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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 no labels say if Rond de

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Speaker 1: Santis is a GOP nominee, they will drop their third

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Speaker 1: party bid just want to have a fascist in the

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Speaker 1: White House. We have such a thrilling show today Semaphores

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Speaker 1: Dave Weigel tells us how the GOP are trying to

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Speaker 1: win over Islamic voters with their culture wars. Then we'll

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Speaker 1: talk to Maddie Kahn about her new book Young and Restless,

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Speaker 1: The Girls who sparked America's revolutions.

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Speaker 2: But first we have.

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Speaker 1: Bloomberg Opinion editor Tim O'Brien. Welcome back to Fast Politics.

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Speaker 2: Tim O'Brien, Hi, Ali, Hi.

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Speaker 3: We always encounter each other when there's been sort of

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Speaker 3: a cultural or legal or political car correct.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, which is every day, so it ends up being fine.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, but this one, this particular one is epic.

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Speaker 1: Yes, it is epic, and it's also I feel like

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Speaker 1: I've been through so many machinations with this as already,

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Speaker 1: this federal indictment, there was the day it dropped and

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Speaker 1: like I felt like people were on television saying like

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Speaker 1: this is going to change everything, and then Republicans just

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Speaker 1: decided they were going to fall back in line.

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Speaker 3: Republicans are always going to fall back in line because

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Speaker 3: they understand that propaganda and disinformation is a path to power,

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Speaker 3: and so they should be kind of put in their

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Speaker 3: own particular shoe box. I do feel like, having watched

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Speaker 3: Donald Trump for ages, I've always felt there's been this

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Speaker 3: myth that's built up around him that he escapes the

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Speaker 3: law and he escapes accountability. I've always felt that's only

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Speaker 3: because he hasn't really had the incentive prosecutorial artillery aimed

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Speaker 3: at his wheelhouse, and now he does, and I do

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Speaker 3: think this is different. I don't know that he's going

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Speaker 3: to go to jail. I don't know that it's going

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Speaker 3: to prevent him from ascending to the White House again.

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Speaker 3: But Jack Smith landed a factually driven, air tight argument

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Speaker 3: for why Donald Trump is a criminal. I think the

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Speaker 3: system will find him guilty.

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Speaker 2: No, I definitely think so too.

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Speaker 1: I mean, thirty seven counts, thirty one of those are

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Speaker 1: covered under this Espionage Act, which is not espionage but

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Speaker 1: is the sort of the crimes that make.

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Speaker 2: Up modern national security. Right.

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Speaker 1: I mean I thought it was pretty interesting the defenses

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Speaker 1: that you saw Republicans mount.

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Speaker 2: I mean, my favorite one.

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Speaker 1: Was Hugh Hewitt, who has thought of as a sort

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Speaker 1: of more mainstream Republican right now, Well.

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Speaker 3: I think he's I think he's an off the rails apologies.

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Speaker 2: They're all off the rails apologists.

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Speaker 3: But I think he's particularly off the rails, and I

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Speaker 3: think he's ill informed. I don't know Hugh Hewett, but

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Speaker 3: I don't I find I think there's other conservatives who

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Speaker 3: are more substantive than him.

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Speaker 1: No question, he is not substantive in any way, but

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Speaker 1: I think of him as different than Charlie Kirk, is

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Speaker 1: what I'm saying, right, he writes for mainstream outleads.

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Speaker 3: He's not a pre pubescent bratt who is a know nothing.

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Speaker 1: Right, and so he is. Immediately after the indictment tweets.

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Speaker 1: I read the indictment and there's nothing about trying to

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Speaker 1: sell state secrets. I was like, so the bar is

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Speaker 1: like actual espionage when we know people like Reality Winner

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Speaker 1: and people like that who have gone to jail for

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Speaker 1: many years.

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Speaker 3: Well, and he was in charge with trying to sell

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Speaker 3: state secrets. That's not part of the charges. They're saying

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Speaker 3: that indictment is deficient for something it doesn't.

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Speaker 2: Do right exactly.

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Speaker 1: You know, I just thought it was interesting that, like,

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Speaker 1: how on the ground these defenses could be.

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Speaker 3: Lindsay Graham said a similar thing. But again, they're arguing.

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Speaker 3: They're not arguing on the fact pattern. They are they're

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Speaker 3: setting up straw men to pretend they can find fault

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Speaker 3: with an indictment that is utterly fact driven and damning.

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Speaker 3: And I can't believe the jury wouldn't be swayed by,

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Speaker 3: you know, the speaking indictment that they've filed.

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Speaker 1: Well, that will be the question. It will and the

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Speaker 1: judge will be Judge Eileen Canna.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, and even if you know she won't recuse,

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Speaker 3: she probably won't be pulled off of Even if she

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Speaker 3: just lets the machinery the courtroom go in the direction

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Speaker 3: it should and let the jury reach a verdict, she

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Speaker 3: still gets to sentence him, right, and sentencings are subjective

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Speaker 3: acts at the discrimination of the judge. Trump could get

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Speaker 3: as much as ten years on most of the count's

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Speaker 3: twenty years. I think on one of the counts, what

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Speaker 3: if she just says two days.

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Speaker 1: Right now that said, the appeals process could knock a

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Speaker 1: decision that's too far out of the range out.

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Speaker 3: It could and I think, you know, this could become

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Speaker 3: a ping pong ball in the appellate court. Obviously, so

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Speaker 3: we don't know, but she's already been basically censured by

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Speaker 3: fellow Republican jurists who have found her previous rulings wanting.

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Speaker 3: I don't know if that's going to putrun any special

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Speaker 3: guard to sort of roll differently on this, but it

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Speaker 3: is deeply ironic that she descended up with her I

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Speaker 3: think it was shrewd of the DOJ. It can mean

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Speaker 3: the grand jury. I mean, I think they needed to

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Speaker 3: because the crid happened to mar Alago, the alleged crime, right,

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Speaker 3: so they had to convene the grand jury there. But

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Speaker 3: I also think it matters that Laridians found enough credibility

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Speaker 3: and the evidence to hand up an indictment, and then

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Speaker 3: the wheel spun around and she got the case. We're

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Speaker 3: in such a crazy.

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Speaker 2: Era, yeah, no, definitely.

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Speaker 1: So now I want to ask you what do you

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Speaker 1: think happens now?

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Speaker 3: Well, I think you know, he's a desperate person. I

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Speaker 3: think the fact that he started attacking Jack Smith within

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Speaker 3: ten seconds of this being fouled and not just attacking

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Speaker 3: Jack Smith like in his traditional this is a witch hunt,

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Speaker 3: this is the dam's coming after me. He called Jack

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Speaker 3: Smith the coward. Donald Trump doesn't really care about other people.

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Speaker 3: He doesn't focus on them. They don't weighan his mind

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Speaker 3: unless he has a use for them. So if he's

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Speaker 3: enamored of someone at their celebrity or an athlete where

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Speaker 3: he envies their celebrity, he pays attention. If if it's

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Speaker 3: somebody wants to corrupt or co op, he pays attention.

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Speaker 3: And the third sort of category of human he pays

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Speaker 3: attention to are the people that scare him. And I

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Speaker 3: think he is deeply scared of Jackson and he's projecting

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Speaker 3: cowardice on a Jacksmith because he's afraid, and I think

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Speaker 3: he knows in his reptilian brain. So Donald Trump's seventy

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Speaker 3: seventh birthday is today, Wow, which also happens to be

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Speaker 3: the anniversary of the Espionajack. I'm not saying correlation is causationation.

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Speaker 2: Yes, definitely, yeah.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, But it is interesting that the Espionajack, I think,

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Speaker 3: was passed in nineteen seventeen on the same date that

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Speaker 3: in nineteen forty six, Donald Trump was born In any event,

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Speaker 3: I think he's very aware of this. For all of

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Speaker 3: his bravado, and he is not a sophisticated man. And

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Speaker 3: he got through his previous prior years with better legal

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Speaker 3: advisors well Cage here and more wanton legal advisors around

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Speaker 3: him than he has now. And he's he's open now,

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Speaker 3: he's vulnerable, and I think he feels it. Yeah, So

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Speaker 3: that means I think there's going to be political violence, right.

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Speaker 3: What are his other options?

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Speaker 1: Well, he's certainly encouraging political violence. But yeah, you'll remember

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Speaker 1: encouraging political violence. In Trump has encouraged political violence before.

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Speaker 1: He will do it again. I mean that is that's

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Speaker 1: not I mean, that's kind of how he does it.

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Speaker 1: The question I think is more will his people be violent?

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Speaker 2: Right?

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Speaker 3: Yeah? And you know January six would say yes, some

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Speaker 3: of his political rallies would say yes, right. It turnout

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Speaker 3: in Miami would say no, right right?

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Speaker 2: I mean, or even in New York. Right.

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Speaker 1: There was a whole indictments circus.

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Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, I remember like when Marjorie Taylor Green showed

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Speaker 3: up and everyone was like, go away, silly woman. When

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Speaker 3: you jumped back into her car and sped off. I mean,

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Speaker 3: you know, in a way that's heartening. Like maybe the

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Speaker 3: Trump Show is not going to get people onto the

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Speaker 3: streets in the way it might have a few years ago.

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Speaker 3: But I think that's still where he's going to go,

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Speaker 3: especially if he gets convicted, and especially if he gets.

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Speaker 1: Sentenced, right right, right, No, And I mean I think

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Speaker 1: there's a real chance. There's also like remember there are

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Speaker 1: the Georgia indictments.

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Speaker 3: And there still is a possible January sixth indictment from

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Speaker 3: the Justice Department on insurrection, which would, if he's found guilty,

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Speaker 3: keep him from running again.

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Speaker 2: Also, Jack Smith, when would that happen?

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Speaker 3: I don't know, I have no idea. I mean, clearly

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Speaker 3: they felt and I think they were right that the

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Speaker 3: classified documents case was such a clear linear argument. And

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Speaker 3: in the January sixth case, they're going to have to

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Speaker 3: prove the Trump fomented the insurrection on January sixth, that

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Speaker 3: he incited it, and he was a co conspirator in

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Speaker 3: a sedition that could be open to interpretation in the

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Speaker 3: way that this one isn't. But that's also the case

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Speaker 3: that could keep him out of the Oval office. The

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Speaker 3: Fourteenth Amendment after the Civil War was aimed a keeping

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Speaker 3: Confederates running government because they were seditious, and that language

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Speaker 3: is still in there, right, Like, that's the heart of

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Speaker 3: this is, we don't want rebellious people, irresponsible seditionists running

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Speaker 3: our government, whether the Confederates or Donald Trump. But weirdly,

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Speaker 3: in all of this, depending on the timing, if Trump

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Speaker 3: were to run and win, he then if you were president,

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Speaker 3: could dismiss these cases.

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Speaker 1: Right And in fact, it seems like a very likely,

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Speaker 1: especially with Judge Cannon, that a lot of these cases

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Speaker 1: may happen after he's won the primary, the GOP primary,

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Speaker 1: which I think he'll win, while he's running for president.

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Speaker 1: I was actually texting with Ron DeSantis, Yes, Ron DeSantis,

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Speaker 1: we're very close. No, with with Ron brownsde you know

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Speaker 1: who happens to have the same name as Ron de

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Speaker 1: Santis and lit a thowsful human being.

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Speaker 2: Yes, Ron Brownstein.

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Speaker 1: He was saying, and he may not feel this way now,

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Speaker 1: but he was saying he thought this actually pretty much

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Speaker 1: clenched the GOP nomination for Trump.

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Speaker 3: Well, I think that's actually an interesting thing to look at,

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Speaker 3: and I'm not convinced it will. I think he may

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Speaker 3: have clinched it regardless of this right. You know, after

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Speaker 3: like three to four weeks after you know, Manhattan, da

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Speaker 3: Alvin Brad indicted Trump and charged him in the courtroom.

