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Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics,

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Speaker 1: where we discuss the top political headlines with some of

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Speaker 1: today's best minds and Rupert Murdoch gave Jared Fox's debate

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Speaker 1: questions before Trump debated Biden. We have a fascinating show today,

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Speaker 1: Semaphores Jordan Weissman explains to us the nuances of what

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Speaker 1: is really going on with our railways and their regulations.

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Speaker 1: Then we'll talk to New York Times opinion columnists Lydia

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Speaker 1: Paul Green about the political realignment she's seeing across the globe.

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Speaker 1: But first we have the one the only author of

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Speaker 1: Win Every Argument MSNBC is Mattie Hassan. Welcome to Fast Politics, Maddie.

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Speaker 1: Thank you for having me, Molly. So, the question is

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Speaker 1: with this book, when Every Argument the art of debating, persuading,

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Speaker 1: and public speaking, can you transfer what you do to

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Speaker 1: us by reading a book. I'm skeptical. Yeah, I don't

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Speaker 1: blame you from being skeptical because a lot of people

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Speaker 1: think that public speaking, being able to argue, debate rhetoric,

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Speaker 1: TV interviewing, TV hosting is something that you're kind of

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Speaker 1: born with. There's a lot of talk about natural born

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Speaker 1: speakers natural born orators, and I don't quite buy that. Look,

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Speaker 1: is there an element of nature too? Of course there is,

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Speaker 1: but there's a lot of nurture. There's a lot of

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Speaker 1: training and practicing that goes into it. And the reason

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Speaker 1: I wrote this book and I wouldn't have written otherwise.

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Speaker 1: There was twenty other books I could have written, But

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Speaker 1: I genuinely wrote this book because I believe that these

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Speaker 1: skills are transferable, they are learnable, they are teachable, and

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Speaker 1: it's been going on for centuries. You don't have to

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Speaker 1: date my work for it go back to the ancient Greeks,

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Speaker 1: the ancient Romans. They came up with how to teach

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Speaker 1: this stuff. A lot of the lessons and tips in

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Speaker 1: the book are stuff that have been around for millennia.

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Speaker 1: And if you go back. I tell the story of

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Speaker 1: Demosthenes in the book Legendary Ancient Greek orator, lawyer, speech writer.

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Speaker 1: The guy was hopeless as a public speaker. He was

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Speaker 1: so bad. He had he had a stutter and a stammer.

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Speaker 1: He had a shortness of breath when he spoke. He

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Speaker 1: was embarrassed when he was out in public. He lacked confidence.

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Speaker 1: So what does this guy Demostenes do. He basically builds

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Speaker 1: himself an underground cave batman style, goes down there for

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Speaker 1: months at a time. To make sure he doesn't come

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Speaker 1: out of there. He shaves off behalf of his head

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Speaker 1: so he'll be too embarrassed to go out in public.

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Speaker 1: And he sits down there practicing, speaking, delivering, standing in

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Speaker 1: front of a mirror. He runs up a hill when

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Speaker 1: he does come out of the cave to work on

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Speaker 1: his shortness of breath while he speaks as he runs

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Speaker 1: up the hill. And Plutarch talks about this, that this

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Speaker 1: guy Demostenes becomes one of the greatest orators of all time.

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Speaker 1: He's the guy when it comes to rhetoric in ancient Greece.

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Speaker 1: And I tell stories about Martin Luther King and Winston

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Speaker 1: Churchill and others who we consider today to be great orators,

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Speaker 1: great debaters, but they didn't start out that way. Winston

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Speaker 1: Judge Will practiced while sitting in the bathtub, right his

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Speaker 1: valet would overhear him murmuring in the tub. So yeah,

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Speaker 1: I do think that you can learn this stuff. I

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Speaker 1: think people try and wing it. People think you're either

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Speaker 1: a natural one orator not true, or they think you

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Speaker 1: can just wing it not true either. And the point

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Speaker 1: of this book is to say you don't have to

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Speaker 1: be a natural one orator, but you do have to

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Speaker 1: work at it. There is a body of evidence as

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Speaker 1: to how you can win over an audience, how you

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Speaker 1: can corner an opponent with facts and figures, how you

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Speaker 1: can connect with people emotionally, how you can kind of

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Speaker 1: duck and dodge and evade your opponent's rhetorical attacks. There's

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Speaker 1: a body of literature and work out there, and I

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Speaker 1: try and bring it together in this book. And I

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Speaker 1: try and bring it together with examples from my own life,

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Speaker 1: my own career, and from history. So I want to

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Speaker 1: ask you about this idea that there's sort of a

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Speaker 1: way to stop bullshitters like Trump. Yes, so explain to

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Speaker 1: us how we do that, because that could be useful.

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Speaker 1: So I started writing this book, and I say, I

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Speaker 1: say in the introduction to this book, there's a lot

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Speaker 1: of books on rhetoric and oratory out there. I'm not

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Speaker 1: the first person to go with. In fact, I rely

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Speaker 1: on a lot of other great authors who I cite

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Speaker 1: in the book. I mean, they're not that common, right, Like,

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Speaker 1: I mean, it's a pretty cool move there's also an

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Speaker 1: issue of have you actually done it? I say in

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Speaker 1: the introduction, a lot of books are written by experts

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Speaker 1: on rhetoric, history, professors, debate coaches. I'm coming here saying, look,

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Speaker 1: I'm the guy who has argued with people all over

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Speaker 1: the world. I'm the guy who's argued inside the White House.

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Speaker 1: I've argued inside Number ten downing Strey. I've argued inside

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Speaker 1: the Saudi Embassy and managed to walk away with my

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Speaker 1: life thankfully a few. Yeah. So I'm saying I'm bringing

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Speaker 1: practical experiences. I'm not just a guys saying here it

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Speaker 1: is in theory I try and say in the book,

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Speaker 1: and here's how I did it, and what I would

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Speaker 1: say on the bullshitting front is. As I wrote this book,

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Speaker 1: I realized, look, a lot of these lessons are not

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Speaker 1: new lessons. I need to address what's going on right

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Speaker 1: now and right now. And you and I've discussed many

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Speaker 1: a time, Molly on my show and yours, that we

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Speaker 1: live in an era of kind of post truth conservatism

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Speaker 1: and not a reality based Republican party. A former president

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Speaker 1: who wants to be president again, who is a serial

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Speaker 1: liar and bullshitter, whose own top strategist Steve Bannon famously said,

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Speaker 1: our opponents are not the Democrats, they are the media.

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Speaker 1: And the way to deal with the media, Steve Bannon said,

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Speaker 1: is to flood the zone which shit. And that is

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Speaker 1: exactly what they've done. You and I I cannot cope

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Speaker 1: with the number of controversy, scandals, lies, gaffs because there's

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Speaker 1: just so many of them. We rebut one lie, and

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Speaker 1: there's one hundred behind them. And that is what Trump

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Speaker 1: has perfected. And what I say in the book is

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Speaker 1: beware the Gish galloper because Trump is not the first

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Speaker 1: to do this. There is a technique known as the

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Speaker 1: Gish gallop and it comes from a guy called Dwayne

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Speaker 1: Gish who was a creationist, a Christian evangelical who went

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Speaker 1: around debating with evolutionists, with scientists, with biologists about evolution.

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Speaker 1: And the way he beat them, and he did beat

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Speaker 1: them in public debates, was just by overwhelming them with

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Speaker 1: cherry pick statistics, out of context quotes, misquoted scientific papers.

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Speaker 1: But he would do it in such a confident, eloquent,

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Speaker 1: fast paced way that an audience of lay people sitting

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Speaker 1: at home or watching in the hall would say, wow,

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Speaker 1: he knows his stuff, and the scientist hasn't rebutted every

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Speaker 1: single thing he says, and that's how he was able

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Speaker 1: to run rings around people. And that's where one scientist

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Speaker 1: came up with this phrase, beware of the Gish gallop,

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Speaker 1: and Trump does that, right. It's an incredible phrase. By

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Speaker 1: the way, the Gish gallup it is. I think it's

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Speaker 1: Eugenie Scotland name was who was the scientist her name is,

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Speaker 1: I should say, who came up with this phrase because

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Speaker 1: she said, look, I'm not going to debate with these people.

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Speaker 1: I'll go on radio with them, but I won't do

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Speaker 1: these debates which allow them to gallop uninterrupted. And that

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Speaker 1: is what Trump does, right. We saw him in the

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Speaker 1: Joe Biden I think it was the first debate with

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Speaker 1: Chris Wallace in twenty twenty, where he just goes on

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Speaker 1: and on and on and Wallace can't control it. Chris Wallace,

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Speaker 1: who was a great interviewer, cannot stop him. Joe Biden

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Speaker 1: cannot rebut every piece of nonsense he says. But at

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Speaker 1: one point, I think he says a lie every nine seconds.

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Speaker 1: And my point in the book is there is actually

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Speaker 1: a way to stop a gift galloper and I say

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Speaker 1: there's a three part structure that I use, and that

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Speaker 1: is Number one. You pick your battles. You cannot stop

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Speaker 1: every lie, don't try and do everything. Pick out the

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Speaker 1: most ridiculous or dumb or offensive one, knock that one down,

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Speaker 1: and allow the rest of the house of cards to fall.

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Speaker 1: The second way you do it is to call it out.

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Speaker 1: A lot of people don't know what's going on here.

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Speaker 1: You've got to identify it to the audience. You've got

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Speaker 1: to say this is what they're doing, this is what

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Speaker 1: Trump is doing, this is what Dwayne gets She's doing.

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Speaker 1: They're trying to overwhelm you with nonsense. They don't want

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Speaker 1: to stop and get deep into anything. Call it out.

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Speaker 1: And the third point is don't budge. This is what

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Speaker 1: I say to a lot of my colleagues in the

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Speaker 1: US media. We move on too quickly in interviews. We

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Speaker 1: need to have the follow up question. We need to say,

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Speaker 1: hold on, hold on, I've asked about this, and you've

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Speaker 1: given me seventeen different answers. I only want to know

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Speaker 1: the answer to my question, and I'm not going on

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Speaker 1: to the next question until you answer this one. And

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Speaker 1: I point out it's my pinned tweet. That clip I

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Speaker 1: did with Steve Rogers, who was a Trump advisor in

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Speaker 1: twenty eighteen, which went viral, has had ten million views

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Speaker 1: on Twitter because that was an interview where we decided

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Speaker 1: my team and I Al Jezier English at the time,

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Speaker 1: said we're not going to budge. We're going to ask

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Speaker 1: him about Trump slie about steel mills. Trump had said, oh,

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Speaker 1: they've opened new steel mills. No, they hadn't opened any,

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Speaker 1: and he wanted to move on. I only tried his

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Speaker 1: best to say, let's talk about this, let's talk about that.

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Speaker 1: No steel mills. We're not budging. So that is how

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Speaker 1: you do it. It can be done, but it requires

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Speaker 1: a strategy. People think Trump doesn't have a strategy. He does,

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Speaker 1: so you have to have one too. And when I

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Speaker 1: say Trump, I mean Trump is mini Trumps, all of

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Speaker 1: the people who are spreading through the country and around

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Speaker 1: the world. It's become a worldwide phenomenon, this Trumpian approach

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Speaker 1: to interviews and debate. I mean, that's such a good

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Speaker 1: point because you really can stop and get stuck in

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Speaker 1: this kind of For example, Nicki Haley recently asked about

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Speaker 1: Trump and she just you know, they don't feel any

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Speaker 1: accountability to answer the question because they know you'll just

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Speaker 1: move on. Yeah, don't budge is my motto. Don't budge, right,

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Speaker 1: And I actually remember from like the nineties in the UK,

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Speaker 1: you know you'd watch interviews where they would say no,

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Speaker 1: but I asked you about this, what about this? Well

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Speaker 1: there was a legendary clip and I heard your listeners

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Speaker 1: to go look it up on YouTube. Jeremy Paxman, who

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Speaker 1: was a kind of hero of mine when I was

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Speaker 1: growing up in the UK. He was the attack dog

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Speaker 1: on the BBC, the most famous ruthless political interview. He

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Speaker 1: once said, I start every interview by thinking in my head,

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Speaker 1: why is this lying bastard lying to me? And he

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Speaker 1: he famously did an interview with the Home Secretary, the

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Speaker 1: UQUA equivalent of the Attorney General, Michael Howard at the time,

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Speaker 1: who had fired I think a prison governor, and the

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Speaker 1: prison governor had said I can't remember the details. There

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Speaker 1: was some argument about he fired the prison governor, and

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Speaker 1: Paxman asked him about the governor thirteen times or fourteen

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Speaker 1: times the same question because Howard hasn't answered it. And

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Speaker 1: can you imagine on American TV having a public a

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Speaker 1: government official on and asking the same question thirteen times. Amazing. Yeah, No,

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Speaker 1: I think you really have a good point here about

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Speaker 1: the sort of style of interviewing that we really do

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Speaker 1: need to go back to. I want to ask you

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Speaker 1: about Democrats. Why are Democrats better at this? I've got

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Speaker 1: multiple theories. I can't say for sure. I do think

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Speaker 1: there is this kind of technocratic element to the Democratic Party,

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Speaker 1: and it's a lawyerly element. Although you can't just blame

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Speaker 1: in the law, but I do think there's a lot

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Speaker 1: of lawyers in the Democratic Party, a lot of policy

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Speaker 1: wants who think that if you argue with enough statistics,

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Speaker 1: just one more policy paper, just one more statistic, one

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Speaker 1: more fact or figure, and you will convince the nation.

