: really catastrophic. But one thing we're watching that's emerging in
Speaker 3: more and more polling when you're asking people, is your
Speaker 3: vote in favor of the Republicans, in favor of the
Speaker 3: Democrats or to put a check on Trump? In Washington,
Speaker 3: that number of people checking Trump's behavior they want someone
Speaker 3: to slam on the brakes on Trump. I think that
Speaker 3: is it should for Republicans be the most concerning number
Speaker 3: because none of them have done the smart thing and
Speaker 3: gotten away from Trump. Mike Lawler, who was one of
Speaker 3: the most endangered Republicans in the country ten days ago,
Speaker 3: is like, oh, we need the ball room. Well, and
Speaker 3: this is that message is not working for the average
Speaker 3: Americans paying five bucks plus for gas.
Speaker 1: And I think this is a real problem for Republicans.
Speaker 1: Which is so what happened last week. Donald Trump ran
Speaker 1: in ill in Indiana against all So there were people
Speaker 1: who refused to redistrict and Donald Trump basically ran there.
Speaker 1: He primaried all of them and many of them lost.
Speaker 1: So the idea here now is that Donald Trump has
Speaker 1: the party in Lockstead. But here is the problem. Donald
Speaker 1: Trump has control over the primary base. Right the Republican base,
Speaker 1: but he doesn't have he can't grow the party enough.
Speaker 1: So if you're running for if you're Mike Lawler and
Speaker 1: you're running for reelection, you have to hit yourself to Trump.
Speaker 1: You have to do ballroom with Trump while still trying
Speaker 1: to win in a purple district.
Speaker 3: Right. And I think the problem right now for most Republicans,
Speaker 3: most Republicans are so tightly bound up to Donald Trump.
Speaker 3: They've epoxied themselves to Donald Trump. They're glued to him,
Speaker 3: and that stuff doesn't go away in the age of
Speaker 3: the Internet. It's always going to be there. Mike Lawler
Speaker 3: could tomorrow go out and say I think we should
Speaker 3: peach Donald Trump, and I'll still have a clip of
Speaker 3: him saying, we got to build a ballroom for Donald Trump. Right,
Speaker 3: And they're afraid. You know, as you pointed out in Indiana,
Speaker 3: you saw Trump's ability in a Republican primary to blow
Speaker 3: people out, to go in there and blow people up
Speaker 3: and get rid of people he doesn't want. Well, these
Speaker 3: guys all live in that sense of constant fear of
Speaker 3: Trump and of his and I think I think as
Speaker 3: primary season ends, you might see a few of them
Speaker 3: running for Daylight it's been so long of them doing this,
Speaker 3: I don't know how they get away.
Speaker 1: But if you are running for Daylight, say you're making
Speaker 1: the calculus that you are Michae Lawler, because he's a
Speaker 1: good example, because he's in in a D district, right
Speaker 1: and which is only going to get more is only
Speaker 1: more democratic now, so that he's an ability. He is
Speaker 1: in a districts at Harrisonon. If you're Mike Lawler, you're thinking, well,
Speaker 1: this president has terrible this president has terrible numbers, so
Speaker 1: I have to run against him. But if I run
Speaker 1: against him at all, MAGA won't come out for me.
Speaker 3: It's a terrible conundrum. And I really feel for them
Speaker 3: right now. Yeah, my heart breaks for them right now.
Speaker 1: And I mean you must see that everywhere, right, you
Speaker 1: must see Republicans trying to be cause if you Trump
Speaker 1: is not a candidate, where like with Biden, Biden would say,
Speaker 1: you know, if you have to run against me, it's okay, right,
Speaker 1: or remember Nancy Pelosi, if you need to break with
Speaker 1: me to keep the seat, it's okay.
Speaker 3: In twenty eighteen, Nancy Pelosi went out and explicitly said
Speaker 3: to the Democratic congressional candidates, Hey, if you're not. If
Speaker 3: you're not, if they're hanging too much stuff from DC
Speaker 3: on you, you can say, hey, I'm not going to
Speaker 3: be like one of those Democrats. I'm an independent Democrat
Speaker 3: from this district. And no one know well, I won't
Speaker 3: say no one. But people were in on the trick.
