Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Mollie John Fast and this is Fast Politics,
Speaker 1: where we discussed the top political headlines with some of
Speaker 1: today's best minds. And Governor Greg Abbott has rejected three
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty million dollars in child food assistance from
Speaker 1: the federal government. He doesn't need it. Those kids don't
Speaker 1: need to eat. We have such a great show for you. Today,
Speaker 1: Congressman Jared Moskowitz talks to us about his battles on
Speaker 1: the Oversight Committee with some very indebt House Republicans. Then
Speaker 1: we will talk to the Daily Beast Sam Brody about
Speaker 1: what is happening in Congress and the Senate. But first
Speaker 1: we have the co host of MSNBC's The Weekend, Alicia Menendez.
Speaker 1: Welcome to Fast Politics, my friend Alicia Menendez.
Speaker 2: My friend Mollie Jane. Thanks for having I'm.
Speaker 1: So excited that I get to have you. Because you
Speaker 1: may not remember this, but we did have a conversation
Speaker 1: while where you're like, I will never go on your
Speaker 1: podcast because you will get me to say something bad.
Speaker 2: I stand by that this is going to be a
Speaker 2: bumpy ride.
Speaker 3: Folks.
Speaker 2: Bookle up.
Speaker 1: We sold this idea that we were going to have
Speaker 1: you on to talk about your new show, which starts tomorrow.
Speaker 1: So let's talk about that for two seconds, and then
Speaker 1: we are going to get really into politics, and we're
Speaker 1: just gonna give the listeners what they want. So what
Speaker 1: is the new show? And tell me how this came about.
Speaker 4: I love that you have lured me here under false pretenses, Mollie.
Speaker 4: So I'm launching a new show alongside Simone Sanders Townsend
Speaker 4: and Michael Steel, my compatriots at MSNBC. We will be
Speaker 4: on every Saturday and Sunday, eight am to ten am Eastern.
Speaker 4: The news doesn't stop on Fridays, not in this news cycle.
Speaker 4: Very often when I've been on air on Saturdays or Sundays,
Speaker 4: there is news that has broken overnight. There are things
Speaker 4: that are happening in real time, and you want people
Speaker 4: that you can turn too, familiar faces who can give
Speaker 4: you the news and contacts that you need to get
Speaker 4: your day started. I think of it, Molly, as the
Speaker 4: beginning of a conversation. That's the beauty of being on
Speaker 4: at am wete eight a m. We start a conversation
Speaker 4: that not just the other hosts and guest on MSNBC
Speaker 4: will have, but that folks who watch will have with
Speaker 4: their friends and family throughout the day. And that part,
Speaker 4: to me is really exciting.
Speaker 1: And it's a little mourning Joe format a little bit.
Speaker 4: How dare you we invented this format, Molly. It is
Speaker 4: in the sense that it is a bunch of smart,
Speaker 4: informed folks around a table.
Speaker 2: I think it will have a very different flavor and
Speaker 2: different feel.
Speaker 1: Okay, that's a really good point. And you all have
Speaker 1: worked in, especially Simone and Michael both have worked in
Speaker 1: and Michael was actually Lieutenant governor.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and Michael in his role as RN Future back
Speaker 4: in two thousand and nine, recruited a lot of the
Speaker 4: people who continue to emerge as Republican leaders and presidential
Speaker 4: hopefuls to this day. I mean a fewer a collegues
Speaker 4: sort of put together that Nikki Haley, Tim Scott, I believe,
Speaker 4: Raoul Labrador, Chrissy all of those folks emerged during Michael
Speaker 4: Steele's I'm at Thorncy.
Speaker 1: That's so interesting. Let's talk about what happened yesterday. I
Speaker 1: was on your show when Chris Christy came out and
Speaker 1: gave his speech. You give us your take and then
Speaker 1: I will rail on Chris Christy. I mean just kidding.
Speaker 2: He came out.
Speaker 4: He gave what to me sounded like a little bit
Speaker 4: of tenants for his past role in promoting Donald Trump,
Speaker 4: which I think you can debate the authenticity of that penance.
Speaker 2: I thought laid out the stakes.
Speaker 4: The dangers of a second Trump term, the dangers of
Speaker 4: having people who are running for president, and I'm paraphrasing here,
Speaker 4: but who He said, If you're not willing to say
Speaker 4: that Donald Trump is unfit to be president, they knew
Speaker 4: yourself for unfit to be president, which I think is
Speaker 4: a bar worth setting. Yeah. And here's the thing, which
Speaker 4: is the reason I am interested in Christy as a
Speaker 4: messenger is because there are so few Republican messengers who
Speaker 4: can break through. Not with the MAGA crowd, that's not
Speaker 4: who he is going to connect with and persuade, but
Speaker 4: perhaps some type of persuadable Republican who maybe could cast
Speaker 4: another vote for Donald Trump, but also has reservations, even
Speaker 4: some independence and more conservative Democrats who for whatever reason
Speaker 4: might be thinking of sitting on the sidelines on this election.
Speaker 4: I do think he has the power now or later
Speaker 4: to connect with them. And so that was why I
Speaker 4: was listening so carefully, because I do think he is
Speaker 4: very strategic, and so I thought he had cultivated a
Speaker 4: message that was intended to connect. I also think it
Speaker 4: was intended to shake things up in advance of last
Speaker 4: night's debate and then the Trump town hall. I don't
Speaker 4: think it succeeded in doing that. It's not as though
Speaker 4: the question of the stakes all of a sudden was
Speaker 4: pushed front and center, but it seemed to me as
Speaker 4: I was listening to it, that that was at least
Speaker 4: part of the intent.
Speaker 2: Now your turn to relegave.
Speaker 1: Well, no, and I think you have a really good point.
Speaker 1: And we were just talking about this before we started recording,
Speaker 1: which it's always the danger of ever talking before your recording,
Speaker 1: especially with this, is that you said this thing which
Speaker 1: I think Jesse and I Bows were like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's totally right, was that yesterday was the first day
Speaker 1: of the general thoughts.
Speaker 4: Yes, I thought, I thought we're supposed to pretend like
Speaker 4: that didn't happen. I'm like, wow, what a new and
Speaker 4: novel thought. I'm like, yes, it was interesting to me.
Speaker 4: That's like he didn't even really he being Chris Christy,
Speaker 4: didn't really even want to reckon on the record, though,
Speaker 4: of course he had that hot mic moment where he
Speaker 4: was criticizing both Haley and DeSantis. He's basically was saying,
Speaker 4: this thing's baked, right, like this thing is sparring some
Speaker 4: lightning bolts from the heavens. This is going to Donald Trump.
Speaker 4: It's going to be Trump ros Biden. I'm curious down
Speaker 4: the road if he's willing to engage with the possibility
Speaker 4: of endorsing or supporting Biden, given that his parameter is
Speaker 4: you are unfit to be president. If you're not willing
Speaker 4: to say that Donald Trump is unfit to be president,
Speaker 4: and Donald Trump will certainly not be saying that about himself,
Speaker 4: the concourse changed last night.
Speaker 2: I thought the fact that you saw Haley.
Speaker 4: And DeSantis having what seemed like a really out of place,
Speaker 4: not here on Earth one debate where they were each
Speaker 4: trying to tear down the other, as though the dynamic
Speaker 4: would be a normal dynamic where if there were only
Speaker 4: one person running against Trump in this primary, somehow there
Speaker 4: would be enough folks to coalesce around that single opponent
Speaker 4: in favor of diminishing him in a state like New Hampshire,
Speaker 4: and it just seemed offbeat, especially when you had Trump
Speaker 4: doing this counter programming on Fox, where he was also
Speaker 4: treating himself as a general election candidate, which, as you
Speaker 4: and I know from following a lot of these historians
Speaker 4: and experts on authoritarianism, is from the authoritarian playbook, right,
Speaker 4: acting as though you are inevitable, acting as though, of
Speaker 4: course it is going to be. I don't want to
Speaker 4: give into that narrative. At the same time, I can
Speaker 4: read pull numbers and it does seem that Republican primary
Speaker 4: voters are lining up behind it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's a really good point. And I
Speaker 1: also think that watching Chris Christy, my problems with him
Speaker 1: are that I find him super self congratulatory and also
Speaker 1: he was never pulling, you know, more than the single digits.