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Speaker 3: A few weeks after that event, the polls suggested that

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Speaker 3: it gave Trump a boost, and I think that was

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Speaker 3: a flimsy case relative to all the other ones. Like

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Speaker 3: if if you had to have a ranking of where

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Speaker 3: to go at him, that one felt me far down

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Speaker 3: on the totem pole. It will be interesting to see

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Speaker 3: in three to four weeks if there's some polling, and

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Speaker 3: all the polls aren't reliable, but I will voters respond

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Speaker 3: to this action. I think it would be interesting if

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Speaker 3: they have a different response to this than they did

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Speaker 3: to brag. And if they did, I think that may

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Speaker 3: also have an electoral component to it. I think most

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Speaker 3: Americans are sick of this car crash, but they don't

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Speaker 3: want the car crash to get resolved in a unreliable way.

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Speaker 2: What does that mean.

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Speaker 3: I think they want the process to play out in

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Speaker 3: a way in which it is clear and discernible, right,

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Speaker 3: And I think this is a clear, discernible action. I

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Speaker 3: think there's anywhereere you've got to interpret Trump's judgment or

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Speaker 3: interpret did he do x Y or Z, people will

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Speaker 3: start complaining. But like the Georgia case, in this case,

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Speaker 3: like there's a tape in Georgia where he says, find

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Speaker 3: me the eleven thousand and seven hundred votes or whatever,

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Speaker 3: it's like, there's nothing like debatable around that he called

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Speaker 3: them up and asked them to commit voting fraud. And

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Speaker 3: in the document's case, his own cameras record his own

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Speaker 3: people moving the stuff around to evade the law, and

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Speaker 3: the obstruction case is open to interpretation. On the second

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Speaker 3: you get into interpretation of the January sixth case, you know,

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Speaker 3: people can fill that void. It can fill that vacuum,

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Speaker 3: you know. I do think voters have stood up at

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Speaker 3: crucial moments since twenty sixteen. Trump is not one a

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Speaker 3: federal electoral referendum. Since twenty sixteen, twenty eighteen, twenty twenty

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Speaker 3: twenty two, he's lost, despite everyone saying that trump Ism

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Speaker 3: and Trump were going to rule the dead and it

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Speaker 3: got deeply embarrassed in twenty two. So I don't know,

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Speaker 3: but I am heartened that somewhere in the great unknown

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Speaker 3: that is the United States, that some people are enough,

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Speaker 3: people are to start at paid attention. Since twenty sixteen.

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Speaker 3: But I get the sense that you don't believe that.

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Speaker 3: Do you not feel that?

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Speaker 2: No?

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Speaker 4: I do.

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Speaker 1: I mean the I think that those midterms were a

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Speaker 1: referendum on Trump is. I think Trump has the numbers

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Speaker 1: to continue with the GOP base, but I don't think

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Speaker 1: he has the numbers.

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Speaker 3: To win a general election.

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Speaker 1: Right, And so I actually feel, you know, in my mind,

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Speaker 1: the worst case scenario continues to be DeSantis because it,

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Speaker 1: you know, trump is without Trump is quite scary.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I.

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Speaker 1: Don't like Youngkin, but he doesn't seem to me quite

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Speaker 1: as But I mean, I don't know. This Republican Party

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Speaker 1: has definitely taken authoritarianism as their thing now in a

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Speaker 1: really craven way.

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Speaker 3: Right because, like you have, you have trained lawyers advocating

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Speaker 3: for it.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, and they don't think there's anything wrong with it,

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Speaker 1: and they're very defensive about it. So you know, I'm

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Speaker 1: more worried about this sort of trump Ism without Trump

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Speaker 1: than I am about Trump, because I think that people

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Speaker 1: know what Trump is.

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Speaker 3: Well, and that's going to stay with us, Molly, like

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Speaker 3: that's a given, Like trump Ism is going to be

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Speaker 3: with us for I don't know, I wouldn't say a generation,

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Speaker 3: But I would say until it gets completely wrung out

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Speaker 3: of the GOP primary process, it's not gone.

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Speaker 1: Which means that basically that every election is going to

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Speaker 1: be fascism more normal.

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Speaker 3: Well, you know, I think it's even beyond what is

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Speaker 3: fascism mean in the US context. To me, there's clearly

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Speaker 3: this desire to just call institutional credibility into question, about

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Speaker 3: the point where no one trusts facts, no one trusts

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Speaker 3: what institutions say, whether those institutions are are the courts

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Speaker 3: or the government, or the media or any sort of

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Speaker 3: local authority. And that's an okay place for elites to

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Speaker 3: live because they can also always resource themselves privately, But

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Speaker 3: for most people who depend on both institutions and processes

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Speaker 3: just for the normal given taricul their daily lives, that's anarchy.

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Speaker 3: And I think, actually, these people aren't the far right,

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Speaker 3: the MAGA people of the GOP aren't populist conservatives or anarchists.

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Speaker 3: They want disorder because they're angry and they think the

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Speaker 3: system as a whole is untrustworthy and should be brought down.

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Speaker 3: And so in the American context, I really worry about

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Speaker 3: just dissolution and fragmentation sort of like late Rome.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, no, and I think there's a real anxiety that

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Speaker 1: that's where we are.

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Speaker 3: But so then the question is how do we solve that?

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and I don't know how we solve that. Give

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Speaker 1: us like a two minutes on how we solve it.

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Speaker 3: Well, I think leadership always matters. I think it matters

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Speaker 3: in times of uncertainty, in times of chaos, that people

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Speaker 3: of courage stand up, exert influence, authority and trust to

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Speaker 3: get things back on track. And I think that Democrats

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Speaker 3: have been bad at recruiting young, dynamic, credible people in

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Speaker 3: giving them airtime so a base can be cultivated around them.

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Speaker 3: I think historically the GOP has been better at that.

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Speaker 3: So I think part of the solution is the Democrats

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Speaker 3: need to get better at recruiting and promoting sharp, new,

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Speaker 3: dynamic faces. I think secondarily, people have to fight for facts.

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Speaker 3: But that's also a nebulous battle.

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Speaker 2: Right exactly.

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Speaker 3: The media is as poorly trusted as any other institution,

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Speaker 3: in a lot of cases less so. But I think

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Speaker 3: there's a long history behind that, and I think that

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Speaker 3: that's a tough battle. And I think actually the United

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Speaker 3: States is at a juncture that could go in very

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Speaker 3: much the wrong way given all the factors in play.

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Speaker 3: I'm not entirely pessimistic. I'm not optimistic. I just think

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Speaker 3: we're on a bit of an I think we're on

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Speaker 3: a knife edge in American society right now.

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Speaker 1: Yeah again, how long can we be on a knife's edge?

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Speaker 3: How long is it going to take England to recover

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Speaker 3: from Brexit?

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Speaker 2: Right?

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Speaker 3: I mean, I think I think societies can stay in

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Speaker 3: flextu a long time, but they erode. And there's a

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Speaker 3: lot of things we always do well in the US

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Speaker 3: because there's a lot of unique virtues and skilled in

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Speaker 3: the US, But there's also this weird I think the

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Speaker 3: United States, the sort of sense of inevitability and survival

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Speaker 3: that come what nay, everything bumps up against this anormous

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Speaker 3: ship of the state that the US sales on. I

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Speaker 3: think the Trump ERI calls that into question. I think

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Speaker 3: people need to do the right thing and embrace values

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Speaker 3: that are our disting values like democracy, equity, the facts,

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Speaker 3: which is not happening right now. And the response the

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Speaker 3: GOP's response to the Trump indictment is grotesque and disheartening

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Speaker 3: because they're just craven politicos who want to acquire position

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Speaker 3: and power for the sake of acquiring power with an

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Speaker 3: agenda free world view.

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Speaker 2: Tim O'Brien, thank you so much for joining us.

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Speaker 3: Molly, thank you for having me. It's always a treat.

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Speaker 1: Dave Weigel is a reporter at Semaphore. Welcome back to

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Speaker 1: Fast Politics.

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Speaker 4: Dave, thanks for having me back. I appreciate it.

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Speaker 2: Always delight to have you. So we're in this incredibly.

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Speaker 1: I don't know if I'm incredibly depressed or just a

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Speaker 1: little depressed, but I'm thinking about our political situation right

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Speaker 1: now and feeling pretty depressed. Can you talk to us

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Speaker 1: a little bit about the sort of insanity that's happening right.

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Speaker 2: Now in MAGA world.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, well, obviously the deep state is taking down Donald

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Speaker 4: Trump because he got too close to the truth about

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Speaker 4: child drafficking. That's what's happening in Florida today, right.

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Speaker 2: It's the only answer that makes sense.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, the former president is showing up for his Dan

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Speaker 4: Corty's got a couple special features that most people don't get,

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Speaker 4: which is that he doesn't need to get a mug shot,

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Speaker 4: I just need to get fingerprinted. But he is participating

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Speaker 4: with investigation to his handling of classified material and more importantly.

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Speaker 4: I mean, this is the thing I think, I think

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Speaker 4: everyone kind of gets it right, but more importantly, just

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Speaker 4: not cooperating with law enforcement and the FBI once they

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Speaker 4: realize that he's taking stuff from the White House. That's

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Speaker 4: what separates what's happened to Trump, that from what happened

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Speaker 4: to Mike Pence, which is already forgotten, and the investigation

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Speaker 4: into into Joe Biden. This is it's very clear from

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Speaker 4: the indictment, which is which is a just like a

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Speaker 4: fun read. I feel like it is a fun read.

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Speaker 2: It's true.

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Speaker 4: I'm usually fun read. Yeah, with photos, just for the details.

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Speaker 4: Had he just behaved differently and handed the stuff back

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Speaker 4: when asked about it, I'm not sure that this would

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Speaker 4: be happening today. But that's happening. You have. I have

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Speaker 4: some colleagues down there. I'm not down there myself, but

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Speaker 4: you have what it's not probably probably a pretty reliable

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Speaker 4: traveling maggot troop of Kerry Lake and vi Vey Ramaswami

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Speaker 4: and Laura Lumer who lives in Florida, and Trump super

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Speaker 4: fans who are saying this is a miscarriage of justice,

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Speaker 4: that this is Joe Biden trying to take down his

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Speaker 4: his chief political opponent. I think that they don't really

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Speaker 4: be there saying because every Republican, with the exception of

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Speaker 4: Basa Hudginson is running for president, has said almost the

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Speaker 4: same thing, right, And.

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Speaker 1: Now I want to talk about these candidates, because this

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Speaker 1: is something that is completely like, here are these candidates.

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Speaker 1: They are running against Donald Trump, right, They're running against him,

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Speaker 1: and yet Donald Trump has made defending him the litmus

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Speaker 1: test of this primary. So well, they're running against him,

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Speaker 1: they're defending him.

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Speaker 2: What.

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Speaker 4: This is a trap for a lot of these candidates

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Speaker 4: for a number of reasons. I think most people can

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Speaker 4: even into it. Why. The first one that they're all

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Speaker 4: dealing with is that most Republican voters, most people who

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Speaker 4: say they're going to vote in this primary, like Donald Trump,

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Speaker 4: and they think that he's being railroaded. If you look

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Speaker 4: at the CBS poll which asked pretty directly about this

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Speaker 4: that came out over the weekend, less than thirty percent

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Speaker 4: close to twenty eight percent Republicans who thought there might

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Speaker 4: be some merit into this case. In Florida, the vast

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Speaker 4: majority said there was no merit, and half of the

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Speaker 4: people who said there was said that it was probably

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Speaker 4: a political sting to get him out of the race anyway.

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Speaker 4: And when you're that is your elector that's who you're

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Speaker 4: appealing to, you can either go for that small group

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Speaker 4: that is not enough to win the nomination, or you

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Speaker 4: can say, I agree that this is that he's being railroaded.

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Speaker 4: I think what you've seen is a couple different responses.

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Speaker 4: One is the AA vague response, which is literally turning

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Speaker 4: your campaign over into a kind of flavor flav you

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Speaker 4: know Chuck d situation where you're just showing up and saying, yeah, boy,

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Speaker 4: whenever Trump says something.

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Speaker 1: He's there today and he has like a sheet that

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Speaker 1: he wants everyone to sign that will say they'll defend

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Speaker 1: Donald Trump, every candidate.

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Speaker 4: That they'll specifically that if they're elected president, they will

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Speaker 4: pardon him.