Speaker 3: People were in on the strategy. They were like, okay,
Speaker 3: you know, even more progressive groups were like, Okay, we
Speaker 3: got to get this person over the line so we
Speaker 3: can get a majority. So we're not going to go
Speaker 3: out and nuke them if they don't say exactly the
Speaker 3: right thing on you know, every single issue, and they're
Speaker 3: running in Missouri or Kentucky or whatever.
Speaker 1: So and in twenty eighteen, Democrats flipped three congressional seats
Speaker 1: in the state of Iowa.
Speaker 3: YEP.
Speaker 1: At Iowa this year, we had this guy, by the way,
Speaker 1: Rob Sam he is going to be president.
Speaker 3: He's got the gift, Molly, He's got the gift. My
Speaker 3: colleague Joe Trippy called me about a month ago when
Speaker 3: he was out there and he said, are you paying
Speaker 3: attention to this guy yet? I'm like, I've heard the name,
Speaker 3: I don't know, And so I watched them clips and
Speaker 3: he gets better every interview. He's frighteningly good. And you
Speaker 3: know what, I also think, And I'm not one of
Speaker 3: those like dreamy eyed people who like get swept up
Speaker 3: in the talent.
Speaker 1: You you really aren't.
Speaker 3: I'm really not. Yeah, but he has the talent. And
Speaker 3: there's a thing in politics that if you've got the gift, Yeah,
Speaker 3: it transcends party stuff. Because you walked into a sat
Speaker 3: with the room with Barack Obama and you came away
Speaker 3: and you felt inspired. You sat room with George Bush,
Speaker 3: you felt like he was your best friend. You sat
Speaker 3: in the room with Bill Clinton, you felt like he
Speaker 3: understood your heart and Regan, you felt like you could
Speaker 3: do anything when you walked out that door. And this
Speaker 3: guy has that gift.
Speaker 1: And we after the interview, I said, Jesse, this guy
Speaker 1: is going to be president.
Speaker 3: I'm moving to Iowa.
Speaker 1: I mean, the guy is so good. But he also
Speaker 1: more importantly than that, he's six three.
Speaker 3: Listen, it matters.
Speaker 1: After we interviewed him, I said, so you're going to
Speaker 1: run for president next and he said, I am just
Speaker 1: running for governor of Iowa, which is the only okay answer.
Speaker 3: It's a perfectly good answer, right, And.
Speaker 1: Then I said, how tall are you? And I said,
Speaker 1: because he also looked very young, so I was like,
Speaker 1: old are you?
Speaker 3: And we are reaching a point right now where democratic
Speaker 3: young democratic leaders are coming up. They're going to replace
Speaker 3: the septuagenarian class who have in many ways been so
Speaker 3: traumatized the Republicans for so long that they don't fight
Speaker 3: the right way, and they don't speak American, as David
Speaker 3: Cousinin always said, and speaking American is what you see
Speaker 3: Rob stand doing. And I look, I think Iowa. I
Speaker 3: think there's motion in Nebraska which makes me feel like
Speaker 3: I'm picking crazy pills. Nebraska, Yep, da Osborne, I think
Speaker 3: Dan you know is Ricketts is like a like a
Speaker 3: sock puppet Republican And there's like, aside from the check book,
Speaker 3: there's no there there, Big chook. Vivek is flailing. Amy
Speaker 3: Acton is doing very well in Ohio. They're moving up
Speaker 3: did she and David Pepper are moving up fast. There
Speaker 3: is something going on with Democrats who have learned to
Speaker 3: talk about the economy again and center the lives of
Speaker 3: ordinary people, Republicans and Democrats and nonpartisan voters on the
Speaker 3: economic crisis they all feel, and the economic pain they're
Speaker 3: all terrified of right, well, shit, let's keep doing more
Speaker 3: because it seems to be working.
Speaker 1: And one of the things that I saw so AOC
Speaker 1: spoke at the Politics Institute in Chicago, interviewed by not
Speaker 1: some crazy lefty right, and he talked about David and
Speaker 1: we're talking about David. And by the way, David also
Speaker 1: was with the pope recently, so let's all be he's
Speaker 1: not running until he is the pope. But he was
Speaker 1: talking to AOC, and AOC did the thing. I actually
Speaker 1: thought this was interesting. I wondered if she had stolen
Speaker 1: from Mondami so Zorin. So she said, he was asking
Speaker 1: her a question. Oh, he was asking you a question
Speaker 1: about running for president.
