Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics,
Speaker 1: where we discussed the top political headlines with some of
Speaker 1: today's best minds. And Attorney General Pam Bondi has shuddered
Speaker 1: the FBI's Foreign Interference Act. They just don't want to
Speaker 1: know about it. We have such a great show for
Speaker 1: you today. The Lincoln Project's own Rick Wilson joins us
Speaker 1: to discuss Trump's voters learning about his agenda in real time.
Speaker 1: Then we'll talk to more perfect unions. Josh Miller lewis
Speaker 1: about the lobbying firm funneling massive influence into Donald Trump's
Speaker 1: White House. But first the.
Speaker 2: News Smiley federal employees say they had to justify their
Speaker 2: existence to Doege College freshmen in fifteen minute interviews. This
Speaker 2: is a common thing when private equity comes in. I
Speaker 2: remember there was this documentary about when Bain came to town,
Speaker 2: you know, and McKinsey time that this is what they do.
Speaker 1: End.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 2: Well, we're now seeing that culture spread to the US government.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Elon has decided that he is going to make
Speaker 1: the government efficient. I want to pause for a minute
Speaker 1: and just talk about efficiency. What is efficiency? So efficiency
Speaker 1: is in Elon Musk's mind. What he did to X right,
Speaker 1: he took out the things, the bells and whistles, the
Speaker 1: things that he felt didn't add to it. So now
Speaker 1: you get spam and now you sometimes the messages go down,
Speaker 1: but you know it ultimately works, but it works not
Speaker 1: as well as it used to. This is sort of
Speaker 1: I think, his hope for the federal government. But what
Speaker 1: I think you have to realize about this, And we
Speaker 1: saw this play out in real time right today when
Speaker 1: he was tweeting against me. Was like, I said, you know,
Speaker 1: it's the richest man in the world cutting cancer research,
Speaker 1: and he was like, no, I'm not. And here's the thing.
Speaker 1: He's cutting part of the National Institute of Health, right,
Speaker 1: and it's considered to be overhead. But overhead is like
Speaker 1: leaning the labs and renting the space and paying for
Speaker 1: the scientists. Like this is overhead. And the idea here
Speaker 1: is when you start messing with grants, you start messing
Speaker 1: with research, and there's less money for research. Now you
Speaker 1: might have an argument that the government shouldn't be funding
Speaker 1: cancer research. I would say that is really so stupid,
Speaker 1: but you could, you know, you could go down this
Speaker 1: path of what does the government do. But it really
Speaker 1: isn't up to the richest man in the world, despite
Speaker 1: how rich he is, to decide what the government should
Speaker 1: and should not do. Right, We elected people to do
Speaker 1: that job, and they are not doing it because and
Speaker 1: I think this is really important when you think about
Speaker 1: the Republicans in Congress right now, they couldn't legislate this,
Speaker 1: and so they're just doing it anyway. And there is
Speaker 1: not a public appetite for less cancer research. There is
Speaker 1: not a public right. There's just not People aren't like, oh,
Speaker 1: people were just doing too well with our cancer treatments here.
Speaker 2: I would love to just see people in my life
Speaker 2: die because the richest man on earth wants to pay
Speaker 2: less taxes.
Speaker 1: Well, And it's also just like even if you ideologically
Speaker 1: believe that the government should be smaller, I mean, we
Speaker 1: talk about this so much when we talk about Project
Speaker 1: twenty twenty five, right, Project twenty twenty five, the Grand
Speaker 1: Plan to dismantle the administrative state, to end government oversight,
Speaker 1: but also to end you know, the things that nobody
Speaker 1: really wants to end, right, cancer research, that kind of
Speaker 1: stuff because it's expensive and because they don't really feel
Speaker 1: the government should be paying for that stuff. So when
Speaker 1: you go down that rabbit hole, the question is where
Speaker 1: does it end? And then also if it's not being
Speaker 1: done by elected people, but it's just being done by
Speaker 1: random rich people, how is that constitutionally okay? And how
Speaker 1: is that legal? And why even have elected officials right
Speaker 1: if they are not allowed to control the power of
Speaker 1: the purse, if they are not legislating, I mean, what
Speaker 1: are they even doing? Like, and so we're watching here.
Speaker 1: Besides the fact is very scary because there will be
Speaker 1: a lot of government services lost, and that will be
Speaker 1: things like you know, healthcare for veterans, science. I mean,
Speaker 1: you'll see people in red states where the university is
Speaker 1: the big employer in the state suddenly panicking because there
Speaker 1: will be job lost, there will be financial ruin, there
Speaker 1: will be you know this all this will actually trickle up,
Speaker 1: believe it or not, to billionaires eventually, but it will
Speaker 1: also trickle up to the people who are elected to handle.
Speaker 2: This crashes the economy, which has a lot of potential aduces.
Speaker 2: These are people are high value spenders of the economy, right,
Speaker 2: and they're.
Speaker 1: Also remember like you lose these scientists, they don't come back.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's the brain drain. Question, right, like, what
Speaker 1: does it look like to lose scientists? What does any
Speaker 1: of this look like? And so, I mean, that's what
Speaker 1: we're setting ourselves up for. So this is the accelerationist
Speaker 1: case for trump Ism, is that, like, it's better to
Speaker 1: have him crash and burn now than to slowly lash
Speaker 1: the federal government the way of John Roberts might. But
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm not convinced that there's any good coming
Speaker 1: from any of this.
Speaker 2: So a federal judge, though, has blocked Doze from accessing
Speaker 2: Treasury Department records after nineteen States of sued Trump after
Speaker 2: nineteen states of sued Trump's administration for this, But it
Speaker 2: also has come with a lot of Elon having rage tweets.
Speaker 1: What's important to realize here is that none of this
Speaker 1: is legal. Just because Elon is very rich doesn't mean
Speaker 1: he gets to just completely rewrite the way we do government.
