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 a new report from CIVICUS downgraded
Speaker 1: US freedom to obstruct it whatever that means. We have
Speaker 1: such a great show for you today as the world churns.
Speaker 2: Andy Leeby stops by to talk.
Speaker 1: About impeaching RFK Junior, and then we'll talk to Senator
Speaker 1: Tammy Baldwin about the upcoming battle to keep your insurance affordable.
Speaker 2: We'll say, but first we have the news.
Speaker 3: Molly, their back. The Heritage Foundation now has a Project
Speaker 3: twenty twenty six. It's not looking good.
Speaker 1: Okay, So Heritage Foundation got everything it fucking wanted with
Speaker 1: Project twenty twenty five.
Speaker 2: So now, like the greedy.
Speaker 1: Little children they are, they have a Project twenty twenty
Speaker 1: six policy vision. Part of this is because Donald Trump
Speaker 1: does not have any policy, right, he has no policy.
Speaker 1: His policy is make money and turn paint things yellow.
Speaker 1: And so the Heritage Foundation has decided they have some
Speaker 1: policies that they would like to enact. Some of them
Speaker 1: are pretty obvious. Some of them are stuff Trump would
Speaker 1: not get involved in. Maybe, so Number one, resisting the
Speaker 1: communist Party, the Chinese Communist Party. These people are probably
Speaker 1: not going to be happy because Donald Trump just said
Speaker 1: he's going to sell Navidia chips to China.
Speaker 3: Yeah, this is like the funniest one to be if
Speaker 3: a big hoddest as. I was reading this earlier because
Speaker 3: this is basically like saying like, could we just get
Speaker 3: Trump to stop being trump pud trade?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Exactly. So well, I mean he's in a trade war
Speaker 2: with them, so.
Speaker 4: That's something basic.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but the problem is he's busy in riching himself
Speaker 3: and contradicting it.
Speaker 2: Yes, that is true.
Speaker 1: Okay, so he has resisting the Communist Chinese Party. That's
Speaker 1: never gonna happen, and he shouldn't have sold them Navidio
Speaker 1: immigration restrictions, I'm I mean, for who, nobody's coming.
Speaker 2: Here, but okay.
Speaker 1: And then my favorite is election refinements. You know what
Speaker 1: that means, right, oppression? Yeah, my man is going to
Speaker 1: refine the elections so that he doesn't lose them.
Speaker 3: But the detail in here is interesting that they're really
Speaker 3: not into rank choice voting, and some of that makes
Speaker 3: me think they saw the TikTok jahatas or on and
Speaker 3: they're getting real scared.
Speaker 1: Rank choice voting. They don't like anything, Okay, reality check.
Speaker 1: Rank choice voting, now used in both deep bread and
Speaker 1: deep blue jurisdictions, has increased in popularity. Research shows the
Speaker 1: party neutral system can increase voter turnout and improve representation
Speaker 1: for women and people of color. Ara Ago, they don't
Speaker 1: want it.
Speaker 3: This is sending real pro democracy to me.
Speaker 1: Elimination of the Department of Education. Let me tell you
Speaker 1: a secret here. Team of course they want to get
Speaker 1: rid of that, and there's a reason for that, because
Speaker 1: of course they do. So they want to dismantle the
Speaker 1: Department Education. Trump is already trying to do that. He
Speaker 1: put Linda McMahon, everyone's favorite wrestling princess in there. So
Speaker 1: not surprising. I don't know how they would do that.
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't know how they could do that
Speaker 1: more than they're doing it already. Fighting big tech. This
Speaker 1: is one of my favorite of these ideas.
Speaker 4: Because this one's so funny.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it is really funny. Let's talk about it. Big
Speaker 1: tech has interfered with our elections. Okay, yeah, but they
Speaker 1: have four Republicans, so whoa so I to groom and
Speaker 1: brainwash our children with perverted left wing ideologies?
Speaker 2: FYI, Big tech is how our.
Speaker 1: Children got to think that, Like Joe Rogan and Charlie
Speaker 1: Kirk were the you know.
Speaker 3: Yeah YouTube pipeline, the gen z that voted for Trump
Speaker 3: down that pipeline by recommending videos after other videos were
Speaker 3: done on YouTube. Fat period paragraph.
Speaker 2: Done right, right, right, right, So.
Speaker 3: This is themating themselves of their own foot But hey,
Speaker 3: if they want common clause of regulating big tech, I
Speaker 3: just hope they get to know someone named Lena Khan
Speaker 3: and we can get it going. Yea, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: not holding my breath though.
Speaker 4: All right.
Speaker 3: So we also have promoting traditional family values real shocker
Speaker 3: in here, and then my favorite one, supporting the Trump administration.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so let's talk about supporting the Trump administration promoting
Speaker 1: traditional family values restore the nuclear family to the center
Speaker 1: of American life. Who better to do that than a
Speaker 1: man who is married to his third wife.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Foundation also asserts that children should be born to
Speaker 2: a mother and father who are married, singling opposition to
Speaker 2: same sex marriage and efforts to eliminate related protections.
Speaker 1: I don't know, I mean sure. Heritage says it will
Speaker 1: back trump efforts to reshape the federal government and restore
Speaker 1: efficient operations again Okay, I mean I don't know what
Speaker 1: that means. It plans to size the constitution separations of
Speaker 1: power and expand authority for independent agencies. That's what has
Speaker 1: been doing all this time. And also, and by the way,
Speaker 1: I love this, it wants to increase fossil fuel production.
Speaker 3: Of course, So Boby, let's shift gears here away from
Speaker 3: this hellscape. We have a lot of good news. I
Speaker 3: have a prediction for you. I've been wanting to hear
Speaker 3: your thoughts about this. I think the word of the
Speaker 3: year next year is going to be dummy mander.