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Speaker 1: And it doesn't work like that. That is not how

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Speaker 1: the American public, That's not how human beings. And I

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Speaker 1: explain this in the second chapter of the book. I

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Speaker 1: have to have facts, but you need to approach feelings too.

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Speaker 1: It's not just facts. You need to address people's feelings.

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Speaker 1: Aristotle told us this more than two thousand years ago

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Speaker 1: in his book Rhetoric, that you need to focus on

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Speaker 1: people's pathos, on the emotional appeal. You move people by

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Speaker 1: hitting them in their heart, not just their head. And

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Speaker 1: too many Democratic leaders for too long have focused just

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Speaker 1: on their head. If we rationally win the argument, if

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Speaker 1: we point out the contradiction and the other persons, if

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Speaker 1: I have enough pages in my policy document, I will

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Speaker 1: win them over. And I should think of the twenty

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Speaker 1: sixteen presidential election, Molly, and I think Donald Trump understood

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Speaker 1: this and understands this very well. The right have understood

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Speaker 1: how to energize their base by appealing to their emotions.

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Speaker 1: And the emotions they appeal to, sadly are bigotry, anger, resentment.

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Speaker 1: They are very good at kind of negatively demogogically riling

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Speaker 1: up their base. But there's a theory behind it, which

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Speaker 1: is people respond to emotion. Now I'm not telling Democrats

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Speaker 1: to do that, but I'm saying, offer another emotional message,

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Speaker 1: whether it's one based on hope or one based on

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Speaker 1: anger at the right people that the point one percenters,

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Speaker 1: the bankers, the people who actually screw you, not migrants,

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Speaker 1: not trans kids. Right, And I think what happened in

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Speaker 1: twenty sixteen was Donald Trump comes on and says, lock

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Speaker 1: her up, build the wall, ban Muslims, Hi, easy to

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Speaker 1: remember and gets you really worked up all those issues.

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Speaker 1: Tillary comes along and says, hey, here's my childcare proposal.

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Speaker 1: It's seventeen points. It's really good. And I'm not saying

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Speaker 1: it wasn't a good childcare proposal. I'm sure it was

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Speaker 1: a great childcare proposal, but it's not going to win

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Speaker 1: you a presidential election. And think about it, Molly. There

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Speaker 1: have been six presidential elections in the twenty first century.

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Speaker 1: I keep making this point, it's so important. Three Democratic victories,

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Speaker 1: three Democratic losses. The Democratic losses were Al Gore, John Kerry,

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Speaker 1: and Hillary Clinton. The Democratic wins were Barack Obama and

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Speaker 1: Joe Biden. What do Barack Obama and Joe Biden having

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Speaker 1: common They talk like normal people. They talk in a

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Speaker 1: way that's authentic. They're not just rehearsing talking points. Whereas Kerry, Gore,

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Speaker 1: and Clinton, for all their brilliant they didn't inspire or

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Speaker 1: move people. One of the things that I think all

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Speaker 1: of us are thinking about all the time is can

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Speaker 1: me Ron, I'm sorry, Ron de Santis, can he you

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Speaker 1: know this fantasy of Trumpism without Trump right, which is

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Speaker 1: really authoritarianism. Let's be honest, because there's not there's a

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Speaker 1: you know, it's slogans and fascism. Can Trumpism without Trump

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Speaker 1: be a thing? And what I think a lot of

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Speaker 1: these people in the Donald request don't understand is that

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Speaker 1: Ron de Santis is not a charismatic guy. No. On

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Speaker 1: my book, I would say there are three chapters you

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Speaker 1: can read which will tell you why Ron de Santis

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Speaker 1: probably won't beat Donald Trump. The first is that chapter

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Speaker 1: I mentioned on emotion, on appealing to people's emotions. He's

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Speaker 1: been doing it well with his own kind of Florida

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Speaker 1: captive audience. But Donald Trump is an expert at rilling

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Speaker 1: people up, and in terms of that, he's a better speaker.

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Speaker 1: What if we think about Donald Trump, in all his craziness,

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Speaker 1: he knows in a kind of demagogue way, how to

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Speaker 1: move crowds and rallies. To Santis, I was going to say,

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Speaker 1: to sanctimonies. And that leads me to my next point,

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Speaker 1: which is I have a chapter in the book on

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Speaker 1: am arguments. Why ad hominum arguments work. People keep telling

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Speaker 1: you in debate schooling, high school debating, who play them ball,

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Speaker 1: not the man? Don't attack people individually, attack the arguments.

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Speaker 1: In the real world, Donald Trump showed us in twenty sixteen,

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Speaker 1: he defeated sixteen Republicans, all of whom were more qualified

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Speaker 1: than he wants, often by just calling them names low energy, Jeb,

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Speaker 1: you know, lion Ted. We were all the little Marco

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Speaker 1: and whether we like it or not, we could say, oh,

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Speaker 1: that's so gross, are so offensive, that's so childish. It worked.

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Speaker 1: It totally undermined his opponents. And good luck to Ron

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Speaker 1: de Santis or Ron de Sanctimonius, or meet Moron when

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Speaker 1: he's on a debate stage with Donald Trump. And again

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Speaker 1: the third chapter I mentioned is that is the gish galloping.

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Speaker 1: Trump will just gallop all over him. We saw DeSantis

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Speaker 1: in the debate with Charlie Christ. He couldn't even take

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Speaker 1: on Charlie Chris. Charlie Chris absolutely rhetorically destroyed him. Now,

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Speaker 1: Charlie Chris didn't win the races because Charlie Chris wasn't right.

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Speaker 1: Canada and Florida basically isn't a swing state anymore. I

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Speaker 1: don't see how Ron de Sands beats Donald Trump in

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Speaker 1: a debate. I just don't. I also think Tramp won't

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Speaker 1: let him like Trump, maybe can't win, but he can

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Speaker 1: make sure that DeSantis won't exactly I think that's the

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Speaker 1: best bet for Democrats if you want the best personally,

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Speaker 1: either Ron Desantist can't beat Trump. But let's say I'm wrong,

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Speaker 1: and I've been wrong before, I was wrong about Trump

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Speaker 1: winning in twenty sixteen. Let's say Desantist does beat Trump.

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Speaker 1: That's probably the best scenario for the Democrats, is that

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Speaker 1: DeSantis beat Trump. Trump doesn't concede, of course, he never

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Speaker 1: concedes defeat. He says it was stolen and he either

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Speaker 1: goes scorched earth on Desantists just attacking him and running

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Speaker 1: as a third party candidate, or he says to his followers,

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Speaker 1: stay at home from Mara Lago. And that is probably

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Speaker 1: the Democrats best bet. If the reporting a body is

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Speaker 1: divided between Desanders and Trump on the eve of November

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Speaker 1: twenty twenty four, Yeah, this is going to be so stressful, Andy,

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Speaker 1: and I could really use a break. I was promised

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Speaker 1: that the world would go back to normal, by the way,

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Speaker 1: just to get into sort of something I'm curious about

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Speaker 1: my own personal edification. I mean, was this always going

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Speaker 1: to be this kind of messy process to try to

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Speaker 1: come back as a country or do you think it's

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Speaker 1: been made worse by this incredibly smileless Republican Party. You

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Speaker 1: can see, I have no opinion on that. I was

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Speaker 1: going to say, you could have gone anywhere with that sentence,

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Speaker 1: because I thought you'll send was it going to end

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Speaker 1: with the spinelessness of the d J well also that yeah,

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Speaker 1: because I would argue that I had no expectations of

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Speaker 1: the Republican Party. I didn't think they were going to go, hey,

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Speaker 1: get rid of Donald Trump, let's clean up our party.

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Speaker 1: That became clear when Kevin McCarthy went to bow to

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Speaker 1: him at Moral Lago after to January the sixth. That

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Speaker 1: was the moment you knew we do want to shadow

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Speaker 1: of a doubt this party's not going to disown Trump.

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Speaker 1: You see Nicki Haley right now being asked about Trump.

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Speaker 1: She say, oh, I don't kick sideways. It's okay, good

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Speaker 1: luck to because he does. By the way, also, it's

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Speaker 1: up Donald Trump sideways up. Yeah, you're not the equal

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Speaker 1: of Donald Trump for whatever you think you're appolling at

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Speaker 1: six percent? Good luck. Yeah. What I would say is

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Speaker 1: I didn't expect anything the Republican Party, but I did

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Speaker 1: expect a democratic administration to do something substantive on these issues.

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Speaker 1: And we know they tried and failed with the various

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Speaker 1: bills to protect democracy, and Joe Manchin and kist In

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Speaker 1: Cinema screweders all over. And we know that we now

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Speaker 1: have a special counsel who seems to be taking all

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Speaker 1: sorts of interesting actions, but in my view, all too little,

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Speaker 1: too late. The idea that Donald Trump think about this,

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Speaker 1: Just imagine that a proverbial Martian lands near your house

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Speaker 1: and says, what's going on in American politics? And you say,

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Speaker 1: all right, let me give you a quick summary. The

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Speaker 1: president who lost the election last time around, didn't concede

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Speaker 1: the election, incited a violent insurrection, tried a coup to

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Speaker 1: stay in power, was condemned by everyone in America, including

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Speaker 1: his own party, for about twenty four hours, and then

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Speaker 1: he left office and nothing happened to him. And he's

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Speaker 1: now running for president again and leading in his polls.

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Speaker 1: That's ridiculous. And the Democratic body have to take some

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Speaker 1: responsibility for that. The Biden administration has to take some

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Speaker 1: responsibility for that. I mean, if this was another country,

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Speaker 1: we always say the Brendon nine line, what would you

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Speaker 1: say if you saw this in another country, that a

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Speaker 1: president who's incited insurrection tried a coup is now inex

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Speaker 1: basically in self imposed exile out of the capitol, still

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Speaker 1: inciting violence, still lying, and possibly about to come back

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Speaker 1: to power. We would judge that country to be in

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Speaker 1: our own offensive terms. Banana Republic failed date all of

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Speaker 1: that stuff. That's America in twenty twenty three. No, I know,

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Speaker 1: I mean, it's just completely an utterly I mean, Merrick

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Speaker 1: Garland was not the right guy man for this job

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Speaker 1: in my opinion. I've said this on my show. He's

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Speaker 1: a great lawyer, I'm sure a very decent human being.

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Speaker 1: Democrats thought they were owning the cons by putting the

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Speaker 1: guy who Mitch McConnell a rejected of the Supreme Court

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Speaker 1: in the DOJ. But it just you needed someone like

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Speaker 1: an Elizabeth Warren in the DOJ. You needed a kind

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Speaker 1: of fighter who was going to come out the gate

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Speaker 1: and say, let's clean this mess up. Democracy is under threats.

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Speaker 1: My job to protect democracy right now, not try and

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Speaker 1: appeal across the aisle and be this kind of fake

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Speaker 1: bipartisan figure. Yeah, he just doesn't seem like the Fanny

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Speaker 1: Willis case in Georgia. I mean, I don't know that

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Speaker 1: that's a perfect case either. I mean, in theory, it's

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Speaker 1: a perfect case. I've been I as a non lawyer,

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Speaker 1: I've been saying for a while, like, what else do

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Speaker 1: you need to lock him up? If I had been

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Speaker 1: caught on tape telling Brad Ravensberger to find my candidate

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Speaker 1: eleven tho, I'd be in prison. You and I would

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Speaker 1: be in prisoned by now, right, Oh, no question, we've

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Speaker 1: been j at least we'd be awaiting trial for sure.