Speaker 1: And what is important about this story is that we
Speaker 1: have these Democratic attorneys generals And remember this summer, Jesse
Speaker 1: and I interviewed one of them who was talking to
Speaker 1: us before we were reporting about how they were ready
Speaker 1: because they really thought that the Democrat was going to
Speaker 1: lose and that Trump was going to win again. And
Speaker 1: that was why these blue state attorney generals were getting
Speaker 1: together and planning the lawsuits that they were going to
Speaker 1: have to file. They were really organized to fight back
Speaker 1: against a lot of this stuff. And that's what we're
Speaker 1: seeing here. So, look, this judge ruled against Elon and
Speaker 1: doage because it's not okay. Now what's going to happen
Speaker 1: now is that you know, Muscus is tweeting against him
Speaker 1: and saying he's a corrupt judge protecting corruption. And again
Speaker 1: this is like really important here. Part of the double speak,
Speaker 1: the sort of Orwellian double speak that these people engage in,
Speaker 1: is this idea that you know, if you are against this,
Speaker 1: then you are for corruption, that you're if you're against
Speaker 1: because this is all about how they're going to make
Speaker 1: the government more efficient. And if you're against efficiency, then
Speaker 1: your four waste. It's not true and also it's not correct.
Speaker 1: And also it's just completely not right. And so that's
Speaker 1: what I would say is like, don't do not, do
Speaker 1: not do not into this, do not trust it. And
Speaker 1: also like this judge is doing the right thing because
Speaker 1: this is illegal. So now are they trying to set
Speaker 1: the table to ignore the court order? Very possibly. I
Speaker 1: think that's very likely.
Speaker 2: They're definitely trying to establish a culture of that being okay.
Speaker 2: On Twitter through Vans and Charlie Kirk tweets yep.
Speaker 1: This judge said that it's not okay. But you know,
Speaker 1: it's interesting. I mean. The other thing that's really interesting
Speaker 1: a lot of the laws that are being used to
Speaker 1: correct this corruption or to fight this corruption, or laws
Speaker 1: that were put in place after Nixon. So we have
Speaker 1: this violation of the Privacy Act of nineteen seventy four,
Speaker 1: that's another one of these, after the Empowerment Act, another
Speaker 1: one of these post Nicksonian reforms, and then the Tax
Speaker 1: Will Reform Act of nineteen seventy six, as well as
Speaker 1: other laws. The lawsuits are used also that don't access
Speaker 1: poses security risks, and you and I both know that
Speaker 1: these guys are all like, very young, these hackers. One
Speaker 1: got fire for not respecting privacy at a different job.
Speaker 1: One tweeted racist stuff. I mean, there's a pretty good
Speaker 1: case for why the people who are messing with all
Speaker 1: of our computers should have some kind of security clearance.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Fun stuff.
Speaker 2: So one of the first actions of O and B
Speaker 2: director Russell Vought is to get rid of the CFPB.
Speaker 2: I see just earlier today he tweeted that it is
Speaker 2: a woke and weaponized agency against disfavored industries and individuals
Speaker 2: for a long time, and it must end because making
Speaker 2: sure banks don't charge you extra fees and things like that.
Speaker 4: Very woke, very woke.
Speaker 1: Very woke. Yes, anti corruption, very woke. Look, this is again.
Speaker 1: We are in this world where everything up is down
Speaker 1: and left is right and anything they don't like is woke.
Speaker 2: And here we are really is the case for uh,
Speaker 2: they have a hammer and everything is a nail with
Speaker 2: the word.
Speaker 1: That's the woke mind virus to you, baby. Rick Wilson
Speaker 1: is the founder of the Lincoln Project and the host
Speaker 1: of the Enemy's List Welcome Back, Too Fast Politics, Rick.
Speaker 3: Wilson, John, you sound phenomenal. It was good to see this.
Speaker 3: Last week.
Speaker 1: Yes, Rick and I went to a book festival called
Speaker 1: the Rancho Mirage Writers Festival together and we had a
Speaker 1: great time.
Speaker 3: We did have a great time. Did not like what we.
Speaker 1: Said about him, did not like what we said on stage.
Speaker 4: Somebody was like, send me a message there like, well,
Speaker 4: it's your fault because you used to work for like,
Speaker 4: for fuck's sake, We've been doing this for a decade now,
Speaker 4: and if you'd been there, you would have seen us
Speaker 4: spanking him.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, he's such an interesting character. Whatever. Let's
Speaker 1: not talk about Karl Rove, who cares so, but let's
Speaker 1: talk about Republicans dismantling our government. One of the things
Speaker 1: I'm struck by is so the Doge project is cutting
Speaker 1: billions of dollars of wasteful spending, like research into cancer.
Speaker 4: Obviously cancer being so woke and all woke cancer, wolke cancer,
Speaker 4: the woke mind virus. I think we are seeing right
Speaker 4: now that it is not yet sunk in at the
Speaker 4: state level. What is going to happen here and in
Speaker 4: states across the country where there are billions of dollars
Speaker 4: of NIH grants that do not go to Antifa or
Speaker 4: whatever imaginary demon they have out there. They go to
Speaker 4: universities that do the cancer research and the scientific research,
Speaker 4: and the physics research and the computer science research that
Speaker 4: has made so many people's lives so much better.
Speaker 1: And it's made America great. Let's if we're gonna worry
Speaker 1: about American greatness.
Speaker 4: Yeah, if we're going to actually talk about American greatness,
Speaker 4: one of the things that made to America great is
Speaker 4: that we have great research labs all over this country
Speaker 4: doing great work. And once again, isn't some weird fantasy like, oh,
Speaker 4: they're all researching lesbian boot Brazilian pan flute music. They
Speaker 4: are out there looking for the cures to cancer at
Speaker 4: Alzheimer's and everything else. And all those things that happen
Speaker 4: at these labs, they are then materially made into research
Speaker 4: that goes to pharmaceutical companies and technology companies and healthcare
Speaker 4: systems and doctors and nurses and all of it, Every
Speaker 4: single bit of it is not about some political agenda.
Speaker 4: It's about helping people's lives become better.
Speaker 1: Well, it's about science, right, It's about science. So even
Speaker 1: if it's not necessarily you know, science, the science that
Speaker 1: sends rockets, the science that Elon.