Speaker 3: And she said, I want to change the country.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I want something more than running for president. I
Speaker 1: want to change the country. And that made me think, like,
Speaker 1: because that's the kind of answer we see from Zorin, right, Like,
Speaker 1: what do you think about you know, I can't think
Speaker 1: about that right now because I'm laser focused on affordability.
Speaker 1: I'm thinking about fast free buses, right. I wondered about that, Listen.
Speaker 3: I am a big believer in being on message. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and that doing well means, you know, doing good while
Speaker 3: you're in your first job means you can do well
Speaker 3: in the next one and when you're running for the
Speaker 3: next one. And so look, when you see AOC who's
Speaker 3: a gifted politician, who's a gifted speaker, gifted communicator, say
Speaker 3: that that's very sweeping, But it still feels kind of
Speaker 3: like me, not you. Right, I don't think that's irreparable
Speaker 3: in any way whatsoever. But I think that you've seen
Speaker 3: a lot of these other candidates in the last year, Virginia,
Speaker 3: New Jersey everywhere else who are talking about you, not me,
Speaker 3: like I think it's important, she did.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think the problem for her is the
Speaker 1: problem for all female politicians, though, which is she gets
Speaker 1: her celebrity ends up eclipsing her in a certain way.
Speaker 1: So in that answer, she did talk about single payer
Speaker 1: that she said what she her legacy would be single payer,
Speaker 1: which in a moment when when millions of people are
Speaker 1: getting kicked off Obamacare because Republicans refused to renew the.
Speaker 3: Tax Obamacare being what I call just the tip socialist
Speaker 3: health care, right, it's not exactly like a uh not
Speaker 3: exactly like a Nordic socialist health care plan, certainly not,
Speaker 3: but i It fascinates me in some ways that that
Speaker 3: Republicans don't get that could be a real knife in
Speaker 3: their own guts because their people rely on it more
Speaker 3: at per capita in a lot of these big red
Speaker 3: states than Democratic voters do, which is madness when you
Speaker 3: think about it. They are cutting their self, cutting off
Speaker 3: their nose despite their own face, and it's not covered
Speaker 3: even even with a coope.
Speaker 1: Rick Wilson, even the coope.
Speaker 3: I'll see you next absolutely.
Speaker 1: Rob sand is the Iowa state auditor and a candidate
Speaker 1: for a governor in Iowa. Welcome, Welcome, Rob sand Sand,
Speaker 1: Rob Sand, Rob Sand It's right behind you. Sorry going.
Speaker 4: You can call me anything, model ages. Don't call me
Speaker 4: late for dinner, all right, that's right.
Speaker 1: How many cycles have you been the only Democrat elected
Speaker 1: state wide?
Speaker 5: That's a good question, just one actually, which goes to
Speaker 5: an important point. Iowans, I should say, split their ticket
Speaker 5: a lot more than people would expect. When I won
Speaker 5: in twenty eighteen, I had company with the attorney general
Speaker 5: and a treasurer, who are both Democrats in Iowa. So
Speaker 5: that's three of our six state wide offices, and those
Speaker 5: guys lost just by a point in twenty twenty two,
Speaker 5: which means that most of the state actually voted fifty
Speaker 5: to fifty three Democrats three Republicans for state wide office.
Speaker 1: So that's so interesting. So right now I would love
Speaker 1: you to like explain to our listeners what is happening
Speaker 1: in Iowa.
Speaker 5: Here's a fact that I think will make anybody want
Speaker 5: to keep listening. We have more registered Republican donors to
Speaker 5: our campaign in all of twenty twenty five than any
Speaker 5: of the Republicans writing for governor. And I think that's
Speaker 5: for a lot of different reasons. Number One, they know me,
Speaker 5: They've voted for me twice. They see me as a
Speaker 5: reasonable person who's trying to do public service, not politics.
Speaker 5: Number Two, they've seen what ten years of one party
Speaker 5: control has done to our state. I always understand the
Speaker 5: importance of rotating the crops. Sometimes when you've been doing
Speaker 5: one thing for too long, you need to change it up.