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Speaker 1: It's literally on take, and there's no secondhand here say

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Speaker 1: issues now this week, these past few days, we've been

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Speaker 1: worried about what might happen because the grand Jury four

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Speaker 1: person has been doing media rounds and giggling her way

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Speaker 1: through interviews. She's someone I wish had read my book

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Speaker 1: before she went on TV, because her appearances didn't do

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Speaker 1: her any favors and may not have done the Georgia

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Speaker 1: case any favors. But let's see, I'm not a lawyer,

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Speaker 1: and legal experts are mixed on that. But you know,

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Speaker 1: as I've pointed out many a time, Georgia all his

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Speaker 1: businesses won six and the incitement of violence, those are

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Speaker 1: multiple cases. Just go back to obstruction of justice from

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Speaker 1: Muller report. I mean, I'm sorry, I'm sorry to be

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Speaker 1: the anarak on the Mulla Report. But Robert Muller outlined

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Speaker 1: ten cases of obstruction of justice by Donald Trump. He

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Speaker 1: then went and sat in front of Congress and said

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Speaker 1: there's no immunity for a former president. He could be

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Speaker 1: tried after he left office. He leaves office. Merrick Garland

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Speaker 1: doesn't bring a single one of those cases before the

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Speaker 1: statute of limitations runs out, they should just prosecute him

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Speaker 1: for that, right, No, it's true, Maddie. You are one

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Speaker 1: of my favorites. Thank you. I hope you will come back.

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Speaker 1: Thank you so much for having me. Jordan Weissman is

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Speaker 1: the Washington bureau editor at Semaphore. Welcome Too Fast Politics, Jordan,

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Speaker 1: thank you for having me on. Happy to be here.

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Speaker 1: I want to talk to you about the rail disaster

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Speaker 1: in East Palestine. A rail disaster causing innumerable problems we

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Speaker 1: don't even know the scope of them, largely environmental, much

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Speaker 1: of which is caused by a lack of regulation. It

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Speaker 1: appears so. I mean, right now that the federal government

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Speaker 1: is still digging in, they're still investigating exactly what went wrong,

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Speaker 1: but already people in Washington lawmakers are starting to get

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Speaker 1: a sense of ways this possibly could have been prevented,

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Speaker 1: and there are a lot of policy options that have

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Speaker 1: already been put forward or people are discussing that. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean, I would say in general, the catastrophe disaster,

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Speaker 1: I mean, just this whole thing is brought a lot

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Speaker 1: of attention to an issue that has just gone under

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Speaker 1: the radar forever, which is rail safety, and thankfully because

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00:19:53,960 --> 00:19:56,800
Speaker 1: it affects a lot of communities, especially in rural America. Yeah,

425
00:19:56,840 --> 00:20:01,280
Speaker 1: so I want to go for one, which is like

426
00:20:01,320 --> 00:20:04,840
Speaker 1: a stupid question, but I need you to debunk it. Anyway,

427
00:20:05,280 --> 00:20:08,399
Speaker 1: There's been a lot of like pushback on the Republican

428
00:20:08,480 --> 00:20:14,040
Speaker 1: side of like, while the particular regulation that Trump rolled

429
00:20:14,080 --> 00:20:18,600
Speaker 1: back would not have prevented this, and while that is,

430
00:20:18,760 --> 00:20:24,080
Speaker 1: I guess theoretically true, I would love for you to

431
00:20:24,160 --> 00:20:27,400
Speaker 1: explain why, you know, this is not actually about one

432
00:20:27,480 --> 00:20:31,040
Speaker 1: specific regulation. This isn't about one specific regulation. It's more

433
00:20:31,080 --> 00:20:33,800
Speaker 1: about a general approach to rail safety. That's it kind

434
00:20:33,840 --> 00:20:35,879
Speaker 1: of stretched back for a long time. You know, some

435
00:20:35,960 --> 00:20:38,600
Speaker 1: people who have blamed the Obama administration too for maybe

436
00:20:38,600 --> 00:20:40,800
Speaker 1: not doing enough fun to you in the past, or

437
00:20:40,840 --> 00:20:42,880
Speaker 1: at least being too willing to kind of give into

438
00:20:43,440 --> 00:20:47,040
Speaker 1: industry lobbying. But I think, yeah, we can talk about

439
00:20:47,040 --> 00:20:48,760
Speaker 1: Trump briefly and what he did, and then we can

440
00:20:48,800 --> 00:20:51,439
Speaker 1: talk more broadly about what's going on here. And so

441
00:20:51,600 --> 00:20:55,480
Speaker 1: let's start with the controversy over Trump. And so at

442
00:20:55,480 --> 00:20:59,280
Speaker 1: one point, the Obama administration put out a rule that

443
00:20:59,400 --> 00:21:04,119
Speaker 1: involved what are known as highly hazardous flammable trains or

444
00:21:04,240 --> 00:21:08,720
Speaker 1: trains that are carrying highly hazardous flammable material, which is

445
00:21:08,760 --> 00:21:10,840
Speaker 1: a very important term here, and I want your listeners

446
00:21:10,840 --> 00:21:13,440
Speaker 1: to remember. It's a very evocative term, but it actually

447
00:21:13,480 --> 00:21:16,000
Speaker 1: needs a very specific thing. And part of that, there

448
00:21:16,000 --> 00:21:18,520
Speaker 1: were all sorts of safety rules attached to these trains

449
00:21:18,560 --> 00:21:21,880
Speaker 1: that were rolling through communities and basically posed a risk

450
00:21:21,920 --> 00:21:24,880
Speaker 1: of explosion. And one of the rules that Obama tried

451
00:21:24,880 --> 00:21:27,560
Speaker 1: to put in place would have required that they use

452
00:21:28,080 --> 00:21:32,440
Speaker 1: essentially more modern, advanced electronic breaks instead of the sort

453
00:21:32,440 --> 00:21:36,359
Speaker 1: of nineteenth century technology a lot of American rails equipped with.

454
00:21:36,480 --> 00:21:39,679
Speaker 1: Right now, this seems like a good investment, seems like

455
00:21:39,680 --> 00:21:43,359
Speaker 1: a reasonable thing to do, right and especially given the

456
00:21:43,440 --> 00:21:46,600
Speaker 1: kinds of freight we were talking about it. And this

457
00:21:46,720 --> 00:21:50,640
Speaker 1: rule was really designed to apply to trains that were

458
00:21:50,640 --> 00:21:53,800
Speaker 1: carrying oil. It came out of the fracking boom sort of,

459
00:21:53,920 --> 00:21:56,760
Speaker 1: and when a lot of trolling products were being transported

460
00:21:56,760 --> 00:21:59,440
Speaker 1: by a train inst of pipeline, and sometimes they were

461
00:21:59,480 --> 00:22:03,920
Speaker 1: derailing and causing serious environmental hazards and communities. We shouldn't

462
00:22:04,000 --> 00:22:07,960
Speaker 1: laugh because this is so horrible. I'm only laughing because

463
00:22:07,960 --> 00:22:09,840
Speaker 1: it is so horrible. Yeah, it's very one of the

464
00:22:09,920 --> 00:22:11,520
Speaker 1: things that are you just look into like kind of

465
00:22:11,520 --> 00:22:15,480
Speaker 1: the grim void of the way we do business in

466
00:22:15,520 --> 00:22:17,840
Speaker 1: this country sometimes and you just it's dark, and you

467
00:22:17,920 --> 00:22:20,960
Speaker 1: do have to laugh sometimes it's dark. Exactly. They put

468
00:22:20,960 --> 00:22:23,159
Speaker 1: this rule in place, and so this rule got a

469
00:22:23,160 --> 00:22:25,960
Speaker 1: lot of pushback from the industry, and Congress listened to

470
00:22:25,960 --> 00:22:28,760
Speaker 1: the lobbying and they passed the law that said you

471
00:22:28,800 --> 00:22:30,560
Speaker 1: need to kind of rethink this rule, and then they

472
00:22:30,600 --> 00:22:32,480
Speaker 1: made them do what it's called a new cost benefit

473
00:22:32,520 --> 00:22:36,040
Speaker 1: analysis on it. And after Congress did that, then the

474
00:22:36,040 --> 00:22:38,920
Speaker 1: Trump administration came into office and they used this new

475
00:22:39,000 --> 00:22:41,720
Speaker 1: law and the new cost benefit analysis as an opportunity

476
00:22:41,880 --> 00:22:45,040
Speaker 1: to roll back this rule saying you have to put

477
00:22:45,160 --> 00:22:49,639
Speaker 1: modern breaks on trains that are carrying explosive oil. Like, right,

478
00:22:49,680 --> 00:22:54,560
Speaker 1: and yes, a crazy rule. Yes, yeah, this isn't the

479
00:22:54,640 --> 00:22:57,520
Speaker 1: only instance where Trump rolled back or tried to kind

480
00:22:57,520 --> 00:22:59,480
Speaker 1: of power back some real safety rules. But it's the

481
00:22:59,480 --> 00:23:01,879
Speaker 1: one that everyone been focused on. Now. The reason this

482
00:23:01,920 --> 00:23:05,199
Speaker 1: wouldn't have helped. This rule that Trump nixed would not

483
00:23:05,280 --> 00:23:09,280
Speaker 1: have helped prevent this specific disaster is that it actually

484
00:23:09,320 --> 00:23:13,480
Speaker 1: would not have covered trains carrying the specific type of

485
00:23:13,560 --> 00:23:18,040
Speaker 1: explosive chemicals that this Norfolk Southern train was carrying. The

486
00:23:18,119 --> 00:23:22,200
Speaker 1: highly hazardous Flammable Train rule really applied to things like oil,

487
00:23:22,520 --> 00:23:26,720
Speaker 1: specifically what are known as Class three flammable liquids, and

488
00:23:27,040 --> 00:23:30,320
Speaker 1: vinyl chloride, which is the chemical that was aboard this

489
00:23:30,400 --> 00:23:33,399
Speaker 1: train in these Palestine is not a liquid. It is

490
00:23:33,440 --> 00:23:36,760
Speaker 1: not a classy flammable liquid. And I apologize deeply. I

491
00:23:36,800 --> 00:23:40,640
Speaker 1: cannot remember the specific classification of this chemical. I think

492
00:23:40,680 --> 00:23:44,280
Speaker 1: we've got enough for our non experts here. Yeah, so

493
00:23:44,359 --> 00:23:47,280
Speaker 1: it wasn't actually covered by this rule, and so I think.

494
00:23:47,320 --> 00:23:49,400
Speaker 1: But what that illustrates is that, you know, there's been

495
00:23:49,400 --> 00:23:52,560
Speaker 1: this partisan back and forth about oh, well Trump undid

496
00:23:52,600 --> 00:23:54,560
Speaker 1: the rule, and well, oh wouldn't have covered anything in

497
00:23:54,600 --> 00:23:57,120
Speaker 1: the first place. And you know why if Biden cared

498
00:23:57,119 --> 00:23:58,600
Speaker 1: so much, why didn't he try to do anything in

499
00:23:58,600 --> 00:24:00,959
Speaker 1: the past years, A lot of people involved in this

500
00:24:01,040 --> 00:24:05,679
Speaker 1: discussion are kind of looking at this situation and going, wait, okay,

501
00:24:05,720 --> 00:24:09,520
Speaker 1: we can all agree something is really messed up here. Well,

502
00:24:09,640 --> 00:24:11,880
Speaker 1: And I mean, I think that one of the things

503
00:24:11,920 --> 00:24:13,960
Speaker 1: I would love you to talk about now is that

504
00:24:14,240 --> 00:24:18,720
Speaker 1: when the Biden administration came in, the Trump rhetoric actually

505
00:24:18,800 --> 00:24:22,920
Speaker 1: worked on regulation, right. It made Democrats and I think

506
00:24:23,080 --> 00:24:27,679
Speaker 1: other nonpartisans if there already left anxious about the idea

507
00:24:27,680 --> 00:24:30,360
Speaker 1: of putting in more regulation because Trump had for so

508
00:24:30,440 --> 00:24:33,680
Speaker 1: long said like regulation kills business. I mean, he wasn't

509
00:24:33,680 --> 00:24:36,119
Speaker 1: the only one. Obviously. This is from a long line

510
00:24:36,119 --> 00:24:39,560
Speaker 1: of conservative quote unquote thinking. But I would love for

511
00:24:39,600 --> 00:24:42,840
Speaker 1: you to talk about the hesitation that Democrats had when

512
00:24:42,840 --> 00:24:44,960
Speaker 1: they came in. But it's been pretty aggressive in a

513
00:24:44,960 --> 00:24:48,840
Speaker 1: lot of ways about trying to reregulate certain industries. Part

514
00:24:48,880 --> 00:24:50,239
Speaker 1: of the issue here is that it can just be

515
00:24:50,359 --> 00:24:54,800
Speaker 1: really difficult to reregulate an industry that has been deregulated.