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Speaker 2: Pardon him, yes, yes, yes, the Willie.

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Speaker 4: Mantion pardoning him. That is the That is one extreme.

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Speaker 4: The other extreme is is Asa Hutchinson, the former governor

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Speaker 4: of Arkansas, is a former prosecutor, and he's just saying

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Speaker 4: we yes, Trump should leave the race. He has the

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Speaker 4: way he's behaved in this indictment is is is untenable.

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Speaker 4: H he cannot leave the country. He should drop out.

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Speaker 4: Asa Hutchinson, who is appollent one percent, does not have

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Speaker 4: that appeal to most of the party. In between, you've

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Speaker 4: got the rest of the responses, which are I think

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Speaker 4: Nikay Halley kind of dramatized the most because she put

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Speaker 4: out one response then added to it on Fox saying,

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Speaker 4: we all are worried that the law enforcement is being

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Speaker 4: weaponized in some way. And at the same time, Donald

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Speaker 4: Trump made some mistakes and if you nominate me, I'm

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Speaker 4: not going to have the same problems. They're all meandering

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Speaker 4: towards saying this guy will be harder to elect and

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Speaker 4: if he is elected, is going to have just a

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Speaker 4: ton of problems governing. I think what they have to

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Speaker 4: deal with again, Vivica just leaning into it, some candidates

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Speaker 4: jumping around it, is well, if our base thinks that

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Speaker 4: everything he's faced with is a conspiracy or fake or

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Speaker 4: the deep state, then what's even the downside of him

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Speaker 4: him winning again? I maybe because this is something that

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Speaker 4: a lot of Trump and DeSantis debaters, and that's most

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Speaker 4: of the problem based now they have is do you

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Speaker 4: want a candidate who like DeSantis will get in there.

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Speaker 4: There'll be a scandal from time to time, but nothing existential.

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Speaker 4: He kind of swats back his enemies, or do you

437
00:22:44,920 --> 00:22:47,520
Speaker 4: want somebody who's less focused and is constantly getting into trouble.

438
00:22:47,760 --> 00:22:49,560
Speaker 4: The needle they're trying to thread is that the Republican

439
00:22:49,640 --> 00:22:51,560
Speaker 4: voters to say, if Trump's getting in trouble, that means

440
00:22:51,560 --> 00:22:53,399
Speaker 4: he's doing the right thing and everything he's accused of

441
00:22:53,520 --> 00:22:54,400
Speaker 4: his fake right.

442
00:22:54,760 --> 00:22:58,920
Speaker 1: I thought they were just being cowardly cowards, which they are.

443
00:22:59,240 --> 00:23:02,800
Speaker 1: But these candidates have seen the polling and they see

444
00:23:03,520 --> 00:23:06,920
Speaker 1: that there's no lane for someone who does it, who

445
00:23:07,000 --> 00:23:08,800
Speaker 1: isn't a trumpy sycophan, right.

446
00:23:09,119 --> 00:23:11,880
Speaker 4: Right, And all of them, I should add, when they're

447
00:23:11,880 --> 00:23:14,240
Speaker 4: getting into this race and thinking about how do you

448
00:23:14,320 --> 00:23:16,280
Speaker 4: get the nomination, they all do things seriously about it

449
00:23:16,480 --> 00:23:19,200
Speaker 4: unless they're they're just doing this to raise money, is

450
00:23:19,600 --> 00:23:21,399
Speaker 4: all right? What would need to happen for me to win?

451
00:23:21,520 --> 00:23:23,520
Speaker 4: And if you boil it down, it is they need

452
00:23:23,640 --> 00:23:26,360
Speaker 4: rhn dea Santis to fade, and they think he will.

453
00:23:26,440 --> 00:23:28,440
Speaker 4: It's one thing I think every Republican running for present

454
00:23:28,480 --> 00:23:31,480
Speaker 4: believe they just have more raw political talent than he does.

455
00:23:31,800 --> 00:23:34,760
Speaker 4: It's hard to lass, right, Yeah, they need Trump to

456
00:23:34,840 --> 00:23:36,680
Speaker 4: be so knocked out of the race. That they're not

457
00:23:36,800 --> 00:23:39,240
Speaker 4: competing against us. So you'll get them kind of talking

458
00:23:39,640 --> 00:23:42,120
Speaker 4: on background or off the record about how they think

459
00:23:42,240 --> 00:23:45,280
Speaker 4: that Trump could be forced not to run. The problems

460
00:23:45,320 --> 00:23:47,600
Speaker 4: could be overwhelming, he could drop out. I think that

461
00:23:47,800 --> 00:23:50,080
Speaker 4: that gets less and less likely whatever they open their mouths,

462
00:23:50,119 --> 00:23:54,600
Speaker 4: because one argument they're making is this is Joe Biden's

463
00:23:54,680 --> 00:23:58,040
Speaker 4: chief political foe, and this is everything that's being thrown

464
00:23:58,040 --> 00:23:59,360
Speaker 4: at him as a way to get himut of the race.

465
00:23:59,840 --> 00:24:01,840
Speaker 4: If he then drops out of the race, what's the

466
00:24:01,880 --> 00:24:05,280
Speaker 4: next question is it? Hey, are you are do you

467
00:24:05,480 --> 00:24:08,600
Speaker 4: endorse how the deep state took out Joe Biden's most

468
00:24:08,640 --> 00:24:11,000
Speaker 4: powerful political opponent and is making a settle for one

469
00:24:11,040 --> 00:24:13,960
Speaker 4: of you guys. It's not tenable as just a logical

470
00:24:14,160 --> 00:24:16,720
Speaker 4: exercise unless you're Asa Hudgerson you're saying, yeah, this is

471
00:24:16,720 --> 00:24:19,040
Speaker 4: pretty bad. She should not review should not be running.

472
00:24:19,240 --> 00:24:20,919
Speaker 2: That is a really good point.

473
00:24:21,359 --> 00:24:24,600
Speaker 1: I mean, it's just the calculus is so impossible, right,

474
00:24:25,200 --> 00:24:27,720
Speaker 1: and then also you have to defend Trump, but you

475
00:24:27,960 --> 00:24:31,639
Speaker 1: also have to I mean, DeSantis wanted to run to

476
00:24:31,680 --> 00:24:34,680
Speaker 1: the right of him, and these other people are sort

477
00:24:34,720 --> 00:24:36,280
Speaker 1: of trying to run to the right of him too,

478
00:24:36,560 --> 00:24:38,960
Speaker 1: or at least sort of the same, if not more.

479
00:24:39,080 --> 00:24:39,240
Speaker 5: Right.

480
00:24:39,640 --> 00:24:42,760
Speaker 4: Yeah, they have not distinguished themselves much on policy compared

481
00:24:42,800 --> 00:24:44,760
Speaker 4: to Trump, except to the right. And you bring up

482
00:24:44,800 --> 00:24:46,399
Speaker 4: to Santis, He's the one who's done the most of this.

483
00:24:46,560 --> 00:24:49,200
Speaker 4: He has said that he was true Mega, he was

484
00:24:49,240 --> 00:24:51,760
Speaker 4: true America first, even when Trump was and the examples

485
00:24:51,800 --> 00:24:53,439
Speaker 4: he gives me. He gave some of this in Iowa

486
00:24:53,680 --> 00:24:56,440
Speaker 4: when he did this for his to date only real

487
00:24:56,480 --> 00:24:58,760
Speaker 4: press conference in the campaign, and he was saying, well,

488
00:24:59,400 --> 00:25:03,040
Speaker 4: basically the Trump was willing to do amnesty for dreamers.

489
00:25:03,320 --> 00:25:06,680
Speaker 4: Trump has talked down entitlement reform, has no plans of

490
00:25:06,760 --> 00:25:09,720
Speaker 4: ever performing soci security Medicare. He said with Hugh Hewitt

491
00:25:09,960 --> 00:25:13,159
Speaker 4: in more recent interview that Trump's Supreme Court appointees were

492
00:25:13,160 --> 00:25:16,359
Speaker 4: obviously good and he's on record supporting them, but he

493
00:25:16,600 --> 00:25:19,800
Speaker 4: wanted to put more conservative judges in the mold of

494
00:25:19,920 --> 00:25:23,000
Speaker 4: Alito and Scalia so that he is attacked from the

495
00:25:23,119 --> 00:25:26,280
Speaker 4: right right. But that's basically it. Nobody disagrees with the premise,

496
00:25:26,280 --> 00:25:28,000
Speaker 4: I mean. And part of this is that Trump has

497
00:25:28,040 --> 00:25:30,359
Speaker 4: just kind of won a lot of the policy debates

498
00:25:30,440 --> 00:25:32,840
Speaker 4: in the party. If you were covering the Republicans in

499
00:25:32,840 --> 00:25:35,359
Speaker 4: twenty sixteen, there was a disagreement on whether you would

500
00:25:35,400 --> 00:25:38,120
Speaker 4: solve immigration with a border wall and things that move

501
00:25:38,200 --> 00:25:41,600
Speaker 4: so far that Republicans are arguing drug smuggling a thing

502
00:25:41,680 --> 00:25:43,960
Speaker 4: that happens mostly through you know, legal ports of entry,

503
00:25:44,280 --> 00:25:45,920
Speaker 4: we need to build a border wall to stop that.

504
00:25:46,280 --> 00:25:49,880
Speaker 4: They've embraced so many of Trump's ideas that they've build

505
00:25:50,000 --> 00:25:52,920
Speaker 4: retrofically defend how he acted as president. They really haven't

506
00:25:52,920 --> 00:25:54,800
Speaker 4: distinguished himselves much. And here is a different thing that

507
00:25:54,880 --> 00:25:56,440
Speaker 4: I would do that he would not if he wins.

508
00:25:56,480 --> 00:25:58,359
Speaker 4: They just say I would do it more efficiently, I

509
00:25:58,400 --> 00:26:00,760
Speaker 4: would do it without scandal. Please don't take what I

510
00:26:00,880 --> 00:26:04,000
Speaker 4: just said as an endorsement of people investigating it.

511
00:26:04,280 --> 00:26:04,480
Speaker 2: Yeah.

512
00:26:04,680 --> 00:26:08,359
Speaker 1: That's the thing again that I don't totally get is

513
00:26:08,760 --> 00:26:12,440
Speaker 1: it seems like Trump was a cult of personality, right,

514
00:26:12,720 --> 00:26:16,639
Speaker 1: and that now he's running against people who so, Okay,

515
00:26:16,680 --> 00:26:19,840
Speaker 1: they don't have policy, but they also don't necessarily have personality.