Speaker 5: Uses well, by the way, by the way, by the way,
Speaker 5: you know, I have to tell you, Elon Musk directly
Speaker 5: benefits every single day, materially benefits from the research that
Speaker 5: was done by National Science Foundation grants over and over
Speaker 5: and over getting.
Speaker 1: Which is why this is such a mind truck.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Well, and look, I am still waiting for the day
Speaker 4: and we are starting to hear a little bit of
Speaker 4: this now. Like I was following some stuff this morning
Speaker 4: about these Georgia soybean farmers who are the reddest of
Speaker 4: red states, right, saying things like wait what, we're losing
Speaker 4: our what?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 4: All this money they've made over the years selling soybeans
Speaker 4: for overseas markets through aid. Oh my goodness, Suddenly, wo
Speaker 4: kid is a good thing?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean that this is where we are. I mean,
Speaker 1: this is sort of the craziest part of it is
Speaker 1: that it's.
Speaker 3: Just the goofiest timeline.
Speaker 1: Yeah. But I mean it's also really worrying. And there's
Speaker 1: a real war on their credits, which is scary, right,
Speaker 1: I mean that's a real thing. And there is also
Speaker 1: a real, you know, war on the truths what little
Speaker 1: is left of it. So let's talk about that for
Speaker 1: a minute.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Look, I mean, Molly, I think we are right now.
Speaker 4: If you're going to play the game that Elon and
Speaker 4: Donald and everybody else is playing, you have to have
Speaker 4: a contempt for the truth. You have to have a
Speaker 4: hatred almost for the truth, because you don't wake up
Speaker 4: in the morning and think, hey, we're going to tell
Speaker 4: both sides of this lie, and that's going to be
Speaker 4: equally valid. It's not equally valid. The lie is the
Speaker 4: lie is the lie, and so so much of this
Speaker 4: stuff that we're seeing right now. Elon I said, oh,
Speaker 4: sixty thousand people took the offer that cuts thirty billion dollars. Well,
Speaker 4: the average federal salary is about sixty five thousand dollars,
Speaker 4: and sixty five thousand times thirty five thousand is about
Speaker 4: three point one billion dollars or somewhere in that neighborhood.
Speaker 4: So it's become very Trumpian, it's become very exaggerated and
Speaker 4: hyper you know, hyper focused on the on the can
Speaker 4: we make the Libs cry harder every minute of the day.
Speaker 4: And I just I think we are right now on
Speaker 4: a terrible position as a country because for Republicans, the
Speaker 4: reflexive defense of Trump on everything has now applied to
Speaker 4: Elon as this guy starts to tear apart the things
Speaker 4: that they have done in their states and districts. Because
Speaker 4: even the most dickhead hate fuederal spending, even ran Paul
Speaker 4: Okay every year is saying going home and saying, by
Speaker 4: the way, I just got this amazing thing. We're going
Speaker 4: to build these three bridges in our district. We're gonna
Speaker 4: provide x number of student lunches in our district. Our
Speaker 4: state's going to now get a research grant to study
Speaker 4: Alzheimer's or whatever it is. And the disconnect right now
Speaker 4: between whether Republicans believe in that they that they represent
Speaker 4: their constituents anymore is more increasing is increasingly like obvious
Speaker 4: to me, they don't and they don't want to.
Speaker 3: They want to.
Speaker 4: They want to please Trump. Yes, yes, my lord, Donald,
Speaker 4: only you can save us, blah blah blah, and did
Speaker 4: I please you today, my lord? It's crazy, but that
Speaker 4: is what it is.
Speaker 1: So one of the things happening right now is we're
Speaker 1: getting ready for the Republicans to ignore the courts. That's
Speaker 1: what we're seeing online is that the Republicans are trying
Speaker 1: to make the case that they shouldn't have to rely
Speaker 1: on the courts, that the Cords are not legit because
Speaker 1: of one reason or another. One of the things I
Speaker 1: love about the sort of brain trust here is that
Speaker 1: they're for they'll like sort of jump around, so you'll say,
Speaker 1: last night I tweeted about Elon and cancer research, and
Speaker 1: Elon was very mad and saw that what are you
Speaker 1: talking about? And then his people were like, cancer research
Speaker 1: is for cocks.
Speaker 7: You know.
Speaker 1: They were like they couldn't quite message it. So they
Speaker 1: were like, he's not doing that, you mainstream media liar, right,
Speaker 1: even though like he's.
Speaker 3: Delayed, he's absolutely well.
Speaker 1: He's writing about, you know that we're going to cut
Speaker 1: the NIH which is cancer research, among other things. And
Speaker 1: then his people are like, private companies should do cancer research.
Speaker 1: The government has has the cure for cancer. They're just
Speaker 1: not letting you know, like the.
Speaker 3: Oh, yes, of course, yes.
Speaker 1: The response range was so incredibly shade, and yes, it
Speaker 1: was such a big range that it was clear that
Speaker 1: they just didn't know how to message it.
Speaker 6: Right.
Speaker 4: No, I don't think they do know how to message it, Molly.
Speaker 4: I think that's part of the problem here, is that
Speaker 4: they've had a long window where trump Ism was actually
Speaker 4: a bit disconnected from real impact in their lives. So
Speaker 4: when during COVID, right, there was a connection between the
Speaker 4: craziness and the dusts. But now there's a sense, I
Speaker 4: think that that they're going to have to go out
Speaker 4: there and work hard to spend the damage that's being done.
Speaker 4: And this is not about just so everybody's clear on this,
Speaker 4: this is not about the size of government or about
Speaker 4: government waste. No one literally a constituency for government waste
Speaker 4: is zero. There is no one who believes the government
Speaker 4: waste is.
Speaker 3: Bad or is good?
Speaker 1: Is good government waste?
Speaker 4: Right but right now, what we are seeing from Elon
Speaker 4: and company, I think is incrediblely silly and dangerous moment
Speaker 4: because nothing about what he's doing comes down to any
Speaker 4: sort of sensible approach to governance. And I know that's
Speaker 4: really hard for August to accept as that you should
Speaker 4: be sensible about things from time to time. I know
Speaker 4: how tough that is. Guys, I get it, I really do.