Speaker 1: So, we have a Georgia Democrat flipping a state House
Speaker 1: seat in a district Trump won by double digits. We're
Speaker 1: talking about Tuesday's elections. We have a Democrat flipping the
Speaker 1: Miami Mayor's office win in control for the first time
Speaker 1: in thirty years. We have everybody moved to left, every
Speaker 1: election moved left on Tuesday twelve points, ten points, fifteen
Speaker 1: points left left left again not surprising if you looked
Speaker 1: at the twenty five cycle at the.
Speaker 2: Governor's race in New Jersey.
Speaker 1: In Georgia, none of this is surprising, but it is
Speaker 1: absolutely what we knew we would start seeing again Republicans.
Speaker 1: That's why Trump is now talking about affordability. Of course
Speaker 1: he's not, but it is affordability. Look, Trump isn't a
Speaker 1: problem here. This is a real problem. I don't know
Speaker 1: how Trump worlds, you know. I think they're going to
Speaker 1: try to cheat. I think that's going to be the move.
Speaker 1: But it is kind of fascinating to watch them just
Speaker 1: lose and lose and lose. They still control a lot
Speaker 1: of the Georgia House, right, It's not like this slips
Speaker 1: the house, but it does show really where we are.
Speaker 3: We're seeing a weather vane point where the wind is
Speaker 3: presently blowing. Let's hope it keeps blowing that way and
Speaker 3: harder and faster.
Speaker 1: I mean, the question is more like can they stop it?
Speaker 1: And I just don't see a way they can unless
Speaker 1: they start to really cheat. And I think that's what
Speaker 1: we're going to see next.
Speaker 3: So one of the more annoying things I do is
Speaker 3: when I talk to people who work in service, I
Speaker 3: often ask them about the business. And one of the
Speaker 3: things I keep hearing from people of New York is
Speaker 3: that there's no Europeans here anymore since Trump got into office,
Speaker 3: and our tourism has gone down and we've seen this
Speaker 3: in repeated study after study, so it's not just ancidotal news.
Speaker 3: And it looks like mister Trump wants to decimate our
Speaker 3: tourism because now they want to mandate social media checks
Speaker 3: for five years of their social media history before coming
Speaker 3: to the country.
Speaker 2: This is ridiculous. But also, who's going to even do this?
Speaker 1: Like I don't mean to be the person here calling
Speaker 1: fucking bullshit on this, but Trump administration I don't know.
Speaker 1: I mean, were you gonna have TSA agents looking at
Speaker 1: people's Twitter history? I mean, I just don't think that's
Speaker 1: gonna fly. You know, like so much of this Trump
Speaker 1: world stuff is like they decide they're going to do
Speaker 1: autocracy from nothing, and like I don't. I don't think so.
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't think that's how this is gonna go.
Speaker 1: I mean it seems really dumb.
Speaker 3: I think you're right like that. There's always these Republican
Speaker 3: policies that Contract Toddict their small government, low budget policies,
Speaker 3: like following every pregnant woman around till they reach the
Speaker 3: birth turb and like, you know, like they can't do
Speaker 3: this stuff.
Speaker 1: Yes, even if they can't do it, like it's against
Speaker 1: their gestalt or whatever. It's also just a question of
Speaker 1: like who is going to practically look at people's cell phones?
Speaker 2: Like this is the thing with so much of Trumpism.
Speaker 1: It's like you were going to go from normal American
Speaker 1: democracy to autocracy in fifteen months. Like I don't think so, man.
Speaker 1: I mean, maybe maybe they're sub but you know, these
Speaker 1: Europeans are going to come TSA agent is going to
Speaker 1: stop them and be like, fuck you man, let me
Speaker 1: see your phone. No, that's not how it's going to work.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm sorry, but no, I don't think that flies.
Speaker 2: I don't think they can do it.
Speaker 1: Over at our YouTube channel, we have some really exciting stuff.
Speaker 2: Jesse and I have made a documentary.
Speaker 1: It's called Project twenty twenty nine, A Real Imagining. It's
Speaker 1: a series about how democrats can deliver popular policies when
Speaker 1: they regain power. The first episode is up now. It's
Speaker 1: the first part of the series, and we're going to
Speaker 1: examine what went wrong with some of the Biden administration's
Speaker 1: approach to policies that may have prevented Democrats from being
Speaker 1: able to deliver the broad anti corruption legislation that needed
Speaker 1: to happen, and by the way that would have prevented
Speaker 1: some of the corruption we're seeing right now. The first
Speaker 1: episode dives deep into the first step of fixing American politics.
Speaker 1: It may sound unsexy, but it's a big, important issue,
Speaker 1: and that big subject is campaign finance reform. For this episode,
Speaker 1: we talk to some of the smartest people we know,
Speaker 1: professors and academics, people like Lawrence Lessig, Tiffany Muller, Michael Waldman,
Speaker 1: and Tom Moore. Republicans were prepared for when they got
Speaker 1: the levers of power. Democrats need that same kind of preparation.
Speaker 1: That's why we need to start the conversation on how
Speaker 1: democrats can do the same thing.
Speaker 2: So please head over to our YouTube.
Speaker 1: Channel and search Molly John Fast Project twenty twenty nine
Speaker 1: or go to the Fast Politics YouTube channel page and
Speaker 1: you'll find it there and help us spread the word
Speaker 1: and stay tuned for more episodes.
Speaker 2: Andy Leeby is the host of As the World Churns.
Speaker 1: Welcome Too, Fast Politics, Andy Levy.
Speaker 4: Oh hey, Molly, how are you. I didn't see you there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm here, baby.
Speaker 1: My favorite thing about RFK is that he lied and
Speaker 1: said during his hearing that he would not fuck up
Speaker 1: vaccine schedules, immediately gets in there, doesn't do.
Speaker 2: Any thing but fucks up vaccine schedules.
Speaker 4: Discuss I also am opposed to him fucking up vaccine scheduling.