516
00:26:20,440 --> 00:26:23,760
Speaker 4: They have I think, more recognizable politician personalities. They're not

517
00:26:23,880 --> 00:26:26,040
Speaker 4: going to be as flamboyant as Trump is. They're not

518
00:26:26,080 --> 00:26:28,320
Speaker 4: going to insult people the way that he does. When

519
00:26:28,359 --> 00:26:29,960
Speaker 4: they do it is usually through staff. I mean, I

520
00:26:30,000 --> 00:26:34,240
Speaker 4: think that the DeSantis staff attitude. You way to argue

521
00:26:34,280 --> 00:26:36,320
Speaker 4: on Twitter is kind of will make fun of you

522
00:26:36,400 --> 00:26:39,600
Speaker 4: for the question to ask. But nobody punches as many

523
00:26:39,640 --> 00:26:41,679
Speaker 4: targets as Trump does. So yeah, they are running as

524
00:26:41,880 --> 00:26:44,040
Speaker 4: wouldn't be nice if there was a normal Republican president

525
00:26:44,040 --> 00:26:45,760
Speaker 4: who took these issues on. But I mean, I didn't

526
00:26:45,800 --> 00:26:48,119
Speaker 4: mention one thing. I've been covering a lot because I

527
00:26:48,240 --> 00:26:51,159
Speaker 4: can't talk about it is even gender issues. They have

528
00:26:51,280 --> 00:26:54,280
Speaker 4: tried to get to his right on and which been

529
00:26:54,320 --> 00:26:56,439
Speaker 4: tough because Trump since he left the presidency has got

530
00:26:56,480 --> 00:27:01,359
Speaker 4: as he moved around this on gender identity, on everything

531
00:27:01,440 --> 00:27:04,480
Speaker 4: touching that issue is the frontier of LGBT rights. So

532
00:27:04,640 --> 00:27:07,480
Speaker 4: nobody really disagrees with him. They just think, well, look

533
00:27:07,520 --> 00:27:09,159
Speaker 4: what he did when the White House, he had a

534
00:27:09,200 --> 00:27:11,720
Speaker 4: transgender military band to get tied up. He didn't really

535
00:27:11,800 --> 00:27:14,280
Speaker 4: do anything about the schools. If I get in, I

536
00:27:14,400 --> 00:27:17,280
Speaker 4: know what my plan is. And so they've basically adopted

537
00:27:17,560 --> 00:27:19,639
Speaker 4: a lot of his policies. They've gone further through right

538
00:27:19,720 --> 00:27:23,280
Speaker 4: and they've run on efficiency. That is something every primary

539
00:27:23,359 --> 00:27:26,359
Speaker 4: is different. You mentioned called a personality. It's still unsettled,

540
00:27:26,600 --> 00:27:30,440
Speaker 4: and question to me how much of Republican disappointment with

541
00:27:30,520 --> 00:27:33,479
Speaker 4: Trump is he didn't deliver on X or Y policy

542
00:27:33,520 --> 00:27:35,480
Speaker 4: and how much is just I trust him, but he

543
00:27:35,600 --> 00:27:38,360
Speaker 4: got railroaded. If they think that he just got railroaded

544
00:27:38,400 --> 00:27:40,600
Speaker 4: and then in the next term he would do everything

545
00:27:40,840 --> 00:27:43,520
Speaker 4: everything left on his agenda, You're then all right, what

546
00:27:43,600 --> 00:27:45,560
Speaker 4: are you offering that he's not offering kind of nothing.

547
00:27:45,600 --> 00:27:48,200
Speaker 4: You're offering the ability to run for a second term

548
00:27:48,680 --> 00:27:50,359
Speaker 4: because he can't. But that's about it.

549
00:27:50,680 --> 00:27:53,960
Speaker 1: It's a completely strange situation. I mean, I guess it's

550
00:27:54,040 --> 00:27:56,640
Speaker 1: really just twenty fifteen all over again.

551
00:27:56,880 --> 00:28:00,959
Speaker 4: Right, So the main difference is beyond disrumpting former president.

552
00:28:01,240 --> 00:28:03,800
Speaker 4: So you have a permission structure. All these every Republican

553
00:28:03,920 --> 00:28:06,720
Speaker 4: voter in this primary, almost unless they were not alive

554
00:28:06,800 --> 00:28:09,280
Speaker 4: yet or they didn't vote, they've all voted for Donald

555
00:28:09,280 --> 00:28:11,359
Speaker 4: Trump at some point. So you have Republicans who have

556
00:28:11,359 --> 00:28:13,760
Speaker 4: already voted for this guy. They're already used to his idea,

557
00:28:13,840 --> 00:28:17,520
Speaker 4: his ideas, his version of politics. You have him losing

558
00:28:17,520 --> 00:28:19,840
Speaker 4: an election, which a lot of Republicans don't think he did,

559
00:28:20,280 --> 00:28:23,440
Speaker 4: and you actually have a more conservative base for Trump

560
00:28:23,520 --> 00:28:25,800
Speaker 4: than you did in the past. So this is I

561
00:28:25,800 --> 00:28:27,639
Speaker 4: don't think it's forgotten per se. But I think it

562
00:28:27,680 --> 00:28:30,840
Speaker 4: gets left out of some analysis is that Trump did

563
00:28:30,920 --> 00:28:33,520
Speaker 4: best withstead of working class Republican voters who were not

564
00:28:33,600 --> 00:28:36,000
Speaker 4: necessarily the most conservative, the most conservative would vote for

565
00:28:36,320 --> 00:28:38,520
Speaker 4: Cruise in a lot of these primaries. That is now

566
00:28:38,560 --> 00:28:40,720
Speaker 4: his base. It's actually more modern Republicans who just don't

567
00:28:40,720 --> 00:28:43,560
Speaker 4: want Trump back, who are saying they'll even vote for DeSantis,

568
00:28:43,600 --> 00:28:45,600
Speaker 4: who's again, not to repeat it what I said, but

569
00:28:45,880 --> 00:28:48,280
Speaker 4: running to Trump's right. But since he's not him and

570
00:28:48,360 --> 00:28:50,720
Speaker 4: that he's the fresh face, he's the alternative, they're looking

571
00:28:50,760 --> 00:28:54,240
Speaker 4: for something else there. You're not seeing a debate about

572
00:28:54,360 --> 00:28:56,640
Speaker 4: how Trump would change the party because he already has.

573
00:28:56,960 --> 00:28:58,600
Speaker 4: So he's in a better position than he was in

574
00:28:58,640 --> 00:29:02,160
Speaker 4: twenty Sixteen's campaigning less, I mean, he's doing less actual

575
00:29:02,200 --> 00:29:05,960
Speaker 4: in person events. But these legal problems are the best

576
00:29:06,000 --> 00:29:08,080
Speaker 4: example of just how much better he's he had a

577
00:29:08,120 --> 00:29:10,200
Speaker 4: position he's in with the same sort of tragedy of

578
00:29:10,200 --> 00:29:12,000
Speaker 4: the comments of the other candidates that you had in

579
00:29:12,080 --> 00:29:14,080
Speaker 4: twenty sixteen. If this is what happened to Trump, let's

580
00:29:14,120 --> 00:29:17,520
Speaker 4: imagine is twenty sixteen or twenty fifteen, and let's imagine

581
00:29:17,760 --> 00:29:21,080
Speaker 4: Trump had somehow got classified documents, or let's imagine he's

582
00:29:21,400 --> 00:29:24,600
Speaker 4: in court over alleged sexual abuse. What would have happened

583
00:29:24,640 --> 00:29:27,880
Speaker 4: then is what happened with the Trump University lawsuit, which

584
00:29:27,920 --> 00:29:31,640
Speaker 4: is other candidates saying, hey, this is bad. He did

585
00:29:31,680 --> 00:29:33,640
Speaker 4: something unethical. We can't have a president who did that.

586
00:29:33,720 --> 00:29:35,520
Speaker 4: As the nominee, he's going to be in trouble.

587
00:29:35,440 --> 00:29:36,600
Speaker 2: But now no more.

588
00:29:37,000 --> 00:29:41,640
Speaker 1: He is winning the attention economy, and so you're seeing

589
00:29:41,720 --> 00:29:43,760
Speaker 1: everybody else sort of shrivel up and die.

590
00:29:44,200 --> 00:29:46,920
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's fair. I think it's this six inquid abut it.

591
00:29:47,040 --> 00:29:48,880
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I mean depressing.

592
00:29:49,320 --> 00:29:51,280
Speaker 1: It's actually made me really, I mean, there are other

593
00:29:51,360 --> 00:29:53,000
Speaker 1: things that are making me depress, but I feel like

594
00:29:53,080 --> 00:29:55,080
Speaker 1: that's also one of them. I feel like the listeners

595
00:29:55,120 --> 00:29:56,560
Speaker 1: don't like it when I start talking a bit hoo

596
00:29:56,600 --> 00:29:59,600
Speaker 1: to depress him. I can't imagine why they don't find

597
00:29:59,640 --> 00:30:03,880
Speaker 1: that Trump. So MEGA has sort of figured out another

598
00:30:04,120 --> 00:30:07,920
Speaker 1: group to appeal to explain this, because this is really

599
00:30:08,000 --> 00:30:10,200
Speaker 1: interesting LGBTQ stuff.

600
00:30:10,320 --> 00:30:12,640
Speaker 4: If you're looking at what issues are relatively new for

601
00:30:12,840 --> 00:30:16,040
Speaker 4: the party for this cycle. Obviously not gay rights, obviously

602
00:30:16,080 --> 00:30:19,400
Speaker 4: not the traditional marriage those are not new, but a

603
00:30:19,520 --> 00:30:23,440
Speaker 4: confidence that they can win voters who don't like Republicans

604
00:30:23,480 --> 00:30:27,000
Speaker 4: and other issues on gender issues, that's pretty new for

605
00:30:27,120 --> 00:30:29,200
Speaker 4: the version of that's new, and you saw Republicans do

606
00:30:29,280 --> 00:30:31,280
Speaker 4: this in two thousand and four, much less to do

607
00:30:31,320 --> 00:30:32,960
Speaker 4: those in eight They have as much a light to

608
00:30:33,000 --> 00:30:35,440
Speaker 4: stand on. With gay marriage and black voters, there's big

609
00:30:35,560 --> 00:30:39,320
Speaker 4: a lot of outreached in Ohio to religious black voters,

610
00:30:39,720 --> 00:30:43,200
Speaker 4: to religious minorities in general, religious spanics saying the traditional

611
00:30:43,240 --> 00:30:44,720
Speaker 4: family is going to be destroyed by the left and

612
00:30:44,880 --> 00:30:47,400
Speaker 4: not by us. We want a moment a constitution. You're

613
00:30:47,400 --> 00:30:51,640
Speaker 4: seeing a new version of that around LGBT issues, transgender people.

614
00:30:52,000 --> 00:30:53,840
Speaker 4: One thing I was just kind of focusing on over

615
00:30:53,840 --> 00:30:55,320
Speaker 4: the last couple of days is you're seeing a lot

616
00:30:55,720 --> 00:30:59,400
Speaker 4: with Muslim voters who the Republicans just stopped competing for

617
00:30:59,760 --> 00:31:02,000
Speaker 4: ten years ago. I mean, the politics the party have

618
00:31:02,080 --> 00:31:05,480
Speaker 4: shifted so much that you remember the inciting event for

619
00:31:05,560 --> 00:31:07,440
Speaker 4: Trump to introduce the Muslim travel ban.

620
00:31:07,800 --> 00:31:10,000
Speaker 1: No, I just remember he sort of had the band

621
00:31:10,120 --> 00:31:13,360
Speaker 1: teed up, but I don't remember what caused it.

622
00:31:13,640 --> 00:31:16,200
Speaker 4: Well, he kind of did. The event was the Pulse

623
00:31:16,280 --> 00:31:19,120
Speaker 4: nightclub shooting in Orlando. He was sort of taking this

624
00:31:19,320 --> 00:31:22,520
Speaker 4: what was the popular Republican position for fifteen sixteen years

625
00:31:22,840 --> 00:31:26,920
Speaker 4: was this is a pluralistic, democratic country with tolerance, and

626
00:31:27,040 --> 00:31:29,760
Speaker 4: we can't have Muslim sharia law, believe in terrorists coming

627
00:31:29,800 --> 00:31:32,200
Speaker 4: in and ruining it. That has changed and he talks

628
00:31:32,280 --> 00:31:34,600
Speaker 4: less about the Muslim ban. Now he does talk about

629
00:31:34,840 --> 00:31:39,240
Speaker 4: preventing medicaid from covering gender medicine, hormones, et cetera. In

630
00:31:39,360 --> 00:31:41,720
Speaker 4: that spirit, they've been doing more outreach to voters who

631
00:31:42,200 --> 00:31:45,480
Speaker 4: just may have totally bailed on their party over immigration policies,

632
00:31:45,600 --> 00:31:48,959
Speaker 4: over the Muslim band, et cetera. But they also are

633
00:31:49,040 --> 00:31:52,360
Speaker 4: not socially liberal. They're not progressive. If they hear about groomors,

634
00:31:52,840 --> 00:31:54,080
Speaker 4: they're going to agree with that.

635
00:31:54,120 --> 00:31:54,360
Speaker 5: I mean.