516
00:24:54,840 --> 00:24:58,320
Speaker 1: Just sort of a logistical level. There are all sorts

517
00:24:58,359 --> 00:25:01,159
Speaker 1: of laws and steps you have to take in order

518
00:25:01,520 --> 00:25:04,760
Speaker 1: to get a new regulation in place. And part of

519
00:25:04,800 --> 00:25:07,960
Speaker 1: what Congress and Trump did was they made it harder. Essentially,

520
00:25:07,960 --> 00:25:11,360
Speaker 1: to reregulate the industry. They put certain kind of hurdles

521
00:25:11,480 --> 00:25:14,119
Speaker 1: in place if anybody wanted to come back and say, actually, no,

522
00:25:14,240 --> 00:25:16,639
Speaker 1: you should have electronic breaks on these trains. And that

523
00:25:16,800 --> 00:25:19,479
Speaker 1: is something that Peputigg has been pointed too often when

524
00:25:19,520 --> 00:25:22,080
Speaker 1: people have accused him of being too slow and too

525
00:25:22,080 --> 00:25:24,280
Speaker 1: hesitant to try and tackle trains safety roles. He has

526
00:25:24,359 --> 00:25:27,560
Speaker 1: essentially said, hey, you guys shackled me. There's only so

527
00:25:27,640 --> 00:25:30,240
Speaker 1: much we can really do here. Nonetheless, it does appear

528
00:25:30,320 --> 00:25:34,960
Speaker 1: that this disaster has really motivated is galvanized, Yeah, exactly,

529
00:25:35,119 --> 00:25:37,639
Speaker 1: is galvanized the administration to maybe be more aggressive and

530
00:25:37,640 --> 00:25:39,760
Speaker 1: try to push things harder and also ask for help

531
00:25:39,800 --> 00:25:43,240
Speaker 1: from Congress. I would say a combination of maybe conservative rhetoric,

532
00:25:43,280 --> 00:25:47,520
Speaker 1: but also just more the concrete roadblocks that Republicans have

533
00:25:47,560 --> 00:25:49,280
Speaker 1: put in place have made it a little tricky to

534
00:25:49,400 --> 00:25:52,000
Speaker 1: regulate this industry. Yeah. I mean. One of the things

535
00:25:52,000 --> 00:25:54,560
Speaker 1: that I think is really interesting that has come out

536
00:25:54,600 --> 00:25:59,040
Speaker 1: of this environmental crisis is you hear a lot of

537
00:25:59,119 --> 00:26:07,320
Speaker 1: Republican including Hillbilly Senator Jady Vance and Ivy grad Yale

538
00:26:07,400 --> 00:26:10,919
Speaker 1: law school graduate, I think, saying a lot of things

539
00:26:10,960 --> 00:26:15,000
Speaker 1: about that They almost sound like they're on the populace left. Yeah,

540
00:26:15,000 --> 00:26:16,679
Speaker 1: there's been a little bit of that. I mean, the

541
00:26:16,800 --> 00:26:23,080
Speaker 1: rhetoric around this accident has been a combination of interesting

542
00:26:23,280 --> 00:26:27,440
Speaker 1: and kind of horrifying, right exactly, there's a real play

543
00:26:27,480 --> 00:26:30,320
Speaker 1: to make this a thing that you know, white people

544
00:26:30,400 --> 00:26:34,080
Speaker 1: are being forgotten, and that I mean is just craven

545
00:26:34,200 --> 00:26:37,399
Speaker 1: but not unexpected, right, I mean, it's sort of you

546
00:26:37,400 --> 00:26:41,920
Speaker 1: would anticipate it and maybe wrongful, maybe be naively a

547
00:26:41,960 --> 00:26:45,320
Speaker 1: little bit surprised with how aggressively certain conservative talking heads

548
00:26:45,560 --> 00:26:48,640
Speaker 1: really just dove right in to saying, oh, Democrats don't

549
00:26:48,640 --> 00:26:51,159
Speaker 1: care about white Charlie Kirk wasn't surprising, but Charlie kar

550
00:26:51,359 --> 00:26:53,400
Speaker 1: Verbatim said, if this is a result of the war

551
00:26:53,440 --> 00:26:56,240
Speaker 1: on white people, Jesse Waters and Fox said they were

552
00:26:56,280 --> 00:26:59,879
Speaker 1: trying to fight environmental racism by dumping toxic chemicals on

553
00:27:00,000 --> 00:27:02,439
Speaker 1: poor white people, and Tucker Carlson had a whole spiel

554
00:27:02,600 --> 00:27:05,440
Speaker 1: about how the fact that they were white and conservative

555
00:27:05,600 --> 00:27:08,480
Speaker 1: was why their plight was being ignored, and jad Vance

556
00:27:08,560 --> 00:27:11,000
Speaker 1: kind of danced on the edge of that in some

557
00:27:11,119 --> 00:27:14,000
Speaker 1: of his comments. He basically said at one point that

558
00:27:14,040 --> 00:27:17,560
Speaker 1: Pete Boutajidge was so wrapped up in fake woke quote

559
00:27:17,640 --> 00:27:20,760
Speaker 1: issues like whether or not construction companies are hiring too

560
00:27:20,760 --> 00:27:23,399
Speaker 1: many white workers, which was sort of a distortion of

561
00:27:23,480 --> 00:27:26,520
Speaker 1: some comments he made, right, that was their favorite distortion

562
00:27:26,560 --> 00:27:30,280
Speaker 1: of comments. But you know, poo Boodagage basically gave a

563
00:27:30,400 --> 00:27:33,160
Speaker 1: conference where he said that you could hire more workers

564
00:27:33,200 --> 00:27:36,240
Speaker 1: of color and communities where you're building things. But that's

565
00:27:36,280 --> 00:27:38,840
Speaker 1: besides the thing. You know, he said that Boodagude was

566
00:27:38,880 --> 00:27:40,800
Speaker 1: so wrapped up in these kinds of woke issues that

567
00:27:40,800 --> 00:27:43,960
Speaker 1: he was ignoring real things like train safety. But you know,

568
00:27:44,080 --> 00:27:47,840
Speaker 1: leaving that kind of mud slinging part of the conversation aside.

569
00:27:47,840 --> 00:27:49,240
Speaker 1: And I don't think we should ignore it, but just

570
00:27:49,359 --> 00:27:52,240
Speaker 1: for the moment. Yeah, there has also been this kind

571
00:27:52,240 --> 00:27:56,200
Speaker 1: of populous sentiment among certain Republicans who've been saying, yes,

572
00:27:56,280 --> 00:27:58,800
Speaker 1: the train company should pay for it, Yes, we shouldn't

573
00:27:59,000 --> 00:28:01,680
Speaker 1: let these corporate just get away with it, which is

574
00:28:02,000 --> 00:28:05,640
Speaker 1: the basis of the Republican Party as I remember in

575
00:28:05,680 --> 00:28:07,880
Speaker 1: my youth. Yeah, I mean, yeah, right, it was laz

576
00:28:07,920 --> 00:28:10,879
Speaker 1: a fair sort of a light touch, to say the least.

577
00:28:10,920 --> 00:28:13,960
Speaker 1: And yeah, people have accused him of saying, well where

578
00:28:13,960 --> 00:28:16,480
Speaker 1: were you during the Trump years? In JV. Vance's case,

579
00:28:16,480 --> 00:28:18,440
Speaker 1: he actually wasn't in Congress, so that gives him a

580
00:28:18,480 --> 00:28:22,320
Speaker 1: little bit more credibility. Although he's been hesitant to criticize Trump,

581
00:28:22,320 --> 00:28:24,400
Speaker 1: and if you ask his people about that, they'll say,

582
00:28:24,440 --> 00:28:26,480
Speaker 1: we shouldn't be making this about Trump. This is about

583
00:28:26,480 --> 00:28:29,760
Speaker 1: the year now. But he's been on the ground barn storming.

584
00:28:29,760 --> 00:28:32,200
Speaker 1: And while he's been criticizing Biden, he's also been criticizing

585
00:28:32,200 --> 00:28:34,359
Speaker 1: the company and saying more needs to be done. And

586
00:28:34,480 --> 00:28:38,080
Speaker 1: he's been also working with Democrats on sending out letters

587
00:28:38,080 --> 00:28:40,920
Speaker 1: and asking about possible policy responses. And as I wrote

588
00:28:40,960 --> 00:28:42,880
Speaker 1: in an article this week, you know, his office tells

589
00:28:42,880 --> 00:28:45,760
Speaker 1: me he's been workshopping legislation with members of both parties,

590
00:28:45,840 --> 00:28:48,240
Speaker 1: which is that's why I say it's an interesting development.

591
00:28:48,400 --> 00:28:51,040
Speaker 1: I don't know if you're Jesse and I age. We

592
00:28:51,080 --> 00:28:54,280
Speaker 1: grew up during the time of the exon Valdis, and

593
00:28:54,360 --> 00:28:57,840
Speaker 1: you will remember the Republicans were basically like, you know,

594
00:28:58,200 --> 00:29:00,960
Speaker 1: the birds are fine, you know they need a little soap.

595
00:29:01,360 --> 00:29:04,520
Speaker 1: So I do think this is like a real development

596
00:29:04,640 --> 00:29:07,720
Speaker 1: in its own strange way. I did think that the

597
00:29:07,840 --> 00:29:12,200
Speaker 1: stuff with DeWine was fascinating because you know, he has

598
00:29:12,280 --> 00:29:15,240
Speaker 1: during the Trump administration been held up as a sort

599
00:29:15,240 --> 00:29:19,040
Speaker 1: of more rational Republican, and then we really saw he

600
00:29:19,160 --> 00:29:22,680
Speaker 1: was kind of allergic to the federal help. Yeah, I

601
00:29:22,680 --> 00:29:24,880
Speaker 1: guess that's one way to put it. Dwine's been interesting

602
00:29:24,920 --> 00:29:26,520
Speaker 1: because he said, on the one hand, we don't need

603
00:29:26,560 --> 00:29:28,840
Speaker 1: federal help. He's like, or he hasn't, he doesn't. He said,

604
00:29:29,000 --> 00:29:30,800
Speaker 1: if we need it, we'll use it. We just haven't

605
00:29:30,920 --> 00:29:34,000
Speaker 1: felt we haven't felt like we're missing anything, right, I mean,

606
00:29:34,360 --> 00:29:38,360
Speaker 1: your cat will be fine, you know. You know, DeWine's

607
00:29:38,400 --> 00:29:41,479
Speaker 1: response is less like keep the federal government away and

608
00:29:41,640 --> 00:29:44,920
Speaker 1: more just that, yeah, people are handling this competently. And

609
00:29:45,360 --> 00:29:47,280
Speaker 1: one notable thing about his response is that a lot

610
00:29:47,280 --> 00:29:50,080
Speaker 1: odd Republicans early on have tried to suggest that Biden

611
00:29:50,160 --> 00:29:52,040
Speaker 1: was too slow and that it was a problem that

612
00:29:52,120 --> 00:29:54,640
Speaker 1: you know, senior officials weren't on the ground immediately and

613
00:29:54,640 --> 00:29:57,120
Speaker 1: that they weren't doing enough to help. And DeWine has

614
00:29:57,160 --> 00:29:59,880
Speaker 1: has literally said, I have no complaints about Biden's response. Right.

615
00:30:00,120 --> 00:30:02,160
Speaker 1: He has said he's gotten up there and said, yeah,

616
00:30:02,160 --> 00:30:04,479
Speaker 1: they're you know, offering whatever I need and it seems

617
00:30:04,560 --> 00:30:06,440
Speaker 1: to be going to you know, we're getting the material

618
00:30:06,560 --> 00:30:09,560
Speaker 1: that's necessary, and officials are helping us when we ask.