Speaker 4: And look, we've now got articles of impeachment on the floor,
Speaker 4: I guess in the House, which obviously, look, they're not
Speaker 4: going to go anywhere because we have a Republican controlled House.
Speaker 2: I mean controlled being the Yeah.
Speaker 4: We have a Republican majority in the House. Yes, that's
Speaker 4: probably a better way of putting it. Look, Mike Johnson
Speaker 4: probably won't even hear about this for two weeks because
Speaker 4: he doesn't really keep up with the news. But I
Speaker 4: don't care if this is symbolic. I don't care if
Speaker 4: it goes nowhere, both of which are probably true. I
Speaker 4: think it's important. I think it's important to use the
Speaker 4: mechanisms that are still vaguely in place to hold people accountable.
Speaker 4: And out of all the things that this administration is doing,
Speaker 4: I think the attack on health and science are gonna
Speaker 4: be the hardest to undo, or they're going to take
Speaker 4: the longest to undo, is I guess a better way
Speaker 4: of putting it. And I think everything we are seeing
Speaker 4: now with vaccines, with vaccines for babies and newborns and kids.
Speaker 4: It's so like you read this and you hear about this,
Speaker 4: And first of all, my new thing now is I
Speaker 4: read the news every day, and every time I see
Speaker 4: a story, I'm like, well, there's another thing I can't
Speaker 4: post on social media because of terms, because I'll get
Speaker 4: banned for what I want to say about it. Like
Speaker 4: you look at this and you're like, what is your
Speaker 4: goal here? Because you're gonna kill You're gonna kill people.
Speaker 2: So RFK is going to be impeached.
Speaker 1: Now, we have a member of Congress, and we also
Speaker 1: have we have a couple members of Congress who are
Speaker 1: set up an impeachment fight. One of them is Haley Stevens.
Speaker 1: She's running for She's running not for governor. She's running
Speaker 1: for the Senate in Michigan in a very hotly contested
Speaker 1: Senate primary discuss.
Speaker 4: Yeah. Again, that's why when I said I don't care
Speaker 4: if this is symbolic or performative, which I'm sure it
Speaker 4: is against both, Yeah, exactly. I mean, look, Stevens is
Speaker 4: fairly moderate. It's not like she's, you know, a super
Speaker 4: progressive member of the House who you would look at
Speaker 4: this and you would go, oh, right on, they're standing
Speaker 4: up for what they believe in. She's a moderate. So yes,
Speaker 4: I think this is very clearly a senatorial election ploy.
Speaker 4: But again I guess I just I don't really care,
Speaker 4: only because I think it's the right I think it
Speaker 4: happens to be the right thing to do, whether that
Speaker 4: was the intention or not. And I think, you know,
Speaker 4: one of the things that the Democrats have really failed
Speaker 4: at for me in this past year is in using
Speaker 4: whatever measures are available to at least put up a
Speaker 4: fight to hold them accountable, and to at least, like
Speaker 4: I said, use mechanisms that exist to hold them accountable,
Speaker 4: to hold you know, whether it's RFK, whether it's hag Seth,
Speaker 4: whether it's well, the list is you know, long but undistinguished.
Speaker 4: But like again, as as you and I have talked about,
Speaker 4: as as a lot of people are talking about, it's
Speaker 4: the fighting versus rolling over, you know, and so versus CA. Yeah,
Speaker 4: and even if the fight is if in this case
Speaker 4: it's being launched for the most political of reasons and
Speaker 4: the most cynical of reasons, I'm still in favor of
Speaker 4: it because I think it's something it's a battle that
Speaker 4: has to be fought.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so RFK Junior impeachment. By the way, if Den's
Speaker 2: went back the House, they could impeach RFK.
Speaker 1: Junior and you know, you could see they could maybe
Speaker 1: remove them.
Speaker 4: Look, anything is possible. And I mean as of now,
Speaker 4: as of the end of twenty twenty five, it looks
Speaker 4: like there is a decent chance at least of the
Speaker 4: Democrats taking back the House next year. Obviously a lot
Speaker 4: can change between now and then, but you know, we
Speaker 4: just saw this week in some elections Democrats again did well.
Speaker 2: They didn't do well, they did breezy.
Speaker 4: Well yeah, oh absolutely absolutely. But again that's why I
Speaker 4: think it's important to start doing this shit now and
Speaker 4: and get it on the record. And then if you
Speaker 4: gotta you know, if it gets dragged out, or if
Speaker 4: you got to do it again in another year, fine,
Speaker 4: but get yourself on the record as saying you know,
Speaker 4: you can't just put out a press release and say
Speaker 4: boo RFK Jr. And then go home and say, well,
Speaker 4: I've done my job today. Like, you gotta do something,
Speaker 4: and even if that is quixotic and doomed to fail
Speaker 4: and whatever, you gotta at least you gotta show that
Speaker 4: there's a fight here speaking of members of the Trump
Speaker 4: administration doing absolutely crazy shit because they think they'll never
Speaker 4: be held accountable.
Speaker 1: Let us talk about the Department of War and Peace.
Speaker 1: That Weekend anchor friend of yours, close personal friend of
Speaker 1: yours from your time at Fox News, hot guy with
Speaker 1: many many children from many different women. That guy he's
Speaker 1: doesn't want the second video of the bombs to be
Speaker 1: It's that second video that's the one that you're not
Speaker 1: to discuss.
Speaker 4: Yeah, look, obviously I've been following this story and the
Speaker 4: one thing I feel like nobody is saying, and maybe
Speaker 4: I'm wrong, maybe I just missed it, but you know,
Speaker 4: we keep arguing whether this, Oh, is this a war crime?
Speaker 4: Is it not a war crime because we're not at war,
Speaker 4: and it's just it's murder like either way, horrible and dead.