Speaker 5: And you know, basically, we're at a point where for
Speaker 5: the last three years we've averaged forty eight for income growth,
Speaker 5: we're number one for cancer growth. And the folks in
Speaker 5: the Capitol building in Des Moines literally passed a lot
Speaker 5: to make it harder for me. As the state auditor
Speaker 5: to find misspent tax money. This is people who are
Speaker 5: not doing a good job and also actively doing bad.
Speaker 5: But I think the other piece of this that I
Speaker 5: is really about our message is it's the idea that
Speaker 5: you know, like it says behind me here, I want
Speaker 5: to be a governor. For all our campaign slogan is
Speaker 5: not bluer or redder, but truer and better. And I
Speaker 5: talk a lot about how our two choice political system
Speaker 5: is failing us and how I think we need to
Speaker 5: have more options on the ballot and how we need
Speaker 5: to come together to do that, and that's really resonating
Speaker 5: with a lot of people across the political spectrum.
Speaker 1: Okay, so you are the state auditor right now, you
Speaker 1: got it. I need you to explain to us because
Speaker 1: state auditor could be ag chair in Florida. Right, So
Speaker 1: explain does what the state orditor does in Iowa and
Speaker 1: what number that is in elected offices?
Speaker 4: Two words taxpayers watch dog.
Speaker 5: So we oughtit state government every year, at least nowadays
Speaker 5: as much as they allow it since they passed that
Speaker 5: new law. We aughdit cities, counties and school districts. We
Speaker 5: do public corruption investigations, which was what led me there.
Speaker 5: I was the state's chief public corruption prosecutor for seven
Speaker 5: years before I ran.
Speaker 4: And we also do efficiency promotion.
Speaker 5: We started a program called in my First Term, which
Speaker 5: is all about helping save tax pair dollars.
Speaker 1: Now, Jim Reynolds, who was the governor before you, I
Speaker 1: think one of the really interesting things about Iowa. And
Speaker 1: by the way, you are not the only Iowa politician
Speaker 1: we have had on this podcast, because we have had
Speaker 1: twice a Senate candidate because there's this very messy Democratic
Speaker 1: Senate primary, which we're not going to even talk about
Speaker 1: because it's not where we're going with this. But Kimral's
Speaker 1: is not running for reelection. She did two terms. She's
Speaker 1: not turned out.
Speaker 5: She's not turned out, and she has the unique distinction
Speaker 5: of nine quarters in a row as the least popular
Speaker 5: governor in America. So she's not turned out well. But
Speaker 5: I think she saw a tough race ahead, and she
Speaker 5: saw that I was likely to run and decided that
Speaker 5: maybe she didn't want to work that hard. Maybe she
Speaker 5: knew she was going to do it all along, But
Speaker 5: the scuttle but was that she was going to run
Speaker 5: again until very suddenly she wasn't who knows. You know,
Speaker 5: you'd have to ask her at the end of the day.
Speaker 5: She doesn't share her thoughts with me on these things.
Speaker 1: But we all we also have John E. Arnest who
Speaker 1: decided not to run too.
Speaker 5: Indeed, yeah, two open seats. That hasn't happened since nineteen
Speaker 5: seventy eight. So we have space for a lot of
Speaker 5: realignment in Iowa right now.
Speaker 1: One of the things that I think is the most
Speaker 1: interesting thing about Iowa is that there are four congressional seats,
Speaker 1: and during the twenty eighteen midterm, which was one of
Speaker 1: those midterms where people realize what a disaster Trump was,
Speaker 1: Republicans lost three seats. So I'd love you talk about
Speaker 1: that congressional race just for a minute, you know.
Speaker 5: I think the thing to keep in mind is, so
Speaker 5: we got four seats in twenty eighteen, we won three
Speaker 5: of them. We can do that again here. I think
Speaker 5: that people are ready for change, and they understand that
Speaker 5: we are just in a place where Iowans are frustrated
Speaker 5: and it's been ten years of one party control in Iowa.
Speaker 5: I think people understand power crops and absolute power crops absolutely,
Speaker 5: And then you look around and I think we've got
Speaker 5: a great collection of candidates running for Congress. In all
Speaker 5: of these discs, people that can connect with Iowans, they
Speaker 5: understand the state pretty well. And and again there are
Speaker 5: people who I think at their heart they want to
Speaker 5: they want to try to do good work and make
Speaker 5: things work better, not just you know, wave a blue
Speaker 5: flag or a red flag.