619
00:30:09,720 --> 00:30:11,720
Speaker 1: You know, it's been a funny contrast. Like there was

620
00:30:11,760 --> 00:30:14,120
Speaker 1: one point where um, and he's I think he's generally

621
00:30:14,160 --> 00:30:16,719
Speaker 1: been trying to urge calm. There was one point where

622
00:30:17,160 --> 00:30:21,160
Speaker 1: Vance challenged Biden officials to drink the tap water in

623
00:30:21,200 --> 00:30:23,880
Speaker 1: East Palestine if they thought it was okay, this is

624
00:30:23,920 --> 00:30:28,040
Speaker 1: so stupid. Yes, what happened with then Michael Reagan like

625
00:30:28,120 --> 00:30:31,200
Speaker 1: showed up, Michael Regan, the EPA administrator. He went there

626
00:30:31,320 --> 00:30:34,680
Speaker 1: and he and Dwine got together said cheers point classes

627
00:30:34,680 --> 00:30:41,760
Speaker 1: to drink so stupid. You know, Dwine has been his impulses,

628
00:30:41,800 --> 00:30:44,480
Speaker 1: like you said, kind of urge calm and and just

629
00:30:44,600 --> 00:30:47,000
Speaker 1: be a mellow sort of what we thought of as

630
00:30:47,040 --> 00:30:51,760
Speaker 1: an Ohio Republican for decades, kind of a Portman style Republican.

631
00:30:51,920 --> 00:30:54,240
Speaker 1: You know, it's the demure small business owner who just

632
00:30:54,320 --> 00:30:57,000
Speaker 1: wants to taxes low. That's sort of his m and

633
00:30:57,080 --> 00:30:59,720
Speaker 1: it seems like the way he's trying to comport himself here. Yeah,

634
00:31:00,200 --> 00:31:02,600
Speaker 1: it's so interesting, And I mean I do want to

635
00:31:02,640 --> 00:31:05,959
Speaker 1: point out there's been like criticism of the Biden administration,

636
00:31:06,000 --> 00:31:10,560
Speaker 1: which I think is totally fair, criticism of the Ohio

637
00:31:10,720 --> 00:31:14,080
Speaker 1: Republican governor, which I also think is quite fair. But

638
00:31:14,120 --> 00:31:16,840
Speaker 1: there was I mean, the EPA was on the ground

639
00:31:16,880 --> 00:31:20,320
Speaker 1: that day, I mean supposedly within two hours though right

640
00:31:20,520 --> 00:31:24,440
Speaker 1: the heads of the departments weren't immediately there. But the

641
00:31:24,480 --> 00:31:26,800
Speaker 1: people who actually do this job day in and day out,

642
00:31:27,120 --> 00:31:29,320
Speaker 1: you know, the civil servants and the experts were on

643
00:31:29,360 --> 00:31:31,480
Speaker 1: the ground figuring out what needed to be done. So

644
00:31:31,720 --> 00:31:33,600
Speaker 1: every no one really denies that. I mean it's a

645
00:31:33,720 --> 00:31:35,880
Speaker 1: very meta conversation in a way, like a lot of

646
00:31:35,880 --> 00:31:37,960
Speaker 1: the criticisms have just been, oh, you didn't show like,

647
00:31:38,040 --> 00:31:40,320
Speaker 1: you didn't show you cared enough, you weren't there, although

648
00:31:40,360 --> 00:31:42,400
Speaker 1: I will say there have been. You know, there was

649
00:31:42,440 --> 00:31:45,280
Speaker 1: one former head of the EPA under George H. W. Bush,

650
00:31:45,400 --> 00:31:47,520
Speaker 1: who I believe toiled political that he thought that it

651
00:31:47,560 --> 00:31:49,320
Speaker 1: was a mistake that they didn't make a bigger deal

652
00:31:49,320 --> 00:31:51,400
Speaker 1: of it, because it really would have helped communicate with

653
00:31:51,520 --> 00:31:55,000
Speaker 1: the local population and made them feel safer in that sense.

654
00:31:55,040 --> 00:31:58,280
Speaker 1: The communications response was sort of fumbled, and so you

655
00:31:58,280 --> 00:32:01,640
Speaker 1: could possibly genuinely criticize on those grounds, But in general,

656
00:32:01,800 --> 00:32:03,200
Speaker 1: the folks who are supposed to show up in the

657
00:32:03,200 --> 00:32:05,000
Speaker 1: wake of a disaster showed up. Yeah, I mean that

658
00:32:05,200 --> 00:32:08,160
Speaker 1: I think is a really important point. And again, like

659
00:32:08,280 --> 00:32:12,160
Speaker 1: I think there's really a sense in which this is

660
00:32:12,200 --> 00:32:16,959
Speaker 1: an issue that Democrats can be leading on, and so

661
00:32:17,360 --> 00:32:20,560
Speaker 1: when they, you know, there was a certain sense in

662
00:32:20,600 --> 00:32:25,520
Speaker 1: which they ceded the opportunity by not getting in there sooner,

663
00:32:25,960 --> 00:32:29,320
Speaker 1: and so that would be my criticism is that this

664
00:32:29,800 --> 00:32:36,040
Speaker 1: environmental regulation could be sort of the cornerstone of democratic

665
00:32:36,160 --> 00:32:40,560
Speaker 1: legislation period paragraph and especially with the Chips Act coming

666
00:32:40,560 --> 00:32:43,640
Speaker 1: down the pike, we're going to have another opportunity act

667
00:32:43,720 --> 00:32:46,840
Speaker 1: for environmental legislation and make the case. So I do

668
00:32:46,920 --> 00:32:49,479
Speaker 1: think in that way. You know, if mayor Pete had

669
00:32:49,480 --> 00:32:52,120
Speaker 1: been there the day after her, there would have been

670
00:32:52,160 --> 00:32:55,280
Speaker 1: an opportunity. Yeah, and you know, I think just to

671
00:32:55,440 --> 00:32:58,360
Speaker 1: harp from politics a little bit more, you know, one

672
00:32:58,400 --> 00:33:02,960
Speaker 1: thing that Biden really emphasized early on in his administration

673
00:33:03,080 --> 00:33:05,400
Speaker 1: was that he was going to be a president for everybody, right,

674
00:33:05,520 --> 00:33:07,720
Speaker 1: He really made that point. And one of the most

675
00:33:07,760 --> 00:33:11,320
Speaker 1: concrete ways in which Trump kind of made it clear

676
00:33:11,400 --> 00:33:15,160
Speaker 1: he wasn't a president for everybody was disaster response, where

677
00:33:15,200 --> 00:33:17,440
Speaker 1: he would sort of dangle it in front of the

678
00:33:17,440 --> 00:33:20,240
Speaker 1: state of California and act like, oh, maybe I'm not

679
00:33:20,400 --> 00:33:22,200
Speaker 1: you know, maybe you guys don't deserve my help because

680
00:33:22,200 --> 00:33:24,200
Speaker 1: you don't vote for me, or because he haven't been supportive,

681
00:33:24,360 --> 00:33:26,680
Speaker 1: whereas Bid came in and made it very clear that

682
00:33:26,720 --> 00:33:29,440
Speaker 1: he wasn't going to be that sort of a vindictive

683
00:33:29,800 --> 00:33:34,200
Speaker 1: you know, chief executive, and in general, he's been extremely

684
00:33:34,240 --> 00:33:38,800
Speaker 1: his administration has been extremely responsive to disasters everywhere and

685
00:33:39,080 --> 00:33:42,520
Speaker 1: has been responsive here, but maybe lost sight of the

686
00:33:42,600 --> 00:33:45,640
Speaker 1: need to really show it. And that might possibly because

687
00:33:45,720 --> 00:33:48,840
Speaker 1: the week this happened, all of Washington was totally obsessed

688
00:33:48,880 --> 00:33:51,840
Speaker 1: with that balloon that flew over the United States. Right, Oh,

689
00:33:51,880 --> 00:33:55,720
Speaker 1: that's right, I forgot about the balloon. You've already forgotten

690
00:33:55,760 --> 00:33:58,160
Speaker 1: about the damn balloon. But like that week, all of

691
00:33:58,280 --> 00:34:00,800
Speaker 1: DC was just talking about nothing up the balloon and

692
00:34:00,800 --> 00:34:03,120
Speaker 1: so and they were mad that he hadn't shot down

693
00:34:03,160 --> 00:34:06,320
Speaker 1: the balloon sooner it was right, which that was he

694
00:34:06,360 --> 00:34:08,120
Speaker 1: was sitting there saying, you know, that could actually cause

695
00:34:08,160 --> 00:34:09,600
Speaker 1: a little bit of a disaster in one of these

696
00:34:09,640 --> 00:34:13,640
Speaker 1: rural communities. Meanwhile, but that was all of Watchington was

697
00:34:13,640 --> 00:34:15,839
Speaker 1: focused on this balloon. And so you know, maybe if

698
00:34:15,880 --> 00:34:17,960
Speaker 1: that hadn't been the case, that the administration would have

699
00:34:18,000 --> 00:34:21,040
Speaker 1: done a better job kind of handling the communication side

700
00:34:21,040 --> 00:34:23,360
Speaker 1: and making sure that the local community felt like it

701
00:34:23,400 --> 00:34:27,320
Speaker 1: was being looked after. When there was this massive, terrifying

702
00:34:27,320 --> 00:34:31,880
Speaker 1: smoke plumes right rising from this controlled burn of the train,

703
00:34:32,480 --> 00:34:35,280
Speaker 1: you know, it was you know, white noise had suddenly

704
00:34:35,400 --> 00:34:39,600
Speaker 1: become real life. That is I think also a fair criticism,

705
00:34:39,600 --> 00:34:41,640
Speaker 1: maybe again just to talk about the optics as opposed

706
00:34:41,640 --> 00:34:43,719
Speaker 1: to the substance of what happened. Yeah, I mean, I

707
00:34:43,760 --> 00:34:47,000
Speaker 1: think that's a really good point. This rail disaster really

708
00:34:47,040 --> 00:34:50,640
Speaker 1: does show us at all. Politics ultimately is local, and

709
00:34:50,920 --> 00:34:54,120
Speaker 1: Ohio is going to have a Senate race in twenty

710
00:34:54,120 --> 00:34:56,480
Speaker 1: four We're going to be talking a lot about Ohio.

711
00:34:57,239 --> 00:34:59,520
Speaker 1: It's gonna be a throwdown. It's going to be a throwdown.

712
00:35:00,000 --> 00:35:01,759
Speaker 1: I don't know who the Republicans are going to run,

713
00:35:01,800 --> 00:35:04,680
Speaker 1: so it might not end up such a road. Yeah,

714
00:35:04,719 --> 00:35:08,400
Speaker 1: it depends. Right, Shirt Brown is girding himself and if

715
00:35:08,400 --> 00:35:10,319
Speaker 1: you'll notice, he's also all over this crap. I mean

716
00:35:10,360 --> 00:35:13,520
Speaker 1: he's he and Vants are working together on stuff. You know,

717
00:35:13,560 --> 00:35:16,040
Speaker 1: they're sending letters. You're saying, oh, I'm gonna work with

718
00:35:16,120 --> 00:35:18,560
Speaker 1: Van Stuy make sure there's a long term plan to

719
00:35:19,200 --> 00:35:22,480
Speaker 1: look after East Palestine and ensure that the local environment

720
00:35:22,520 --> 00:35:25,960
Speaker 1: is safe for everybody. I mean, he clearly sees the

721
00:35:26,160 --> 00:35:28,719
Speaker 1: political importance of this. Thank you so much. I hope

722
00:35:28,719 --> 00:35:33,600
Speaker 1: he'll come back, Jordan, have me anytime. Lydia. Paul Green

723
00:35:34,000 --> 00:35:37,640
Speaker 1: is an opinion columnist at The New York Times. Welcome

724
00:35:37,640 --> 00:35:41,319
Speaker 1: too Fast Politics, Lydia. Oh my gosh, I'm thrilled to

725
00:35:41,360 --> 00:35:44,120
Speaker 1: be here. A long time listener, first time caller. Oh well,

726
00:35:44,160 --> 00:35:46,680
Speaker 1: we're delighted to have you, and you are a newly

727
00:35:46,760 --> 00:35:51,680
Speaker 1: minted opinion columnist since October. Since you have come to opinion,

728
00:35:51,800 --> 00:35:54,319
Speaker 1: and this is not obviously your first rodeo. You come

729
00:35:54,400 --> 00:35:57,960
Speaker 1: from writing and editing and podcasting. But one of the

730
00:35:58,040 --> 00:36:00,799
Speaker 1: things that I think has been incredibly cool, and this

731
00:36:00,960 --> 00:36:03,560
Speaker 1: leads to why we're having you today, is that you

732
00:36:03,680 --> 00:36:08,080
Speaker 1: have done opinion with more reporting than is the standard,

733
00:36:08,280 --> 00:36:12,000
Speaker 1: and in a very exciting an international way, which makes

734
00:36:12,000 --> 00:36:15,120
Speaker 1: sense because you were also a war correspondent. Well, thank you.