Speaker 4: What I've started thinking is what it is is state
Speaker 4: sponsored terrorism. And if another nation did this to American boats,
Speaker 4: American civilians on boats, we would call it an act
Speaker 4: of terror. We would call it state sponsored terrorism. And
Speaker 4: that's what we are now. The American state is is
Speaker 4: committing terrorist acts. We are doing this for political reasons.
Speaker 4: We are doing it to strike fear all the things
Speaker 4: that you say, you know, well, how do you define
Speaker 4: what terrorism is? And you know, those are two of
Speaker 4: the big ones. It's obvious. You know. The latest news
Speaker 4: now out of the I think it was in the
Speaker 4: New York Times, is that the Pentagon is fighting very
Speaker 4: hard to keep the survivors from being brought to the
Speaker 4: United States because they don't want them to stand trial here,
Speaker 4: so they want them to go to be put in
Speaker 4: the same place in El Salvador, the same disgusting country.
Speaker 1: Well, they've pitched that idea, and the State Department lawyers
Speaker 1: were like, what the actual fuck are you talking about.
Speaker 1: You can't send survivors of strikes to death camps. And
Speaker 1: they were like, yeah, yeah, we were just kidding. Like
Speaker 1: you could see how that conversation went from the time
Speaker 1: the reporter.
Speaker 4: Yeah, absolutely, and look we know they weren't just kidding.
Speaker 4: And this, of course is also the reason why, as
Speaker 4: we see in those videos where they're trying their damn
Speaker 4: best to make sure there are no survivors, because dead
Speaker 4: men tell no tales, you know, and so they don't
Speaker 4: want survivors to be able to come out there and say, hey,
Speaker 4: we were a small fishing boat or whatever, and you know,
Speaker 4: a boat that wouldn't even be able to make it
Speaker 4: to the United States mainland, And it's terrorism to me.
Speaker 4: And that's what we are now. We are now committing
Speaker 4: acts of terror. I'm not saying we never have in
Speaker 4: the past, but now it's just sort of, you know,
Speaker 4: that's who we are. That's exactly what we've become. It sucks, Molly,
Speaker 4: I don't like it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I want to talk about the first video for
Speaker 1: a minute, because Tom Cotton, America's favorite senator, said that
Speaker 1: the video showed that they were right to kill the survivors.
Speaker 2: He saw that video, So what do you think the
Speaker 2: thinking there was.
Speaker 4: Look, as we know, Tom Cotton is the same person
Speaker 4: who wanted US troops to be deployed against US citizens.
Speaker 4: I don't know the thought process of someone like Tom Cotton,
Speaker 4: and I'm kind of happy about that. Like, I don't
Speaker 4: want to be able to understand that, because I think
Speaker 4: that would that would it would be a character defect
Speaker 4: to be able to look at that and go, oh, okay, well,
Speaker 4: what he's saying, no, you know, what he's saying is
Speaker 4: he has no problem with murder being committed. He has
Speaker 4: no problem with watching snuff films. I'm not going to
Speaker 4: get into any potential, you know, psychosexual issues that may
Speaker 4: be involved here, because that's not my expertise.
Speaker 1: There's also a second video, yes, and so I guess
Speaker 1: there were This may have happened more than once. And
Speaker 1: in fact, we do know that because we killed like
Speaker 1: eighty seven people on these boats, which may or may
Speaker 1: not have been fishing boats, but whatever, but we've killed
Speaker 1: eighty seven people. So there's clearly some other video. Asked
Speaker 1: about whether or not they would release the video, they
Speaker 1: said they had.
Speaker 2: HEG. Sas said he was reviewing.
Speaker 1: This made Chuck Schumer, not known to be the toughest guy,
Speaker 1: pretty mad.
Speaker 4: Look again, I have no desire to watch these videos
Speaker 4: because they are snuff films, but I do think that
Speaker 4: they should be seen. You know, if you're so proud
Speaker 4: of what you did, release the fucking videos. If you're
Speaker 4: so proud of what you did, let the survivors come
Speaker 4: to America, because if you're so convinced of your righteousness,
Speaker 4: you should have nothing to fear from them giving their
Speaker 4: side of the story. You know, it doesn't take any
Speaker 4: moral courage whatsoever to order someone to push a button
Speaker 4: to blow up a fishing boat and with Pete Hegseth
Speaker 4: and people like that. They absolutely they lack moral courage.
Speaker 4: If you have the courage of your convictions, then release
Speaker 4: the videos. Let the survivors talk, and the videos may
Speaker 4: end up being released, but I don't. I think in
Speaker 4: his heart of hearts, whatever little shriveled up thing there
Speaker 4: is in there, he accept doesn't want that video out
Speaker 4: because he knows I think what it's gonna look like
Speaker 4: to a lot of people.
Speaker 1: Let's talk for a minute about where we go now.
Speaker 2: So Trump is not popular. Trump not popular.
Speaker 1: You know, these democratic results are just a complete disaster
Speaker 1: and every for Republicans, like you know, they're flipping seats
Speaker 1: that shouldn't be flipped there, you know, looks like dummy
Speaker 1: Mander's coming.
Speaker 2: You're Donald Trump, what do you do?
Speaker 4: First of all, I would like to shoot down any
Speaker 4: rumors that you are, in fact are allegations that I
Speaker 4: am in fact on the Trump right.
Speaker 2: It's being John Macovich. But you're being Donald Trump.
Speaker 4: Right, Exactly everything you said is true. Trump is unpopular.
Speaker 4: A lot of these MAGA policies, now that they're actually
Speaker 4: being put into place, you're seeing a lot of you know,
Speaker 4: as we keep saying a lot of people going that's
Speaker 4: not what I voted for, even though it is what
Speaker 4: they voted for. I do think all of this is
Speaker 4: going to change now that the State Department is changing
Speaker 4: their font So I do think you have to take
Speaker 4: that into consideration that the popularity. I think we're going
Speaker 4: to see a big change and a big upward movement
Speaker 4: in the popularity. Donald Trump is Donald Trump, and it's
Speaker 4: not like he's going to change or is capable of change.