Speaker 4: I feel your pain. But they don't want good outcomes.
Speaker 4: They want the chaos. They want the destruction. And I
Speaker 4: do think by the way, this is sort of a
Speaker 4: big theory of the case, but a theory of the case. Nonetheless,
Speaker 4: I think Elon and team tech Bro have all convinced
Speaker 4: themselves that they're not going to need any of this
Speaker 4: research because within a year or a month or however
Speaker 4: long they think it is, AI.
Speaker 3: Will do everything.
Speaker 4: I think that's part of their thought process here, is
Speaker 4: like we can say this is great, and then the
Speaker 4: AI will figure it all out for us. It is
Speaker 4: a weird and I think semi apocalyptic viewpoint, but I
Speaker 4: don't think it's wrong.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think there's certainly a lot of different things
Speaker 1: going on here. But I think the real question is
Speaker 1: going to be how long does a government function until
Speaker 1: this is over? Right?
Speaker 4: Listen, I think I think the government is functioning right
Speaker 4: now about like Twitter functions. Now, if you look at
Speaker 4: the fact that Elon went and he cut seventy percent
Speaker 4: out of Twitter's headcount when he took over, and a
Speaker 4: lot of people.
Speaker 3: Said, oh, yeah, it needed to be cut.
Speaker 4: It was this, it was that. And if you even
Speaker 4: take that point, Okay, let's just take that point for
Speaker 4: a second. He didn't make those cuts with a sense
Speaker 4: of a plan. He did it because he has a
Speaker 4: sort of fetishization cuts being good as a signifier of leadership.
Speaker 4: Does that make sense? Yeah, And I think it's a
Speaker 4: silly kind of model in a lot of ways, but
Speaker 4: it is nonetheless one of his models.
Speaker 1: Right. Well, And the question is do the American people
Speaker 1: like it or do they not like it? They are
Speaker 1: they happy with this? And I don't know that we
Speaker 1: know the answer.
Speaker 4: Yet, right, I don't think we have the answer yet. Honestly,
Speaker 4: I don't. I don't think we have an answer on
Speaker 4: that yet because I think part of this is it
Speaker 4: we're still in the entertainment phase of this new iteration
Speaker 4: of trump Ism. There's still a great joy on the
Speaker 4: right that the Libs are being owned. They absolutely couldn't
Speaker 4: be happier, how owned the Libs are, how upset people are.
Speaker 4: That to my mind is like they love people being upset.
Speaker 4: They love people saying oh, please don't cut cancer research
Speaker 4: and saying cancers for cooks, Oh drink rail milk, you
Speaker 4: won't get cancer, right right right?
Speaker 1: I mean that I think is a big question. There
Speaker 1: is a question still of like how much Elon can
Speaker 1: do in the federal computers, right.
Speaker 4: I think if you just take the scope of what
Speaker 4: the court orders are saying, look at what Elon has done,
Speaker 4: and if anyone is comfortable right now that their social
Speaker 4: Security number, they're privately identifiable information, all that business is
Speaker 4: has somehow been somehow more secure than it was before
Speaker 4: a bunch of jacked up in cells when in there
Speaker 4: and started rifling through your most intimate files. God bless you,
Speaker 4: God bless y.
Speaker 1: So today we saw a lot of It's the show
Speaker 1: airs on Monday. On Sunday, we saw all of MAGA
Speaker 1: world working this Sunday shows, oh, trying to sell this
Speaker 1: all sign right.
Speaker 4: Well, you know, and I got to tell you the
Speaker 4: Sunday shows have got to step it up. Margaret Brennan's
Speaker 4: on there today on CBS. And you know, you have
Speaker 4: this Republican reps and senators and they're asked direct questions
Speaker 4: of things they absolutely don't believe, and even when confronted,
Speaker 4: they go right back to the well, we were funding
Speaker 4: transsexual pan flute bands in Chile. Okay enough, they won't answer. Hey,
Speaker 4: by the way, do you think this guy Darren Beattie,
Speaker 4: who is a flaming racist of the highest quality, A
Speaker 4: guy so racist Elon Musco's ease up their comrade. It
Speaker 4: should be in the state Department. Blah blah blah blah.
Speaker 4: I don't know him. They know every detail of the
Speaker 4: of the usai D budget for South American LGBT spending,
Speaker 4: but not who's going to be in the State Department
Speaker 4: the fuck out.
Speaker 1: A senator from Alabama, Katie Brett, Young, very smart, quite terrifying,
Speaker 1: says that she realizes that we should maybe have a smarter,
Speaker 1: more targeted approach to cutting NIH funding. You'll note that
Speaker 1: the stage largest employer is in fact a Benny ficiary
Speaker 1: of NIH funding, the University of Alabama at Birmingham.
Speaker 3: That is a shock, indeed, that Alabama.
Speaker 4: I think one of the things again I go back
Speaker 4: to this this idea that Silicon Valley has prospered so
Speaker 4: extraordinarily from spending on science and technology, and the Red
Speaker 4: States have too. This is what I find so remarkable
Speaker 4: is that people like Katie Britt are so effing disingenuous
Speaker 4: where now they're thinking, oh God, now what do I
Speaker 4: tell my people? You know who was going to benefit
Speaker 4: tremendously from the infrastructure bill?
Speaker 3: Red states?
Speaker 4: Red States, they would have a ton of spending that
Speaker 4: was going to help them to prosper and to help
Speaker 4: them to improve their infrastructure. And trust me, as a
Speaker 4: Red state guy, I can tell you one thing. It
Speaker 4: is increasingly like living in the fucking third.
Speaker 1: World, right, I mean, well, and again, we don't call
Speaker 1: it the third World. We call it the Global South.
Speaker 1: Not to be pedantic here because I know, but but
Speaker 1: I do think you have a really good point here,
Speaker 1: which is that this spending is actually about making the
Speaker 1: economy better, also making the infrastructure better. America's had real
Speaker 1: infrastructure problems. Now, what I think is interesting is that
Speaker 1: this is one of the many ways in which Trump
Speaker 1: one point zero has run into trouble with Trump two
Speaker 1: point zero. You'll remember and Trump one point.