735
00:36:15,160 --> 00:36:17,560
Speaker 1: That's very kind of you. I always say that I

736
00:36:17,600 --> 00:36:19,920
Speaker 1: actually don't have a ton of opinions, and the only

737
00:36:20,000 --> 00:36:22,080
Speaker 1: way I can figure out what I think is to

738
00:36:22,160 --> 00:36:24,440
Speaker 1: go out and report. So this is just really a

739
00:36:24,520 --> 00:36:27,440
Speaker 1: laborious way of me figuring out what my opinions are

740
00:36:27,520 --> 00:36:30,920
Speaker 1: is going out into the world and seeing what I

741
00:36:30,920 --> 00:36:33,120
Speaker 1: can see. So, but I had a long career as

742
00:36:33,320 --> 00:36:35,680
Speaker 1: a foreign correspondent, and that I think has always kind

743
00:36:35,680 --> 00:36:38,680
Speaker 1: of been the heart and soul of my work and

744
00:36:38,719 --> 00:36:41,320
Speaker 1: the thing that I'm most passionate about. The first column

745
00:36:41,400 --> 00:36:45,360
Speaker 1: you wrote, your debut column, was about Haiti, and I

746
00:36:45,480 --> 00:36:48,040
Speaker 1: want you to just explain to us a little bit

747
00:36:48,080 --> 00:36:51,600
Speaker 1: about why you chose Haiti and why that was such

748
00:36:51,600 --> 00:36:53,879
Speaker 1: an important column for you to write, and then we'll

749
00:36:53,920 --> 00:36:57,520
Speaker 1: get on to what you're focused on now. Yeah, I

750
00:36:57,560 --> 00:37:01,240
Speaker 1: mean I have been engaged with Haiti two thousand and four,

751
00:37:01,280 --> 00:37:03,399
Speaker 1: when I was sent there as a very very young

752
00:37:03,440 --> 00:37:05,719
Speaker 1: reporter at the New York Times. It was really my

753
00:37:05,760 --> 00:37:08,840
Speaker 1: first experience as a foreign correspondent, and it's a place

754
00:37:08,880 --> 00:37:11,080
Speaker 1: that really gets under your skin. A lot of people

755
00:37:11,120 --> 00:37:13,840
Speaker 1: have worked there and have kind of made their bones

756
00:37:13,840 --> 00:37:16,680
Speaker 1: there as foreign correspondence. And I've always thought a lot

757
00:37:16,719 --> 00:37:19,560
Speaker 1: about the work that we do as foreign correspondence, the

758
00:37:19,600 --> 00:37:22,799
Speaker 1: way that we kind of parachute into places, the extractive

759
00:37:23,040 --> 00:37:25,600
Speaker 1: nature of the work, and how our sort of quick

760
00:37:25,640 --> 00:37:28,200
Speaker 1: impressions can have a lasting impact on the places that

761
00:37:28,239 --> 00:37:29,960
Speaker 1: we covered. And so I wanted to go back and

762
00:37:30,160 --> 00:37:33,479
Speaker 1: really reflect on the current situation and my own work

763
00:37:33,520 --> 00:37:36,160
Speaker 1: there on the relationship with the United States, as a

764
00:37:36,200 --> 00:37:38,480
Speaker 1: sort of statement of purpose that I was, as a

765
00:37:38,480 --> 00:37:40,320
Speaker 1: columnist going to go out into the world. I was

766
00:37:40,320 --> 00:37:42,839
Speaker 1: going to report, and I was also going to hold

767
00:37:42,840 --> 00:37:45,279
Speaker 1: by self to account and really think about my own

768
00:37:45,400 --> 00:37:47,880
Speaker 1: role as an observer and a chronicler of these things.

769
00:37:47,920 --> 00:37:49,840
Speaker 1: So that's why it felt really important to me to

770
00:37:49,880 --> 00:37:52,440
Speaker 1: go to Haiti. Yeah, that's such an interesting point. I mean,

771
00:37:52,480 --> 00:37:56,520
Speaker 1: because I see so many people that I am friendly

772
00:37:56,560 --> 00:37:59,760
Speaker 1: with or tangentially. Now those people are all in Ukraine

773
00:37:59,800 --> 00:38:02,560
Speaker 1: right now, and then they'll go to and so I

774
00:38:02,600 --> 00:38:05,799
Speaker 1: think it's really interesting. I was really impressed that you

775
00:38:05,880 --> 00:38:08,560
Speaker 1: went to Syria, though, because I feel this way, maybe

776
00:38:08,560 --> 00:38:11,680
Speaker 1: because my cousins grew up in Lebanon during the eighties,

777
00:38:12,040 --> 00:38:15,320
Speaker 1: and so there are always those countries where it feels

778
00:38:15,360 --> 00:38:18,920
Speaker 1: like America has decided the country is too far gone,

779
00:38:19,600 --> 00:38:23,279
Speaker 1: which was always growing up, my feeling that America had

780
00:38:23,280 --> 00:38:25,759
Speaker 1: sort of had decided that Lebanon was sort of an

781
00:38:25,840 --> 00:38:29,520
Speaker 1: unsavable country. And so everything I've read about Syria has

782
00:38:29,560 --> 00:38:32,200
Speaker 1: given me the sense that they're just it's so complicated

783
00:38:32,239 --> 00:38:34,680
Speaker 1: and there's so much tragedy. So I thought it was

784
00:38:34,719 --> 00:38:39,120
Speaker 1: really impressive that you went back there, and so can

785
00:38:39,160 --> 00:38:41,600
Speaker 1: you talk a little bit about that. It's remarkable the

786
00:38:41,640 --> 00:38:44,319
Speaker 1: extent to which we've all kind of memory hold the

787
00:38:44,320 --> 00:38:47,440
Speaker 1: conflict in Syria, Right, This is a war that started, well,

788
00:38:47,440 --> 00:38:49,360
Speaker 1: it actually started as part of the Arab Spring and

789
00:38:49,560 --> 00:38:52,040
Speaker 1: a kind of civilian uprising that then kind of morphed

790
00:38:52,120 --> 00:38:55,480
Speaker 1: into an armed struggle. And you know, it's been going

791
00:38:55,520 --> 00:38:58,400
Speaker 1: on since twenty eleven, twenty twelve, and in these like

792
00:38:58,560 --> 00:39:01,239
Speaker 1: really fundamental ways, if you think about it, it has

793
00:39:01,280 --> 00:39:03,560
Speaker 1: shaped the world that we live in now. It's really

794
00:39:03,560 --> 00:39:07,080
Speaker 1: hard to imagine the rise of right wing parties in Europe,

795
00:39:07,080 --> 00:39:10,200
Speaker 1: for example, and to a certain extent, the rise of

796
00:39:10,239 --> 00:39:12,360
Speaker 1: Donald Trump in the United States, were it not for

797
00:39:12,400 --> 00:39:15,680
Speaker 1: the huge migration crisis that the Syrian conflict set off.

798
00:39:15,880 --> 00:39:19,200
Speaker 1: Looking back, it seems clear that Russia getting involved in

799
00:39:19,280 --> 00:39:22,640
Speaker 1: Syria was very much a kind of training wheels moment

800
00:39:22,760 --> 00:39:25,000
Speaker 1: for what they would ultimately do in Ukraine and the

801
00:39:25,040 --> 00:39:27,080
Speaker 1: kind of brutality that they would bring to bear. And

802
00:39:27,120 --> 00:39:28,839
Speaker 1: I think that a big part of why I really

803
00:39:28,880 --> 00:39:32,240
Speaker 1: wanted to go to Syria was because because of that forgetting.

804
00:39:32,280 --> 00:39:33,759
Speaker 1: And I feel like a big part of my role

805
00:39:33,800 --> 00:39:36,360
Speaker 1: as a columnist is to remind people of things that

806
00:39:36,400 --> 00:39:38,879
Speaker 1: we'd rather not think about and try to link them

807
00:39:38,880 --> 00:39:40,560
Speaker 1: to the present in a way that makes them more

808
00:39:40,600 --> 00:39:42,920
Speaker 1: real and more pressing. And I think also just to

809
00:39:42,920 --> 00:39:46,040
Speaker 1: remind people like, we're all human beings, and you know,

810
00:39:46,080 --> 00:39:47,759
Speaker 1: I met the family that I met there, I mean,

811
00:39:47,760 --> 00:39:50,960
Speaker 1: how could you not be moved by the extraordinary story

812
00:39:51,120 --> 00:39:53,799
Speaker 1: of loss that they have been through. And I think

813
00:39:53,800 --> 00:39:57,200
Speaker 1: it's just really important that as human beings we actually

814
00:39:57,200 --> 00:40:00,600
Speaker 1: see each other's human stories. Yeah, I think saying about

815
00:40:00,640 --> 00:40:04,120
Speaker 1: Russia's really so interesting because it's absolutely true, and we

816
00:40:04,239 --> 00:40:09,399
Speaker 1: saw so much of this early propaganda disinformation come through

817
00:40:09,400 --> 00:40:11,680
Speaker 1: the war in Syria. I was wondering if you could

818
00:40:11,680 --> 00:40:13,880
Speaker 1: talk a little bit about that. Yeah. I mean, again,

819
00:40:13,920 --> 00:40:16,439
Speaker 1: that's another example of something that, you know, the sort

820
00:40:16,440 --> 00:40:20,400
Speaker 1: of information wore that the Syrian government and also later

821
00:40:20,480 --> 00:40:24,319
Speaker 1: the Russians helped prosecute in Syria was really kind of

822
00:40:24,320 --> 00:40:26,920
Speaker 1: a portent of what was to come. And we've seen

823
00:40:27,000 --> 00:40:31,000
Speaker 1: the credible technology prowess that and also just kind of

824
00:40:31,280 --> 00:40:34,319
Speaker 1: human intelligence prowess that the Russians have in being able

825
00:40:34,360 --> 00:40:37,920
Speaker 1: to manipulate the conversation in any given society, and that

826
00:40:38,000 --> 00:40:40,680
Speaker 1: certainly happened in Syria. It certainly happened in Europe. As

827
00:40:40,760 --> 00:40:43,440
Speaker 1: relates to Syria. That was absolutely a harp in Europe.

828
00:40:43,480 --> 00:40:46,400
Speaker 1: What was to come? Yeah, Oh, it's such a releak

829
00:40:46,680 --> 00:40:50,239
Speaker 1: time in American life. One of your columns, there's like

830
00:40:50,280 --> 00:40:54,440
Speaker 1: a tad phrase about how, you know, Americans think of

831
00:40:54,480 --> 00:40:56,880
Speaker 1: themselves as the center of the world, but we're really

832
00:40:57,040 --> 00:40:59,440
Speaker 1: you know, we're really just part of it. I'm not

833
00:40:59,600 --> 00:41:01,920
Speaker 1: quoting verbade him at all. I'm butchering the whole thing.

834
00:41:02,000 --> 00:41:04,279
Speaker 1: But growing up, I would always be so impressed when

835
00:41:04,280 --> 00:41:06,600
Speaker 1: you go to another country and people would just make

836
00:41:06,640 --> 00:41:10,080
Speaker 1: fun of you for being American, because Americans are social centered.

837
00:41:10,120 --> 00:41:12,839
Speaker 1: Would always be my what the takeaway I would get?

838
00:41:13,160 --> 00:41:16,919
Speaker 1: But what's happening in India right now is and you've

839
00:41:16,920 --> 00:41:20,480
Speaker 1: written about this is kind of like we don't devote

840
00:41:20,520 --> 00:41:22,239
Speaker 1: a lot of national news to it, but it's a

841
00:41:22,239 --> 00:41:24,600
Speaker 1: pretty big deal. Oh, it's a huge deal. And you know,

842
00:41:24,719 --> 00:41:26,880
Speaker 1: I would also say, Molly, like just to your earlier

843
00:41:26,920 --> 00:41:29,240
Speaker 1: point about you know, who's the center of the universe.

844
00:41:29,280 --> 00:41:31,560
Speaker 1: I had a psychoanalyst who I saw for many years

845
00:41:31,560 --> 00:41:33,839
Speaker 1: who had this line that has always stuck with me,

846
00:41:34,200 --> 00:41:36,319
Speaker 1: and he said, ninety five percent of what people say

847
00:41:36,400 --> 00:41:38,960
Speaker 1: is about themselves, and so is the other five percent.