Speaker 4: I don't think he's been capable of change since he was, like,
Speaker 4: you know, fourteen, And I guess I think the bigger
Speaker 4: question is for the wanna be Trump's or the wannabe
Speaker 4: next Trump's, the JD. Vance's of the world. So it's
Speaker 4: a question of are they going to look at this
Speaker 4: and realize that it's not working to a large extent,
Speaker 4: I don't know the answer to that. I mean, Vance,
Speaker 4: you know, seems he's a complete He's completely captured by
Speaker 4: basically the online right and the Peter Thiel type people
Speaker 4: who really don't I mean, you want to talk about
Speaker 4: living in a bubble. I don't know that he can change.
Speaker 4: So I don't know where this goes next. I mean, look,
Speaker 4: we're seeing all this infighting now, Marjorie Taylor Green. You know,
Speaker 4: even Nancy Mace took a five minute break from the
Speaker 4: crazies to say that, you know, hey, this weird stuff
Speaker 4: going on.
Speaker 1: Their problem is they feel like Mike Johnson is not
Speaker 1: treating them like they're grown ups, right, I mean, he
Speaker 1: treats women like children.
Speaker 2: I don't know that that.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure their problem is ideological as much as
Speaker 1: it's like, you can't treat us like children.
Speaker 4: Well, I do think with Marjorie Taylor Green, I mean
Speaker 4: she's been and trust me, I have absolutely no interest
Speaker 4: in rehabilitating her whatsoever. She doesn't deserve it. She's done
Speaker 4: nothing to deserve it. She's a big part of the
Speaker 4: problem she's now complaining about. But there is some ideology
Speaker 4: going on there. I mean, she's talked about the healthcare stuff,
Speaker 4: and a lot of MAGA right now is very anti
Speaker 4: populist in you know, whether it's getting rid of the
Speaker 4: healthcare subsidies, causing people's healthcare prices to increase or whatever.
Speaker 4: That's not what populism is supposed to be. Populism is,
Speaker 4: you know, for as much as the right wing populist
Speaker 4: hate socialism and communism. There's a lot of government handouts
Speaker 4: involved in populism. Government handouts is their term, which is
Speaker 4: why I use it. Yeah, But so I do think
Speaker 4: with Marjorie Tayler Green and with some of the other
Speaker 4: MAGA people on the right, there is this sort of
Speaker 4: realization again whether it's whether it's real or just playing politics,
Speaker 4: but there's this realization that, hey, some of these policies
Speaker 4: are actually going to hurt our base. Whereas I I
Speaker 4: don't know that you know, that sort of intension with
Speaker 4: the we got to get rid of the healthcare subsidies Obamacare.
Speaker 4: It's Obamacare, we got to get rid of it. So
Speaker 4: I do think there are some ideological tensions there. I
Speaker 4: agree with you one hundred percent that, you know, Nancy Mason,
Speaker 4: people like that. A lot of it is I don't
Speaker 4: know if they just woke up today and or that
Speaker 4: day and realized, oh, you know what, maggot, A lot
Speaker 4: of these maggid dudes don't like women and don't think
Speaker 4: we should be in Congress or in the workplace, you know,
Speaker 4: to begin with. But I don't know what Donald Trump
Speaker 4: himself does. I mean, I mean, I guess we're seeing
Speaker 4: some of it where they want to, you know, sort
Speaker 4: of offset his tariffs that are hurting farmers and stuff
Speaker 4: like that. At a certain point, the lord willing people
Speaker 4: who have voted for Trump are gonna maybe realize that
Speaker 4: he's not actually fighting for them. It feels hard.
Speaker 2: To be because.
Speaker 4: We've had we've had a bunch of years of proof
Speaker 4: of that, and they still believe it. But I don't know.
Speaker 4: I think what Trump does is he just he continues
Speaker 4: to lie. He continues to say the economy is strong,
Speaker 4: and you know, prices are going down, and he just
Speaker 4: has to hope that there's enough people out there that
Speaker 4: continue to fall for it, even as they see their
Speaker 4: prices go up and their wages stagnate or fall. I
Speaker 4: guess the issue how how much longer can he get
Speaker 4: away with the lies? I think is what it comes
Speaker 4: down to. You know what. That's on the electorate, It's
Speaker 4: on the media to be more proactive and stronger in
Speaker 4: saying that he's lying. But I don't know the answer.
Speaker 4: I mean, I think we are in sort of you know,
Speaker 4: in a sense, we're in uncharted waters with this administration
Speaker 4: and all the things we're seeing and all the rollbacks
Speaker 4: of stuff we thought was settled, you know, fifty sixty
Speaker 4: years ago. I just I don't know what the final
Speaker 4: answer is, and I'm not sure that MAGA does either
Speaker 4: or the Republican Party, but I repeat myself, and I
Speaker 4: have to think that that's a little nerve racking for
Speaker 4: them as we get closer, well, first of all in
Speaker 4: the midterms, and then as we get closer to twenty
Speaker 4: twenty eight.
Speaker 1: Andy Levy, if you had to rate yourself on the
Speaker 1: economy right now, how would you rate yourself?
Speaker 4: Now, I'm just kidding, rate myself, like, how am I doing?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah, aa aa.
Speaker 5: Plus plus plus.
Speaker 4: Oh, oh, that's right. I forgot. We're doing letter grades
Speaker 4: these days. These days, God.
Speaker 2: Week, come back? Oh well you come back? Will you
Speaker 2: come back? No? Come back, you monster?
Speaker 4: After the way we treated today, you think I'm going
Speaker 4: to come back.
Speaker 1: Sammy Baldwin is the junior Senator the great state of Wisconsin.