Speaker 1: So I think of the planks of your candidacy. One
Speaker 1: of the big ones is cancer. I have a husband
Speaker 1: who has met a stat of cancer. He has neuroendocrine cancer.
Speaker 1: So it's very slow moving, but it's obviously a big thing.
Speaker 1: And we're seeing a lot of cancer from the groundwater,
Speaker 1: from the you know, they're just coming from everywhere. And
Speaker 1: in a state like Iowa, where you're doing so much farming,
Speaker 1: i'd love you to talk about why cancer became such
Speaker 1: a plank and how you how you talk about it
Speaker 1: when you're running for office.
Speaker 5: I think it's pretty straightforward. We're number one for cancer growth.
Speaker 5: It's really captured the imagination of a lot of Iolands.
Speaker 5: And I think that we're in a real struggle right
Speaker 5: now to make sure that we're acting to do something
Speaker 5: about it. Our legislature last year and the governor allocated
Speaker 5: a million dollars to cancer research.
Speaker 4: That's really, honestly.
Speaker 5: An amount of money that a politician will spend to
Speaker 5: buy a talking point when they say that they want
Speaker 5: to do something. Nebraska. I've been talking about Nebraska. They've
Speaker 5: put over twenty million into cancer research.
Speaker 4: And I'm in Iowan.
Speaker 5: I think we want to beat Nebraska, and so I
Speaker 5: think that's the table stakes. We should be wanting to
Speaker 5: put in at least that much to make sure that
Speaker 5: we're healthy in the state of Iowa. Some of this
Speaker 5: is smoking, we do smoke at a higher rate. Some
Speaker 5: of this is alcohol consumption. We do drink at higher rate.
Speaker 5: We also have a tremendous amount of radon, which is
Speaker 5: the second leading cause of lung cancer in America.
Speaker 4: And then we've also got a water quality problem. It
Speaker 4: is contributing it to some degree.
Speaker 5: That's a little bit harder to figure out exactly how much,
Speaker 5: but certainly that's a piece of it.
Speaker 1: Okay, So talk to me about this other plank, which
Speaker 1: is the sort of corruption and people wasting their taxpayer dollars.
Speaker 5: Oh sure, sure, sure, I mean, look, Molly, in my
Speaker 5: first term, we uncovered a record amount of misspent money.
Speaker 5: We got reelected and the answer to that in the
Speaker 5: legislature was to change the law to make it harder
Speaker 5: for us to find misspent money. This was kind of
Speaker 5: a scandal in the auditing world nationally. Every single auditor
Speaker 5: that weighed in on this that does government audits said
Speaker 5: this is a terrible low it's going to increase waste
Speaker 5: and abuse of tax dollars in Iowa. In fact, David Walker,
Speaker 5: who was George W. Bush's Comptroller General for most of
Speaker 5: his presidency, wrote the Iowa legislature two letters pointing out
Speaker 5: that this was a terrible idea, and they signed it
Speaker 5: into law anyways, and they've used it since then to
Speaker 5: block audit an audit of the Board of Parole, and
Speaker 5: multiple times to slow down and block an audit of
Speaker 5: the school vouchers program that has next to no accountability
Speaker 5: in the state of Iowa. And then in addition to that,
Speaker 5: just recently they didn't want us to look at what
Speaker 5: was going on at the Board of Educational Examiners related
Speaker 5: to Ian Roberts, who he may recall he was the
Speaker 5: superintendent of the Moines Public Schools and his immigration status
Speaker 5: in Iowa. So it's basically just become a way for
Speaker 5: them to hiden from us in order to hide from
Speaker 5: the public what's actually going on in our state and
Speaker 5: what's going on with people's tax dollars.
Speaker 1: Why do you think that's tolerated.
Speaker 4: Well, I don't know that it is.
Speaker 5: I think that's part of the reason that we've got
Speaker 5: an eight point lead in this race according to multiple polsters.
Speaker 5: And I think it's part of the reason that we
Speaker 5: have these all these Republicans who have donated to our
Speaker 5: campaign for governor.
Speaker 4: It really is frustrating for people.