Speaker 1: But in a world where there are no messengers, right,
Speaker 1: because there was really no one except Asa Hutchinson, and
Speaker 1: each of the Hutchinson really did not have the stomach
Speaker 1: for it. There was no one else who was willing
Speaker 1: to go out there and be like the Emperor has
Speaker 1: no clothes, and so for that that was good, and
Speaker 1: actually I thought it was interesting. There was some reporting
Speaker 1: I read about the Haley DeSantis death spiral that we watched, which,
Speaker 1: by the way, I'm always shocked by what a bad
Speaker 1: retail politician ron De Santis is like. Even when he wins,
Speaker 1: he's still read so smug to may Well, and the
Speaker 1: fact that.
Speaker 4: He points to Florida as some sort of beacon of
Speaker 4: success is always interesting to me too, right. I mean,
Speaker 4: I often lament the fact that this is not in
Speaker 4: any way a normal election, and they're not on stage
Speaker 4: talking about policies by and large that are going to
Speaker 4: impact people's lives should they ever become president. But I
Speaker 4: suppose part of the truth with Ronda Santis is he
Speaker 4: doesn't need to tell us because he has already shown us.
Speaker 4: You just need to look at what he has done
Speaker 4: in Florida, whether that is around reproductive rights, whether that
Speaker 4: is around bullying corporations, whether or that is these radical
Speaker 4: changes to education in the state, whether it's his election
Speaker 4: police force, which has succeeded in nothing other than catching
Speaker 4: Floridians in the act of trying to participate in their democracy.
Speaker 4: He doesn't need to get on stage and tell us
Speaker 4: what it is he's going to do. He's shown up,
Speaker 4: so in that way, it's like, I don't know what
Speaker 4: he could do on the debate stage that would change.
Speaker 1: That, Yeah, we're in this pivot to the general election.
Speaker 1: Now Trump also pivoted. Pivoted Trump. You know you can't
Speaker 1: use those two words in a sentence talking about Trump.
Speaker 1: What you have to say is like, he seemed less crazy,
Speaker 1: specifically so he could go after Joe Biden, Right, I
Speaker 1: mean that's really what it is.
Speaker 4: I just want to be clear. We're saying totally he
Speaker 4: seemed less crazy. His per tonally is less crazy. But
Speaker 4: if you actually look at the content of it, right, he.
Speaker 1: Was shopping a less of an authoritarian bent. I mean again,
Speaker 1: what Trump shops and what Trump does are not the same, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, we can agree, but he's sort of trying
Speaker 1: to walk back some of the real high crazy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it made me wonder.
Speaker 4: I'm sure I wonder if it made you wonder too,
Speaker 4: if they are seeing in some of their pulling that
Speaker 4: there are folks that are pulling away from them over
Speaker 4: some of the the a dictator on day one. I
Speaker 4: also thought his language around abortion was really interesting.
Speaker 5: Right.
Speaker 4: He wanted credit with an anti choice voter for having
Speaker 4: overturn rows I did for you what they were never
Speaker 4: able to do, but then also caution that it was
Speaker 4: politically not viable for him to win if he went
Speaker 4: too far out there on it and didn't include exceptions.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that was really interesting. And he also like hit
Speaker 1: DeSantis on his six week ban, which when you've put
Speaker 1: three anti choice justices on the court. I'm not defending DeSantis,
Speaker 1: but there was a sense in which Florida he was
Speaker 1: just trying to keep up with everybody else's crazy abortion bands.
Speaker 1: So you know, everything's a hammer when everything looks like
Speaker 1: a nail. I mean that I thought was really insane.
Speaker 4: But we also just talk Molly. Sorry, I just I
Speaker 4: do need to talk about how like I keep calling
Speaker 4: it a town hall because then I'm a good girl
Speaker 4: and I want to like follow protocol. But it was
Speaker 4: not a town hall. It was a pep rally with
Speaker 4: some questions. And of course he did well because he
Speaker 4: was surrounded by adoring fingunce that like that is a
Speaker 4: premise for him to have success and to behave normally. Right,
Speaker 4: the number of exchanges where the Fox host would ask, well,
Speaker 4: who are you supporting? They like Donald Trump, and then
Speaker 4: he'd be like, thank you, you're beautiful, Like it.
Speaker 2: Just this is not normal.
Speaker 4: Like there's even even the folks who are like I'm
Speaker 4: I'm you know, gonna caucus for Desandis.
Speaker 2: We're like, but you are amazing.
Speaker 4: It's just like, you need to have some tough skin
Speaker 4: to be president of the United States. You can't constantly
Speaker 4: be surrounded. We always talk about how he wants to
Speaker 4: be surrounded by yes men. He also just wants to
Speaker 4: be surrounded by sickophants.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean that's the whole Donald trump ethos, is
Speaker 1: that you bully people into being sick evans around you.
Speaker 1: But there has been an intentional pullback of his autocratic talk.
Speaker 1: Donald Trump despite the fact that he is an autocrat.
Speaker 1: We know he's an autocrat. We saw he's an autocrat.
Speaker 1: I truly believe this is the if you do want
Speaker 1: to have elections any more election. But he's clear decided
Speaker 1: that the general has started and he's not running again.
Speaker 1: Remember Trump is not running against Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders.
Speaker 1: He's running against another very very centrist white guy. There's
Speaker 1: this sort of pivot to like trying to be a
Speaker 1: little bit more general and see most crazy, I am
Speaker 1: seeing the pundance that you and I both know some
Speaker 1: who we like, some who we don't, who are like
Speaker 1: buying this. Haven't we been doing this for a decade.
Speaker 4: Oh my, I must be in my own level because
Speaker 4: I have not seen that send you. It's performance art.
Speaker 4: I think we all know that at this point you
Speaker 4: said something, and I think there's a duality here, and
Speaker 4: I feel like you were like heady enough for me
Speaker 4: to in set this concept with you, which I remember
Speaker 4: reading this article years ago where Lady Gaga was describing
Speaker 4: her art and like what she loves about art, and
Speaker 4: she was saying it was all about slipping. I forget
Speaker 4: if it was a lie in among two truths or
Speaker 4: truth in among two lies, but that that was what
Speaker 4: made are interesting and compelling. And I do think that
Speaker 4: there is some corollary. Sorry, g guy, don't do a
Speaker 4: venge you do for for what Donald Trump does, which
Speaker 4: is you said something which is true, which is he
Speaker 4: says things and they're not always true and you can't
Speaker 4: believe him. Conversely, he also says things that are very
Speaker 4: true and you should believe him, like I want to
Speaker 4: be a dictator on day one lol, right, And he
Speaker 4: wants to be like, well, you're so dramatic. You are
Speaker 4: taking me way too seriously, and it's like, well, there
Speaker 4: were people who didn't take you seriously. In the lead
Speaker 4: up to January sixth, there were people who didn't take
Speaker 4: you seriously. When that call with Raffensberger was released, there
Speaker 4: were people who this entire time have doubted you.
Speaker 2: So is it is both things, Molly right.