Speaker 1: Welcome to Fast Politics, Senator Baldwin.
Speaker 5: I am so glad to join you. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 2: Well, I'm delighted to have you.
Speaker 1: And there's just so much to talk about in the
Speaker 1: Senate right now. First, I think we should talk about
Speaker 1: how these Obamacare premiums are just expiring. Like, get us
Speaker 1: talking about what where we are. I feel like we're
Speaker 1: on yet another affordability cliff.
Speaker 5: There's no question that we are on the precipice of
Speaker 5: a cliff right now. So I'm going to bring you
Speaker 5: back to last summer where President Trump brought his signature
Speaker 5: legislation to the floor on taxes. It was a tax bill.
Speaker 2: It's a tax cut for wealthy people.
Speaker 5: That's right.
Speaker 2: Exactly.
Speaker 5: The point I'm about to make is that you would
Speaker 5: think the centerpiece of that signature bill, the signature tax bill,
Speaker 5: would be a tax break for working American families to
Speaker 5: be able to afford their healthcare premiums. But no, Instead
Speaker 5: there is this massive tax break that disproportionally benefits big
Speaker 5: corporations and billionaires and the wealthy. They pay for a
Speaker 5: little bit of it by cutting food aid and medicaid.
Speaker 2: Right snap, and medicaid, that's.
Speaker 5: Right, And that only pays for a fraction of this
Speaker 5: enormous tax break for the very wealthy. But they fail
Speaker 5: to address this imminent crisis back in the summer, and
Speaker 5: then we said, all right, you left something out, the
Speaker 5: tax break for working people to be able to afford
Speaker 5: their healthcare insurance, and so all year long we have
Speaker 5: been offering opportunities to our Republican colleagues to join us
Speaker 5: in some fashion to prevent people from going over this cliff.
Speaker 5: So on December thirty first, this tax break for working
Speaker 5: families will end unless we act, and the open enrollment
Speaker 5: for Obamacare, the Affordable Care Act is from November first
Speaker 5: through December fifteenth. By my count, there's just a couple
Speaker 5: days left to people to shop for their insurance. When
Speaker 5: they go to healthcare dot gov to shop, they know
Speaker 5: what they were paying per month this year, and they're
Speaker 5: seeing what they will pay next year for their same insurance.
Speaker 5: Then they can shop around and see if there's another
Speaker 5: offering that's a little more affordable. But most people are
Speaker 5: seeing double, triple, quadruple the premiums they were paying this year,
Speaker 5: and too many of them are thinking to themselves, I
Speaker 5: don't know how I can do it. I just can't
Speaker 5: stretch my budget that far. And so we're going to see.
Speaker 5: The estimate is four million nationwide will forego healthcare next
Speaker 5: year because of these tax breaks disappearing. We're fighting to
Speaker 5: extend the tax breaks. We've been fighting to extend the
Speaker 5: tax breaks for the year. We knew they were coming
Speaker 5: to an end. And tomorrow we will get another vote
Speaker 5: on extending these tax breaks. It'll be a three clean extension. Okay,
Speaker 5: So what's happening on the Republican side. They have been
Speaker 5: saying for a decade and a half that they want
Speaker 5: to get rid of Obamacare. They want to get rid
Speaker 5: of the Affordable Care Act. They're the same thing, by
Speaker 5: the way, I just people know them as different things,
Speaker 5: so I always put them together. They're the same thing.
Speaker 5: So the Republicans want to get rid of it, and
Speaker 5: they have never come up with a replacement. They talked
Speaker 5: about repeal and replace for many, many years. Donald Trump
Speaker 5: said during his last election, well have a concept of
Speaker 5: a plan. Nothing's come to fruition. And at the eleventh
Speaker 5: hour before we get this vote tomorrow on a clean
Speaker 5: three year extension, Leader Thuon in the Senate has put
Speaker 5: something on the calendar that has to do with health
Speaker 5: savings accounts.
Speaker 2: And this is crazy, it's half baked.
Speaker 5: It doesn't deal with the cliff, it doesn't deal with
Speaker 5: the crisis. So anyways, this is so avoidable. But yet
Speaker 5: here we are. We have fought so hard to give
Speaker 5: this relief to working families, people who are dealing with
Speaker 5: high costs of all sorts of things and can ill
Speaker 5: afford pun intended to have this increase in their healthcare premiums.
Speaker 1: Suon is really an interesting guy because I feel like
Speaker 1: he's one of these Republican senators who's had to make
Speaker 1: a faustian bargain to go along with Trump. Is clearly
Speaker 1: he knows better. He's been in the Senate a long time.
Speaker 1: He's you know, I'm sure you've done bipartisan legislation with him.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I wonder if you could talk.
Speaker 1: About how if you're John Soon, I mean, what's the
Speaker 1: play here, right? Because you see your already is just
Speaker 1: hemorrhaging elections, right, you know that you could theoretically even
Speaker 1: lose the Senate despite the Senate map being so bad
Speaker 1: for Democrats. You have an impossible situation. But you know,
Speaker 1: Republicans don't want extend these subsidies, partially because I think
Speaker 1: they know that to step towards a government you know,
Speaker 1: it's a step towards single payer, really, and that's why.
Speaker 1: And it's from the pandemic, and they're hoping that maybe
Speaker 1: they can reverse it and but I think I think
Speaker 1: the public sentiment is to you know, Obamacare is as
Speaker 1: popular as it's ever been. The recent polling showing it's
Speaker 1: you know, gonzo, So talk us through what you think
Speaker 1: is happening there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so as you reflect.