Speaker 5: But I also think it's a little bit harder for
Speaker 5: local news to break through these days. I mean, I
Speaker 5: struggle to find the coverage of what's going on in
Speaker 5: I and well compared to what's going on nationally, And
Speaker 5: so when people are able to do that, it's good,
Speaker 5: but it just takes a little bit longer for that
Speaker 5: stuff to break through these days.
Speaker 1: Have you thought about incentivizing local news tax incentives? I mean,
Speaker 1: you're going to be governor theoretically, at least, because that's
Speaker 1: a problem with corruption, right You're running against corruption, You're
Speaker 1: running against misspending tax dollars. But if there is no
Speaker 1: one who is like it's not shouldn't necessarily be the
Speaker 1: job of legislators to find the corruption. Shouldn't it be
Speaker 1: the job of journalists to root that out and expose it?
Speaker 5: It should, and I think that local news coverage is
Speaker 5: incredibly important. You know, you make another point, a good
Speaker 5: point there about legislators. I mean, the Iowa legislature has
Speaker 5: refused to do oversight in Iowa of state government. They
Speaker 5: have basically called in just mailed in their job. They've
Speaker 5: done about the amount of time per year of oversight
Speaker 5: of state government as the amount of time that you
Speaker 5: and I are going to spend talking today, Molly.
Speaker 4: They'll haul in a.
Speaker 5: School board if they don't like some book that's in
Speaker 5: the library or some teacher that's in the classroom, But
Speaker 5: they refuse to do oversight of state government because it's
Speaker 5: been run for ten years by the same folks and
Speaker 5: they've decided that they're not worried about accountability in our
Speaker 5: broken two choice political system, and so they're just going
Speaker 5: to do whatever they want for them and their friends.
Speaker 1: You sort of run away from the democratic label to
Speaker 1: some extent, which is I don't necessarily think is a
Speaker 1: bad thing. But like what we've seen, and we covered
Speaker 1: this a lot, was that in some states, you actually
Speaker 1: have a disadvantage when you have a D next to
Speaker 1: your name.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 5: I think a lot of this, to me comes down
Speaker 5: to just a central confusion that I've had ever since
Speaker 5: I was a teenager. Why do we have to be
Speaker 5: Democrats and Republicans? Why can't I be the state auditor
Speaker 5: who is now running to be the governor. I don't
Speaker 5: think that we should have two private clubs that run
Speaker 5: our democracy. I don't think that a lot of these
Speaker 5: people that are in these private clubs are actually focused
Speaker 5: on solving problems for people. I think they're focused on
Speaker 5: a massing power for themselves. This isn't the criticism of
Speaker 5: either party individually. It's a criticism of the system. And
Speaker 5: I think that it is a real problem. And I
Speaker 5: think that most people know it. They feel it, They
Speaker 5: see it every day, and they experience it emotionally when
Speaker 5: they walk into the ballot booth and they go, well,
Speaker 5: I'm not excited about that one, but geez, that one's scary.
Speaker 5: I mean, they've figured it out right. It's like, solving
Speaker 5: problems is hard. Iowa has a water quality crisis, we
Speaker 5: have a mental health care crisis. Solving those things is
Speaker 5: really complicated. But you can just get re elected if
Speaker 5: you demonize your opponent, and if enough people are not
Speaker 5: willing to consider the only other option on the ballot,
Speaker 5: then you're good to go.
Speaker 1: Right. That is true, and it is a real problem.
Speaker 1: So when I read that piece in the Times just now,
Speaker 1: you were talking about like some of the stuff you're
Speaker 1: running on doesn't sound very fun, but people like it, right, No,
Speaker 1: because the truth is, you know, Trump ran for office
Speaker 1: on like you know, I'm going to hurt the people
Speaker 1: you don't like and make things cheaper which were not possible,
Speaker 1: but we're appealing. When you were in that bar, I
Speaker 1: don't drink. I'm sober since I was nineteen, so but
Speaker 1: you were like, you know, alcohol does, so I just
Speaker 1: am curious, like what's his secret there? Like how do
Speaker 1: you do that?
Speaker 3: Lollie.
Speaker 5: I think we're having a lot of fun in this campaign.
Speaker 5: I had a friend of mine actually who texted me
Speaker 5: afterwards after one of our town halls and was like,
Speaker 5: that was actually funnier than some of the stand up
Speaker 5: that we went to last weekend.