Speaker 4: There are times when he says things that you absolutely
Speaker 4: cannot take him at his word for, and then there
Speaker 4: are times where you need to accept that he is
Speaker 4: deadly serious. And we're asking people to do something that
Speaker 4: is pretty high level and complex, which is to sift
Speaker 4: through witches which to know when he is saying I
Speaker 4: am actually committed to this, and when he is saying
Speaker 4: what he needs to say because it's politically expedient. And
Speaker 4: I think one of the things I felt I was
Speaker 4: watching his pundhall slash pep rally last night with James Tacrala,
Speaker 4: one of the producers on the weekend, and he and
Speaker 4: James noted to me that one of the challenges is
Speaker 4: Trump says so many things, but yet is most often
Speaker 4: sparse on details so that you can transpose on to
Speaker 4: him whatever you want, especially if you are someone who
Speaker 4: is in the window of being willing to support him.
Speaker 4: Right that there's a lot where you can be like,
Speaker 4: he doesn't mean that, he doesn't mean that. Oh, he's
Speaker 4: kind of.
Speaker 2: Being vague about this.
Speaker 4: So I'm going to take what I want and what
Speaker 4: I believe is right on this specific policy position and
Speaker 4: transpose it on to him. And he leaves a lot
Speaker 4: of room to do that. He's not like, you know,
Speaker 4: filling out the surveys for advocacy groups about will you
Speaker 4: support SB nine nine nine.
Speaker 2: It's like he's keeping options open.
Speaker 1: That's a really good point. And it's funny. You do
Speaker 1: really see that, You really do see. He gets the
Speaker 1: benefit of the doubt endlessly. It feels like people fellow
Speaker 1: Republicans are addicted to giving him the benefit of doubt.
Speaker 1: And I even think about, like the world's most famous
Speaker 1: just he's playing golf. He's not like, what's the harm
Speaker 1: of humoring him? Right, that's unnamed Republican senator who says,
Speaker 1: what's the harm of humoring him? He's just playing some golf.
Speaker 1: It's not like he's going to overturn the twenty twenty election.
Speaker 1: That was like, how we got here, that's the Batman
Speaker 1: origin story, right of how we got to not half
Speaker 1: the country, but a large percentage of the Republican Party
Speaker 1: believes that Donald Trump won the twenty twenty election and
Speaker 1: that in fact he is righting wrong done to them,
Speaker 1: which of course is absolute bullshit. But he is going
Speaker 1: to be a central tenant of this election.
Speaker 4: Daniel Mali gonna fast for the Batman reference because now
Speaker 4: I'm going to have kissing by a Rose on the
Speaker 4: grave by sealed Bot is like playing in I a
Speaker 4: head from the best Batman movie of all time. I
Speaker 4: share your alarm that we are here at this meeting,
Speaker 4: at this moment, after all these years of covering him,
Speaker 4: and there is still a subset of the pundiclass that's
Speaker 4: willing to just focus on tone over substance.
Speaker 2: The man's a performer.
Speaker 4: I think there are core questions about which you and
Speaker 4: I just violently agree, like the idea that because this
Speaker 4: isn't a normal election, you have to focus on the
Speaker 4: stakes and not the odds. I think there are also
Speaker 4: these questions that I have heard compelling arguments for in
Speaker 4: both directions, which is, do you share enough of what
Speaker 4: he is saying and doing to keep people aware of
Speaker 4: the depths of his depravity, or in doing it and
Speaker 4: showing him, are you simply platforming him, and where is
Speaker 4: the line between those two things? And I think because
Speaker 4: he is such a performance artists, and because he knows
Speaker 4: how to capture attention, and he knows how to you know,
Speaker 4: jiu jitsu things in a million ways, whether it is
Speaker 4: taking all of these legal cases and somehow fundraising off
Speaker 4: of them and seeming to use them to his political advantage,
Speaker 4: whether it is taking something like, you know, the fact
Speaker 4: that he has proven himself to be a danger to democracy,
Speaker 4: and yet he is trying to take that attack and
Speaker 4: actually launch it against President Biden without fact and without
Speaker 4: proof points. And I think part of what he understands
Speaker 4: is it doesn't matter whether or not people believe that.
Speaker 4: It just matters that there is chaos in the ether.
Speaker 5: No.
Speaker 1: And I think that's a really good point. I actually
Speaker 1: believe that we have to cover him. We can't because
Speaker 1: otherwise if we don't cover how crazy he is, we
Speaker 1: are going And you know, it's it's funny, but it's
Speaker 1: like he wrote all this free media. So you have
Speaker 1: to cover him as a truth sandwich, right, you have
Speaker 1: to say this is a lie, and this is a lie.
Speaker 1: So you can't give him a microphone. But if you
Speaker 1: don't cover him. I mean, people want to give him
Speaker 1: the benefit of the doubt, even people, And I wonder
Speaker 1: how much of the media is actually baked in that way, right, Like,
Speaker 1: if you think about it, there is a predisposition that
Speaker 1: many of us have and I'm not even sure that
Speaker 1: I don't have it to some degree of normalcy bias
Speaker 1: which we can absolutely talk about more. But now we
Speaker 1: are out of town.
Speaker 4: Well that's good because there's somehow also a helicopter overhead
Speaker 4: for me right now, So it's like our audio queue
Speaker 4: to the part.
Speaker 1: Your show starts tomorrow. It will be eight to ten
Speaker 1: Saturdays and Sundays. Very exciting, very excited for you. Congratulations, Thanks,
Speaker 1: thank you for Congressman Jared Moskowitz represents Florida's twenty third district.
Speaker 1: Welcome to Fast Politics, Congressman Jared Moskoodz.
Speaker 3: Well, thanks Molly, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: I wanted to have you on to talk about his
Speaker 1: incredible daring yesterday set the stage for us. What was
Speaker 1: this here hearing? What committee is this? What committee are
Speaker 1: you on? This is your first term in Congress. Just
Speaker 1: give us a little background.
Speaker 3: So this is the Oversight Committee, which is chaired by
Speaker 3: Chairman Comer and all year we have had hearings just
Speaker 3: like we had yesterday. You know, these are not the
Speaker 3: same hearings that I have in my other committee, which
Speaker 3: is Foreign Affairs, which are bipartisan and fact finding and
Speaker 3: really wanting to do the business of the committee. Here.
Speaker 3: This is an government oversight committee. Obviously, we have a
Speaker 3: giant government. There's all sorts of oversight. Not everyone's crushing it.
Speaker 3: I'm sure there's all sorts of legitimate things we could
Speaker 3: be looking at in the executive branch to further the
Speaker 3: lives of Americans. But no, that's not what this committee
Speaker 3: has been used for. This is literally the election mailer Committee.
Speaker 3: It's literally the police Donald Trump Committee. It's literally do
Speaker 3: whatever the Donald Trump campaign tells us committee. And all
Speaker 3: year long they have been going after, you know, Joe
Speaker 3: Biden and pretending like he's the head of the Biden
Speaker 3: crime family, which you know, turning Joe Biden to Tony Soprano,
Speaker 3: by the way, is a tall order, and they talk
Speaker 3: out of both sides of their mouth, right, Joe Biden's sleepy,
Speaker 3: he's sleepy, he doesn't know where he's going. But he's
Speaker 3: also Tony Soprano running the Biden crime family, and that's
Speaker 3: what has been going on all year in this committee,
Speaker 3: but it's not been going well. The impeachment hearing was
Speaker 3: a total disaster for them a couple of months ago
Speaker 3: when their own witness said there wasn't any evidence to
Speaker 3: impeach Joe Biden on And yesterday was the Hunter Biden
Speaker 3: contempt hearing. And the reason why this is interesting is
Speaker 3: because normally, if you get a subpoena from Congress and
Speaker 3: you don't comply, you should be held in contempt. And
Speaker 3: I agree with that. You can't blow off a congressional subpoena.
Speaker 3: But that's not what's happened here. What's happened here is
Speaker 3: the chairman. And one of my Republican colleagues said, this
Speaker 3: is why we shouldn't pick our chairman based on how
Speaker 3: much money they raise. We should pick our chairman on ability.