Speaker 5: Polling suggests that huge percentages of Americans, including a majority
Speaker 5: a significant majority of Republicans, want Congress to extend these
Speaker 5: tax credits. I haven't seen the latest round of polling,
Speaker 5: but this is very, very sizable majorities. Trump has access
Speaker 5: to that polling. Trump maybe wants to keep both Houses
Speaker 5: of Congress and Republican control in the second two years
Speaker 5: of his administration so he can enact his agenda. And
Speaker 5: so I think what might be going through Leader Thune's
Speaker 5: brain is, is this guy gonna throw me under the
Speaker 5: bus at some point when finally his holsters get his
Speaker 5: attention and say, we lose the House if you don't
Speaker 5: do something. I've got to think that he knows that.
Speaker 5: Right now, Trump's expectation of Senate Republicans is that they
Speaker 5: don't enact a democratic plan to extend the tax credits,
Speaker 5: the tax breaks for working families for three more years.
Speaker 5: But what do they do as their endgame? I don't
Speaker 5: know the answer to that. That's just speculation. But he's
Speaker 5: got to be thinking about like when when is the
Speaker 5: president going to throw me under the bus? Because I
Speaker 5: think it's coming.
Speaker 1: I mean, stefonic is such a great example of how
Speaker 1: you can go along with Trump and then just he
Speaker 1: has no loyalty to anyone, right.
Speaker 5: Well, look at Taylor Green, I mean, Marjorie Taylor Green.
Speaker 2: Green is unbelievable.
Speaker 5: I mean, that was on this topic, Like just think
Speaker 5: about she was so reflective in this particular instance of
Speaker 5: what so many Americans are thinking. I understand. She has
Speaker 5: adult children who got their notices that said this is
Speaker 5: what your health care costs. Now, this is what it's
Speaker 5: going to cost next year. They're young adults, new in
Speaker 5: the work world, and they're looking at these premiums, going mom,
Speaker 5: what am I going to do? And she's realizing that
Speaker 5: her constituents, you know, this is real, this is you know,
Speaker 5: every number is a person and a family. And so
Speaker 5: she spoke up and said we should extend these And
Speaker 5: that's what happens when you stand up to Trump. As
Speaker 5: you've seen, she's not only not running again, she's leaving
Speaker 5: the house before the end of her term.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because she's getting Danser, She's getting the thing that
Speaker 1: everybody gets when they go against Trump.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's just wild.
Speaker 1: So I know that Keem's camp has a sort of
Speaker 1: clean discharge petition on House Care.
Speaker 2: God bless them for a minute.
Speaker 1: As someone who's been a Senator for a long time,
Speaker 1: how shocked are you that discharge petitions are the new
Speaker 1: normal now?
Speaker 5: Well, in this environment, if there are going to be
Speaker 5: checks and balances and Speaker Johnson is just going to
Speaker 5: be Trump's lapdog, it is the only tool that works, right,
Speaker 5: And so in some ways, you know, I hope that
Speaker 5: there are still a handful or more House Republicans who say, oh,
Speaker 5: by the way, we're the Article one branch of government,
Speaker 5: and we're supposed to actually make the laws and appropriate
Speaker 5: the dollars, not the president, and so we want to
Speaker 5: actually exercise that. And the fact that it kind of
Speaker 5: played out with the Epstein files is interesting because that
Speaker 5: was not so much that we passed the laws we
Speaker 5: fund the government, but it was a very important exercise
Speaker 5: to say, hey, we're relevant as a Congress. So yeah,
Speaker 5: I mean, in this and viron, in this crazy environment,
Speaker 5: discharge petitions. I hope will become the norm if Speaker
Speaker 5: Johnson remains Speaker for the balance of this session.
Speaker 2: It seems like he might not right exactly.
Speaker 5: I've been reading bits and pieces here that suggests that
Speaker 5: there are folks that are unhappy. They're probably folks that
Speaker 5: are very unhappy that he put them out of session
Speaker 5: for seven weeks rather than face up to the discharge
Speaker 5: petition during the shutdown. I mean, what sort of cowardice.
Speaker 5: In any event, I used to be obsessed on the House.
Speaker 5: Now I'm I'm not as much anymore, Like I just
Speaker 5: want the Senate to do it stuff.
Speaker 1: So talk to me about what Democrats are offering in
Speaker 1: the Senate.
Speaker 5: So we have a clean three year extension for the
Speaker 5: tax breaks that working families rely on to bring down
Speaker 5: the cost of their premiums. Now, I have to just say,
Speaker 5: time is running out. We're talking days before the end
Speaker 5: of open enroll and if we were to secure passage
Speaker 5: of this legislation, they use a discharge petition to pass
Speaker 5: it through the House, comes to the President's desk, he
Speaker 5: signs it into law, we'd have to extend the open
Speaker 5: enrollment period. That's a lot of ifs though, really a lot. Yeah,
Speaker 5: that vote happens tomorrow. As I was describing earlier leader
Speaker 5: thun plans on bringing this Republican plan of health savings
Speaker 5: accounts as a side by side, I don't believe he
Speaker 5: has all of his caucus on that plan. It's so
Speaker 5: half baked. I don't know how many Republicans we get
Speaker 5: to vote on our plan, But in order to pass it,
Speaker 5: we would need thirteen of them to come join us
Speaker 5: in that, which is a tall order in these very
Speaker 5: divided times. Not impossible. So please keep calling your representatives
Speaker 5: and senators.
Speaker 1: Yeah, could you get thirteen? I feel like there are
Speaker 1: four or five that are reasonable.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and many of them who are upper reelection. It's
Speaker 5: just a free vote for them to get well with
Speaker 5: their constituents. I voted for the extension of the tax credits,
Speaker 5: but it didn't pass, but I voted for it, so
Speaker 5: we'll see what happens. Look, there are probably a handful
Speaker 5: more than four that would vote for perhaps a shorter
Speaker 5: extension or with some modifications. But that's not where we
Speaker 5: wanted to start with our offer of like making all
Speaker 5: the concessions to get like six Republicans instead of four. Right,
Speaker 5: we need stability in the insurance market, and we need
Speaker 5: to use that as a jumping off point for much
Speaker 5: broader reforms. Let me be the first to say the
Speaker 5: healthcare system is broken and we are just trying to
Speaker 5: prevent a crisis in the individual market. But we have
Speaker 5: a ton of work to do in broader reforms to
Speaker 5: make sure that our healthcare system is working for everybody,
Speaker 5: like most industrialized countries in the world, world do well.