Speaker 3: Zero infrastructure week.
Speaker 1: Yes, every week was infrastructure week. Yeah remember that? Yeah,
Speaker 1: So I guess now, no more infrastructure weeks.
Speaker 4: No infrastructure weeks for cous molly. Yeah, infrastructure weeks are
Speaker 4: for weak cucks. They're for the deep state, human filth.
Speaker 1: I'm me and just insane. So what are you going
Speaker 1: to watch this week?
Speaker 4: Well, look, I'm going to watch the way in which
Speaker 4: court orders are either obeyed or disobeyed. And I think
Speaker 4: that I think that we are very much at the
Speaker 4: edge of a constitutional crisis, a precipice that really has
Speaker 4: a it's really going to be a moment where we're
Speaker 4: going to decide that this country is going to follow
Speaker 4: the constitution or whether an entire political party is going
Speaker 4: to say, you know what, goodwill will last and let's
Speaker 4: go have some fun.
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, that's not good. And give me a minute
Speaker 1: on like what you think, like what guardrails there are
Speaker 1: still left?
Speaker 3: My dog's thought something.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I thought it was fun.
Speaker 4: I think there are three guardrails we always counted on
Speaker 4: in this country, principal political opposition, a strong press.
Speaker 1: Being dismantled, and the courts right being ignored.
Speaker 4: Right now, there is no action that is being in
Speaker 4: the courts to my mind, that is going to be
Speaker 4: honored by the Trump administration. I don't think these people
Speaker 4: have a single intention to say, yeah, you know what,
Speaker 4: we got a federal court order, elon, give us back
Speaker 4: those hard drives with everybody's Social Security data on them.
Speaker 4: I don't think there's a single chance of that. And look,
Speaker 4: there is no honor inside the Republican Party. They do
Speaker 4: not care. They care about Donald Trump. They will not
Speaker 4: ever cross Donald Trump, but they don't care about anything else.
Speaker 3: Right now.
Speaker 4: They are completely oblivious or what not, Well, not oblivious,
Speaker 4: they're completely callous in the way that they're treating everything
Speaker 4: else in this country. And I think we're in a
Speaker 4: lot of trouble because institutions and the media is And
Speaker 4: I am not a media basher for the five million
Speaker 4: of time, but I think the media has not met
Speaker 4: this moment. I think they are still playing the game
Speaker 4: of allowing a lot of Trump people to go on
Speaker 4: TV and to talk off the record to newspapers, and
Speaker 4: they're not presenting with the Americans with a fo implications
Speaker 4: and context of what's happening to our country. I think
Speaker 4: it is so dangerous right now that we don't have
Speaker 4: a press that's willing to go in the briefing room
Speaker 4: every day and not say. Some people say Elon Musk
Speaker 4: is cutting central government programs, but others say he's cutting
Speaker 4: Fuck you go in there and call it out for
Speaker 4: what it is. This is a takeover of our government
Speaker 4: by insane people, and they are doing things that are
Speaker 4: materially harmful to the people of the United States. How
Speaker 4: hard is that to understand? That, to my mind, is
Speaker 4: one of the great sort of failings we're having as
Speaker 4: a nation right right.
Speaker 1: No now, I mean exactly, and I think we're going
Speaker 1: to see more of that.
Speaker 4: Rick Wilson Moly John Fast A pleasure as always.
Speaker 1: Josh Miller Lewis is the senior director of more Perfect Union.
Speaker 1: Welcome to Fast Politics.
Speaker 6: Josh, thanks Molly, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: So first we're going to talk about you are the
Speaker 1: what is.
Speaker 6: Your title, senior editorial director at more Perfect Union, but you.
Speaker 1: Come from the world of Bernie Sanders, which I think
Speaker 1: is important to inform the sort of populist, pro union
Speaker 1: wing of the Democratic Party. Is that fair? I feel
Speaker 1: like that is narrow, but it's fair.
Speaker 6: Yeah. Absolutely.
Speaker 1: So First, let's talk about this lobbying firm. You shocked
Speaker 1: to see that Donald Trump is once again in bed
Speaker 1: with lobbyist when we were told that he was too
Speaker 1: rich to be corrupted in any way.
Speaker 3: Shocked?
Speaker 1: Shocked?
Speaker 6: Yeah, No, I mean so. I think one of the big,
Speaker 6: sort of undercovered pieces of this administration so far right
Speaker 6: is their relationship with lobbyists in K Street. And as
Speaker 6: you said, trumb on the campaign trail, attack the influence
Speaker 6: of lobbyists. He told his followers that lobbyists play a
Speaker 6: terrible role in Washington.
Speaker 7: And as soon as he got elected, he named Susie
Speaker 7: Wiles as his chief step right. And Susie Wiles comes
Speaker 7: from Ballard Partners, big lobbying firm, big Trump backers since
Speaker 7: the early days in twenty fifteen. It won't surprise you
Speaker 7: that in the days after Trump was elected and after
Speaker 7: he named Susie Wiles as his chiefest staff and another
Speaker 7: Ballard partner, Ham Bondy as his Attorney general, that corporations
Speaker 7: have flocked to Ballard Partners. They have added I believe
Speaker 7: the last time I saw forty one new clients since
Speaker 7: Trump was elected. And just to give you some context,
Speaker 7: I think the next highest firm has added fourteen new
Speaker 7: clients in that period. So this is clear that corporate
Speaker 7: America sees a path to influence the Trump administration through
Speaker 7: Ballard Partners and through the connections that they now.
Speaker 6: Have at the highest levels of the administration. And you know,
Speaker 6: I think the firms that have been signing up with
Speaker 6: Ballard Partners tell us a little bit about as well,
Speaker 6: about out what the key fights are going to be
Speaker 6: over the next four years.
Speaker 1: Oh that, yes, that is exactly the kind of stuff
Speaker 1: that I'm so interested in because I want to know
Speaker 1: what are the fights for the next four years. Prayer
Speaker 1: hands that he leaves after four years, So tell me.