Speaker 3: But the chairman, chairman comer on multiple programs told Hunter
Speaker 3: Biden on National TV he can choose, he can choose
Speaker 3: whether he wants a public hearing or a deposition. Well,
Speaker 3: Hunter Biden took the Chairman's invitation and said, I'll do
Speaker 3: a public hearing because what we've seen in these private depositions.
Speaker 3: Is they hold the deposition, they do selective leaks, they
Speaker 3: never released the full transcript, and the American people never
Speaker 3: hear the full story. It's one sided. That's what they
Speaker 3: want to do with Hunter. And so yesterday was the
Speaker 3: contempt hearing because Hunter didn't show up for the private
Speaker 3: deposition but instead has taken the chairman up on his
Speaker 3: public invitation, which the chairman is now pretending as if
Speaker 3: it never happened.
Speaker 1: This Oversay Committee, which is become the weaponization of the
Speaker 1: federal government against the Democratic president in the hopes of
Speaker 1: pleasing Donald Trump. This Oversay Committee is desperate to get
Speaker 1: Hunter Biden to testify, but only privately can you explain
Speaker 1: why that is?
Speaker 3: If the cameras are on and the American people are watching,
Speaker 3: they'll hear both sides, they'll hear the questions, and then
Speaker 3: they'll hear the answers, and they'll hear the whole thing,
Speaker 3: whether it's ten hours or twelve hours.
Speaker 6: Right.
Speaker 3: We all remember, like Hillary's sitting in the hearing during
Speaker 3: BEng Ghazi, right, and that was like a deposition. She
Speaker 3: took eleven hours of questions, but the American people got
Speaker 3: to see it. They got to hear the whole conversation.
Speaker 3: The reason why the Republicans don't want to do that
Speaker 3: is they don't want the American people to hear all
Speaker 3: of what Hunter Biden has to say. They only want
Speaker 3: to release maybe the one or two or three things
Speaker 3: that they think fits their narrative and then not release
Speaker 3: the other ninety five percent of the information because they
Speaker 3: control the transcript. When you're in the majority, you control
Speaker 3: what you release when you release it, and you can
Speaker 3: control the transcript. And these other depositions that they've had
Speaker 3: all year, they have not released the transcripts from these depositions.
Speaker 3: In fact, they've never released his laptop. Molly, We've heard
Speaker 3: the fact that they have Hunter Biden's laptop. We've asked
Speaker 3: to see it so that we can verify the information
Speaker 3: on it, and they've not let us look at the information.
Speaker 1: Because they know it won't help them.
Speaker 3: They don't want to bring sunlight into the process. They
Speaker 3: don't want to bring transparency into the process. They want
Speaker 3: to talk, you know, the couple of talking points that
Speaker 3: fit their narrative, you know, to try to paint this
Speaker 3: in the worst way, to try to try to you know,
Speaker 3: selectively choose facts rather than hearing. Like, think about it, right,
Speaker 3: if you took anyone's deposition, anybody's, and you sat with
Speaker 3: anyone's deposition for five hours, and you cherry picked two
Speaker 3: or three things from that deposition, right, and you only
Speaker 3: released that, everyone would think the whole deposition was like that.
Speaker 3: They would think, oh my god, Like, that's that's clearly
Speaker 3: the picture of this deposition. If you're holding back ninety
Speaker 3: five percent of the rest of the deposition, you're giving it.
Speaker 3: You're giving it no context, you're giving it no clarity.
Speaker 3: That's why they want to do this, because what I
Speaker 3: think they're doing at the moment is, you know, this
Speaker 3: is all about trying to hurt Joe Biden's poll numbers.
Speaker 3: They've admitted that.
Speaker 1: Well, ben Ghazi worked really well for.
Speaker 3: Them, ben Gazi worked really well from them, and this
Speaker 3: is the ben Gazi strategy. We'll see if they ever
Speaker 3: decide to impeach the president. But in the meantime, they've said,
Speaker 3: since we've started our investigation, Joe Biden's poll numbers have
Speaker 3: gone down. So they don't want the American people to
Speaker 3: hear the full story. They want to tell the story
Speaker 3: they want to tell mostly to their echo chamber. But
Speaker 3: some of that leaks out, some of that leaks over
Speaker 3: because the problem is if you have a hearing, everyone's
Speaker 3: going to cover the hearing. They're going to cover the deposition,
Speaker 3: and they're going to cover the three or four things
Speaker 3: that they leak out, and then that will become national news.
Speaker 3: That will become the headline. And then six months from now,
Speaker 3: when the transcript comes out that disproves everything they said,
Speaker 3: it's gone. It's too late to get the truth back.
Speaker 3: In the way information flows today in the media and online, this.
Speaker 1: Is really interesting as we're looking at this over Say
Speaker 1: committee led by James Comer. James Comer yesterday said you
Speaker 1: are just like George Santos Maria Bartaroma.
Speaker 3: That's just because we're both Jewish.
Speaker 5: Molly, No, he said, I'm.
Speaker 1: Sorry, not Maria Bartaroma. He said to Laura.
Speaker 3: Ingram, right, I have to invite her to my next passover.
Speaker 3: Got to develop that relationship.
Speaker 1: You won't run into her in shule as at jew myself.
Speaker 1: Laura Ingram has also been very negative about me. I
Speaker 1: feel like we're not her people, she said. Comer said, mosk,
Speaker 1: So it says less credibility than George Santos. So is
Speaker 1: he just decided that if he says your name with
Speaker 1: George Santos, is that people will think you're both crimey.
Speaker 3: I think, quite frankly, what happened isn't in very slow motion.
Speaker 3: I'm gonna slow motion exactly what you what you saw
Speaker 3: to Laura Ingram and asked a question, yes, right, a
Speaker 3: quarter of James's brain try to figure out what the
Speaker 3: answer was. And then the only thing that popped into
Speaker 3: his mind, right, because we didn't want to use all
Speaker 3: the brain cells, but the only that popped in his
Speaker 3: mind was George Santos. And he was like, he's got
Speaker 3: less credibility than George Santos. And then after the interview,
Speaker 3: you know, he like patted himself on the back after
Speaker 3: that one. He was like, that was good, that was
Speaker 3: really good. I did. I did, George Santos, you know whatever.
Speaker 3: I mean. He's called me little Mosquoitz. He's called me
Speaker 3: a smurf.
Speaker 1: Oh that's right, he called you a spur.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he called me a smurf. He called me little Moskowitz,
Speaker 3: and now he's calling me George Santos. I mean, listen,
Speaker 3: I guess I'm gonna have to Claire on my financial
Speaker 3: form the real estate I now taken in his brain,
Speaker 3: I have to list that on my form as real
Speaker 3: estate I now own because he just can't stop thinking
Speaker 3: about me.
Speaker 1: Marjorie Taylor Green yet again put up nudes of Hunter Biden.
Speaker 1: This is the second time, and I think that was
Speaker 1: why he left the hearing, right.
Speaker 3: Yes, he knew that was going to happen, just because
Speaker 3: it's Marjorie.
Speaker 1: Yes, so this is a second time that she's done that,
Speaker 1: is put up nudes of him, and you as a response,
Speaker 1: you put up this giant poster of Ebstein and Trump,
Speaker 1: which is, by the way, like the thing that Republicans
Speaker 1: hate most. I shouldn't even say Republicans, and they're not
Speaker 1: Republicans there Trump is they hate most is the reminder
Speaker 1: that Donald Trump, well Bill Clinton was good friends with
Speaker 1: Jeff App so was Donald Trump.
Speaker 3: The Republicans are out there every day and they're talking
Speaker 3: about kids and kids in school and what they're reading
Speaker 3: and grooming and pedophiles. They're talking about that every day,
Speaker 3: and then all of a sudden, you know, more and
Speaker 3: more news continues to leak that their guy, the guy
Speaker 3: you know that they just can't get enough of you
Speaker 3: know is on the playing with Jeffrey Epstein. He's been
Speaker 3: to Epstein Island and he even knows like you know,
Speaker 3: I mean, the pictures are endless with him in Epstein.