Speaker 1: Not to cite John Bayner, but didn't he say that
Speaker 1: Republicans have never, ever, ever, ever agreed about any saying
Speaker 1: when it comes to healthcare.
Speaker 5: I don't remember that quote specifically, but I trust you
Speaker 5: on that.
Speaker 2: I think recently he said something to that effect.
Speaker 5: Yeah, he led the House when I was there, and
Speaker 5: he certainly experienced that both before and during the Affordable
Speaker 5: Care Act debate and after. The only thing that they
Speaker 5: really agreed on was that they wanted to repeal something
Speaker 5: that was nicknamed after the president who secured its passage,
Speaker 5: President Obama. That's the only thing that I think Republicans
Speaker 5: have really come to agree on. Healthcare is the issue
Speaker 5: I'm most passionate about because it is so personal to
Speaker 5: so many. I have bold reforms that I want to
Speaker 5: see enacted. But I do see common ground with my
Speaker 5: Republican colleagues on some more specific things that you know,
Speaker 5: especially going after the little men and lifting the veil
Speaker 5: of all the secret stuff that goes on behind the
Speaker 5: veil that really adds costs to the system that are needless.
Speaker 5: It's just folks that are in the system preferring profits
Speaker 5: over patient care.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 1: It's very unsurprising, and also it's really disappointing that the
Speaker 1: Doge crew was not at all interested in fraud, waste,
Speaker 1: and abuse for two seconds. There's so much carnage that
Speaker 1: Trump world has wrought when it comes to foreign aid,
Speaker 1: especially during the holiday season. We're thinking about all these
Speaker 1: children who are you know, starving to death or dying
Speaker 1: of preventable diseases, and then there's RFK Junior just running
Speaker 1: roughshaw over all of our vaccines.
Speaker 2: Is there anything you guys can do.
Speaker 1: As has sort of grown ups in the room, about
Speaker 1: any of the checks and balances on Trump's craziness?
Speaker 5: There is? And I haven't given up hope that we
Speaker 5: might be able to pass all of our appropriations bills,
Speaker 5: because when those become law, we are going to be
Speaker 5: in a much stronger position to force somebody like Secretary
Speaker 5: Kennedy or in Education Secretary in McMahon to actually do
Speaker 5: their jobs and spend the money as we direct rather
Speaker 5: than spend the money as Doge or somebody else pleases.
Speaker 5: And that's what we've seen, is that because we haven't
Speaker 5: passed the twenty fiscal year twenty twenty six spending bills,
Speaker 5: that they're just saying, well, if we don't have clear direction,
Speaker 5: we can do what we want. So we've seen funding
Speaker 5: to research cut, we've seen funding to disease prevention and
Speaker 5: vaccine research and initiatives cut, and we've seen the Education
Speaker 5: Department being dismantled before our very eyes. So why do
Speaker 5: I have hoped that we can actually pass these appropriation bills.
Speaker 5: The reason is because there's been bipartisan agreement to sort
Speaker 5: of cueue them up for consideration. We've already passed three
Speaker 5: into law, which has stabilized the Veterans Anddministration, which has
Speaker 5: stabilized the US Department of Agriculture. But now we need
Speaker 5: to take the next steps and pass the rest of
Speaker 5: our appropriation bills for the Department of Labor, the Department
Speaker 5: of Health, the Department of Education, for the Defense Department
Speaker 5: to put some guardrails in there. There's a possibility. I'm
Speaker 5: not going to say that I am one hundred percent
Speaker 5: sure that we're going to be able to do that,
Speaker 5: but we are making our way forward and I am
Speaker 5: hopeful that we'll be able to do that.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much, Senator Baldwin. This is really great
Speaker 1: and really appreciate you.
Speaker 5: Thank you for having me.
Speaker 2: There all more secretly, Jesse Cannon.
Speaker 3: So, Molly, as we know, the Trump administration has basically
Speaker 3: got two arms, one doing disgustingly cruel policies and the
Speaker 3: other is doing disgustingly corrupt policies. And this one falls
Speaker 3: into the disgustingly corrupt. But there might be some oversight.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so again, there might be so some over So
Speaker 1: it's sad a US senator called for oversight of an
Speaker 1: insider trading inquiry over Trump donor buying twelve million dollars
Speaker 1: worth of shares. So you still liquefied natural gas firm
Speaker 1: bought twelve million dollars of stock after meeting with Trump officials,
Speaker 1: denies wrongdoing. Look, this is what keeps happening here with
Speaker 1: Trump world, is they keep doing things like they keep
Speaker 1: doing these kind of very kleptocratic moves. You know, you
Speaker 1: got Jeff Merkley from Morgan saying that they're going to investigate. Look,
Speaker 1: people are doing a lot of crimey shit. Now eventually
Speaker 1: someone's going to get caught holding the bag. I don't
Speaker 1: know when that is. I don't know how that works.
Speaker 1: It could be anything. So I'll be curious to see
Speaker 1: how we can do this, how this works, I don't
Speaker 1: think again, and somebody who's going to get in trouble
Speaker 1: for all the crazy shit they're doing. It's just a
Speaker 1: question of when and who is left holding the bag
Speaker 1: and who.
Speaker 2: Certainly a lot of.
Speaker 1: People are going to get away with a lot of stuff,
Speaker 1: and we're already seeing that. 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.
Speaker 2: Sense of all this chaos.
Speaker 1: If you enjoy this podcast, please send it to a
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Speaker 2: Thanks for listening.