Speaker 1: I'm not even kidding. I'm just sick about this.
Speaker 6: No, I think there's a few things that, like you
Speaker 6: start to some of this, you know, we're seeing already
Speaker 6: start to play out. But tax cuts obviously is at
Speaker 6: the top of the list, right, and Chevron is a
Speaker 6: big ballot client. They I think they saved two billion
Speaker 6: dollars alone in one year. After the first Trump tax
Speaker 6: cuts are put in place in twenty seventeen, they stand
Speaker 6: to save, you know, billions and billions of dollars sift
Speaker 6: the TOX cuts are extended along with the rest of
Speaker 6: corporate America. Crypto is just huge topic over the next
Speaker 6: four years. Is a number of crypto companies that signed
Speaker 6: up with balot Right, Ripple Labs, Blockchain, and Kraken. They've
Speaker 6: all signed up. The Ripple ceo actually met with Trump.
Speaker 6: Brad growing House he met with Trump after the election
Speaker 6: and Trump said that the US will be the crypto
Speaker 6: capital of the planet. And the question of well, what
Speaker 6: do they want? Why should we care about crypto? I
Speaker 6: don't own any crypto. Well, I think that the crypto
Speaker 6: is intent on infiltrating the global financial system. And so
Speaker 6: whether you own crypto or not, I think you have
Speaker 6: to be concerned that this asset that is really not
Speaker 6: based in anything meaningful, that is really just used for
Speaker 6: fraud and scams. That they were prosecuted during the proNT
Speaker 6: during the Biden administration for rampant fraud and obviously stand
Speaker 6: Making Free is the highest profile example of that this
Speaker 6: asset could your your retirement savings, your four oh one
Speaker 6: K could end up ultimately being tied to this bubble
Speaker 6: that could collapse at any moment. But in the meantime
Speaker 6: they stand to get very, very wealthy in their very
Speaker 6: intent on influencing the direction of the Trump administration. Tariff's
Speaker 6: is obviously another huge issue. Right number of big importers
Speaker 6: have signed up with Ballard over the last couple of months.
Speaker 6: And the thing that I you know, there's this whole
Speaker 6: debate around tarifs, but the thing that I think is
Speaker 6: not getting enough attention is there was a study after
Speaker 6: the last Trump administration that found that companies that had
Speaker 6: ties to Republican lobbying firms got more tariff exemptions from
Speaker 6: the Trump administration than any other company. There's an enormous
Speaker 6: amount of corruption that's happening within these tariffs that are
Speaker 6: where the Trump administration in the first term at least
Speaker 6: was dolling out favors to companies that were associated with
Speaker 6: the Republican Party. And I fully expect that that same
Speaker 6: thing will play out in this administration. And I think
Speaker 6: we have to look hard at sort of the corruption
Speaker 6: that that is happening again as a result of the
Speaker 6: connection between Trump and big lobbying firms. And then last,
Speaker 6: the last thing to highlight is another consumer protection piece,
Speaker 6: the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which has played an enormously
Speaker 6: important role in saving millions of Americans' money and protecting
Speaker 6: them from corporate scams. This is they have been a
Speaker 6: big target by Zuckerberg, by Mark Andresen. And there's a
Speaker 6: number of firms under disguise of dbanking, which we could
Speaker 6: talk about more firms that are are signing up with
Speaker 6: Ballard and are ultimately interested in, in Elon Musk's words,
Speaker 6: deleting the CFPB.
Speaker 1: Right, No, I mean for sure that these are all
Speaker 1: really interesting. The cutouts for tariffs, we saw that a
Speaker 1: lot in Trump one point zero and Trump two point zero.
Speaker 1: They said they weren't going to have cutouts for tariffs, right.
Speaker 3: L L Yeah, we'll see.
Speaker 6: But you know, there's there's a reason I think that
Speaker 6: Tim Cook and Jeff Bezos and all of these people
Speaker 6: who are heavily reliant on producing stuff in China are
Speaker 6: all of a sudden big bands of Donald Trump, right.
Speaker 6: And famously, Apple got huge cut out carveouts in the first.
Speaker 1: Yeah, for the iPhone, and that seems really like an
Speaker 1: important point. And again this goes into this cleptocracy thing, right,
Speaker 1: picking winners and losers. Trump Ism is an embraceive crony capitalism,
Speaker 1: and the gas company is super interesting. Donald Trump is
Speaker 1: funded though by Elon Musk. Right, Elon Musk made billions
Speaker 1: of dollars in climate change subsidies because irony is alive,
Speaker 1: and well, how does this not collide? Right, Donald Trump
Speaker 1: is in the pocket of the oil company. He's always
Speaker 1: has been, right, we had Rex Tillerson and the first
Speaker 1: Trump admin did not even try to hide it. So
Speaker 1: explain to me the tension there and how you see
Speaker 1: that playing at tension between the tension between Elon and Exon.
Speaker 6: Yeah, it's an interesting thing, But I mean, I think
Speaker 6: there's some interesting things going on though with Tesla. Obviously,
Speaker 6: Tesla benefited enormously, as you were saying, from you know,
Speaker 6: carbon tax credits and that that sort of regime. Right,
Speaker 6: They've sort of built a huge part of their business
Speaker 6: and their revenue on trading like carbon tax credits. But
Speaker 6: I also think in some ways Tesla has benefited the
Speaker 6: least of all the electric car companies from the inflation
Speaker 6: reduction app that Biden passed and this move to promote
Speaker 6: electric vehicles. They've lost an enormous amount of market share
Speaker 6: over the last couple of years as other companies like
Speaker 6: Hyundai and US companies like GM have ramped up their
Speaker 6: electric vehicle output and started to produce better cars. And
Speaker 6: I do think that Elon and Tesla to some extent
Speaker 6: have an intro in undermining the progress that was made
Speaker 6: by the RA because they had such a strong foothold
Speaker 6: already in this market. The competition is actually ultimately bad
Speaker 6: for Tesla.
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, so Elon has Tesla, he has SpaceX, he
Speaker 1: has Twitter. Whatever. That's I think kind of a rounding error.