Speaker 3: They literally like put their head into hole like an Ostrich.
Speaker 3: They pretend like that didn't happen, like those photos don't exist.
Speaker 3: And so every hearing I print out some stuff. Sometimes
Speaker 3: I use it, sometimes I don't.
Speaker 1: And the staffers love it when you do that.
Speaker 3: No that staffords hate it. My staff hates when I
Speaker 3: print things that are probably slightly over the edge. I'm
Speaker 3: trying to keep as much decorum as i can, Molly,
Speaker 3: it's just kind of hard.
Speaker 1: This is really important. What I want to ask you
Speaker 1: about is like there is this idea that Democrats are
Speaker 1: supposed to behave like it's nineteen ninety eight, despite the
Speaker 1: fact that Republicans are behaving like they work at Fox News.
Speaker 1: So I actually think what you're doing is I don't
Speaker 1: want to encourage you, and I don't want your staffers
Speaker 1: to be mad at me, but I'm going to encourage
Speaker 1: you because I actually think that this is really the
Speaker 1: only way we're going to survive.
Speaker 3: Well, that is actually the intent the intent is to
Speaker 3: be ready when they do that, but the intent is
Speaker 3: to fight fire with fire. I don't want to play
Speaker 3: those games. It's actually not who I am. I'm actually,
Speaker 3: quite frankly, more of a middle of the ground, moderate
Speaker 3: guy make bipartisan deals because I want to help the
Speaker 3: American people. This is actually not who I am. But
Speaker 3: I'm not gonna sit in these hearings while they lie
Speaker 3: to the American people and play these games. And if
Speaker 3: that's what they're going to do, then I'm going to
Speaker 3: show them that we can play these games, and we
Speaker 3: can play it better than they can.
Speaker 1: Because they're ultimately pretty dumb.
Speaker 3: Not all of them, but yes, some of them mail
Speaker 3: it in and they're What they're not used to is
Speaker 3: they're not used to a Democrat pushing back with such
Speaker 3: aggressive strategy. They're used to us being slightly more passive.
Speaker 3: And so, yeah, if she's going to show nudes up
Speaker 3: Hunter Biden, I'm going to show pictures of their guy,
Speaker 3: you know, DJT and Jeffrey Epstein. And I was prepared
Speaker 3: to do that, hoping by the way that she wasn't
Speaker 3: going to show those photos, but having little faith in
Speaker 3: her that she was absolutely going to do that, and.
Speaker 1: You had just about the right amount of faith. I
Speaker 1: think it's fair to say.
Speaker 5: We always be prepared.
Speaker 3: I have an emergency man background, as a former emergency
Speaker 3: management director who had to deal with all sorts of disasters.
Speaker 3: You always want to be ready for different contingencies.
Speaker 1: So one of the things that I think is interesting
Speaker 1: about this Oversight committee is that the people on it
Speaker 1: really are the sort of very Lauren Bopert, Marjorie Taylor Green, Anna,
Speaker 1: Paulina Luna. I mean, it really is a rogues gallery
Speaker 1: of just the MAGA caucus.
Speaker 3: Well, they built a TV committee in fairness to what
Speaker 3: I think their strategy was. I think their strategy was
Speaker 3: they knew they were going to put on a Broadway
Speaker 3: show for two years, and so what they did is
Speaker 3: they put their performers on there. You know, they put
Speaker 3: their TV people on there, and I think bigs. Yeah.
Speaker 3: And I think Kim Jeffries, by the way, saw what
Speaker 3: they did because they released their committee first, and he's
Speaker 3: when he saw what they did. I think he looked
Speaker 3: around at the pieces that he had that weren't on
Speaker 3: other committees. And if you look at what ha Kim
Speaker 3: Jeffries assembled, I mean Jamie Raskin has crushed it as
Speaker 3: the ranking member soon to be chairman of that committee.
Speaker 3: You know he You've got Dan Goldman, you got you know,
Speaker 3: Jerry Connolly, he's been fantastic. Jasmine Crockett, who's been amazing.
Speaker 3: You know Maxwell Frost on the committee. You know, you
Speaker 3: have AOC as the rank is the vice ranking member.
Speaker 3: She's been great. Katie Porter has been amazing. I mean,
Speaker 3: so Akin took these other pieces and said, if that's
Speaker 3: what they're gonna do, we're gonna be ready for a battle.
Speaker 3: And this committee has become kind of like a WWE
Speaker 3: Royal Rumble Battle Royale. And so yeah, I'm slightly more
Speaker 3: aggressive in that committee than I want to be, and
Speaker 3: I'm definitely more aggressive in that committee than I am
Speaker 3: in Foreign Affairs. But we can't just sit there while
Speaker 3: they do this one sided nonsense and pretend like all
Speaker 3: of the problems in America never existed until Joseph Biden
Speaker 3: became the president. Right Like, we never had any problem
Speaker 3: in this country. It was wonderful. There weren't things to fix,
Speaker 3: there weren't things to make better. Everything was great. But
Speaker 3: then Joe Biden became president. And that's when we started
Speaker 3: to ruin the country.
Speaker 1: That's their messaging on immigration, right that if the border
Speaker 1: was fine under Trump, which was not right. I mean again,
Speaker 1: I actually believe that immigration is good in that our
Speaker 1: country is all built on it. But even if you
Speaker 1: were to say that the immigration is a problem, which
Speaker 1: I don't think it is, you would still have to
Speaker 1: say that this has been a continual quote unquote problem
Speaker 1: under and Trump. And Trump built a wall, but he
Speaker 1: still couldn't figure out how to deal with this the border.
Speaker 3: Look, there's a push pull effect going on. And look,
Speaker 3: I do think there are problems at the border, Molly,
Speaker 3: but these problems have existed for twenty years, right, Okay,
Speaker 3: because we've refused to address immigration. Remember George W. Bush
Speaker 3: tried to get it done, We got close, and it
Speaker 3: didn't happen.
Speaker 1: But you know, I just had Barbara Boxer on this
Speaker 1: podcast and she said, the reality is Republicans they want
Speaker 1: this to be a problem because otherwise they have nothing
Speaker 1: to run on.
Speaker 3: Yes, you literally have I'm not going to name them
Speaker 3: because there's too many to name, but you literally have
Speaker 3: Congress people coming out even yesterday literally saying this is
Speaker 3: a direct quote. I'm not going to vote for any
Speaker 3: deal that fixes the situation of the border, because I'm
Speaker 3: not helping Joe Biden's re election. That's a direct vote.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they don't want a solution.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And that, unfortunately is not indicative of this issue
Speaker 3: that unfortunately is pervasive in Washington, especially when we're an
Speaker 3: election year, solving problems if it helps the other side,
Speaker 3: you know, we don't want to solve the problem for
Speaker 3: the American people.
Speaker 1: But what's interesting here is you have a situation right
Speaker 1: now where you have a Republican party in the House
Speaker 1: that is having a lot of trouble getting along with
Speaker 1: each other.
Speaker 3: Molly, what are you talking about. This has been the
Speaker 3: most productive Congress that we have ever seen.
Speaker 1: That's right, except for any legislation.
Speaker 3: Except for the fact that the average bills passed in
Speaker 3: a Congress are three hundred, We've only done thirty. So
Speaker 3: we are the least productive Congress in three decades. The
Speaker 3: largest things we've accomplished is we've removed this speaker and
Speaker 3: expelled a member. We're threatening to shut the government down
Speaker 3: every seventy five days. We can't help our friends in
Speaker 3: Israel or Ukraine. We can't even pass like commemorative dog
Speaker 3: points bills for like working dogs out there. There are
Speaker 3: bills that have like two hundred and fifty sponsors. Like,
Speaker 3: there's a bill out there that would for all those
Speaker 3: working dogs out there that help people in their daily lives.