636
00:31:54,440 --> 00:31:57,160
Speaker 4: One example is the new outreach chair of the Michigan

637
00:31:57,240 --> 00:31:59,479
Speaker 4: Republican Party, And Michigan's a place where this really kind

638
00:31:59,480 --> 00:32:03,040
Speaker 4: of picked up in Dearborn, where parents are protesting some

639
00:32:03,200 --> 00:32:06,440
Speaker 4: sexual content in school, mostly Muslim parents. The hour's chair

640
00:32:06,480 --> 00:32:08,640
Speaker 4: of the Michigan Party is the first Muslim to have

641
00:32:08,760 --> 00:32:11,160
Speaker 4: that job, and if you look at her Twitter account

642
00:32:11,200 --> 00:32:13,400
Speaker 4: or social media, it's all about gender, it's all about

643
00:32:14,320 --> 00:32:17,120
Speaker 4: the left groomers. She's a big fan of libs, of TikTok.

644
00:32:17,320 --> 00:32:19,360
Speaker 4: They've gone in a more cultural direction because they think

645
00:32:19,400 --> 00:32:22,000
Speaker 4: there is more territory to gain there. That's pretty new

646
00:32:22,280 --> 00:32:24,200
Speaker 4: for this cycle, if not a lot of of the

647
00:32:24,280 --> 00:32:24,880
Speaker 4: policies are.

648
00:32:25,160 --> 00:32:28,560
Speaker 1: It's so fucked up because we're not in cable news,

649
00:32:28,600 --> 00:32:32,200
Speaker 1: so we can say this that the right has decided that, Like.

650
00:32:32,440 --> 00:32:33,840
Speaker 2: I mean, you can see this progression.

651
00:32:33,920 --> 00:32:36,040
Speaker 1: Right. They started with we just want to protect children,

652
00:32:36,720 --> 00:32:40,040
Speaker 1: don't say gay to third grade, then to high school,

653
00:32:40,800 --> 00:32:42,560
Speaker 1: you know, we just want to protect them.

654
00:32:42,480 --> 00:32:43,360
Speaker 2: From drag queens.

655
00:32:43,400 --> 00:32:44,760
Speaker 1: And then all of a sudden they're like, we just

656
00:32:44,800 --> 00:32:48,080
Speaker 1: don't want pride shove down our throat. And then you

657
00:32:48,240 --> 00:32:50,120
Speaker 1: see where this is going, right, I mean, this is

658
00:32:50,320 --> 00:32:52,800
Speaker 1: like clearly they're going to go after gay people, and

659
00:32:53,600 --> 00:32:57,200
Speaker 1: it's just it just is sort of mind blowing that.

660
00:32:57,640 --> 00:33:00,600
Speaker 1: I mean, this is like one of the few issues

661
00:33:00,800 --> 00:33:05,080
Speaker 1: that is really settled and is popular and they're going

662
00:33:05,120 --> 00:33:05,320
Speaker 1: to go.

663
00:33:05,320 --> 00:33:06,080
Speaker 2: After it anyway.

664
00:33:07,000 --> 00:33:09,720
Speaker 4: Well, it's for them, not settled, and it touches on

665
00:33:09,880 --> 00:33:12,560
Speaker 4: so many things. And one question people have when I

666
00:33:12,640 --> 00:33:15,240
Speaker 4: write about it is did it Republicans learn from the

667
00:33:15,320 --> 00:33:18,040
Speaker 4: midterms this is not like not a winning issue. Well

668
00:33:18,040 --> 00:33:19,920
Speaker 4: they didn't. They think what they think? They want to

669
00:33:20,000 --> 00:33:22,160
Speaker 4: keep pounding away on it. They think that as more

670
00:33:22,160 --> 00:33:24,360
Speaker 4: people find out what they're talking about, they're going to

671
00:33:24,400 --> 00:33:27,160
Speaker 4: come to their side. And you saw Gallop this week

672
00:33:27,400 --> 00:33:30,200
Speaker 4: had it updated of its twenty twenty one poll on

673
00:33:30,320 --> 00:33:32,720
Speaker 4: a couple of gender issues, and over the last two years,

674
00:33:33,200 --> 00:33:35,800
Speaker 4: the number of people who want what the poll calls

675
00:33:36,000 --> 00:33:39,280
Speaker 4: somebody's birth gender to determine which sports they play. You know,

676
00:33:39,320 --> 00:33:41,960
Speaker 4: if you're born female but transition to female, you're too bad,

677
00:33:41,960 --> 00:33:45,120
Speaker 4: you're playing male sports. That attitude got much more popular

678
00:33:45,120 --> 00:33:47,040
Speaker 4: by seven points. That went to sixty nine percent who

679
00:33:47,080 --> 00:33:49,440
Speaker 4: agree with that. Even when they asked is it moral

680
00:33:49,640 --> 00:33:52,800
Speaker 4: to change genders? Which is fairly open ended question, that

681
00:33:52,960 --> 00:33:56,160
Speaker 4: decreased too, and among Democrats it was stable. Most Democrats

682
00:33:56,200 --> 00:33:58,880
Speaker 4: actually said, oh no, it's more of them. I should

683
00:33:58,920 --> 00:34:01,680
Speaker 4: say believe that Morald to do so, it's perfectly fine.

684
00:34:01,880 --> 00:34:05,840
Speaker 4: But more Democrats again they shifted by seven points, were aligned,

685
00:34:05,880 --> 00:34:09,960
Speaker 4: i'd say with Nikki Ailey position on transgender athletes. And

686
00:34:10,480 --> 00:34:13,080
Speaker 4: this is something that the White House put out a

687
00:34:13,160 --> 00:34:16,960
Speaker 4: new guidance for schools based on this. It got some pushback,

688
00:34:17,040 --> 00:34:19,440
Speaker 4: but that's a good example the Biden station trying to

689
00:34:19,480 --> 00:34:23,920
Speaker 4: find some ground they can defend on a policy that

690
00:34:24,040 --> 00:34:27,080
Speaker 4: might not be that might be very easily demogogued. So

691
00:34:27,200 --> 00:34:29,680
Speaker 4: that is new. That's how Republicans are reacting to it.

692
00:34:30,160 --> 00:34:32,320
Speaker 4: That's what I hear. I mean when I cover these candidates,

693
00:34:32,600 --> 00:34:34,520
Speaker 4: I hear that in every speech. I don't hear much

694
00:34:34,560 --> 00:34:36,640
Speaker 4: talk about tax cuts. I don't hear much talk about

695
00:34:37,280 --> 00:34:40,720
Speaker 4: foreign policy outside Ukraine. Just the issue matrix has shifted

696
00:34:40,719 --> 00:34:42,359
Speaker 4: a lot, and a lot of it can be dealt

697
00:34:42,360 --> 00:34:44,120
Speaker 4: with by saying I want to replace Biden, but a

698
00:34:44,160 --> 00:34:46,520
Speaker 4: lot more can be like we won a more conservative

699
00:34:47,080 --> 00:34:49,520
Speaker 4: country and a rollback of a lot of liberal rights

700
00:34:49,560 --> 00:34:51,440
Speaker 4: and privileges that people got used to over the last

701
00:34:51,480 --> 00:34:51,959
Speaker 4: ten years.

702
00:34:52,480 --> 00:34:53,320
Speaker 2: So crazy.

703
00:34:53,600 --> 00:34:56,839
Speaker 1: I was reading that piece you wrote where you had

704
00:34:56,880 --> 00:34:59,280
Speaker 1: the people and the audience are like, we're really concerned

705
00:34:59,320 --> 00:35:03,920
Speaker 1: with inflation and we really want, you know, to hear

706
00:35:03,960 --> 00:35:07,040
Speaker 1: about taxes, and then you know, that was I think

707
00:35:07,120 --> 00:35:09,480
Speaker 1: that was in Iowa last week, right, And then every

708
00:35:09,640 --> 00:35:12,759
Speaker 1: single candidate just talked about gender at.

709
00:35:12,760 --> 00:35:14,680
Speaker 4: Least if they touched a policy that was that. I

710
00:35:14,760 --> 00:35:16,680
Speaker 4: mean a lot of the time they spent on stage

711
00:35:17,520 --> 00:35:19,799
Speaker 4: was introducing themselves because many of them are not very

712
00:35:19,840 --> 00:35:21,920
Speaker 4: well known. That was a promise. All that made the

713
00:35:22,040 --> 00:35:24,759
Speaker 4: all following all, following Trump, the rest has basically been

714
00:35:24,840 --> 00:35:27,120
Speaker 4: like this idea, and this has been popular for years

715
00:35:27,160 --> 00:35:29,680
Speaker 4: that the Democrats, when they have power, purposely are trying

716
00:35:29,680 --> 00:35:31,960
Speaker 4: to destroy the country, not just taking it in a

717
00:35:32,000 --> 00:35:35,000
Speaker 4: different direction than they would like to, but going out

718
00:35:35,000 --> 00:35:36,439
Speaker 4: of their way to undermine it so that the country

719
00:35:36,520 --> 00:35:40,359
Speaker 4: is unrecognizable. That's the theme. And so you know, going

720
00:35:40,360 --> 00:35:42,239
Speaker 4: around the edges with Mark, tax policy is going to

721
00:35:42,239 --> 00:35:44,799
Speaker 4: be different. I mean Hutchinson, I got. I'm not picking

722
00:35:44,840 --> 00:35:46,800
Speaker 4: on Hutchinson. I'm just saying, as a candidate who's not

723
00:35:46,880 --> 00:35:48,320
Speaker 4: playing the defend drum game.

724
00:35:48,400 --> 00:35:51,120
Speaker 2: Right, he is a little more different than everybody else.

725
00:35:51,239 --> 00:35:51,799
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah.

726
00:35:51,840 --> 00:35:54,759
Speaker 4: One of his lines is that he would reduce the

727
00:35:54,800 --> 00:35:57,040
Speaker 4: federal workforce by ten percent. And you listen to that

728
00:35:57,120 --> 00:35:59,120
Speaker 4: and like, you could probably do that. There's probably ways

729
00:35:59,160 --> 00:36:01,640
Speaker 4: to do that. That but that gets less applause than

730
00:36:02,120 --> 00:36:04,920
Speaker 4: Vick Ramaswami saying No, I want to be like a CEO.

731
00:36:05,120 --> 00:36:07,200
Speaker 4: I want to fire as many of these federal employees

732
00:36:07,200 --> 00:36:10,440
Speaker 4: as possibly. I want to reinterpret the federal scheduling of

733
00:36:10,719 --> 00:36:12,840
Speaker 4: government employees that we can replace them with our guys.

734
00:36:12,920 --> 00:36:16,480
Speaker 4: You can if you're desantists. I want to replace basically

735
00:36:16,520 --> 00:36:19,840
Speaker 4: everyone the FBI with attorneys who are going to be

736
00:36:20,000 --> 00:36:22,560
Speaker 4: politicize things. And you could read between the lines, you

737
00:36:22,640 --> 00:36:24,719
Speaker 4: know that would that mean that these are attorneys who

738
00:36:24,719 --> 00:36:27,120
Speaker 4: are not going to investigate Joe and Hunter Biden. Probably not.

739
00:36:28,120 --> 00:36:31,200
Speaker 4: Like the thing about that is, you know, if you

740
00:36:31,239 --> 00:36:33,800
Speaker 4: were a Hillary Clinton, for example, he hearing that the

741
00:36:33,960 --> 00:36:36,840
Speaker 4: FBI is slanty favorite Democrats is gonna be weird. But

742
00:36:37,120 --> 00:36:37,959
Speaker 4: that's what they talked about.

743
00:36:38,080 --> 00:36:41,040
Speaker 2: That was great. Thank you so much, Dave Hi.

744
00:36:41,600 --> 00:36:45,840
Speaker 1: It's Molly and I am wildly excited that for the

745
00:36:45,960 --> 00:36:51,200
Speaker 1: first time, Fast Politics, the show you're listening to right now,

746
00:36:51,680 --> 00:36:54,560
Speaker 1: is going to have merch for sale over at shop

747
00:36:55,160 --> 00:37:03,440
Speaker 1: dot fastpoliticspod dot com. You can now buy shirts, hats, hoodies,

748
00:37:03,560 --> 00:37:07,400
Speaker 1: and toe bags with our incredible designs. We've heard your

749
00:37:07,520 --> 00:37:11,120
Speaker 1: cries to spread the word about our podcast and get

750
00:37:11,160 --> 00:37:16,480
Speaker 1: a tow bag with my adorable Leo the Rescue Puppy

751
00:37:16,600 --> 00:37:21,320
Speaker 1: on it, and now you can grab this merchandise only

752
00:37:21,800 --> 00:37:26,040
Speaker 1: at shop dot fastpoliticspod dot com.