Speaker 1: But I wonder if you can explain to us, you know,
Speaker 1: there are a lot of different things in the case
Speaker 1: and how Elon is sort of functioning in this Trump government.
Speaker 1: But part of it, right, is that he's there for
Speaker 1: his companies, right. Part of it is that he's there
Speaker 1: for power or part of But if he has all
Speaker 1: these companies, and he does have a vested interest, and
Speaker 1: we have all of these different players all who have
Speaker 1: vested interests, right, So, and you talked about this before.
Speaker 1: Tim Cook wants car Vattes for China, and you know,
Speaker 1: you have Andreas and Horowitz has a bunch of portfolio companies.
Speaker 1: They're just everybody has these different instant different you know,
Speaker 1: they're all sort of trying to curry favor with the
Speaker 1: ma King in order to get what they want because
Speaker 1: Trump is very transactional. So what do you think and
Speaker 1: since you sort of know all these companies Elon is
Speaker 1: doing in the federal government, because you know, from what
Speaker 1: I understand for the people I know who used to
Speaker 1: know him well, of which I know one person, my
Speaker 1: sense is that he cares the most about his companies.
Speaker 1: I mean also his weird political stuff, but his companies.
Speaker 1: So my question is, what do you think the sort
Speaker 1: of goal there is.
Speaker 6: Yeah, that's a great question. I mean, I think all
Speaker 6: you have to do to understand this is look at
Speaker 6: the agencies that he's going after, and recently came out
Speaker 6: right that he the Department of Labor is his next
Speaker 6: target with do Oche, and you look at the labor
Speaker 6: violations that his companies have had over the years. There's
Speaker 6: been workers who die building a Tesla gigafactory at Osha investigated.
Speaker 6: You have Tesla, which has been notoriously anti union. Mosque
Speaker 6: has talked about how he doesn't believe in unions when
Speaker 6: they have fired where workers for unionizing, They've come under
Speaker 6: fire from the NLRB. SpaceX has also been under fire
Speaker 6: for labor violations, a total lack of regard for environmental regulations,
Speaker 6: and you know, really, I think negatively impacted the community
Speaker 6: in Texas that they operate in. You don't see him
Speaker 6: going after the Defense Department where he gets you know,
Speaker 6: billions and billions of dollars in contracts from for SpaceX
Speaker 6: and Starlink. You don't see him going after the agencies
Speaker 6: that ultimately are very beneficial to his business and those contracts.
Speaker 6: But he is intent on tearing down, you know, important
Speaker 6: parts of the federal government that defend workers, that encourage unionization,
Speaker 6: to make sure workers are and it's it's I think,
Speaker 6: clearly ultimately to benefit his company. And you know, I'll
Speaker 6: say this too. I don't think it's just Elon Musk.
Speaker 6: I think all of this sort of tech billion airs
Speaker 6: and major chech corporations that are involved in the Trump
Speaker 6: administration are engaged in a similar effort. They want their
Speaker 6: piece of the pie, and they want to strip away
Speaker 6: the important parts of the federal government that stop sort
Speaker 6: of their rule breaking, in fraud and lawlessness, and they
Speaker 6: see this as their opportunity. With Trump, we're.
Speaker 1: Into Lena Khan world. And I want you and I
Speaker 1: to talk about Lena Khan because Lena Khan has made
Speaker 1: all the very rich people very mad. This is like,
Speaker 1: I feel like a great moment from the Biden administration.
Speaker 1: Here is the most important probably person in the admin
Speaker 1: in certain ways. Right, She's a trustbuster. She has made
Speaker 1: everyone furious with her who's wealthy, and in the end,
Speaker 1: the people who would have benefited from what she's doing
Speaker 1: didn't even know she was there. So make us understand.
Speaker 1: Because you come from world Bernie, I think was the
Speaker 1: last time that Democrats were able to connect with populism,
Speaker 1: despite the fact that their legislation is almost entirely populist.
Speaker 1: So make it make sense why they can't, how they
Speaker 1: could and anything else we want to talk on this
Speaker 1: topic about.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I think one of the things that populists need
Speaker 6: to do, and I think Lena Conda quite well was.
Speaker 3: Root her effort and her.
Speaker 6: Work in the fights and the issues that millions of
Speaker 6: working class people are concerned about. You look at her
Speaker 6: efforts around housing, efforts to take on big corporate landlords
Speaker 6: or this wasn't her who was DOJ and Cantor, but
Speaker 6: efforts to take on companies like Real Page incredibly powerful
Speaker 6: work that was rooted in essential an issue that millions
Speaker 6: and millions of people are concerned about in this country,
Speaker 6: housing affordability. And you're totally right that it is. It's
Speaker 6: so painful to me that one of I really think
Speaker 6: one of the most effective communicators and someone in the
Speaker 6: administration who was engaged in some of the most important
Speaker 6: fights in this country taking on big tech companies that
Speaker 6: have become increasingly powerful. And you heard Joe Biden talk
Speaker 6: about in his farewell speech. She didn't get the sort
Speaker 6: of attention that it deserved. She wasn't uplifted by the
Speaker 6: president on a daily basis. The fights that she was
Speaker 6: engaged in were sort of relegated to the background. And
Speaker 6: I think that if you're going to build a populist movement,
Speaker 6: we can learn a lot from the sorts of fights
Speaker 6: in the ways that Lena Khan engaged during the administration.
Speaker 6: But it is really important that we talk about that
Speaker 6: that it is front and center that the fights with
Speaker 6: corporate America on behalf of working families are centered in
Speaker 6: our politics and not something that we try to hide
Speaker 6: too often. I feel like Democrats are afraid of that tension.
Speaker 6: They're afraid to have a fight, and the fights are
Speaker 6: what animate and tell people what we care about. They're
Speaker 6: so important to helping people understand what side the Democratic
Speaker 6: Party is on, who we're fighting for, and what we're
Speaker 6: fighting for. And Trump does this every single day and
Speaker 6: it's incredibly effective. Yeah.