Speaker 3: There's a bill to create a commemorative coin.
Speaker 5: There's like two.
Speaker 3: Hundred and fifty sponsors of that bill. Democrats are Republicans.
Speaker 3: That bill's not moving. You can't even move that bill.
Speaker 3: Nancy Pelosi, I think, said this morning on Morning Joe,
Speaker 3: this is the worst she's seen it in thirty five years.
Speaker 1: Right, right, we got Mike Johnson in there. Do you
Speaker 1: think that Mike Johnson ends up? You know, there's still
Speaker 1: a one person motion to vacate. You know, he's got
Speaker 1: this tiered cr you know. I mean, do you think
Speaker 1: this ends in shutdown? Do you think this ends in
Speaker 1: him getting kicked out again? I mean you are there
Speaker 1: on the ground. What do you think?
Speaker 3: I don't know. I mean, Mike Johnson has compared himself
Speaker 3: to Moses, So.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's just like Moses. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Is he going to be the Moses that wandered in
Speaker 3: the desert for forty years? Or is he going to
Speaker 3: be the Moses that led us through the red Sea.
Speaker 3: It's unclear. I don't think they will make a motion
Speaker 3: to vacate and actually go through the vote and remove
Speaker 3: him again. I mean, look, they're already doing everything they
Speaker 3: can do to get back into the minority. It's clear
Speaker 3: they want back in the minority in the House. That's
Speaker 3: where they feel comfortable. They're not interested in governing, they're
Speaker 3: not interested in helping the American people do anything positive
Speaker 3: or moving the country forward, so they're doing everything they
Speaker 3: can to get back there. They may there are some
Speaker 3: that may use those mechanisms maybe to force him to resign.
Speaker 3: But by the way, who's gonna want this job. Nobody's
Speaker 3: gonna want this job with a two vote majority and
Speaker 3: an ungovernable you know, amount of members twelve of them
Speaker 3: at any given time that you know can't listen to
Speaker 3: anything and just want to burn the country to the ground.
Speaker 3: Part of me has no sympathy for Mike Johnson. But
Speaker 3: the other part of me, which is like the part
Speaker 3: that cares about someone's mental health, I have no idea
Speaker 3: how he's even doing this. Quite frankly, it is just
Speaker 3: unbelievable what that party is going through right now. And
Speaker 3: you know, what it is. Let's just be honest. Donald
Speaker 3: Trump broke them. He broke them. They're still broken, okay,
Speaker 3: and they're gonna be this year leading up to the
Speaker 3: election to see whether or not they're gonna have to
Speaker 3: live with Donald Trump for four more years or whether
Speaker 3: Donald Trump will you go to the pages of a
Speaker 3: history book before we remove him? Just kidding, you know,
Speaker 3: this is my first year here. I mean, if this
Speaker 3: is what Congress is now, the American people, if this
Speaker 3: is what Congress is now going forward, the American people
Speaker 3: and US government are being trouble. If this is a
Speaker 3: blip on the radar, it's one thing. But this is
Speaker 3: just an unbelievable moment in history in which the largest
Speaker 3: branch of government, because we're four nan and thirty five members, right,
Speaker 3: there's one hundred senators born in thirty luck, we cannot
Speaker 3: function and we're showing that to the world.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Congressman.
Speaker 5: Appreciate it.
Speaker 3: Molly, thanks for the opportunity.
Speaker 1: Sam Brody is a deputy politics editor at The Daily Beast.
Speaker 1: Welcome to Fast Politics.
Speaker 5: Sam Brody, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: So United States House of Representatives sacred ground filled with
Speaker 1: serious people. Talk to me about yesterday.
Speaker 5: So yesterday was one of the crazier days we've seen
Speaker 5: on full in the House of Representatives in at least
Speaker 5: two weeks. No, I mean by the standards that this
Speaker 5: House has set. Obviously, you know, folks will recall what
Speaker 5: happened last year and just seams of drama that are
Speaker 5: really unprecedented. Even by those standards, what happened yesterday was
Speaker 5: pretty notable, So let's just rewind. Congress began the day
Speaker 5: with an Oversight Committee hearing in which Cornor Biden unexpectedly
Speaker 5: showed up. Nancy Mace began yelling uncontrollably about that he
Speaker 5: had no balls and that he had white privilege in
Speaker 5: showing up. It completely devolved into bedroom and on the
Speaker 5: House floor we got a just really really stark illustration
Speaker 5: of how completely paralyzed this House Republican majority is and
Speaker 5: really how unable Speaker Mike Johnson is to do almost anything.
Speaker 5: So we'll get into the weeds. I guess here briefly,
Speaker 5: but before you do anything on the House floor, like
Speaker 5: literally anything, they need to pass a rule and that's
Speaker 5: just like jargon for that sets the parameters for debate
Speaker 5: and sets you have to pass ultimately or vote on
Speaker 5: whatever bill that you're considering that day. And historically, rule
Speaker 5: votes do not fail. The entire majority party votes are
Speaker 5: the rule. It's pro forma. Nancy Pelosi in twenty years
Speaker 5: of being a speaker not once lost a vote. And
Speaker 5: now this is happening on a.
Speaker 1: Rules because it's not something you're supposed to lose.
Speaker 5: Exactly, even if you vote against the bill, ultimately you
Speaker 5: just vote for the rule. If your party's in charge,
Speaker 5: that's just what happens. And so now this has happened
Speaker 5: all the time, and it happened a lot at the
Speaker 5: end of McCarthy's tenure. But now what's happening is people
Speaker 5: who backed getting rid of McCarthy are doing the same
Speaker 5: thing to Mike Johnson. So there was a rule just
Speaker 5: to get started. I mean, it wasn't even a rule
Speaker 5: to pass in appropriations bills. Let's also keep in mind
Speaker 5: that a partial government shut down is just a few
Speaker 5: days away. This was a rule to pass a symbolic
Speaker 5: resolution disapproving of a Biden administration policy on electric cars.
Speaker 5: That rule was defeated and the House was paralyzed. Nothing
Speaker 5: could happen. And the reason that happened is that conservatives
Speaker 5: remain angry that Mike Johnson really has no choice but
Speaker 5: to stick to his spending deal that McCarthy, Biden, and
Speaker 5: Chuck Schumer agreed to you last year for top line
Speaker 5: budget numbers for the coming year. They have had a
Speaker 5: temper tantrum about this for months. It helped result in
Speaker 5: mccarshey's departure. Nothing magically changed when Mike Johnson took the speakership.
Speaker 5: Instead of trying to work with him to get a
Speaker 5: better deal, these conservatives are just holding the House for
Speaker 5: hostage until something happens. We'll see if anything ends up
Speaker 5: happening today.
Speaker 1: So one of the things that we noticed is that
Speaker 1: yesterday there started to be whispering about a motion to
Speaker 1: vacate for Mike Johnson. That would be because you'll remember,
Speaker 1: Mike Johnson never changed the rules, so there still is
Speaker 1: a one person motion to vacate in the House and
Speaker 1: there was some whispering about it yesterday. That's the first
Speaker 1: time that's happened because he did have originally some goodwill, right.
Speaker 1: So we has this cr This continuing resolution to finance
Speaker 1: the government expires I think in two weeks.
Speaker 5: So what they did was they split it in half,
Speaker 5: which was a bizarre thing to do, so some of
Speaker 5: the programs.
Speaker 1: It's a tier to cr the first.