753
00:37:26,760 --> 00:37:28,160
Speaker 2: Thanks for your support.

754
00:37:31,800 --> 00:37:34,800
Speaker 1: Maddie con is the author of Young and Restless, The

755
00:37:34,880 --> 00:37:37,440
Speaker 1: Girls who Sparked America's Revolutions.

756
00:37:38,120 --> 00:37:43,399
Speaker 2: Welcome to Fast Politics, Maddie con Thank you so much

757
00:37:43,480 --> 00:37:43,960
Speaker 2: for having me.

758
00:37:44,239 --> 00:37:46,560
Speaker 1: First, I want you to explain to us why you

759
00:37:46,800 --> 00:37:52,880
Speaker 1: decided to write this book and how, uh you know,

760
00:37:53,239 --> 00:37:58,080
Speaker 1: teenage girls do not get a ton of, you know, airtime,

761
00:37:58,680 --> 00:38:02,200
Speaker 1: except when they're being used to bully trans kids. So

762
00:38:02,920 --> 00:38:05,480
Speaker 1: talk to me about teenage girls and how you decided

763
00:38:05,600 --> 00:38:06,280
Speaker 1: to write those.

764
00:38:06,440 --> 00:38:08,719
Speaker 5: Yes, I agree with you, they are more often being

765
00:38:09,080 --> 00:38:11,760
Speaker 5: weaponized against their will than they are speaking for themselves

766
00:38:11,800 --> 00:38:13,480
Speaker 5: in public. I think one of the things that I

767
00:38:14,000 --> 00:38:16,400
Speaker 5: feel about having written this book is a lot of

768
00:38:16,520 --> 00:38:20,320
Speaker 5: people I think wonder, like, what is the adult audience

769
00:38:20,400 --> 00:38:22,600
Speaker 5: for a book about teenage girls. I like to start

770
00:38:22,640 --> 00:38:25,200
Speaker 5: by reminding people that if you've ever read a book

771
00:38:25,200 --> 00:38:27,359
Speaker 5: about a war or seen a movie about a war,

772
00:38:27,520 --> 00:38:29,960
Speaker 5: you are deeply invested in the history of teenage boys.

773
00:38:30,080 --> 00:38:32,640
Speaker 5: So this book is truly for everybody. And I think

774
00:38:32,760 --> 00:38:36,400
Speaker 5: that the history of teenage girls has gotten really short shrift,

775
00:38:36,600 --> 00:38:39,160
Speaker 5: and part of that means that I think we don't

776
00:38:39,200 --> 00:38:42,480
Speaker 5: totally understand how the progress that has been made in

777
00:38:42,560 --> 00:38:45,720
Speaker 5: this country, limited though it may be, has actually happened

778
00:38:45,840 --> 00:38:47,960
Speaker 5: since teenage girls have been on the forefront of so

779
00:38:48,160 --> 00:38:50,080
Speaker 5: much of it. And I decided to write the book

780
00:38:50,120 --> 00:38:53,320
Speaker 5: because I had the lucky experience of having been in

781
00:38:53,400 --> 00:38:56,759
Speaker 5: correspondence with and communication with teenage girls for basically my

782
00:38:56,960 --> 00:38:59,320
Speaker 5: entire professional life. I worked at Elle and then I

783
00:38:59,360 --> 00:39:02,000
Speaker 5: worked at Glamour, and that meant that I was constantly

784
00:39:02,120 --> 00:39:07,240
Speaker 5: coming into contact with these amazing, ambitious, determined, fierce teenage

785
00:39:07,280 --> 00:39:10,560
Speaker 5: girls who were trying to change the world in all

786
00:39:10,640 --> 00:39:13,320
Speaker 5: kinds of ways and had become in the course of

787
00:39:13,400 --> 00:39:15,160
Speaker 5: what felt to me at the time like a decade

788
00:39:15,280 --> 00:39:20,200
Speaker 5: or so, these incredible communicators who were managing to move

789
00:39:20,280 --> 00:39:22,800
Speaker 5: the needle at least in public discourse on issues like

790
00:39:22,920 --> 00:39:25,360
Speaker 5: climate change and gun violence in ways that I felt

791
00:39:25,480 --> 00:39:29,560
Speaker 5: like adults had not yet become hip too. And when

792
00:39:29,600 --> 00:39:31,759
Speaker 5: I first started this project, I thought I would really

793
00:39:31,760 --> 00:39:34,440
Speaker 5: write about this generation of teenage girls and what was

794
00:39:34,520 --> 00:39:37,400
Speaker 5: going on with them such that they were on the

795
00:39:37,480 --> 00:39:39,560
Speaker 5: forefront of all of these social movements.

796
00:39:40,080 --> 00:39:40,920
Speaker 2: And then I started to.

797
00:39:40,920 --> 00:39:44,320
Speaker 5: Do more research and put my good old library skills

798
00:39:44,360 --> 00:39:47,520
Speaker 5: to work and talk to historians and dig in deeper.

799
00:39:47,719 --> 00:39:49,759
Speaker 5: And I guess, you know, I would have always known

800
00:39:49,840 --> 00:39:51,920
Speaker 5: that students were so involved in the civil rights movement,

801
00:39:52,000 --> 00:39:54,560
Speaker 5: but it turned out that there had been this incredible

802
00:39:54,920 --> 00:39:59,200
Speaker 5: history of teenage girls, advocating for labor rights, for suffrage,

803
00:39:59,360 --> 00:40:03,279
Speaker 5: for Title nine, for second wave feminism that had been

804
00:40:03,360 --> 00:40:06,960
Speaker 5: buried for really centuries, and so the project became much

805
00:40:07,000 --> 00:40:09,359
Speaker 5: bigger and much more daunting, And the book really came

806
00:40:09,400 --> 00:40:11,120
Speaker 5: out of that whole process. So it starts in the

807
00:40:11,160 --> 00:40:13,520
Speaker 5: eighteen hundreds and it continues until today.

808
00:40:13,840 --> 00:40:16,920
Speaker 1: So talk to me about Rosa Parks. I don't think

809
00:40:17,120 --> 00:40:18,600
Speaker 1: I realized how young she was.

810
00:40:18,960 --> 00:40:21,759
Speaker 5: Well, Rosa Parks would have been in her thirties and

811
00:40:21,880 --> 00:40:25,200
Speaker 5: forties when we meet her, sort of when she comes

812
00:40:25,280 --> 00:40:28,080
Speaker 5: into the historical view for most people. But she had

813
00:40:28,320 --> 00:40:32,200
Speaker 5: started her activism as a fairly young woman. And one

814
00:40:32,239 --> 00:40:33,960
Speaker 5: of the things that I think people really don't realize

815
00:40:33,960 --> 00:40:37,040
Speaker 5: about her is that she was deeply, deeply invested in

816
00:40:37,120 --> 00:40:40,399
Speaker 5: the work of young people. Before she took the action

817
00:40:40,560 --> 00:40:43,279
Speaker 5: that led to the Montgomery bus boycott, she was the

818
00:40:43,440 --> 00:40:46,560
Speaker 5: head of the NAACP Youth Council in Montgomery, and she

819
00:40:46,719 --> 00:40:50,839
Speaker 5: was constantly mentoring teenagers, boys and girls. When she went

820
00:40:50,880 --> 00:40:54,719
Speaker 5: to the Highlander Folks School, she had been prepared, which,

821
00:40:55,239 --> 00:40:57,239
Speaker 5: by the way, the Highlander Folks School sort of a

822
00:40:57,320 --> 00:41:00,359
Speaker 5: training ground for organizers, particularly in the civil rights kind

823
00:41:00,400 --> 00:41:04,240
Speaker 5: of sleep away camp for activists. She had been prepared

824
00:41:04,280 --> 00:41:06,120
Speaker 5: to kind of give up on her activism. She just

825
00:41:06,239 --> 00:41:09,120
Speaker 5: felt like these people were too stuck in their ways.

826
00:41:09,200 --> 00:41:12,000
Speaker 5: She wasn't making traction, And when she left, she said,

827
00:41:12,120 --> 00:41:14,160
Speaker 5: I'm going to go back basically for the kids that

828
00:41:14,239 --> 00:41:16,600
Speaker 5: I think this next generation has so much potential. I'm

829
00:41:16,640 --> 00:41:18,480
Speaker 5: going to continue in this work because I want to

830
00:41:18,520 --> 00:41:21,040
Speaker 5: work with young people. And one of the young people

831
00:41:21,120 --> 00:41:24,279
Speaker 5: that she was very invested in, especially before nineteen fifty

832
00:41:24,320 --> 00:41:27,160
Speaker 5: five when she started the Montgomery bus boycott, was a

833
00:41:27,360 --> 00:41:30,520
Speaker 5: teenager named Claudette Colvin who was in high school and

834
00:41:30,719 --> 00:41:33,560
Speaker 5: actually had been arrested nine months before Rosa Parks for

835
00:41:33,840 --> 00:41:35,839
Speaker 5: the same crime for refusing to give up her seat

836
00:41:35,880 --> 00:41:39,000
Speaker 5: on a segregated bus. Claudette maybe would have thought at

837
00:41:39,040 --> 00:41:40,799
Speaker 5: one point that she would have been the person who

838
00:41:40,840 --> 00:41:43,320
Speaker 5: became the face of the Montgomery bus boycott, but for

839
00:41:43,520 --> 00:41:46,080
Speaker 5: a variety of reasons, she was kind of cast aside

840
00:41:46,120 --> 00:41:49,000
Speaker 5: by the movement, and Rosa Parks took a real interest

841
00:41:49,080 --> 00:41:50,759
Speaker 5: in her and didn't want her to give up on

842
00:41:50,880 --> 00:41:53,880
Speaker 5: her organizing just because you know, she wasn't going to

843
00:41:53,960 --> 00:41:56,960
Speaker 5: be the figurehead of this particular aspect of the movement.

844
00:41:57,480 --> 00:41:59,359
Speaker 5: And they were really close. As I say in the book,

845
00:41:59,480 --> 00:42:01,920
Speaker 5: Rosa Parks knew how Claudette took her coffee. I mean,

846
00:42:02,000 --> 00:42:04,400
Speaker 5: these two women spent a lot of time together. And

847
00:42:04,520 --> 00:42:06,960
Speaker 5: a few months later, after the bus boycott had already

848
00:42:07,000 --> 00:42:09,440
Speaker 5: started and Rosa Parks became the woman that we all

849
00:42:09,680 --> 00:42:12,239
Speaker 5: know her to be, Claudette Covin did go back to

850
00:42:12,280 --> 00:42:15,680
Speaker 5: her activism and she became the plaintiff in this extraordinary

851
00:42:15,800 --> 00:42:18,279
Speaker 5: case that is part of the reason the boycott ended,

852
00:42:18,360 --> 00:42:22,440
Speaker 5: Browder v. Gale, which ruled that segregation on buses was unconstitutional.

853
00:42:22,800 --> 00:42:28,239
Speaker 1: So talk to me about this Chinese immigrant, Mabel ping Wa.

854
00:42:28,960 --> 00:42:31,719
Speaker 5: Yes, I try not to play favorites in the book,

855
00:42:31,840 --> 00:42:35,480
Speaker 5: but I do love her story. So Mabel was a

856
00:42:35,600 --> 00:42:39,000
Speaker 5: Chinese immigrant at a time where there were very few discrimination.