848
00:41:39,600 --> 00:41:42,160
Speaker 1: It's human nature to think that you're the center of

849
00:41:42,160 --> 00:41:44,759
Speaker 1: the universe, right like we all we all do it.

850
00:41:44,880 --> 00:41:47,600
Speaker 1: And I think that the United States has a particular

851
00:41:48,000 --> 00:41:50,799
Speaker 1: virulent strain of that disease. I think that what's really

852
00:41:50,800 --> 00:41:53,319
Speaker 1: striking about Indian and I've been following India for quite

853
00:41:53,320 --> 00:41:54,920
Speaker 1: some time. I first went there in two thousand and

854
00:41:55,000 --> 00:41:57,279
Speaker 1: nine as a foreign correspondent. At the time that I

855
00:41:57,320 --> 00:42:00,760
Speaker 1: went there, you know, it was this sort of world's

856
00:42:00,840 --> 00:42:03,399
Speaker 1: largest democracy, and it sort of seemed like a lot

857
00:42:03,440 --> 00:42:05,640
Speaker 1: of the problems that had bedeviled India in the past

858
00:42:05,719 --> 00:42:09,480
Speaker 1: we're really sort of firmly in the past, including the deep,

859
00:42:09,560 --> 00:42:12,200
Speaker 1: deep divisions between Hindus and Muslims, which had been a

860
00:42:12,239 --> 00:42:15,279
Speaker 1: sort of recurring motif again and again. And the thing

861
00:42:15,320 --> 00:42:18,160
Speaker 1: that really struck me in just looking at the rise

862
00:42:18,200 --> 00:42:21,480
Speaker 1: of the current Prime Minister Norrendermodi, but also the relationships

863
00:42:21,480 --> 00:42:23,480
Speaker 1: that he's built around the world and the way in

864
00:42:23,520 --> 00:42:26,600
Speaker 1: which he's kind of playing on this international stage which

865
00:42:26,600 --> 00:42:29,080
Speaker 1: has become much more multipolar, with the rise of China,

866
00:42:29,120 --> 00:42:32,160
Speaker 1: the rise of Russia. It's fascinating to see how the

867
00:42:32,239 --> 00:42:35,280
Speaker 1: United States and other Western powers are sort of turning

868
00:42:35,280 --> 00:42:38,319
Speaker 1: a blind eye both to the prejudice and in some

869
00:42:38,400 --> 00:42:41,280
Speaker 1: cases atrocities that are happening to Muslims and other religious

870
00:42:41,320 --> 00:42:45,680
Speaker 1: minorities in India, but also the increasing consolidation of power

871
00:42:45,800 --> 00:42:48,080
Speaker 1: that makes India look a lot less like a democracy

872
00:42:48,080 --> 00:42:49,719
Speaker 1: than it used to. Part of what I was trying

873
00:42:49,760 --> 00:42:51,960
Speaker 1: to say in that column was that as Americans, we've

874
00:42:51,960 --> 00:42:55,560
Speaker 1: always had a foreign policy that is utilitarian towards our interests,

875
00:42:55,640 --> 00:42:58,319
Speaker 1: and you know, it's useful for us to pretend that

876
00:42:58,560 --> 00:43:02,000
Speaker 1: India is this amazing democracy and to pretend that none

877
00:43:02,000 --> 00:43:05,680
Speaker 1: of these problems are actually happening, right and going on,

878
00:43:05,840 --> 00:43:08,680
Speaker 1: And so I just wanted to remind people, Look, we

879
00:43:08,719 --> 00:43:11,200
Speaker 1: may think of this as our great democratic ally, but

880
00:43:11,360 --> 00:43:14,920
Speaker 1: actually Narandramodi is in the process of essentially trying to

881
00:43:14,960 --> 00:43:17,839
Speaker 1: become a figure non unlike Shijing Ping in China. So

882
00:43:18,040 --> 00:43:20,279
Speaker 1: I just think it's really important for us to to

883
00:43:20,280 --> 00:43:22,919
Speaker 1: think about these things in a global context and also

884
00:43:23,000 --> 00:43:25,480
Speaker 1: with some real kind of historical knowledge. So that's what

885
00:43:25,520 --> 00:43:28,120
Speaker 1: I always try to bring It is so by the way,

886
00:43:28,200 --> 00:43:32,440
Speaker 1: incredibly grim to see this happening. Like every time we

887
00:43:32,600 --> 00:43:38,200
Speaker 1: lose another democracy, it does ultimately, you know, America, I

888
00:43:38,239 --> 00:43:40,200
Speaker 1: think for a long time we all thought, or at

889
00:43:40,280 --> 00:43:43,359
Speaker 1: least I certainly thought, will never be one of those

890
00:43:43,400 --> 00:43:47,799
Speaker 1: countries that's on those you know, democracy watch lists, but

891
00:43:47,920 --> 00:43:50,160
Speaker 1: we did end up there. I think that this is

892
00:43:50,200 --> 00:43:53,600
Speaker 1: another thing about thinking about the centrality of America to

893
00:43:53,880 --> 00:43:55,960
Speaker 1: the world thing. And I'm actually writing about this right

894
00:43:55,960 --> 00:43:58,239
Speaker 1: now because I'm working on a column about Turkey, which

895
00:43:58,239 --> 00:44:00,880
Speaker 1: was the other place that was really affected by the earthquakes,

896
00:44:01,080 --> 00:44:03,040
Speaker 1: much more so. I mean, fifty thousand people died, and

897
00:44:03,160 --> 00:44:05,399
Speaker 1: ninety percent of them died in Turkey. But what we're

898
00:44:05,400 --> 00:44:08,000
Speaker 1: seeing right now is we're really in the age of

899
00:44:08,040 --> 00:44:11,800
Speaker 1: the elected autocrat. You know, where you have elections and

900
00:44:11,960 --> 00:44:14,880
Speaker 1: those elections produce a winner. They're elections where you know,

901
00:44:14,960 --> 00:44:17,600
Speaker 1: technically people go to the polls and file their ballot

902
00:44:17,640 --> 00:44:21,680
Speaker 1: and you know, elect somebody. But the person who's on

903
00:44:21,719 --> 00:44:24,680
Speaker 1: the ballot who wins has usually undertaken a huge number

904
00:44:24,719 --> 00:44:27,879
Speaker 1: of measures beforehand in order to make sure that he's

905
00:44:27,880 --> 00:44:30,160
Speaker 1: the only viable candidate. And of course it's always a heat,

906
00:44:30,160 --> 00:44:32,680
Speaker 1: almost always a heat right, And so you know, they've

907
00:44:32,680 --> 00:44:36,160
Speaker 1: cracked down on the independent media. They've really really reduced

908
00:44:36,200 --> 00:44:38,960
Speaker 1: the role of civil society. They've made sure that that

909
00:44:38,960 --> 00:44:42,640
Speaker 1: the parliament or the legislature has essentially no role in

910
00:44:42,719 --> 00:44:45,799
Speaker 1: overseeing or checking their power. You know, use the judiciary

911
00:44:45,880 --> 00:44:48,200
Speaker 1: to make sure that none of your viable opponents can

912
00:44:48,239 --> 00:44:51,840
Speaker 1: actually run against you. That's the thing that's happened in Turkey,

913
00:44:51,880 --> 00:44:54,080
Speaker 1: which is going to have an election, which was supposed

914
00:44:54,120 --> 00:44:55,759
Speaker 1: to have an election in May. We'll see when it

915
00:44:55,800 --> 00:44:58,520
Speaker 1: actually happens because they're dealing with this devastating earthquake. But

916
00:44:59,040 --> 00:45:01,319
Speaker 1: you hear that set of facts, and it's hard not

917
00:45:01,360 --> 00:45:03,600
Speaker 1: to think about our own country, right, the way in

918
00:45:03,640 --> 00:45:09,560
Speaker 1: which various politicians are trying to take the judicial or

919
00:45:09,560 --> 00:45:12,160
Speaker 1: the legislative or and this is happening more at the

920
00:45:12,200 --> 00:45:13,880
Speaker 1: state level than at the national level. Of that, the

921
00:45:13,920 --> 00:45:17,080
Speaker 1: Supreme Court is a whole other conversation. But it's very,

922
00:45:17,280 --> 00:45:21,000
Speaker 1: very striking to see how we're actually not that different

923
00:45:21,040 --> 00:45:24,239
Speaker 1: from these other places, right. It's the De Santist plan.

924
00:45:24,760 --> 00:45:28,560
Speaker 1: Crackdown on the media, make sure that people are studying

925
00:45:28,600 --> 00:45:32,120
Speaker 1: what you want them to study. Don't allow people to vote,

926
00:45:32,160 --> 00:45:35,759
Speaker 1: write like Florida had voted to let people who have

927
00:45:35,880 --> 00:45:40,000
Speaker 1: been incarcerated vote, and then he sets up these stings

928
00:45:40,000 --> 00:45:43,239
Speaker 1: to make it so people who were incarcerated can't, you know,

929
00:45:43,640 --> 00:45:45,919
Speaker 1: I mean, just a lot of the stuff that we

930
00:45:46,040 --> 00:45:49,560
Speaker 1: see in Turkey, we're seeing in this modern day Republican Party.

931
00:45:49,640 --> 00:45:51,560
Speaker 1: I think. I mean, I feel like there's a real

932
00:45:51,680 --> 00:45:54,600
Speaker 1: shift that in certain parts of this world, we're seeing

933
00:45:54,600 --> 00:45:58,080
Speaker 1: a sort of embrace of this autocracy. Absolutely, and I

934
00:45:58,120 --> 00:46:01,960
Speaker 1: think that those policies are coming along with a kind

935
00:46:02,040 --> 00:46:05,440
Speaker 1: of social revanchism as well, which gets into another topic

936
00:46:05,480 --> 00:46:08,680
Speaker 1: that I've spent some time writing about. I think that

937
00:46:08,719 --> 00:46:11,959
Speaker 1: we're living in this age of I think tremendous backlash

938
00:46:12,000 --> 00:46:16,920
Speaker 1: against the social progress that we've made around gender, around LGBTQ,

939
00:46:17,080 --> 00:46:20,799
Speaker 1: issues around race, and that is absolutely playing out here

940
00:46:20,800 --> 00:46:22,640
Speaker 1: in the United States, but it played out earlier in

941
00:46:22,719 --> 00:46:25,799
Speaker 1: places like Hungary. You're seeing in Israel, for example, which

942
00:46:25,840 --> 00:46:29,320
Speaker 1: was a pioneer of lgbt right, a very very strong

943
00:46:29,400 --> 00:46:32,960
Speaker 1: pushback and roll back from the reactionary conservative forces within

944
00:46:33,000 --> 00:46:35,880
Speaker 1: the government. And so I think we're really living in

945
00:46:35,920 --> 00:46:38,799
Speaker 1: this age of reaction and all of the old kind

946
00:46:38,800 --> 00:46:42,800
Speaker 1: of political chivalleths about the right is actually about freedom,

947
00:46:42,840 --> 00:46:44,759
Speaker 1: and you know it's up as down, down as up,

948
00:46:44,800 --> 00:46:46,640
Speaker 1: and words in many ways feel like they just don't

949
00:46:46,680 --> 00:46:51,200
Speaker 1: have any meaning anymore. Agreed, And it's such an interesting time.

950
00:46:51,360 --> 00:46:53,719
Speaker 1: I mean, do you think I want to like now

951
00:46:53,760 --> 00:46:55,640
Speaker 1: we need to do? This is something I always do

952
00:46:55,760 --> 00:46:58,440
Speaker 1: in interviews, which I think people find very annoying, but

953
00:46:58,600 --> 00:47:01,640
Speaker 1: I enjoy it. I want to know, like, I mean,

954
00:47:01,680 --> 00:47:05,520
Speaker 1: there's a historical precedent for times in which there is

955
00:47:05,560 --> 00:47:08,719
Speaker 1: a lot of progress and then there is a kind

956
00:47:08,719 --> 00:47:12,280
Speaker 1: of backlad Susan Valuti wrote about it. Do you think

957
00:47:12,360 --> 00:47:15,239
Speaker 1: that we are in one of those backlashes and that

958
00:47:15,400 --> 00:47:18,400
Speaker 1: democracy will continue or do you think that we really

959
00:47:18,480 --> 00:47:20,680
Speaker 1: run a field and this is going to We're going

960
00:47:20,760 --> 00:47:24,680
Speaker 1: to go into something more horrible. I'm inherently an optimistic person,

961
00:47:24,760 --> 00:47:28,959
Speaker 1: and I think that the reality is that curveballs come

962
00:47:29,719 --> 00:47:32,400
Speaker 1: that we don't expect, right, I mean, take Turkey for instance.