Speaker 5: Time ever, Yes, the first time ever. You got to
Speaker 5: wonder why no one's on that before. I believe it's
Speaker 5: in a week that the first shut down partial STUTO
Speaker 5: would happen, and then the other round is in about
Speaker 5: a month on the motion to vacate. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 5: to this point, Johnson has enjoyed a little bit of
Speaker 5: a honeymoon period where people are you going to let
Speaker 5: him work and build his you know, operation, and just
Speaker 5: sort of see what happened. And yesterday there was a
Speaker 5: really pivotal moment I think that heightened the drama of
Speaker 5: everything that happened, which is there was this private House
Speaker 5: Republican conference meeting in which Johnson was briefing members on
Speaker 5: the kind of renewed agreement that they came to, and
Speaker 5: people just stormed out, even people incline to support Johnson saying,
Speaker 5: you know, this is a joke. This guy, Warren Davidson
Speaker 5: from Ohio said, you know, we never should have hired
Speaker 5: Johnson in the first place. The more establishment a line
Speaker 5: people are just throwing up their hands and remarking about
Speaker 5: how they literally can't do anything. I mean, you're seeing
Speaker 5: members say on the record like that it is a
Speaker 5: complete disaster, which is just shocking.
Speaker 1: What I think is interesting, though, is that what happened
Speaker 1: here is that you have a pretty large section in
Speaker 1: this House Republican Party that their entire ethos is burning
Speaker 1: down the federal government. So those people continually are furious
Speaker 1: whenever their speaker has to do something that is about
Speaker 1: funding the federal government. I mean, that's really where we are.
Speaker 1: That's why they keep ending up in physticoffs.
Speaker 5: Right, Yeah, that's exactly right. I mean, like this is
Speaker 5: the story of the modern Republican Party, which is there
Speaker 5: is a critical mass of members of the House who
Speaker 5: have no incentive really to govern, to compromise, to put
Speaker 5: forward spending, because their constituents will view anything that has
Speaker 5: any democratic support, any part of the process as a capitulation,
Speaker 5: and it's going to get you a primary challenger, and
Speaker 5: your life is going to be made more difficult. There's
Speaker 5: just enough of these people who are willing to just
Speaker 5: say screw it, whatever, We're going to say no to everything.
Speaker 5: They are not going to get punished really for it
Speaker 5: by their voters at least, And so you know, we've
Speaker 5: seen that that dynamic just completely turbocharged in this House
Speaker 5: Republican majority. But here's where it gets interesting a little
Speaker 5: bit with the motion to vacate, because you're right in
Speaker 5: that it's starting to get mentioned. The sort of Damocles
Speaker 5: is always hanging there over Mike Johnson. Sometimes it's like
Speaker 5: you don't really need to say it's there. Everyone knows
Speaker 5: it's there. But Chip Roy has talked about it, and
Speaker 5: so I remain skeptical that anything will come of this.
Speaker 5: I'll talk a little bit about why. I think. For one,
Speaker 5: the McCarthy situation was e me and I think the
Speaker 5: revolt over McCarthy was really personal in vibe space as
Speaker 5: much as it was anything else.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was Matt Gates, right, Matt Gate's mad at macarthy.
Speaker 5: Exactly, mac Gates, Hayden McCarthy, And it's sort of known
Speaker 5: on Capitol Hill in large part because of the ongoing
Speaker 5: ethics investigation into Matt Gates, which mcarthy couldn't do anything about,
Speaker 5: and the others wanted publicity and all that kind of thing,
Speaker 5: so it wasn't about policy, and so they got the trophy.
Speaker 5: McCarthy went down. Mcates will take many victory laps, and
Speaker 5: I think it's been telling. I mean, Matt Gates himself
Speaker 5: dismissed talk of the motion to day hate their support
Speaker 5: for Johnson, and I think even the most delusional of
Speaker 5: this crew probably understand that what good is it going
Speaker 5: to do them to get rid of Mike Johnson and
Speaker 5: go through this process again. I mean, it broke the
Speaker 5: party last time. If it happened again, it would be
Speaker 5: a nuclear level event from which the party probably could
Speaker 5: not recover. And that's probably a scenario where you'd see
Speaker 5: a moderate speaker or compromise speaker or something like that
Speaker 5: that was talked about last time.
Speaker 1: There is no one right, this guy is number four.
Speaker 1: We had McCarthy was out. Then they was talk of
Speaker 1: Steve Scale. Steve Scalice is not even in Congress right now.
Speaker 1: He's getting treatment, right.
Speaker 5: No, Johnson was number seven, Oh.
Speaker 1: Okay, so perfect seven. So then Emmers who tried and
Speaker 1: Trump was like, no, little buddy, And then I thought
Speaker 1: Johnson was four in the in.
Speaker 5: The leadership that honor is is a least of phonic oh.
Speaker 1: A least upon right, I guess the least upon it
Speaker 1: who did not run for anything, because she's running for
Speaker 1: a vice president.
Speaker 5: Well but yeah, but your point is right. There was
Speaker 5: no one. And I remember covering the speaker drama and
Speaker 5: members would say, you know, when they when they landed
Speaker 5: on Johnson, I had a remember, tell me, like Johnson
Speaker 5: is one of the two or three people who could
Speaker 5: get this that seeing a lot, and so you know,
Speaker 5: they all know who like they are all structural problems.
Speaker 5: These are all problems with their party. Johnson is inheriting
Speaker 5: this and he's attempting to govern, and so this is
Speaker 5: always going to be the conflict, is that no matter
Speaker 5: how conservative the person is that gets the position, no
Speaker 5: matter how much they ally themselves with the hardliners, if
Speaker 5: you're in that post, you're going to be expected to
Speaker 5: keep the place moving. And so that's the contact we're
Speaker 5: seeing play out.
Speaker 1: And these Republicans whole goeshtald is to not keep the
Speaker 1: place moving.
Speaker 5: That's right. And I mean I think it should be
Speaker 5: said too that there is a pretty large wing of
Speaker 5: the party that does want to pass these appropriations bills.
Speaker 5: They are very, very mad at the state of affairs.
Speaker 5: I mean, these are the guys who are coming out
Speaker 5: of the conference meeting and sort of just lamenting their
Speaker 5: inability to govern and talking about how they don't deserve
Speaker 5: the majority and things like that. They're watching the party
Speaker 5: lose their majority in real time. I mean, you have
Speaker 5: members on the record talking about their failure to pass
Speaker 5: appropriations bills, to do the literal most basic thing that
Speaker 5: Congress is supposed to do. How that's going to affect
Speaker 5: their chances in November. Steve Warmackle of Arkansas, he's a
Speaker 5: very establishment, governing wing aligned Republican, made this yesterday and
Speaker 5: so they all know that this is probably where it's heading.
Speaker 5: So while it's important to talk about how much power
Speaker 5: these hardliners have to just grind everything to a halt,
Speaker 5: and how the intensives for them are just to do that,
Speaker 5: Johnson is under a lot of pressure from important members
Speaker 5: of his party, including the people who are going to
Speaker 5: make or break the majority in November, to get something done.
Speaker 5: And so that's the position you find himself in.
Speaker 1: But one of the big problems that Johnson has is
Speaker 1: that his majority is keep shrinking. So talk to us
Speaker 1: about that.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, it's it's pretty crazy. But last Kevin
Speaker 5: in December, there's a couple other members who actually are
Speaker 5: retiring and can't seemingly get out of there fast enough
Speaker 5: and are even filling the rest of their terms but
Speaker 5: are leaving.
Speaker 1: Yes, isn't that unusual.
Speaker 5: It's pretty unusual. Sometimes you'll see a member of lead
Speaker 5: early for like a time sensitive job or something else,
Speaker 5: but it's unusual this level.
Speaker 1: They lost santa I mean, I think, like, in my mind,
Speaker 1: like one of the most evocative moments in this Congress
Speaker 1: was Republicans decided to do this vote on Santos and
Speaker 1: then at the last minute, the entire leadership team changed
Speaker 1: from kick him out to keep them because it was
Speaker 1: like all of a sudden, they were like with a
Speaker 1: napkin doing math.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it was that. And I'm sure they wanted him
Speaker 5: to stay, but they were wary of being seen as
Speaker 5: working too hard to keep him, and so I think
Speaker 5: they tried to slip the baby there in a way
Speaker 5: that just totally didn't work out at all. But yeah,
Speaker 5: I mean, there's a reason McCarthy didn't do anything about
Speaker 5: Santos would use in charge. You knew what was going
Speaker 5: to happen, and so that's where they are.