Speaker 4: Like, I like making jokes.
Speaker 5: Not all of them land the right way, but for
Speaker 5: those that do, like, I want people to feel good,
Speaker 5: and I want them to know that politics can be
Speaker 5: a place where we come together and get excited about
Speaker 5: working together to make things better.
Speaker 4: And I think a lot of the stuff that we're.
Speaker 5: Running on, we have a lot of real problems, but
Speaker 5: I think approaching the problems that we face in our
Speaker 5: life with a sense of humor makes dealing with them
Speaker 5: a little bit easier. And I think that's part of
Speaker 5: what brings people out. And again, part of the reason
Speaker 5: that we're seeing strong support in the polls, part of
Speaker 5: the reason we've seen the Cook Report move this race
Speaker 5: to a toss up, whereas the day before I got in,
Speaker 5: they had it ranked as solid Republican.
Speaker 4: And again, part of the.
Speaker 5: Reason that we had sixty five thousand people donate, we
Speaker 5: raised two and a half times the previous fundraising record
Speaker 5: for the off year last year, it's because I'm out
Speaker 5: there being myself.
Speaker 4: I'm running as myself.
Speaker 5: I'm making jokes, I'm sharing pictures of my dog, I'm
Speaker 5: talking about the burrito that I had for lunch and how,
Speaker 5: oh my goodness, it's the size of Iowa's budget deficit.
Speaker 5: We don't have to just be automatons that talk political talk.
Speaker 5: All the time, we can be human beings. I think
Speaker 5: a lot of people see in this campaign and it
Speaker 5: resonates for them and it makes them think that maybe
Speaker 5: we can have a little bit of fun while we
Speaker 5: go ahead and address serious problems.
Speaker 1: I wonder, well, you could talk about the state House,
Speaker 1: like how is the state House structured? So if you're
Speaker 1: a Democrat and you see, like if you get in
Speaker 1: there and you have this sweeping anti corruption message and
Speaker 1: you want to sort of undo some of the crazy,
Speaker 1: you know whatever. Here's a good example. In Arizona, they
Speaker 1: had a state law that incentivized data centers. It gave
Speaker 1: a tax incentive to data centers, which is a wildly
Speaker 1: insane thing to do. Like, how is the state legislature structured?
Speaker 1: As governor, will they take away power from you? Because
Speaker 1: I saw reporting that they're sort of trying to.
Speaker 5: The Republicans have got a one seat supermajority in the
Speaker 5: state House and they have a not a super majority
Speaker 5: in the state Senate. So this is if this is
Speaker 5: a year where we're winning the governor's race, we expect
Speaker 5: that anything that I need to veto, that veto is
Speaker 5: going to stand. And the pledge that I've made is
Speaker 5: pretty straightforward. I'm going to be working with a Republican legislature.
Speaker 5: There's no two ways about that. I'm going to veto
Speaker 5: every culture war bill. We need to be focused on
Speaker 5: improving water quality, improving our education system, fixing our failing economy,
Speaker 5: you know, address seeing the issues that impact every Iowan.
Speaker 5: And so what I want the legislature to do is
Speaker 5: sit down with me and with other stakeholders across the
Speaker 5: state and actually put together good bills that can get
Speaker 5: bipartisan support to do those things.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'd love you to talk for a minute or
Speaker 1: two just about like when you talk to iolands, what's
Speaker 1: happening with them? What are the things that are making
Speaker 1: them upside.
Speaker 4: I think that iolands are right now.
Speaker 5: They're just they're so frustrated, and I think for a
Speaker 5: lot of people, they look around and they recognize that
Speaker 5: things are not great here right now. Like I said,
Speaker 5: forty eighth for personal income growth over the last three years,
Speaker 5: that's rough. And so the affordability crisis is hitting Iowa,
Speaker 5: but it's hitting us harder because affordability is a two
Speaker 5: piece equation. It's how much money is in your pocket
Speaker 5: and then what's the thing cost, and so when you
Speaker 5: have as much money in your pocket, it's harder. And
Speaker 5: I say to folks, if it seems like your friends
Speaker 5: in other states are doing better, it's because they are right.
Speaker 4: So that hurts here.
Speaker 5: But then again you go to you know, so they
Speaker 5: pass a lot to make it harder for us to
Speaker 5: find misspent tax dollars.