963
00:47:32,480 --> 00:47:35,680
Speaker 1: You know it it seemed to be on this trajectory

964
00:47:35,960 --> 00:47:41,160
Speaker 1: that you know that the current president type air to one,

965
00:47:41,360 --> 00:47:44,480
Speaker 1: was just going to kind of continue on and consolidate power.

966
00:47:44,800 --> 00:47:46,719
Speaker 1: But a couple of things happen that we're outside of

967
00:47:46,719 --> 00:47:50,080
Speaker 1: his control. One is this huge economic crisis related to

968
00:47:50,320 --> 00:47:52,200
Speaker 1: you know, COVID and interest rates and all that kind

969
00:47:52,200 --> 00:47:55,120
Speaker 1: of stuff, which was already eroding his popularity, right and

970
00:47:55,160 --> 00:47:58,120
Speaker 1: then now, like a literal act of God, an earthquake

971
00:47:58,200 --> 00:48:01,120
Speaker 1: has brought all of this condomation down on his government

972
00:48:01,200 --> 00:48:04,360
Speaker 1: because of the slowness of how they responded, because a

973
00:48:04,400 --> 00:48:06,759
Speaker 1: lot of the buildings were shoddy and the government hadn't

974
00:48:06,800 --> 00:48:09,120
Speaker 1: done enough to make sure that building codes were adhered

975
00:48:09,160 --> 00:48:12,040
Speaker 1: to and so on, and so I think, like this

976
00:48:12,080 --> 00:48:13,959
Speaker 1: sounds a little grim, but the place where I find

977
00:48:14,000 --> 00:48:16,719
Speaker 1: optimism is that, like, we can't really predict what's coming

978
00:48:16,719 --> 00:48:19,399
Speaker 1: around the corner, and earthquake is actually a little bit

979
00:48:19,480 --> 00:48:21,560
Speaker 1: like climate change. It's this thing that we know is coming,

980
00:48:21,640 --> 00:48:23,040
Speaker 1: but like we sort of think about it as a

981
00:48:23,120 --> 00:48:24,960
Speaker 1: thing that's in the distant future. But I think that

982
00:48:24,960 --> 00:48:27,040
Speaker 1: there are things like that out on the horizon that

983
00:48:27,160 --> 00:48:29,840
Speaker 1: you know, they could end up sort of sharpening and

984
00:48:30,280 --> 00:48:32,640
Speaker 1: pushing us further in on the trend line that we

985
00:48:32,680 --> 00:48:35,479
Speaker 1: already seem to be on, but they could also push

986
00:48:35,520 --> 00:48:37,879
Speaker 1: us in an entirely different direction. And it's just hard

987
00:48:37,920 --> 00:48:39,640
Speaker 1: to know. And I think our work is people who

988
00:48:40,000 --> 00:48:42,680
Speaker 1: care about other human beings and who want the world

989
00:48:42,719 --> 00:48:46,040
Speaker 1: to be a better, more inclusive place, who believe in

990
00:48:46,120 --> 00:48:48,640
Speaker 1: self governance and all those kinds of things. It's our

991
00:48:48,719 --> 00:48:52,560
Speaker 1: job to really sort of focus and build even in

992
00:48:52,600 --> 00:48:54,719
Speaker 1: these moments that feel like they're filled with despair. And

993
00:48:54,760 --> 00:48:56,080
Speaker 1: you know, as a journalist, I feel like it's my

994
00:48:56,120 --> 00:48:58,520
Speaker 1: job to highlight the places where people are doing that

995
00:48:58,600 --> 00:49:01,400
Speaker 1: work and trying to make change happen, because when the

996
00:49:01,440 --> 00:49:04,400
Speaker 1: opportunity arises, never let a good crisis go to ways,

997
00:49:04,840 --> 00:49:07,959
Speaker 1: there is the moment to say, actually, this needs to change,

998
00:49:07,960 --> 00:49:10,680
Speaker 1: and let's radically shift the direction that we're going. I

999
00:49:10,719 --> 00:49:13,080
Speaker 1: have one more question because this hits on something I've

1000
00:49:13,080 --> 00:49:16,440
Speaker 1: been thinking about a lot. This environmental crisis, this trained

1001
00:49:16,480 --> 00:49:21,160
Speaker 1: crisis in East Palistin is one of these moments where

1002
00:49:21,160 --> 00:49:24,640
Speaker 1: we're seeing why we have regulation. I think about this

1003
00:49:24,680 --> 00:49:26,880
Speaker 1: all the time because during the Trump I don't want

1004
00:49:26,920 --> 00:49:28,960
Speaker 1: to even say presidency because I don't know that that

1005
00:49:29,040 --> 00:49:32,919
Speaker 1: was what it was, but the Trump fever dream there

1006
00:49:33,280 --> 00:49:36,560
Speaker 1: was he would constantly get up there and say regulation

1007
00:49:36,719 --> 00:49:40,160
Speaker 1: is bad, and everyone would be like, is regulation bad?

1008
00:49:40,320 --> 00:49:42,920
Speaker 1: Maybe regulation is bad, you know, because like it's one

1009
00:49:42,960 --> 00:49:45,520
Speaker 1: of those things where, until you have an accident, you

1010
00:49:45,680 --> 00:49:47,879
Speaker 1: can't quite figure out, you know, it's hard to make

1011
00:49:47,880 --> 00:49:52,399
Speaker 1: a case for a regulation. We're seeing, really here a

1012
00:49:52,440 --> 00:49:55,920
Speaker 1: moment where the American people in a red state, in

1013
00:49:55,960 --> 00:50:00,160
Speaker 1: a red town, or seeing really firsthand the value of

1014
00:50:00,200 --> 00:50:05,279
Speaker 1: regulation and the value of holding these companies accountable for

1015
00:50:05,400 --> 00:50:07,800
Speaker 1: their misdeeds. I mean, do you think there's an opportunity

1016
00:50:07,800 --> 00:50:10,440
Speaker 1: for legislation and do you also think it's craven to

1017
00:50:10,600 --> 00:50:15,000
Speaker 1: think this way? More importantly, well, I mean, I try

1018
00:50:15,040 --> 00:50:18,799
Speaker 1: not to judge when it comes to legislation, and under

1019
00:50:18,840 --> 00:50:22,440
Speaker 1: the current political situation, you know, I don't know if

1020
00:50:22,440 --> 00:50:25,120
Speaker 1: we can say this, but the current political clusterfuck in Washington,

1021
00:50:25,239 --> 00:50:27,520
Speaker 1: it's hard to imagine. It seems like we're just going

1022
00:50:27,560 --> 00:50:31,400
Speaker 1: to have a parade of crazies doing investigations into Jewish

1023
00:50:31,400 --> 00:50:35,360
Speaker 1: space lasers. So I don't know about legislation. What I

1024
00:50:35,400 --> 00:50:37,520
Speaker 1: do know is that, you know, I do think that

1025
00:50:37,560 --> 00:50:40,000
Speaker 1: we're coming to terms with the fact that we have

1026
00:50:40,080 --> 00:50:42,480
Speaker 1: two kinds of problems in this country when it comes

1027
00:50:42,480 --> 00:50:46,080
Speaker 1: to regulation. One is we're incredibly lax when it comes

1028
00:50:46,120 --> 00:50:50,399
Speaker 1: to corporations and environmental rules and things like that. And

1029
00:50:50,480 --> 00:50:52,759
Speaker 1: that's absolutely what we're seeing in East Palestine right this

1030
00:50:52,880 --> 00:50:55,239
Speaker 1: is a chemical that like absolutely should not have been

1031
00:50:55,280 --> 00:50:57,880
Speaker 1: transported in the way that it was. Those railways should

1032
00:50:57,880 --> 00:51:00,600
Speaker 1: have been upgraded long and long long ago. So it

1033
00:51:00,600 --> 00:51:02,880
Speaker 1: feels like there is a place where we need, you know,

1034
00:51:03,040 --> 00:51:06,080
Speaker 1: much more stringent action and more regulation. But there are

1035
00:51:06,080 --> 00:51:10,160
Speaker 1: other places where we have regulation, sometimes for environmental reasons

1036
00:51:10,360 --> 00:51:12,319
Speaker 1: or reasons that seem on their face like oh yeah,

1037
00:51:12,360 --> 00:51:14,600
Speaker 1: I agree with that, like local control and things like

1038
00:51:14,640 --> 00:51:17,160
Speaker 1: that that get in the way of solving other problems, like,

1039
00:51:17,200 --> 00:51:19,680
Speaker 1: for example, the housing crisis. So much of our housing

1040
00:51:19,719 --> 00:51:22,400
Speaker 1: crisis comes from the fact that it's very, very difficult

1041
00:51:22,400 --> 00:51:25,720
Speaker 1: to build anything, and that is a very very complicated thicket.

1042
00:51:25,840 --> 00:51:27,759
Speaker 1: So I think that we need to think really really

1043
00:51:27,800 --> 00:51:30,560
Speaker 1: carefully about like what sort of rules we make for

1044
00:51:30,600 --> 00:51:33,200
Speaker 1: ourselves as a society and what the knock on effects

1045
00:51:33,200 --> 00:51:35,839
Speaker 1: are going to be. And ultimately the question is, you know,

1046
00:51:36,280 --> 00:51:39,719
Speaker 1: qui bono, who benefits? And in every case we need

1047
00:51:39,760 --> 00:51:42,320
Speaker 1: to think about how do we spread the benefits of

1048
00:51:42,400 --> 00:51:45,320
Speaker 1: the protection or the benefits of the loosening of a

1049
00:51:45,400 --> 00:51:48,719
Speaker 1: regulation towards more and more people, which I think gives

1050
00:51:48,760 --> 00:51:51,719
Speaker 1: an opportunity for it to be more sort of human

1051
00:51:51,800 --> 00:51:56,080
Speaker 1: centered and less for corporations or for wealthy homeowners in

1052
00:51:56,120 --> 00:51:58,360
Speaker 1: both cases. So that's I think the direction that we

1053
00:51:58,400 --> 00:52:00,879
Speaker 1: need to be moving in Lydia. They thank you so much.

1054
00:52:00,920 --> 00:52:03,880
Speaker 1: I hope you'll come back. Such a pleasure and anytime,

1055
00:52:03,920 --> 00:52:12,680
Speaker 1: Molly Jesse Cannon by John Fast did you know that

1056
00:52:12,840 --> 00:52:18,200
Speaker 1: I'm a director? You're a director? Tell me more well

1057
00:52:18,239 --> 00:52:21,279
Speaker 1: by GOP congressperson standards of what they do for there's

1058
00:52:21,360 --> 00:52:26,840
Speaker 1: resumes these days. I once audited next Girlfriends UCLA film

1059
00:52:26,880 --> 00:52:31,680
Speaker 1: studies classes three different times, and really by their standards

1060
00:52:31,680 --> 00:52:34,080
Speaker 1: these days, that means I can say I'm an expert

1061
00:52:34,080 --> 00:52:40,360
Speaker 1: film director. This is my favorite new GOP fabulous first

1062
00:52:40,480 --> 00:52:45,840
Speaker 1: term Congressman Andy Ogles. I kind of like Googles, like

1063
00:52:45,960 --> 00:52:49,520
Speaker 1: it feels more fun. Googles claims to have graduated from

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00:52:49,960 --> 00:52:54,880
Speaker 1: Middle Tennessee State University with a degree in international relations. However,

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00:52:55,640 --> 00:52:59,520
Speaker 1: it turns out he has a degree in Liberal studies

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00:52:59,520 --> 00:53:03,279
Speaker 1: and is only take in one single economics class, for

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00:53:03,480 --> 00:53:09,720
Speaker 1: which he received a see congratulations to all the people

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00:53:10,080 --> 00:53:15,800
Speaker 1: who enabled this to happen. The modern day Republican Party

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00:53:16,320 --> 00:53:23,560
Speaker 1: is prepperd Grate. That's it for this episode of Fast Politics.

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00:53:23,920 --> 00:53:26,839
Speaker 1: Tune in every Monday Wednesday and Friday to your the

1071
00:53:26,920 --> 00:53:30,280
Speaker 1: best minds in politics makes sense of all this chaos.

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00:53:30,560 --> 00:53:33,160
Speaker 1: If you enjoyed what you've heard, please send it to

1073
00:53:33,200 --> 00:53:36,600
Speaker 1: a friend and keep the conversation going. And again, thanks

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00:53:36,640 --> 00:53:37,240
Speaker 1: for listening.