857
00:42:39,200 --> 00:42:41,880
Speaker 5: I guess we could say that much hasn't changed. Was rampant,

858
00:42:42,040 --> 00:42:45,799
Speaker 5: and she was the daughter of also Chinese immigrants. Her

859
00:42:45,880 --> 00:42:47,960
Speaker 5: father was a minister, which is how he kind of

860
00:42:48,040 --> 00:42:52,400
Speaker 5: circumvented these really stringent and very discriminatory immigration laws that

861
00:42:52,480 --> 00:42:55,759
Speaker 5: prevented Chinese people from coming to this country. And she was,

862
00:42:55,800 --> 00:42:59,320
Speaker 5: by all accounts, just brilliant. She thrived in high school,

863
00:42:59,400 --> 00:43:02,920
Speaker 5: she went to Barro and she joined a very very

864
00:43:03,000 --> 00:43:07,000
Speaker 5: small group of Chinese students at Barnard and was very

865
00:43:07,120 --> 00:43:11,560
Speaker 5: very involved, particularly actually in the plight of Chinese women

866
00:43:11,640 --> 00:43:14,920
Speaker 5: in China. She was following Chinese politics really closely, as

867
00:43:15,000 --> 00:43:18,160
Speaker 5: were a lot of her peers, and partially because of that,

868
00:43:18,560 --> 00:43:21,719
Speaker 5: she became really involved in the suffrage movement, which was

869
00:43:21,960 --> 00:43:25,200
Speaker 5: exploding at this time. This is like nineteen twelve, nineteen thirteen,

870
00:43:25,280 --> 00:43:28,920
Speaker 5: nineteen fourteen, around that time in New York, and people

871
00:43:29,280 --> 00:43:33,080
Speaker 5: were just totally obsessed with the way that she talked

872
00:43:33,120 --> 00:43:36,279
Speaker 5: about this issue. There was a newspaper article that said

873
00:43:36,320 --> 00:43:39,480
Speaker 5: when she spoke, people left mabilized by her talks, like

874
00:43:39,600 --> 00:43:45,120
Speaker 5: she was that charismatic and articulate, And partially she made

875
00:43:45,200 --> 00:43:49,320
Speaker 5: her case for sort of global women's rights. And for

876
00:43:49,520 --> 00:43:52,279
Speaker 5: many reasons, she got landed on the radar of the

877
00:43:52,480 --> 00:43:55,319
Speaker 5: suffragists who were operating in New York at the time,

878
00:43:55,480 --> 00:43:59,280
Speaker 5: trying to build consensus about this idea of this crazy

879
00:43:59,400 --> 00:44:02,520
Speaker 5: idea of which in voting, and Mabel, who was so

880
00:44:03,520 --> 00:44:08,120
Speaker 5: precocious and so articulate, became this great way to get

881
00:44:08,200 --> 00:44:11,359
Speaker 5: people interested in this cause. And what I liked about

882
00:44:11,400 --> 00:44:15,080
Speaker 5: her story is that she was very aware of how

883
00:44:15,719 --> 00:44:19,640
Speaker 5: she was being used and how she wanted to be heard,

884
00:44:20,080 --> 00:44:22,800
Speaker 5: because I think there is this tension in that story

885
00:44:22,960 --> 00:44:26,080
Speaker 5: between these white women who are running this movement and

886
00:44:26,160 --> 00:44:29,080
Speaker 5: the very young Chinese teenager that they want to have

887
00:44:29,400 --> 00:44:33,600
Speaker 5: kind of trotted out at their gatherings. But Mabel really

888
00:44:33,680 --> 00:44:36,160
Speaker 5: never held back and told these groups of mostly white

889
00:44:36,200 --> 00:44:39,759
Speaker 5: women again exactly what she thought of their hypocrisies and

890
00:44:39,880 --> 00:44:42,440
Speaker 5: their stances, and how they were planning to vote and

891
00:44:42,680 --> 00:44:45,840
Speaker 5: how they were organizing. She became one of the first

892
00:44:45,960 --> 00:44:49,600
Speaker 5: women to earn a PhD from Columbia in economics. And

893
00:44:50,000 --> 00:44:52,640
Speaker 5: I think that one thing I just think everyone should

894
00:44:52,680 --> 00:44:56,160
Speaker 5: know about Mabel is that she eventually sort of gave

895
00:44:56,280 --> 00:44:59,319
Speaker 5: up her activism as an adult. That she decided after

896
00:44:59,400 --> 00:45:02,040
Speaker 5: her father died and the Great Depression to run her

897
00:45:02,120 --> 00:45:04,960
Speaker 5: father's church, and she had friends in high places who

898
00:45:05,120 --> 00:45:07,520
Speaker 5: begged her to come back to the world of more

899
00:45:07,600 --> 00:45:10,520
Speaker 5: public facing organizing. And I just think one thing I

900
00:45:10,600 --> 00:45:12,680
Speaker 5: wanted to do with this book was to say that

901
00:45:13,080 --> 00:45:19,280
Speaker 5: not every story of girlhood extraordinaryness ends in someone becoming

902
00:45:19,440 --> 00:45:22,760
Speaker 5: a public figure or someone wanting that kind of stage

903
00:45:22,800 --> 00:45:25,080
Speaker 5: for the rest of their life. And hard as it was,

904
00:45:25,160 --> 00:45:27,200
Speaker 5: for me who wanted me able to be famous and

905
00:45:27,360 --> 00:45:29,920
Speaker 5: huge and great. I think one of the things I

906
00:45:30,000 --> 00:45:31,880
Speaker 5: tried to do with the book was remind people that

907
00:45:32,120 --> 00:45:34,680
Speaker 5: really girls get to decide for themselves what kind of

908
00:45:34,760 --> 00:45:35,680
Speaker 5: future they want to have.

909
00:45:36,120 --> 00:45:38,640
Speaker 1: So let's talk about this idea that girls get to

910
00:45:38,719 --> 00:45:42,320
Speaker 1: decide for themselves, what kind of future they have? Talked

911
00:45:42,360 --> 00:45:46,759
Speaker 1: to me about what you see teenage girls' role right

912
00:45:46,920 --> 00:45:50,080
Speaker 1: now in America and the legacy there.

913
00:45:50,520 --> 00:45:52,080
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, I think that one of the things

914
00:45:52,120 --> 00:45:54,719
Speaker 5: I found from this book was and I think most

915
00:45:54,760 --> 00:45:56,960
Speaker 5: people who have read a headline in the past five

916
00:45:57,040 --> 00:45:59,920
Speaker 5: years know this to be true too, is that teenage

917
00:46:00,280 --> 00:46:03,279
Speaker 5: and girls in particular who are loud and who are

918
00:46:03,440 --> 00:46:06,320
Speaker 5: quick and who are savvy about how to use whatever

919
00:46:06,480 --> 00:46:09,560
Speaker 5: the technological organizing tools of their days are get a

920
00:46:09,600 --> 00:46:11,879
Speaker 5: lot of attention, and they often get attention in ways

921
00:46:11,920 --> 00:46:15,319
Speaker 5: that adults, and sadly, particularly I think adult women don't

922
00:46:15,360 --> 00:46:21,360
Speaker 5: get attention when teenagers are criticizing adults in public. That

923
00:46:21,719 --> 00:46:24,320
Speaker 5: gets attention for good and for ill in ways that

924
00:46:24,719 --> 00:46:27,760
Speaker 5: when adults do it, it's just political sniping or sparring,

925
00:46:27,880 --> 00:46:30,680
Speaker 5: and it doesn't garner that same level of interest. And

926
00:46:30,760 --> 00:46:32,920
Speaker 5: so I think that it's two things right. It's that

927
00:46:33,040 --> 00:46:36,040
Speaker 5: girls are incredible communicators for these causes, and we see

928
00:46:36,120 --> 00:46:39,480
Speaker 5: that happening with people like Greta Tunberg with the organizers

929
00:46:39,520 --> 00:46:41,840
Speaker 5: that came out of Parkland and started March for Our Lives,

930
00:46:41,920 --> 00:46:44,480
Speaker 5: both girls and boys in that case, and non binary

931
00:46:44,560 --> 00:46:47,880
Speaker 5: activists too. But I think the problem is, and this

932
00:46:48,080 --> 00:46:49,560
Speaker 5: is something that comes up a lot in the book

933
00:46:49,600 --> 00:46:52,839
Speaker 5: and has come up across generations, is that teenagers don't

934
00:46:53,000 --> 00:46:55,400
Speaker 5: have real power. Most of the people that we're talking

935
00:46:55,440 --> 00:46:58,520
Speaker 5: about only just were able to vote, or not even

936
00:46:58,640 --> 00:47:01,359
Speaker 5: are yet able to vote. They can't elect people, they

937
00:47:01,480 --> 00:47:05,120
Speaker 5: can't campaign for office themselves, they can't run yet. I mean,

938
00:47:05,239 --> 00:47:08,600
Speaker 5: there are very very limited spheres of influence that teenagers

939
00:47:08,640 --> 00:47:11,160
Speaker 5: can have in a public space, and the most powerful

940
00:47:11,200 --> 00:47:13,560
Speaker 5: one that they can have is speaking is being heard.

941
00:47:14,080 --> 00:47:15,840
Speaker 5: And I think the tension is always going to be

942
00:47:16,400 --> 00:47:19,719
Speaker 5: for young people who are so good at getting their

943
00:47:19,840 --> 00:47:22,600
Speaker 5: voices out there and often are so much better at

944
00:47:22,640 --> 00:47:25,880
Speaker 5: that than adults are. Where do they want their influence

945
00:47:26,400 --> 00:47:28,560
Speaker 5: or I guess how do they want their influence to live?

946
00:47:28,880 --> 00:47:32,440
Speaker 5: Because just speaking and getting attention for an issue is

947
00:47:32,520 --> 00:47:35,480
Speaker 5: not the same as being able to achieve some kind

948
00:47:35,520 --> 00:47:37,920
Speaker 5: of legislative or political victory. And I think a lot

949
00:47:37,960 --> 00:47:40,360
Speaker 5: of young people who do this work find it frustrating

950
00:47:40,560 --> 00:47:42,960
Speaker 5: that they are drawing so much attention to these causes,

951
00:47:43,400 --> 00:47:46,440
Speaker 5: but then when it comes time to address these issues

952
00:47:46,520 --> 00:47:49,520
Speaker 5: in policy ways or legislative ways, nobody really wants to

953
00:47:49,560 --> 00:47:51,160
Speaker 5: give them a seat at the table. And I think

954
00:47:51,200 --> 00:47:53,719
Speaker 5: that's always going to be the tension of teenage organizing.

955
00:47:54,040 --> 00:47:59,040
Speaker 1: So let me ask you about Greta Thurnberg, because she

956
00:47:59,480 --> 00:48:01,840
Speaker 1: is a f like right now, the sort of teenage

957
00:48:01,880 --> 00:48:05,439
Speaker 1: girl organizer of the moment. Yeah, talk to me about

958
00:48:05,520 --> 00:48:07,560
Speaker 1: her and where she sort of fits in with the legacy.

959
00:48:07,960 --> 00:48:10,520
Speaker 5: Well, I think one thing that's really interesting about Greta

960
00:48:10,680 --> 00:48:13,120
Speaker 5: is when you listen to her speeches, she is constantly

961
00:48:13,200 --> 00:48:15,480
Speaker 5: talking about how she shouldn't have to be here, she

962
00:48:15,520 --> 00:48:17,640
Speaker 5: shouldn't have to be doing this. One of the things

963
00:48:17,680 --> 00:48:21,680
Speaker 5: that she often says is angrily, you know you've stolen

964
00:48:21,760 --> 00:48:24,399
Speaker 5: my childhood. I don't want to be spending my time

965
00:48:24,520 --> 00:48:26,839
Speaker 5: telling you that you're burning this planet. I don't want

966
00:48:26,920 --> 00:48:29,000
Speaker 5: to be famous. I don't want to be a celebrity,

967
00:48:29,200 --> 00:48:32,120
Speaker 5: but I'm called to action because nobody seems to be

968
00:48:32,480 --> 00:48:35,320
Speaker 5: doing the things that need to be done to safeguard

969
00:48:35,360 --> 00:48:38,160
Speaker 5: the future of the earth. I think that that is

970
00:48:38,480 --> 00:48:41,200
Speaker 5: an undercurrent for a lot of teenage activists that Greta

971
00:48:41,280 --> 00:48:43,680
Speaker 5: makes very explicit that there are other ways she would

972
00:48:43,719 --> 00:48:45,600
Speaker 5: like to be spending her time. I mean, I write

973
00:48:45,600 --> 00:48:49,839
Speaker 5: in the book about the children who advocated for nuclear disarmament,

974
00:48:49,920 --> 00:48:52,840
Speaker 5: who write explicitly in their letters to the president or

975
00:48:52,920 --> 00:48:55,480
Speaker 5: in their organizing materials, we don't want to be here.