Speaker 4: MOLLI.
Speaker 5: There was a bill in the legislature this year that
Speaker 5: would make it so that airports in Iowa have to
Speaker 5: serve alcohol for at least an hour before every flight
Speaker 5: takes off. There was a bill in the legislature this year,
Speaker 5: Molly that would make it so that a dirty body
Speaker 5: of water can't be added to the impaired waters list
Speaker 5: for e. Coal I unless you say which species of
Speaker 5: animal contributed that the equal eye to the water. I mean,
Speaker 5: there's all this stuff that's just not only pointless, but
Speaker 5: taking the state backwards, and Iowas are really angry about it.
Speaker 5: But again I go to this, it's not enough. I
Speaker 5: don't think it's enough. I'm sick of the politics. That is, well,
Speaker 5: the other guy stinks, vote for me.
Speaker 4: That's not enough.
Speaker 5: I really want us to take the next step in
Speaker 5: Iowa's proud political tradition of putting guardrails up around politicians
Speaker 5: and making sure that their power is channeled to serve
Speaker 5: the people.
Speaker 4: We were the first.
Speaker 5: State to create a nonpartisan redistricting commission. We're the first
Speaker 5: state to create a merit based judicial selection system. I
Speaker 5: want us to move away from having special legal privileges
Speaker 5: for the Democratic and Republican parties. I want us to
Speaker 5: have more options on the ballot so Iowans can more
Speaker 5: easily hold elected officials accountable. And if we do those things,
Speaker 5: I think it's going to help push elected officials to
Speaker 5: actually be focused on real problems. I always think of
Speaker 5: the Lord's Prayer. My faith is an incredibly important motivator
Speaker 5: to me. In the Lord's Prayer, we say, lead us
Speaker 5: not into temptation. But we have this system that tells
Speaker 5: elected officials and candidates, hey, you know, solving problems is hard,
Speaker 5: but you can probably get re elected if you can
Speaker 5: just convince everybody that their only other option is worse.
Speaker 5: That's not good enough. And it's a big piece of
Speaker 5: what's led us to where we are today.
Speaker 4: Change that. I think we're going to get better results
Speaker 4: out of our political system and see things get refocused
Speaker 4: on public service rather than partisanship.
Speaker 1: From sand thank you so much for joining.
Speaker 4: Hey, happy to be here, Thanks for having me, Ellie.
Speaker 1: No moment, what is your moment?
Speaker 3: My momentifuckery is that Donald Trump is such a pathetic
Speaker 3: child he had to use the the reflecting pool as
Speaker 3: a go kart track for his official motorcade the other
Speaker 3: day while they're painting it with some paint that isn't
Speaker 3: working a bid contract.
Speaker 1: The whole thing, right, the.
Speaker 3: Whole thing is so trump Ism in every way. Something
Speaker 3: that was beloved by America has to be polluted and
Speaker 3: left up by this guy on a no bid contract
Speaker 3: to a friend of his who.
Speaker 1: Did Trump.
Speaker 3: The job. I mean, it's like wraps everything up in a.
Speaker 1: Bow and has done other pools from our a lago
Speaker 1: different Trump branded properties. And also it's painted like the
Speaker 1: it's painted like a blue that you have never seen
Speaker 1: in nature.
Speaker 3: Correct, it is a blue maybe found on like tropical
Speaker 3: fish somewhere on a reef that none of us are
Speaker 3: been into. But otherwise it is just one more thing
Speaker 3: where he's trying to put his stamp on something that
Speaker 3: was dignified and proper, and people viewed it as a
Speaker 3: symbol of the country for one hundred years, and now
Speaker 3: he wants to cheapen it up. I mean, I'm not
Speaker 3: gonna be surprised if he doesn't put like spotlights and
Speaker 3: gold leaf all over the Lincoln Memorial before this is over.
Speaker 1: The Las vegasization.
Speaker 3: Yes, we have a Trump star somewhere on the mall.
Speaker 3: I should not give him ideas.
Speaker 1: No, do not. Thank you, Rick Wilson.
Speaker 3: We'll see you next time.
Speaker 1: That's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in
Speaker 1: every Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday to hear the best
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Speaker 1: you enjoy this podcast, please send it to a friend
Speaker 1: and keep the conversation going. Thanks for listening.