Speaker 1: So now they have a special election coming in New
Speaker 1: York three, and then they have a majority that is like,
Speaker 1: what are the numbers. It's a bunch of non voting seats, right,
Speaker 1: and then one or two voting seats, right.
Speaker 5: So there's two vacancies right now, and there's two hundred
Speaker 5: and twenty many Republicans and two hundred and thirteen Democrats.
Speaker 5: So the vacancies are the Santo seat and the McCarthey seat,
Speaker 5: and they will not be filled. This special election for
Speaker 5: New York three is in February, I guess, and then
Speaker 5: I think the election for mccarthury seat is in a
Speaker 5: few more months. But then they're going to have another
Speaker 5: vacancy because some guy in Ohio is leaving to become
Speaker 5: a university president. So you're going to just kind of
Speaker 5: continually have these problems. Also, you know, we're seeing members
Speaker 5: since coming back from the break, more coming out to
Speaker 5: announce they're not running for reelection. State filing deadlines are
Speaker 5: coming up. I expect we'll see more members announce their
Speaker 5: plans to retire, and some of those may also include
Speaker 5: people who leave before the term is up. You just
Speaker 5: don't know. The margins could not possibly be higher. It
Speaker 5: really is. Underscore is just how impossible Mike Johnson's situation is.
Speaker 5: He has no breathing room whatsoever. Even if he did,
Speaker 5: he has a crew of about a dozen Republicans in
Speaker 5: his own cow friends who basically have the power to
Speaker 5: make or break anything that happens on the poor and
Speaker 5: there doesn't seem to be a and he has no experience.
Speaker 5: That's really the thing to underscore is he's been around
Speaker 5: in Congress since twenty seventeen. He had a minor position
Speaker 5: in the leadership. He was a conservative guy from the sidelines,
Speaker 5: a committee guy, no leadership like true experience on like
Speaker 5: how do you run the place, didn't sit on appropriations
Speaker 5: or any of the big governing committee, and he has
Speaker 5: had to build his operation as all of this has
Speaker 5: been going on. I think that's what makes the motion
Speaker 5: to vacate stuff really empty from somebody like chip Roy
Speaker 5: who does know how the place works. I imagine that
Speaker 5: Chip Roy understands that if you vacate Johnson, okay, get
Speaker 5: somebody else in there, and then they're going to have
Speaker 5: to build an organization from the ground up. Again, how
Speaker 5: is that going to help? I think something that was
Speaker 5: telling of the whole situation with Thomas Massey, who is
Speaker 5: a very right wing conservative from Kentucky, once.
Speaker 1: A libertarian, now just a person who wants to destroy
Speaker 1: the federal government.
Speaker 5: Yeah. Yeah, and you know he's a little weird because
Speaker 5: he's like a big the Stantusk guy Trump guy. Anyway,
Speaker 5: he did back McCarthy, but he is somebody who votes
Speaker 5: no on almost every piece of legislation. He did support McCarthy,
Speaker 5: but he tweeted a meme I think yesterday that was
Speaker 5: a photo of McCarthy and it just said miss me yet.
Speaker 5: And I think that does encapsulate how even a lot
Speaker 5: of conservatives are feeling, which is that, yeah, maybe McCarthy
Speaker 5: got some stuff wrong, he didn't like him on some prospects,
Speaker 5: or didn't trust him, whatever, but that he was probably
Speaker 5: the only person who was positioned to run the conference.
Speaker 5: Now he's gone and shuck with Mike Johnson and they
Speaker 5: are careening towards the shutdown with no real plan exactly.
Speaker 1: I mean. Now, the one I think data point here
Speaker 1: that's useful is that, I mean, the thinking is that
Speaker 1: the base will love a shutdown. Those hearings yesterday where
Speaker 1: we had Marjorie Tayler Green chasing Hunter Biden out of
Speaker 1: the room, right, and then she wasn't really but Hunter
Speaker 1: Biden was there. You know, the Republican Comm's Operations sent
Speaker 1: out a tweet that said, Marjorie Teller Green and chases
Speaker 1: Hunter Biden out of the hearing. Do the Republicans think
Speaker 1: that this is I mean, do they feel like is
Speaker 1: this their caravan? Is this what they're going to be
Speaker 1: doing for the twenty twenty election? And do they think
Speaker 1: this helps them?
Speaker 5: The Hunter Biden stuff?
Speaker 1: Yeah, and also just the really embarrassing bad behavior that
Speaker 1: kind of you know, screaming, you know, you have no balls,
Speaker 1: I mean that stuff.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean they you know, the most consequential thing
Speaker 5: that happened now is the representatives yesterday was that Marjorie
Speaker 5: Taylor Green showed pictures of Hunter Biden dick I mean again, yeah,
Speaker 5: again again after a hold ust up about a percent. Look,
Speaker 5: here's the way I do it is Republicans are hopelessly divided.
Speaker 5: The level of acrimony within the party is at just
Speaker 5: unbelievable highs. There is not much that really unites them
Speaker 5: and gets them growing in the same direction except for
Speaker 5: really two things, the border and Hunter Biden. And so
Speaker 5: you better believe that they're going to desperately try and
Speaker 5: change the subject and focus on the only things that
Speaker 5: really unite them. Look, you know, they've clearly decided that,
Speaker 5: you know, from a political perspective, they're going to use
Speaker 5: these probes to bloody the president and see what happens
Speaker 5: and create a lot of smoke and see if it'll
Speaker 5: stick with voters. I think they're already kind of too
Speaker 5: far down that road to change, but yeah, you know,
Speaker 5: it probably was a welcome thing to change the subject.
Speaker 5: I think they'd probably rather have the media talking about
Speaker 5: Margie Taylor greens Inox then the fact that they, you know,
Speaker 5: could not fulfill even the most basic task of governing
Speaker 5: in the legislative body.
Speaker 1: Sam Brody, that was great. I really appreciate you, and
Speaker 1: that was exactly exactly right.
Speaker 5: Thank you, thanks for having me. I always love talking
Speaker 5: about the House of Representatives.
Speaker 1: They're mormical Fuent, Jesse Cannon.
Speaker 6: Molly jung Fest. You know, Elon, he's always tweeting through it,
Speaker 6: but somehow some people can't see the very obvious hints
Speaker 6: at what his political ideology is.
Speaker 1: Elon Musk was right wing, or at least he certainly
Speaker 1: seemed right wing, but he has, as he has been
Speaker 1: tweeting through it, revealed himself to be redpilled, to be maga,
Speaker 1: to be anti immigrant, and in fact every.
Speaker 6: Tweet I think we could go a little further and
Speaker 6: just go full on white supremacists.
Speaker 1: At this point, he really has become the kind of
Speaker 1: South African billionaire that I, in my heart always knew
Speaker 1: he was. You're going to see a lot of him
Speaker 1: complaining about the caravan, him worried about bloodlines.
Speaker 6: Referring people to Stephen Miller's white grievance slaw firm.
Speaker 1: And also he'll probably start using Stephen Miller's hair and
Speaker 1: a can.
Speaker 6: Now he bought the good stuff.
Speaker 1: Come on, anyway, all of this is why Elon Musk,
Speaker 1: beneficiary of government contracts and white nationalists is our moment
Speaker 1: of fuckery. That's it for this episode of Fast Politics.
Speaker 1: Tune in every Monday, Wednesday and Friday to hear the
Speaker 1: best minds in politics makes sense of all this chaos.
Speaker 1: If you enjoyed what you've heard, please send it to
Speaker 1: a friend and keep the conversation going. And again, thanks
Speaker 1: for listening.