976
00:48:55,719 --> 00:48:58,520
Speaker 5: We want to be doing our homework, riding our bikes,

977
00:48:58,520 --> 00:49:01,080
Speaker 5: playing outside, doing any number of other things. There is

978
00:49:01,280 --> 00:49:03,719
Speaker 5: a kind of self sacrifice that I think is part

979
00:49:03,800 --> 00:49:06,840
Speaker 5: of the narrative of teenage activism that I think Greta

980
00:49:07,120 --> 00:49:11,040
Speaker 5: summarizes really well and speaks to I think some people definitely,

981
00:49:11,160 --> 00:49:13,520
Speaker 5: and Greta being the flashpoint that she is, this is

982
00:49:13,680 --> 00:49:16,400
Speaker 5: definitely true of her find that to be I don't know,

983
00:49:16,560 --> 00:49:21,359
Speaker 5: holier than thou somehow or not solutions oriented in some way.

984
00:49:21,640 --> 00:49:24,360
Speaker 5: I think though, that when what children and young people have,

985
00:49:24,800 --> 00:49:26,680
Speaker 5: when the most potent force that they have on their

986
00:49:26,719 --> 00:49:29,480
Speaker 5: side is their youth, part of the effective way of

987
00:49:29,560 --> 00:49:34,120
Speaker 5: communicating publicly is to say this should not be my responsibility,

988
00:49:34,280 --> 00:49:37,760
Speaker 5: but because adults aren't doing their job. It is my responsibility.

989
00:49:37,960 --> 00:49:40,759
Speaker 5: And that comes up again and again and again when

990
00:49:40,800 --> 00:49:43,480
Speaker 5: Greta is giving speeches. You guys are supposed to be

991
00:49:43,560 --> 00:49:46,360
Speaker 5: finding the solutions to these problems, but you're not doing it.

992
00:49:46,560 --> 00:49:48,200
Speaker 5: So I have to make a big fuss about it.

993
00:49:48,360 --> 00:49:50,879
Speaker 5: And clearly it's worked. I mean, people are talking about

994
00:49:50,920 --> 00:49:54,239
Speaker 5: her and about climate change, partially because so many bad

995
00:49:54,320 --> 00:49:57,479
Speaker 5: things are happening in the world brought on by climate change,

996
00:49:57,560 --> 00:49:59,879
Speaker 5: but in ways that they definitely didn't a few years.

997
00:50:00,400 --> 00:50:03,160
Speaker 1: I want to get back to this really horrendous thing

998
00:50:03,320 --> 00:50:06,880
Speaker 1: that Nikki Haley said this weekend. Yes, she said that

999
00:50:07,000 --> 00:50:13,680
Speaker 1: teenage girls are killing themselves because of trans athletes in sports. Obviously,

1000
00:50:14,920 --> 00:50:16,920
Speaker 1: we are in the middle of a mental health crisis

1001
00:50:17,120 --> 00:50:20,920
Speaker 1: post pandemic, likely inspired by the post pandemic, right, mental

1002
00:50:20,960 --> 00:50:24,560
Speaker 1: health crisis that is in many ways about the pandemic

1003
00:50:24,719 --> 00:50:28,080
Speaker 1: and about a lot of other things. But I'm just curious,

1004
00:50:28,800 --> 00:50:32,000
Speaker 1: what do you think about this idea. You know that

1005
00:50:32,200 --> 00:50:35,440
Speaker 1: people use teenage girls like this in this way to

1006
00:50:35,560 --> 00:50:37,960
Speaker 1: beat up trans kids, and we're seeing this as like,

1007
00:50:38,160 --> 00:50:40,520
Speaker 1: you know, I mean, like they never cared about girls

1008
00:50:40,560 --> 00:50:44,160
Speaker 1: sports either, and now there's like this concern for girls sports.

1009
00:50:44,560 --> 00:50:47,640
Speaker 5: Yes, and they definitely don't want equal AD dollars going

1010
00:50:47,680 --> 00:50:50,640
Speaker 5: to the WNBA, and they don't care to see those

1011
00:50:50,800 --> 00:50:53,040
Speaker 5: games on TV, and they have no interest in supporting

1012
00:50:53,080 --> 00:50:56,359
Speaker 5: the infrastructure of women and girls' sports except to use

1013
00:50:56,400 --> 00:50:59,280
Speaker 5: it as a cudgel against trans people. I mean, truly,

1014
00:50:59,400 --> 00:51:01,240
Speaker 5: I find it. First of all, I find it maddening,

1015
00:51:01,320 --> 00:51:03,319
Speaker 5: But on a really deep level, I find it really

1016
00:51:03,400 --> 00:51:06,120
Speaker 5: heartbreaking because for this book, I talk to so many

1017
00:51:06,200 --> 00:51:09,920
Speaker 5: young women across the country who feel so much genuine

1018
00:51:10,000 --> 00:51:12,759
Speaker 5: anxiety and fear about the direction that this world is

1019
00:51:12,840 --> 00:51:15,719
Speaker 5: going in. Many of them have trans friends. I talk

1020
00:51:15,800 --> 00:51:17,680
Speaker 5: to a lot of trans girls for this book, who,

1021
00:51:17,880 --> 00:51:20,520
Speaker 5: of course are included in the category of girl as

1022
00:51:20,719 --> 00:51:23,480
Speaker 5: I and I think most normal people define it. And

1023
00:51:23,719 --> 00:51:26,520
Speaker 5: it's such a distraction to try to pit these groups

1024
00:51:26,520 --> 00:51:29,000
Speaker 5: of people against each other. But I also think it's

1025
00:51:29,080 --> 00:51:32,400
Speaker 5: really in line with the way that America fetishizes girlhood

1026
00:51:32,600 --> 00:51:36,000
Speaker 5: as sort of an idea without any content or humanity

1027
00:51:36,080 --> 00:51:38,520
Speaker 5: behind it. So we have this vision of you know,

1028
00:51:38,680 --> 00:51:43,680
Speaker 5: the American girl, blonde, white, probably pigtails, innocence, naivete, and

1029
00:51:43,960 --> 00:51:46,920
Speaker 5: that ideal needs to be preserved at all costs, But

1030
00:51:47,160 --> 00:51:50,600
Speaker 5: girls themselves are being cast aside and treated terribly in

1031
00:51:50,640 --> 00:51:53,440
Speaker 5: this culture all the time by these same people that

1032
00:51:53,600 --> 00:51:55,680
Speaker 5: say that they act to protect them. I mean, it

1033
00:51:55,800 --> 00:51:59,080
Speaker 5: doesn't surprise me, and I'm sure it doesn't surprise you

1034
00:51:59,239 --> 00:52:02,320
Speaker 5: that this same rhetoric of protecting girlhood comes at a

1035
00:52:02,400 --> 00:52:04,839
Speaker 5: time where we're also hearing about ten year olds who

1036
00:52:04,880 --> 00:52:06,920
Speaker 5: are having to travel out of state to get abortions.

1037
00:52:07,160 --> 00:52:09,560
Speaker 5: It is all part of the same discussion and the

1038
00:52:09,640 --> 00:52:13,320
Speaker 5: same ideology that lifts up this one image of girlhood

1039
00:52:13,640 --> 00:52:16,400
Speaker 5: that has truly no content and no humanity at the

1040
00:52:16,480 --> 00:52:19,880
Speaker 5: expense of literally every single girl in this country. I mean,

1041
00:52:20,040 --> 00:52:22,160
Speaker 5: I don't think that there is a girl dealing with

1042
00:52:22,239 --> 00:52:24,839
Speaker 5: anxiety alive who would say that trans girls are their

1043
00:52:24,880 --> 00:52:28,480
Speaker 5: biggest problem. It's a ridiculous and manufactured thing, but it

1044
00:52:28,640 --> 00:52:32,120
Speaker 5: fits squarely in this tradition of using girls as a

1045
00:52:32,200 --> 00:52:35,520
Speaker 5: shield or as a way to distract without actually asking

1046
00:52:35,640 --> 00:52:38,279
Speaker 5: them what's going on in their lives. And I just

1047
00:52:38,440 --> 00:52:40,520
Speaker 5: really find it hard to believe that Nikki Haley is

1048
00:52:40,600 --> 00:52:44,160
Speaker 5: invested in the mental health crisis of teenagers in general

1049
00:52:44,640 --> 00:52:47,920
Speaker 5: and certainly girls in particular, if that's her idea for

1050
00:52:48,040 --> 00:52:50,320
Speaker 5: how to solve. And also, this isn't my point, but

1051
00:52:50,760 --> 00:52:53,440
Speaker 5: we know that the much bigger threat to teenage girls

1052
00:52:53,600 --> 00:52:58,439
Speaker 5: is sis teenage boys, not trans girls. So I think

1053
00:52:58,600 --> 00:53:01,120
Speaker 5: that too. Just expose this for what it is, which

1054
00:53:01,160 --> 00:53:04,000
Speaker 5: is really cynical and really damaging. And that's the worst part,

1055
00:53:04,080 --> 00:53:07,040
Speaker 5: because it's not just a gross political thing to do.

1056
00:53:07,239 --> 00:53:10,320
Speaker 5: It really really affects people, and it affects families, and

1057
00:53:10,440 --> 00:53:12,759
Speaker 5: it's just so not worth it. And yet I know

1058
00:53:12,880 --> 00:53:14,279
Speaker 5: this is not going to be the last time in

1059
00:53:14,320 --> 00:53:16,239
Speaker 5: this election cycle that we hear something like this.

1060
00:53:16,840 --> 00:53:19,520
Speaker 2: Maddie, this was great. Thank you so much for joining us.

1061
00:53:19,960 --> 00:53:23,480
Speaker 5: Thank you for having me on now.

1062
00:53:26,160 --> 00:53:28,080
Speaker 2: Jesse Cannon, Mai junk Fast.

1063
00:53:28,400 --> 00:53:30,800
Speaker 5: You know, it's a funny thing. There is quite the

1064
00:53:30,920 --> 00:53:34,080
Speaker 5: scene outside that courtroom for Trump getting indicted today.

1065
00:53:34,520 --> 00:53:35,239
Speaker 2: What'd you see there?

1066
00:53:35,600 --> 00:53:38,279
Speaker 1: Well, I was in New York City, thank god, and

1067
00:53:38,440 --> 00:53:41,359
Speaker 1: not in Miami in the middle of the June heat.

1068
00:53:41,960 --> 00:53:44,800
Speaker 1: But I would like to say that I was on

1069
00:53:44,920 --> 00:53:48,919
Speaker 1: Sky News earlier today and they played a package where

1070
00:53:48,960 --> 00:53:51,440
Speaker 1: they interviewed all of these people at the courthouse, and

1071
00:53:51,560 --> 00:53:56,000
Speaker 1: the people at the courthouse seemed completely crazy, and I

1072
00:53:56,160 --> 00:53:58,680
Speaker 1: realized while I was watching this video that the rest

1073
00:53:58,800 --> 00:54:02,319
Speaker 1: of the world is laughing at us, and the rest

1074
00:54:02,400 --> 00:54:05,960
Speaker 1: of the world laughing at us is today's moment of fuckery.

1075
00:54:07,000 --> 00:54:10,279
Speaker 1: That's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in

1076
00:54:10,360 --> 00:54:13,560
Speaker 1: every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday to hear the best minds

1077
00:54:13,600 --> 00:54:16,800
Speaker 1: in politics makes sense of all this chaos. If you

1078
00:54:16,960 --> 00:54:19,600
Speaker 1: enjoyed what you've heard, please send it to a friend

1079
00:54:19,680 --> 00:54:23,200
Speaker 1: and keep the conversation going. And again, thanks for listening.