Speaker 1: That's my real question is when you're looking at these
Speaker 1: you know, there's almost populous legislation, right, I mean that's
Speaker 1: what it is. You know, a lot of populous legislation
Speaker 1: boost up the economy. Really, you know, sort of writed
Speaker 1: a lot of the mistakes from two thousand and eight. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but could not or would not transmit any of that
Speaker 1: to the American people.
Speaker 6: Yeah. No, we obviously suffered from an inability to communicate
Speaker 6: what we were trying to do, and fundamentally, I think
Speaker 6: outline a vision for what we want America to look like,
Speaker 6: who we care about, the ways in which the system
Speaker 6: is broken, and how we were attempting to fix it.
Speaker 6: I just don't I'm not sure. I do think that
Speaker 6: there was a vision in an ideology that was attached
Speaker 6: to a lot of the progress that President Biden made,
Speaker 6: but it was not communicated to people. And I think
Speaker 6: going forward, as we think about, you know, how we
Speaker 6: respond to Trump and how we sort of rebuild the
Speaker 6: Democratic Party, we need to do more than just reject
Speaker 6: what Trump has to say. We need to actually build
Speaker 6: an agenda that engages in the most important fights and
Speaker 6: outlines a vision for the American people about what the
Speaker 6: core issues are the Democratic Party stands out. I think
Speaker 6: if we're just in this resistance mode, if we're just
Speaker 6: in it reject everything Trump does if he's bad, sure
Speaker 6: we might be able to win in four years, but
Speaker 6: are we going to actually be able to rebuild a
Speaker 6: working class coalition that can win elections in eight years
Speaker 6: in twelve years? I don't think so. I think there
Speaker 6: has to be some real sort of agenda setting and
Speaker 6: we need to reckon with why the Democratic Party has
Speaker 6: lost working class people over the last twenty years.
Speaker 1: Yes, one hundred percent. And also again they voted for
Speaker 1: the guy who wanted to do tax cuts for billionaires
Speaker 1: because they thought he'd be better for workers. So like,
Speaker 1: obviously something is going terribly wrong here, right, I mean.
Speaker 6: Well, I think fundamentally though, Like, what it's really about
Speaker 6: is people are pissed off with the status quo. I
Speaker 6: really don't think that it's about Donald Trump in particular.
Speaker 6: Starting in two thousand and eight, basically people were frustrated
Speaker 6: with the status quo and wanted something fundamentally different, and
Speaker 6: they elected Democrats and a landslide right twenty twelve of
Speaker 6: them was able to hold on, But then you have
Speaker 6: another rejection in twenty sixteen, another rejection in twenty twenty,
Speaker 6: and then another rejection in twenty twenty four. We just
Speaker 6: keep swinging on this pendulum, and the same thing is
Speaker 6: playing out all over the world right where incumbents are losing.
Speaker 6: The economic system has been broken now at least since
Speaker 6: two thousand and eight. People want something different, They want
Speaker 6: some sort of change. Neither party is offering that to them.
Speaker 1: I just would add, I think you're right for sure,
Speaker 1: But if you look at like government spending around social
Speaker 1: safety net, one party did give it to them. I
Speaker 1: mean again, wealth and equality, you know, we just not rising.
Speaker 1: Inflation is the mind fucked and all mind fucks Like
Speaker 1: I get it. I know what it's like to pay
Speaker 1: you know, one hundred dollars more a week on groceries
Speaker 1: or a month on groceries. I mean, I get it,
Speaker 1: but I'm just saying that, like, if you look at
Speaker 1: the numbers, perception is real reality.
Speaker 6: Right, Yes, I agree with you. And this gets back
Speaker 6: to what we were talking about earlier, right, And like
Speaker 6: how do you brain your politics? How do you communicate
Speaker 6: your politics? Do you engage in fights or do you
Speaker 6: shy away from them? I think that that all contributes
Speaker 6: to it. There's no question you're right that the Democratic
Speaker 6: Party has done a lot and has tried to fight
Speaker 6: for working people.
Speaker 1: But it doesn't matter. If you can't transmit, it doesn't matter.
Speaker 6: Josh.
Speaker 1: I hope you will come back. This as really really
Speaker 1: interesting for sure.
Speaker 6: Yeah, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: No moment, Jesse Cannon.
Speaker 3: Molly Jung Fast.
Speaker 2: So we are seeing a lot of officials say fuck
Speaker 2: off to Trump, trying to get them out of their seats,
Speaker 2: and the latest is the FEC commissioner Ellen Wintrump, who's
Speaker 2: considering her options after being ousted by Trump.
Speaker 1: You know what part of this is that Trump doesn't
Speaker 1: have the authority to do any of this extracurricular stuff.
Speaker 1: He's not a king. He's part of the government and
Speaker 1: now is I think a really important point here is
Speaker 1: that we are really seeing like their right to not
Speaker 1: do that. They're right to not let him go crazy
Speaker 1: on stuff. So Ellen Wintrapp, she was put on this
Speaker 1: bipartisan commission by George W. Bush. Woke George W. Bush Thursday.
Speaker 1: She was fired by a brief letter. At least it
Speaker 1: wasn't a tweet. She shared a copy of the letter
Speaker 1: on X and she said, there's a legal way to
Speaker 1: replace the FEC commissioner. This isn't it. I've been lucky
Speaker 1: to serve the American people again. Look, this is this
Speaker 1: idea that trump Ism wants to weaponize every part of
Speaker 1: the federal government to protect Trump. And this should not
Speaker 1: surprise anyone. This is what they do, right, This is
Speaker 1: what they told us they were going to do, and
Speaker 1: this is what they're doing. And none of us should
Speaker 1: be surprised. And everyone is going to have to keep going.
Speaker 1: Everyone is going to have to fight against this. There's
Speaker 1: absolutely no reason that anyone should let this happen because
Speaker 1: it's not right and it's not what they were elected
Speaker 1: for and it's not constitutional. That's it for this episode
Speaker 1: of Fast Politics. Tune in every Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and
Speaker 1: Saturday to hear the best minds and politics make sense
Speaker 1: of all this chaos. If you enjoy this podcast, please
Speaker 1: send it to a friend and keep the conversation going.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening.