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 Senator Joe Manchin says, democracy as
Speaker 1: we know it wouldn't withstand another Trump administration file that
Speaker 1: under things we know, Please please don't run as a
Speaker 1: third party candidate. We have an amazing show today. The
Speaker 1: dogs are excited. Are you excited? I'm excited. Congressman Jared
Speaker 1: Moskowitz from the Great State of Florida tells us about
Speaker 1: the chaos in the House as Republicans can't run hearings,
Speaker 1: or choose a speaker, or choose what to have for lunch.
Speaker 1: Then we'll talk to you off messages Brian Boittler about
Speaker 1: the GOP's turn against Medgates. But first we have former
Speaker 1: congressmen and current candidate in New York seventeenth District, Mondeir Jones.
Speaker 1: Welcome back, Too Fast Politics, mondere Jones.
Speaker 2: It's great to be here and what a week.
Speaker 1: So for the people who don't text with you every
Speaker 1: single day, you are probably like one of my frequent
Speaker 1: flyers of my contacts. You were a member of Congress,
Speaker 1: you got redistricted in New York just like everyone else.
Speaker 1: With this last minute nonpartisan map that Andrew Cuomo created
Speaker 1: as a way to kick the problem down the road,
Speaker 1: it came back like a big postule and lost Democrats
Speaker 1: of the House.
Speaker 3: You are now running for your.
Speaker 1: District again, which is now occupied by a very nervous Republican.
Speaker 2: A very nervous Republican in a district drawn by a
Speaker 2: self described moderate Republican from out of state who single
Speaker 2: handedly got to draw all twenty six congressional districts in
Speaker 2: New York State. And still it's a district I would
Speaker 2: have won had there not been shenanigans last year, and
Speaker 2: I've been allowed to run in my own district. Mike
Speaker 2: Lawler has been all over cable TV, as you know, Mop,
Speaker 2: and he has been as one does when they're running
Speaker 2: against someone who should be representing New York seventeenth congressional district,
Speaker 2: and he's been masturating as this moderate who is going
Speaker 2: to save us from the Republican Party, except we know
Speaker 2: that he has been enabling all of the chaos that
Speaker 2: we've been seeing in Washington.
Speaker 1: So there are eighteen House Republicans who won in Biden districts,
Speaker 1: six of which I think or either five or six.
Speaker 3: I think it's six. Actually come from New York State.
Speaker 2: That's right, approximately six. And the fact is that there
Speaker 2: was a lot going on in New York State last
Speaker 2: year between.
Speaker 3: A lot of fucking up.
Speaker 1: Let's be honest here, there were a lot.
Speaker 3: Of fuck ups going on in New York State last year.
Speaker 2: And let me remind people about the district that I'm
Speaker 2: running to represent.
Speaker 4: It.
Speaker 2: It's Rockland County, it's northern west Chester, it's Putnam County,
Speaker 2: and it's a small portion of Duchess it's the Lowerhudson Valley.
Speaker 2: And here in the Lower Hudson Valley, we want our
Speaker 2: members of Congress to support the freedom of women to
Speaker 2: have an abortion. We want them to not enable people
Speaker 2: like Kevin McCarthy who nearly shut down the government. Thank
Speaker 2: god for Democrats supplying the votes to keep the lights on.
Speaker 2: And that was just a few days after a baseless
Speaker 2: impeachment hearing, and switched in between those two was last Friday,
Speaker 2: which is which is when Mike Lawler and a lot
Speaker 2: of Republicans voted to cut federal spending by thirty percent.
Speaker 2: So all of this was last week before this week,
Speaker 2: Kevin McCarthy was deposed.
Speaker 1: There was a time when you had moderate Republicans who
Speaker 1: would you know, those would be the sort of members
Speaker 1: of the problems Solvers Caucus. They would be people who
Speaker 1: would push back against the Matt gateses. Those people have
Speaker 1: no power in the Republican Party anymore. They are too
Speaker 1: scared of the Matt gateses, and so they just vote
Speaker 1: the party line.
Speaker 3: So, for example, that CR.
Speaker 1: That you're talking about, the moderates voted for, but the
Speaker 1: hard right didn't vote for cut the federal budget by
Speaker 1: thirty percent.
Speaker 3: Like it was an insane CR. It was. Somebody told me.
Speaker 1: Somebody who was nonpartisan told me it was a quote
Speaker 1: unquote the most conservative CR they'd ever seen.
Speaker 3: I mean, so, I think it's worth remembering that Mike.
Speaker 1: Lawler is just because he's not Matt Gates does not
Speaker 1: mean he's a Democrat or even a traditional Republican of
Speaker 1: twenty years ago.
Speaker 2: Molly, can I just explain briefly for your listeners what
Speaker 2: a CR is. A CR stands for continuing resolution. It's
Speaker 2: not a responsible way to run the government. It is
Speaker 2: an interim step when you can't pass a fiscal year
Speaker 2: appropriations bien exactly, And so This so called Continuing Resolution
Speaker 2: last Friday was an attempt at Kevin McCarthy to placate
Speaker 2: the MAGA Caucus, and Mike Lawler voted for it. It ended
Speaker 2: up failing, thank god. And the reason that CR failed
Speaker 2: is because it was thirty percent cuts across the board.
Speaker 2: We're talking about make two hundred and fifty thousand children
Speaker 2: lose access to childcare, two hundred and ninety thousand children
Speaker 2: lose access to head start. We're talking about two point
Speaker 2: three I believe women, infants and other children losing access
Speaker 2: to nutritional assistants. As many as two hundred and forty
Speaker 2: Social Security officers would have added to a shut down.
Speaker 2: More than ten thousand FBI agents would have lost their jobs.
Speaker 2: I mean, this is really extraordinary stuff. And Mike Lawler
Speaker 2: voted for on the path to Democrats ultimately supplying the
Speaker 2: votes for a clean CR to keep the government open
Speaker 2: for forty five days and we'll be back in this
Speaker 2: situation and open.
Speaker 1: It's such a crazy way to live. And I want
Speaker 1: you to talk about this for a second. There is
Speaker 1: a world where Republicans could not do this right, like
Speaker 1: where a Kevin McCarthy could say to Democrats, look I
Speaker 1: don't have the votes to my own caucus. Let's figure
Speaker 1: out some kind of power sharing agreement so that we
Speaker 1: can get stuff done as opposed to naming post offices
Speaker 1: and having hearings on gas stoves.
Speaker 2: If there were any moderate Republicans remaining in the House
Speaker 2: of Representatives, at a minimum, a threshold issue would be,
Speaker 2: are you willing to vote for Kakiem Jeffries to be
Speaker 2: Speaker of the House since you clearly cannot run the
Speaker 2: government through electing someone from your own party, And of
Speaker 2: course as part of that, you would intrupt to some
Speaker 2: kind of arrangement. I mean, I imagine there would be
Speaker 2: a host of concessions made to Republicans in the event
Speaker 2: of such an arrangement. But that's what somebody like Mike Lawler,
Speaker 2: who's in a district that Biden won by ten points
Speaker 2: over Donald Trump, a district that rejected Donald Trump, and
Speaker 2: where he now finds himself running for reelection despite having
Speaker 2: work to elect and then reelect Donald Trump in the past.
Speaker 2: At a minimum, that's what you would expect of someone
Speaker 2: like him, But instead he's been blaming Democrats for why
Speaker 2: Kevin Kark is no longer a Speaker of Oushi is
Speaker 2: just classic Michael Owen, never taking responsibility for what he
Speaker 2: and his fellow Republicans caused.
Speaker 1: It's pretty interesting, though, to see the sort of panic
Speaker 1: because what we see like I feel like the House again.
Speaker 1: The House is a microcosm for the country, right, for
Speaker 1: where the parties are in the country.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 1: So you have Republicans who are panicked because they know
Speaker 1: that Trumpism does not scale to these purple states. So
Speaker 1: actually want you to talk a little bit about Matt Gates,
Speaker 1: because you knew him, you served in Congress with him,
Speaker 1: you probably will serve in Congress again with unless Republicans
Speaker 1: managed to kick him out. He is known now as
Speaker 1: the man who removed McCarthy. Can you explain to us
Speaker 1: what you think his motivations are.
Speaker 2: I think Matt Gates is exemplifying what the Republican Party
Speaker 2: in twenty twenty three has become, and certainly what the
Speaker 2: House Republican Caucus has become, a group of people who
Speaker 2: are deeply, deeply conservative and extreme in fact, both in
Speaker 2: their ideology and in the measures that they will take
Speaker 2: to achieve their ends. And still that's not enough for
Speaker 2: Matt Gates. Matt Gates, he relishes chaos, and this has
Speaker 2: come to define a party that is in office to
Speaker 2: dismantle the government, not to actually improve people's lives. And
Speaker 2: so there is some consistency between the idea of chaos
Speaker 2: and making the government not work for everyday people. It's
Speaker 2: a horrible thing. It's a horrible motivation to be in office.
Speaker 2: And of course he enjoys the attention and is fundraising
Speaker 2: off of it. And I'm not sure even wants to
Speaker 2: remain in Congress for much longer, but he is probably
Speaker 2: going to have like a NEWSMAC show at some point
Speaker 2: in the future.
Speaker 1: So I've heard a lot of different theories for his motivation.
Speaker 1: One is that he felt he was not supported during
Speaker 1: his FBI investigation. One of the things we saw last
Speaker 1: night on CNN, I'm sure you saw this Manu Raju,
Speaker 1: really smart congressional reporter. He talked to Mark wayIn Mullins.
Speaker 1: It's such an insane moment of truth.
Speaker 5: You got to think about this guy. This is a
Speaker 5: guy that didn't have that The media didn't give a
Speaker 5: time at day to after he was accused of sleeping
Speaker 5: with an underage girl. And there's a reason why no
Speaker 5: one and the conference came defended him because we had
Speaker 5: all seen the videos he was showing on the house
Speaker 5: floor that all of us had walked away. Of the
Speaker 5: girls that he had slept with. He'd brag about how
Speaker 5: he would crush ed medicine and chase it with with
Speaker 5: an energy drink so he could go all night. This
Speaker 5: is obviously before you got married. And so when that
Speaker 5: accusation came out, no one defended him, and then no
Speaker 5: one on the media would give him the time of
Speaker 5: the day. All of a sudden he found fame because
Speaker 5: he opposed the Speaker of the House back in November.
Speaker 1: That none of them defended him because they had seen videos.
Speaker 1: I don't know what was in those videos, but which
Speaker 1: seems in my mind to be a real indictment of
Speaker 1: the people who saw the videos, because if you are
Speaker 1: witness to something you think is a criminal action, you're
Speaker 1: really not supposed to just ignore it.
Speaker 2: Look at what they've been doing with respect to George Santos,
Speaker 2: a guy who they know to be a serial grim,
Speaker 2: no effort to expel him. Just look at the several
Speaker 2: people who since being sworn in, have been exposed as
Speaker 2: having grossly lied about their biography. This is what the
Speaker 2: caucus has become people who are criminals, people who are
Speaker 2: compulks of liars, people who masquerade the things that they
Speaker 2: are demonstrably not. And it is all fine so long
Speaker 2: as they told the party line. And here Matt Gates
Speaker 2: is not telling the party line. That's when people in
Speaker 2: the Republican Caucus finally acknowledge the things that he has
Speaker 2: been accused of.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I just was shocked. You know, it's
Speaker 1: a real moment of saying the quiet part loud.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And who is going to be the next Speaker
Speaker 2: of the House. Will it be Jim Jordan? Will it
Speaker 2: be the guy who probably that the great conspiracy theorist
Speaker 2: to ever serve in the House of Representatives. That person's
Speaker 2: name is Jim Jordan, someone who has led these baseless
Speaker 2: investigations into Joe Biden and who has given had his
Speaker 2: money accepted by people like Mike Lawler so caldmore So,
Speaker 2: what are they even doing?
Speaker 1: So one of the cases that was made to me
Speaker 1: yesterday by Jake Sherman of punch Bowl was that Democrats
Speaker 1: should be happy that they had McCarthy, and that McCarthy
Speaker 1: was actually good to Democrats, and that Jim Jordan will
Speaker 1: be worse. I was somewhat baffled by this, because, like,
Speaker 1: what is worse than an impeachment in quiry.
Speaker 2: And thirty percent cuts and walking away from your agreement
Speaker 2: with the White House and with your Democratic colleagues when
Speaker 2: it came to the dead ceiling agreement.
Speaker 1: So even if Jim Jordan has the votes, I mean,
Speaker 1: can he actually like jail Democrats?
Speaker 3: I mean, what is he going to do that's going
Speaker 3: to be worse.
Speaker 2: The thing that we have learned the thirty percent cuts
Speaker 2: last Friday and so muchose is that Kevin McCarthy is
Speaker 2: as extreme as any other member of the House Republican
Speaker 2: when it comes to policy preferences and the legislation that
Speaker 2: they would be willing to support or bring to the floor.
Speaker 2: You know, when you're the speaker, at at a minimum,
Speaker 2: you're doing what you have the votes to do, which
Speaker 2: are Caucus is telling you to do, largely unless you're
Speaker 2: a powerful speaker. And the way that Nancy Pelosi was
Speaker 2: who still very much reflected the values of our caucts,
Speaker 2: and you didn't see anything approximating the levels of disagreement
Speaker 2: that we've seen this year and the one hundred and
Speaker 2: eighteen comes. I think that Jake is wrang as someone
Speaker 2: who firmly believes the truth, which is that the House
Speaker 2: Republican Caucus is ungovernable and unable to run the country.
Speaker 2: Demonstrating for people the chaos that comes when these people
Speaker 2: have the gavel is helpful in explaining to people what
Speaker 2: is going on and why they should go to defeat
Speaker 2: individual like Mike Walllett.
Speaker 1: It's absolutely so insane. So tell me what your schedule
Speaker 1: is now.
Speaker 2: My schedule is getting out in this district and talking
Speaker 2: with people about kitchen table subjects, my efforts to continue
Speaker 2: to lower costs for people when it comes to prescription drugs,
Speaker 2: and to make housing affordable, and to get assault weapons
Speaker 2: off our streets because people are getting gunned down every
Speaker 2: single Damia and it is a uniquely American problem that
Speaker 2: we can solve, but only if we have a majority
Speaker 2: willing to pass a universal background checks law and then
Speaker 2: assault weapons. And I've been talking about democracy itself, which
Speaker 2: I think will become even more prominent in people's minds
Speaker 2: when Donald Trump is formally nominated this year and it
Speaker 2: continues to talk about pardoning the insurrection. As at the
Speaker 2: Capitol on January sixth, and jailing his political Thank you so.
Speaker 3: Much for joining us. Really appreciate you, No problem, Molly.
Speaker 2: People can also go to mondarefourcongress dot com and make
Speaker 2: a contribution or sign up to volunteer.
Speaker 3: Yes both good.
Speaker 1: Congressman Jared Moscowitz represents Florida's twenty third congressional district. Welcome
Speaker 1: to fast Politics, Congressman Moscowettes.
Speaker 4: Hi, Molly, thanks for having me.
Speaker 3: You're a freshman congressman, right.
Speaker 4: Yes, Yes, it's been nine months of just absolute and
Speaker 4: utter enjoyment to be in the House of Representatives and your.
Speaker 1: Freshman congressman from the state of Florida.
Speaker 4: Yes, as they call it in other circles, the Free
Speaker 4: State of Florida.
Speaker 3: Yes, the Free State of Florida.
Speaker 1: First, let's talk about McCarthy had said he would take
Speaker 1: a vote on impeachment, realized he didn't have the votes,
Speaker 1: decided that he would just get going on impeachment. When
Speaker 1: you walked into that impeachment last week, did you think
Speaker 1: that Republicans really thought they had something.
Speaker 4: I knew the hearing they were about to have was
Speaker 4: gonna be a big fucking mistake for them. And I
Speaker 4: knew that because they liked to tell everybody what they're
Speaker 4: gonna do. They've been telegraphing this entire impeachment inquiry on Twitter.
Speaker 4: We have this, we have that big, big alert or
Speaker 4: they show the red alert symbol every time they like
Speaker 4: drip drip this stuff. And so everything they had was
Speaker 4: already public, right, and we already had seven or eight
Speaker 4: or these hearings. They didn't have a new fact witness coming.
Speaker 4: They were bringing basically like a Fox News panel to comment.
Speaker 4: And so because of that, that allowed Democrats to prepare,
Speaker 4: which we did significantly on the last eight months of
Speaker 4: hearings and all of the statements they have made and
Speaker 4: all of the stuff about Donald Trump. And so look
Speaker 4: what you saw was you saw an organized Democratic committee oversight.
Speaker 4: Dems prepared. Republican oversight did not. And that is what
Speaker 4: the dramatic part was. By the way, they also have
Speaker 4: no evidence, so you know, it's tough to prepare when
Speaker 4: you have no evidence. But they didn't even do a
Speaker 4: great job of making up new stuff. They brought, you know,
Speaker 4: their greatest playbook for the last eight months, and I
Speaker 4: think it completely backfired on them.
Speaker 1: What I think is really interesting about that impeachment hearing
Speaker 1: is I've never seen an impeachment hearing that ended up
Speaker 1: into like a showcase. There's always so much media chatter
Speaker 1: about like there's no Democratic bench, and it was like
Speaker 1: one after another of you guys just like kind of
Speaker 1: showing off a little bit.
Speaker 4: Hakin did that intentionally. So we understood at the very
Speaker 4: beginning of Congress that they had built that oversight committee.
Speaker 4: If you look who's on there, Marjorie Taylor Green, Lauren Bober,
Speaker 4: Andy Biggs, you know, Jim Jordan. Right, we understood that
Speaker 4: they built that committee for television, right, They built that
Speaker 4: committee for a specific audience to convince the American people.
Speaker 4: We knew that, so we respond in kind, right, and
Speaker 4: a Quin put some of the best messengers on there
Speaker 4: that have been in Congress, like AOC, like Katie Porter,
Speaker 4: like Jamie Raskin. You have a number of them that
Speaker 4: are great messengers to get the truth out. And then
Speaker 4: he took a bunch of freshmen, myself, Maxwell Frost, Robert Garcia,
Speaker 4: Jasmine Crockett, Summer Lee. He took a bunch of these
Speaker 4: freshmen Dan as well, who had done the impeachment hearing previously.
Speaker 4: They put a bunch of these freshmen to combat the lives.
Speaker 4: We knew we're going to come out of this committee,
Speaker 4: and so what you saw is you saw strategy from
Speaker 4: Hakim Jeffries come to fruition in that hearing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's kind of incredible. Like I was thinking about
Speaker 1: it because just like listening to Summerlee and then you'd
Speaker 1: go back to the magas and it would be like
Speaker 1: Lauren Bobert MTG trying to get that photo. I don't
Speaker 1: know why, but she loves that have photo of Hunter Biden.
Speaker 4: Well, because they have no evidence. Molly, think about it.
Speaker 4: If they had evidence, hard evidence, they would have presented it,
Speaker 4: but instead the presenting pictures of stuff that Hunter Biden did.
Speaker 2: Look, we get it.
Speaker 4: The last eight months of that hearing is all about Hunter, right,
Speaker 4: and look, Hunter has clearly done something's wrong. He's been
Speaker 4: indicted and he should pay the consequences if that is
Speaker 4: found by a jury or a judge that he has
Speaker 4: done something wrong. He deserves a fair trial, as is
Speaker 4: Donald Trump. But the laws the law, and Democrats are
Speaker 4: going to stick by it. Of course, by the way,
Speaker 4: you don't see that from our colleagues across the aisles.
Speaker 4: You know, we asked members to raise their hands to say,
Speaker 4: if a jury or a judge says Hunter Biden is
Speaker 4: guilty and Donald Trump is guilty separately, will you stand
Speaker 4: by that? All the Democrats raise their hand. None of
Speaker 4: the Republicans did right, And so you know, look, we
Speaker 4: were coordinated, as not the right word, but we all
Speaker 4: were talking to each other, so we kind of knew
Speaker 4: what everyone was going to say, which is why, you know,
Speaker 4: I noticed people had different styles, people had different messages.
Speaker 4: There wasn't us covering the same thing over and over again.
Speaker 4: They did was repeat each other with the same stuff
Speaker 4: they've been saying for eight months. If they had evidence, Molly,
Speaker 4: you would have seen evidence, but you didn't see that.
Speaker 4: You saw the greatest hits and all the things Hunter
Speaker 4: Biden has done wrong in his life.
Speaker 1: So after that hearing, did Republicans realize that it went
Speaker 1: as badly as it clearly did or did it take
Speaker 1: them a day to realize it immediately?
Speaker 4: They knew it was bad by the way, they knew
Speaker 4: it was bad as it was happening. I quoted Steve
Speaker 4: Bannon in the hearing, because Steve Bannon was podcasting the
Speaker 4: hearing as it was happening. And so yeah, no, look,
Speaker 4: you know Republican media knew right away that this was
Speaker 4: going poorly hours into the hearing. The members of the committee,
Speaker 4: as soon as the committee was over, they knew as well.
Speaker 4: I'm not going to say which ones, but many of
Speaker 4: them came over to us and was like, that was
Speaker 4: a disaster for you. Guys crushed us. You could see that.
Speaker 4: Not only did they realize that, and the media realized that,
Speaker 4: Which is why, Molly, have you found or seen anyone
Speaker 4: trying to change the narrative and say that hearing went
Speaker 4: really well. Not a single person, not even the chairman Okay,
Speaker 4: has been on TV saying that was a home run
Speaker 4: hearing for us. That's how poorly it went. In fact,
Speaker 4: even Republicans that were not on the committee believed that
Speaker 4: what just transpired or the six hours set the impeachment
Speaker 4: hearings that they're trying to have back now, maybe by months.
Speaker 1: So do we think this is the thing? I have
Speaker 1: long suspected, But I'm curious if you think this too.
Speaker 1: That was why Kevin McCarthy decided he couldn't afford the
Speaker 1: shutdown was because he realized that that was such a
Speaker 1: disaster that a shutdown to would just endanger those eighteen
Speaker 1: vulnerable Republicans so much.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 4: Kevin didn't tell me why he did that. I think,
Speaker 4: in fairness to him for a second, I think he
Speaker 4: realized Republicans would get blamed for the shutdown they did
Speaker 4: because right, every well not just that every time this
Speaker 4: has happened, because it is not the first time they've
Speaker 4: done this. Three other times in recent memory they've been blamed.
Speaker 4: So history had showed them, if we do this, we're
Speaker 4: going to get blamed. And yes, he recognized that he's
Speaker 4: got vulnerable Republicans, many of them in Democratic seats, that
Speaker 4: in order to remain in the majority, he didn't want
Speaker 4: to hang those guys out, so he did that. But
Speaker 4: he surprised the Democratic Party by doing that. We didn't
Speaker 4: know that CR was coming. It came out of nowhere. Now, look,
Speaker 4: I voted for it. I'm glad to what we were
Speaker 4: paying our troops and we kept the government, the government open,
Speaker 4: But we were Democrats were never interested in shutting down
Speaker 4: the government. That was a narrative that they put out
Speaker 4: there right to try to explain to people why they
Speaker 4: brought this CR because as they knew then, which has
Speaker 4: now proven to be true, that cr was not going
Speaker 4: to be popular with the Republican base, and so they
Speaker 4: tried to explain it away and blame Democrats, but it
Speaker 4: didn't work, and that obviously is what has led us
Speaker 4: now to having the vacancy in the speakership.
Speaker 1: So every newsroom thought the government was going to shut
Speaker 1: down for months and months and months, and I was like,
Speaker 1: really surprised at the sea change.
Speaker 4: I was convinced well, because look for eight months, other
Speaker 4: than the debt ceiling deal, for eight months, we saw
Speaker 4: the MAGA wing right emboldened for the last eight months,
Speaker 4: and we saw them emboldened because of that motion to vacate.
Speaker 4: That motion of akate of one member right gave them power.
Speaker 4: This motion of ak didn't come out of nowhere. This
Speaker 4: has been a threat that's been out there. They've been
Speaker 4: teasing it, they've been talking about it, they've been whispering
Speaker 4: about it, right, And so that kept the majority of
Speaker 4: the Republicans, even the moderate ones, kind of beholden to
Speaker 4: the Freedom Caucus, to those twenty or so MAGA members
Speaker 4: that are in the House. That's where the power center
Speaker 4: has been. When it was clear that they wanted to
Speaker 4: shut down, and it was clear they were getting their
Speaker 4: instructions from Donald Trump, beamed down from Truth Social that
Speaker 4: they wanted to shut down.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 4: It was the belief of many that we were going
Speaker 4: to go off the cliff because those guys were never
Speaker 4: going to allow anything to happen.
Speaker 2: And when they.
Speaker 4: Voted against the conservative cr a thirty percent cut, Now
Speaker 4: obviously I voted against that.
Speaker 3: The one with all the poison pills.
Speaker 4: Yeah, with only all the poison pills. When they voted
Speaker 4: against that, I thought to myself, Oh, we're definitely going
Speaker 4: off the cliff. That was the most conservative cr that
Speaker 4: has I think ever been put forward in recent memory.
Speaker 4: If they were serious about really wanting to cut spending,
Speaker 4: they should have given that some serious consideration. But you know,
Speaker 4: they have all sorts of chaos politics going on on
Speaker 4: their side of the aisle. But yeah, when we saw
Speaker 4: that fail, we absolutely concluded, well, if that's not good enough, right,
Speaker 4: if cutting the government thirty percent is not good enough,
Speaker 4: then only shutting it down must be what they wanted.
Speaker 1: Kevin McCarthy's basic pitch to Democrats was that he is
Speaker 1: less awful than Jim Jordan. Right, that's sort of the devil,
Speaker 1: you know, et cetera.
Speaker 3: Et cetera.
Speaker 1: But Kevin McCarthy in saying that he was, in fact
Speaker 1: though he did do this impeachment right, so that was like,
Speaker 1: you know, he had gas stove hearings, He tortured many
Speaker 1: members of the Biden administration, bringing them in.
Speaker 4: Has the government knocked on your door to take your
Speaker 4: stove away yet?
Speaker 1: If only? But I mean, he did all the stuff
Speaker 1: that you know. The worry is Jim Jordan might do.
Speaker 1: First of all, Jim Jordan doesn't have the votes right
Speaker 1: now anyway, But like, how would that even work?
Speaker 4: Well, first of all, look, there are multiple narratives here
Speaker 4: that can all simultaneously be true. Right. One narrative is that, yes,
Speaker 4: I think a speaker Jim Jordan would be worse than
Speaker 4: a speaker Kevin McCarthy. That narrative can be true. We
Speaker 4: can agree on that. I think we can also agree
Speaker 4: that if a Democrat filed a motion of vacate on
Speaker 4: Nancy Pelosi, I think we can also agree that we
Speaker 4: wouldn't have had one Republican vote to save Nancy Pelosi. Now, look,
Speaker 4: people like myself, I'm not celebrating that the House now
Speaker 4: doesn't have a speaker, and I don't think Democrats should
Speaker 4: be celebrating that. I don't think Democrats should be celebrating
Speaker 4: that Kevin McCarthy was removed, okay, because it's still going
Speaker 4: to be a Republican speaker. We shouldn't celebrate this chaos.
Speaker 4: Democrats need a functioning Republican Party. There's only two parties,
Speaker 4: and we're always going to have either a divided House
Speaker 4: of Representatives or divided Senate. We're always going to have
Speaker 4: some sort of divided government, and we need a functioning
Speaker 4: Republican Party. Donald Trump has made them non functioning. He
Speaker 4: has ruined them in ways that I don't think anyone
Speaker 4: anticipated that anyone could do to the Republican Party before
Speaker 4: Donald Trump came on the scene. And it's unclear what
Speaker 4: will be left of the Republican Party after Donald Trump
Speaker 4: loses the election and how they will try to move
Speaker 4: past that error. But look, Democrats don't vote for Republican speakers. Now,
Speaker 4: that doesn't mean Molly, we didn't try to find a
Speaker 4: potential deal for the Institution. There were many conversations going
Speaker 4: on between Democrats and Republicans right to try not to
Speaker 4: allow the Imaga wing to plunge the Institution into this
Speaker 4: sort of chaos. But in order to have a deal,
Speaker 4: the side that wants to deal, the moderate Republicans, have
Speaker 4: to present something, and they presented nothing. They just wanted
Speaker 4: us to help them. But this was an internal Republican
Speaker 4: civil war between themselves. It didn't involve us. But also, look,
Speaker 4: we have our own politics. Let's not pretend that politics
Speaker 4: isn't a part of it. If Democrats went out and
Speaker 4: saved Kevin McCarthy just because it was a Tuesday for
Speaker 4: no other reason, no deal, not stopping the impeachment, not
Speaker 4: getting more seats on rules, not getting Ukraine funding just
Speaker 4: because we were asked to do it. Think about the
Speaker 4: problems we'd have now in the Democratic caucus to progressives,
Speaker 4: that the Democratic Progressives and the Democratic Moderates would be fighting,
Speaker 4: and how came Jeffries would be having to referee that.
Speaker 1: Do you think there's a world where there ends up
Speaker 1: being some kind of power sharing or now.
Speaker 4: No, Listen, there were times this week where I thought, well,
Speaker 4: maybe we're headed towards power sharing. It won't be real
Speaker 4: power sharing, but maybe we can get a sliver, Maybe
Speaker 4: we can get a little bit, Maybe we can get
Speaker 4: a couple members more on rules and make things slightly
Speaker 4: more moderate that come to the floor. I thought there
Speaker 4: was a glimmer of that, but when the other side
Speaker 4: didn't offer anything, and I think the reason ultimately they
Speaker 4: realized why they didn't offer anything is not because they
Speaker 4: didn't want to try. They recognized that they would They
Speaker 4: would bleed even further.
Speaker 3: Right because the base is so radicalized.
Speaker 4: Yeah, because of the base right, it's so radicalized. If
Speaker 4: the Speaker made a deal with us to survive, it
Speaker 4: would have been a short survival rather than having a fast,
Speaker 4: quick death of yesterday, it would have been a slow
Speaker 4: bleed where okay, now it went from eight, now it's ten,
Speaker 4: now it's twelve, now it's fifteen, now twenty. The pressure
Speaker 4: from outside Republican Twitter politics right would have been so
Speaker 4: immense that it would have collapsed. And the amount of
Speaker 4: Democrats it would have constantly taken to save the Speaker,
Speaker 4: it would eventually not have worked. And so I concluded
Speaker 4: after the last couple of days, and unfortunately, I don't
Speaker 4: think that some sort of power sharing agreement can survive
Speaker 4: in today's politics.
Speaker 1: So there are eighteen vulnerable House Republicans who want in
Speaker 1: Biden districts. I think six in New York. Some in Arizona, California,
Speaker 1: they would like to not have a Jim Jordana speaker.
Speaker 1: I always think back to like how Nancy Pelosi never
Speaker 1: wanted her moderates, her people who came from swingey districts
Speaker 1: to have to vote against or for very extreme legislation
Speaker 1: because she thought it would hurt them. But that seems
Speaker 1: to not be on the radar of Republicans at all.
Speaker 4: Look, Nancy Pelosi will go down as one of the
Speaker 4: greatest speakers of all time, and if that wasn't clear
Speaker 4: before yesterday, it's super clear now. But at the same time,
Speaker 4: Democrats didn't have this power. There's no doubt that Speaker
Speaker 4: McCarthy's team when they finally agreed to lower the threshold
Speaker 4: to one member being able to file a motion of
Speaker 4: a kate. But you know, I'm making like a Marvel
Speaker 4: Avengers reference when they gave Matt Gates the Infinity Stones.
Speaker 3: The Infinity Stones, Yes.
Speaker 4: It was only a matter of time until Matt Gates
Speaker 4: snapped his fingers to make Kevin McCarthy disappear. This was
Speaker 4: absolutely inevitable, by the way, I think many Republicans also
Speaker 4: thought this was inevitable. Now they didn't know that Matt
Speaker 4: would be able to get seven others to join him,
Speaker 4: but they knew that at some point Matt would use this. Now,
Speaker 4: apparently Matt made a promise he wouldn't. Okay, but come on,
Speaker 4: this was power that an individual member has not had
Speaker 4: in the House for a long time. It didn't happen
Speaker 4: under Nancy because the power didn't exist. By the way,
Speaker 4: it's an interest think kind of political conversation, which is,
Speaker 4: if a single member had this power when Nancy was speaker,
Speaker 4: would they have used it? Probably not, but they would
Speaker 4: have used the threat of it right to move policy.
Speaker 4: I think this is dangerous. I think giving one member
Speaker 4: the ability to vacate a speaker when ninety five of
Speaker 4: ninety six percent of your conference may support the speaker,
Speaker 4: which is what happened here, and four percent of the
Speaker 4: conference decides to remove the speaker, I think that's dangerous.
Speaker 4: I don't think we should have a one person being
Speaker 4: able to do that now. I don't think it should
Speaker 4: go back to only like the majority leader or the whip.
Speaker 4: I think it shouldn't go back just to leadership. I
Speaker 4: think it could go to the members. But one no,
Speaker 4: twenty thirty, Yeah, That makes a little more sense now
Speaker 4: because now it's a much larger part of the caucus.
Speaker 4: This was something Molly that members have been talking about
Speaker 4: for months. Is Matt going to do it? Is Matt
Speaker 4: not going to do it?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 4: It has been the back of the mind. After the
Speaker 4: debt sealing deal, we thought there was a chance that
Speaker 4: this could happen. But look, Matt was clearly very strategic.
Speaker 4: He needed to wait for the moment in which he
Speaker 4: could get other members to join him, and as soon
Speaker 4: as he realized he had other members on his side
Speaker 4: of the aisle to join him. I think Matt always
Speaker 4: knew that, just like I said, Republicans would never vote
Speaker 4: for Nancy Pelosi. I think Matt always knew Democrats wouldn't
Speaker 4: vote for a Republican speaker. But that doesn't happen. By
Speaker 4: the way, Democrats vote for Democratics speakers. Republicans vote for
Speaker 4: Republican speakers. We don't vote for each other speaker. I
Speaker 4: think Matt knew that, even though he was messaging for
Speaker 4: weeks that, oh, I think the Democrats are going to
Speaker 4: save him. I think the Democrats are gonna save him.
Speaker 4: I think that was some just some you know, verbal
Speaker 4: jiu jitsu Matt was doing. But I think Matt always
Speaker 4: knew that he had to do it with his folks.
Speaker 4: He had to find enough members on his side to
Speaker 4: do it, and when he had it, he pulled the trigger.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much, Congressman.
Speaker 2: I hope you'll come back absolutely.
Speaker 1: Brian Boitler is the editor of the new substack Off Message.
Speaker 3: Welcome back to Fast Politics.
Speaker 2: Brian, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: Molly, you write a substack. Tell us a little bit
Speaker 1: about your substack.
Speaker 6: The substack is called off Message. I launched it well,
Speaker 6: today's Thursday, as we record this. I launched it almost
Speaker 6: two weeks ago, on Friday, the twenty eighth of September.
Speaker 6: I think it is meant to make people feel okay
Speaker 6: about fostering vigorous intra democratic party and intraliberal debate.
Speaker 2: I launched it because I had this.
Speaker 6: Kind of gnawing, brewing sense over the last few years,
Speaker 6: at least that in the Biden era, but really the
Speaker 6: in I think the post Trump era, that media on
Speaker 6: the on the center to left had kind of split
Speaker 6: or fractured into two camps. One that sort of like
Speaker 6: Pro Democratic Party sort of presents a united front against
Speaker 6: Donald Trump and authoritarianism, and then sort of more factional
Speaker 6: media where there is obviously like dissenting opinion about the
Speaker 6: Democratic Party or Joe Biden, but it's really about factional
Speaker 6: grievances or factional concerns, and there isn't this sort of
Speaker 6: freewheeling conversation among most liberals about how things are going
Speaker 6: inside the house. I think that's totally understandable. I mean,
Speaker 6: the Trump presidency was a very traumatic moment for the country.
Speaker 6: It's reasonable for people to feel like there's a lot
Speaker 6: of risk inherent in airing differences and revealing that not
Speaker 6: everything is harmonious inside the big tent.
Speaker 1: So speaking of not harmonious inside the big tent, let's
Speaker 1: talk about what's not harmonious inside the GOP. Sure, Kevin
Speaker 1: McCarthy nine months they decided, and a full term abortion
Speaker 1: is something that is not a real thing, but that
Speaker 1: Republicans love to talk about. The thing that gets me
Speaker 1: furious is there is a mainstream media messaging operation that
Speaker 1: is saying Democrats, you didn't save Kevin McCarthy, and you
Speaker 1: blew it.
Speaker 3: And now and now, oh you're going.
Speaker 1: To see now Speaker Jim Jordan is going to exact
Speaker 1: his revenge, like trying to impeach the president.
Speaker 3: I mean, what does that revenge even look like?
Speaker 6: Well, at the moment, it looks like very petty things, right, Like,
Speaker 6: apparently under instruction from Kevin McCarthy, the interim leadership of
Speaker 6: the House is expelling.
Speaker 3: The guy who stands on the plastic crank.
Speaker 2: That's Patrick McKenny.
Speaker 6: He's expelling the Democratic leadership from some of their extra
Speaker 6: office space on the Capitol. The hideaways, Yeah, they're hideaways,
Speaker 6: and it just it's extremely petty.
Speaker 3: This kind of really petty staff. Do voters like that?
Speaker 6: So, I'm not sure how much of it voters see.
Speaker 6: I think that like if you explained it to a voter,
Speaker 6: a median voter and average voter, they would think that's
Speaker 6: petty and stupid.
Speaker 2: I don't like that.
Speaker 6: I think the atmospherically, what you end up with is
Speaker 6: like one party really likes to smack the other party around,
Speaker 6: belittle them, abuse them. And that's not appealing per se.
Speaker 6: But neither is like refue using the stand up for
Speaker 6: yourself or not looking for ways to stand up for yourself.
Speaker 6: And sometimes I think Democrats fall into this trap of
Speaker 6: just assuming well everyone's going to see this Republican behavior,
Speaker 6: They're going to be put off by it, and that's
Speaker 6: all we have to do.
Speaker 2: It's sort of like when John Kerry got swift voted.
Speaker 6: It was this moment where they punched him in the
Speaker 6: nose and a lot of people were like, well, that's unbecoming.
Speaker 6: But they also, I think, didn't respond well to John
Speaker 6: Kerrey's inability to like authentically stand up for himself and
Speaker 6: it hurt him. And I think that that happens over
Speaker 6: and over again in this kind of partisan conflict, This
Speaker 6: idea that it was democrats job to rescue Kevin McCarthy
Speaker 6: from his antagonist or save him from himself. I think
Speaker 6: it like initially started with Republican operatives and conservative or
Speaker 6: centrist pundits who were kind of looking for like a
Speaker 6: hot take about the whole thing, but it has bled
Speaker 6: into sort of mainstream cable news type commentary and coverage.
Speaker 6: And it's part of a dynamic in mainstream journalism where
Speaker 6: Republican extremism and kind of bad acting, this sort of
Speaker 6: like their abusive will punch in the face stuff, is
Speaker 6: just presumed that they will be dysfunctional, they will misgovern
Speaker 6: the place. It's up to Democrats to clean everything up
Speaker 6: or to make unreciprocated concessions to the Republicans to sort
Speaker 6: of appease them so that they don't do too much damage.
Speaker 6: And obviously that that's not a reasonable or fair or
Speaker 6: sustainable way to organize the country or a fair expectation
Speaker 6: for any kind of outside critic to impose on people
Speaker 6: in parties and politics. It long predates this speakership fight,
Speaker 6: and you're just seeing this manifestation of it. And I
Speaker 6: agree it's extremely annoying.
Speaker 3: But it's also for example, the threat of a Jim
Speaker 3: Jordan's speakership, which I heard a number of sort of
Speaker 3: people who are theoretically center as say, did he's going
Speaker 3: to come after Democrats? Jim Jordan's speakership does not look
Speaker 3: good for the eighteen Republicans who are desperately needed. If
Speaker 3: Republicans want to keep the.
Speaker 1: Hand right, I mean, like you know, Jim Jordan gets
Speaker 1: up there and starts screaming and jumping up and down.
Speaker 1: I mean, do soccer moms in Pennsylvania like that? I mean,
Speaker 1: is that what they want?
Speaker 6: I think Jim Jordan, for the reasons you articulate and others,
Speaker 6: is going to have a hard time getting two hundred
Speaker 6: and eighteen votes to become.
Speaker 1: A speaker, but that's being held up as the threat
Speaker 1: against Democrats, Like, so he's mean to the like ultimately
Speaker 1: that's better for winning back the majority, and they've already
Speaker 1: done everything crazy.
Speaker 3: I don't understand do therapy for me?
Speaker 6: There's a or what sort of question that hangs around
Speaker 6: all this, Like what is worse than Kevin McCarthy, And
Speaker 6: I think Democrats reason through this fairly intelligently before they
Speaker 6: made the decision to unify and vote to aust McCarthy,
Speaker 6: is that the House was already led by somebody who
Speaker 6: was an apologist for the insurrection, who tried to undermine
Speaker 6: the January sixth Committee, who brought Donald Trump back into
Speaker 6: the party and launched the impeachment inpreak against Joe Biden.
Speaker 6: So like, what is Jim Jordan going to do beyond that?
Speaker 6: That's so much worse. I do think that, like if
Speaker 6: Donald Trump himself were to become a speaker, and there
Speaker 6: are Republicans talking about it, there's a level of narcissism,
Speaker 6: of sabotage, of corruption where if you put somebody with
Speaker 6: those qualities into the speakership. They could really take the
Speaker 6: country in bad places. Like Donald Trump, I assume, would
Speaker 6: you know, shut the government down and leave it to
Speaker 6: close down and unlessen until the House defunded his prosecutions,
Speaker 6: and then you'd have to wait and see our like
Speaker 6: our five or six Republicans going to try to force
Speaker 6: a vote to reopen the government.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 6: They will have just voted for Donald Trump to become
Speaker 6: a speaker. There's this theoretical realm where if you put
Speaker 6: somebody who doesn't understand like what a public trust is
Speaker 6: and is only in it for themselves into the speakership
Speaker 6: and they're they're using it for their own personal purposes
Speaker 6: as opposed to for partisan purposes or whatever else, they
Speaker 6: could do a lot of damage. But Jim Jordan, is
Speaker 6: he going to double impeach Joe Biden to Okay? I mean,
Speaker 6: I guess let him. I think I think the attitude
Speaker 6: should be. Look, if you want help getting somebody elected speaker,
Speaker 6: you're going to have to make some reasonable concessions to us.
Speaker 6: Maybe you can start by saying that the twenty twenty
Speaker 6: election wasn't stolen, and we'll.
Speaker 2: Give you some votes. But if you're not willing to
Speaker 2: do that.
Speaker 6: Bring it on, like, bring us your worst, It's up
Speaker 6: to you, Like that is a you guys decision, and
Speaker 6: so far, at least, I think that's the posture Democrats
Speaker 6: have taken.
Speaker 2: I think it's wise.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, it is just an incredible spot to
Speaker 1: be in, Like Republicans have decided that they are going
Speaker 1: to be held hostage by the far right, and then
Speaker 1: sort of the larger situation is that, you know, somehow
Speaker 1: this is Democrat's faults.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I don't really know what Democrats can say beyond
Speaker 6: like are you are you fucking kidding me? When people
Speaker 6: try to say it's your fault.
Speaker 1: It's such a sort of metaphor for where we are
Speaker 1: in this fucker well.
Speaker 6: I mean, if if you have a two hundred and
Speaker 6: twenty two or whatever it is vote House majority, you
Speaker 6: have two options. You can have a disciplined party that's
Speaker 6: competent and operates in good faith with itself enough to
Speaker 6: sustain two hundred and eighteen votes, you have four votes
Speaker 6: to spare. This is what Nancy Pelosi was able to
Speaker 6: do for two years and there was no internal effort
Speaker 6: to depose her. Or if you can't do that, then
Speaker 6: you more or less have to go to the other
Speaker 6: party and say, all right, like, let's come up with
Speaker 6: somebody who you can tolerate and give us, you know,
Speaker 6: just enough votes to get over the hump. But then
Speaker 6: it's not going to be one of your one of
Speaker 6: your fire breathing partisans. It's going to be somebody who
Speaker 6: understands that they need Democratic votes to sustain the speakership.
Speaker 2: And as long as Republicans aren't willing.
Speaker 6: To contemplate any kind of concessions like that, you know,
Speaker 6: Democrats have kind of done all they could.
Speaker 2: Maybe they can go out in front of the.
Speaker 6: Cameras and kind of mock reporters for taking this notion
Speaker 6: that they had some duty to rescue Kevin McCarthy seriously, Like,
Speaker 6: I don't think anybody in the media sincerely believes that
Speaker 6: it's just playing along with dumb, dumb talking points.
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, one of the really interesting things that I
Speaker 1: think that's going on. And I don't know if it's
Speaker 1: interesting exactly, but like it's really hard to know what's
Speaker 1: happening polling wise, Like do you trust polls? I mean,
Speaker 1: I saw an insane poll out of Pennsylvania that had
Speaker 1: Bob Casey winning by ten points and Joe Biden losing
Speaker 1: by three points.
Speaker 6: I don't put much stock in them, just because the
Speaker 6: election is so far out. There isn't a whole lot
Speaker 6: of I think, like historical data to support this, because
Speaker 6: there's only been forty five presidents. But you know, it's
Speaker 6: two and a half years in to the Biden presidency.
Speaker 6: I think some of the you know, the the novelty
Speaker 6: of having beat Trump and pushed him out of office
Speaker 6: has worn off, and warts are starting to show, and
Speaker 6: people are a little bit you know, frustrated by this
Speaker 6: or that, and so I think that there's a way
Speaker 6: to understand why Joe Biden, despite being a much better
Speaker 6: president than Donald Trump in every way, is polling at
Speaker 6: a similar level to him, and the senators and governors
Speaker 6: in their states are in a slightly less polarized political situation.
Speaker 6: They're obviously almost all of them younger and a pure
Speaker 6: younger than Biden, so they are pulling better than Biden.
Speaker 6: But I think that when Donald Trump seals up the nomination,
Speaker 6: which I expect he will, you know, American memories are short,
Speaker 6: but I think that the memory of the Trump presidency
Speaker 6: is still sharp enough and it will be people will
Speaker 6: recall it when he becomes the nominee, and they'll be reminded,
Speaker 6: you know why it is that they showed up to
Speaker 6: vote for Joe Biden in twenty twenty, and the base
Speaker 6: will reconsolidate around him and the poll and will improve.
Speaker 6: I mean, I can't be certain that that's what's going
Speaker 6: to happen.
Speaker 3: But that seems like a likely scenario.
Speaker 6: That's how like you can look at a poll that
Speaker 6: says that and say that that is capturing something real
Speaker 6: about public sentiment at the moment, But it doesn't mean
Speaker 6: that the country is ready to go back.
Speaker 3: To Trump, right.
Speaker 1: It is interesting to me, though, like one of the
Speaker 1: fundamental problems we're having here is that there's a real
Speaker 1: economic inequality issue that is really a problem, and I
Speaker 1: actually do think that Biden is trying to address that,
Speaker 1: and you see him quietly trying to forgive student debt
Speaker 1: in big tranchos. But that that's sort of the question.
Speaker 1: If you want young people to vote for you, you have
Speaker 1: to give them a reason, right.
Speaker 6: Yeah, Well, I think you have to acknowledge or speak
Speaker 6: to what they say their concerns are, even if their
Speaker 6: concerns aren't about policy.
Speaker 2: Or finances or whatever else.
Speaker 6: I mean, you know, young people obviously, I think want
Speaker 6: student loan forgiveness to happen, and we're happy when he
Speaker 6: rolled out his plan and we're bummed when the Supreme
Speaker 6: Court tossed it out.
Speaker 2: But you know, they're also saying that, like.
Speaker 6: The Democratic Party tells us that we are like we
Speaker 6: have to vote as if our lives depend on it.
Speaker 6: But they don't act like that when they're governing, and
Speaker 6: they don't elevate people who are in our generation or
Speaker 6: you know, just one generation older than us to leadership
Speaker 6: positions within the party, like which is it?
Speaker 2: Pick one?
Speaker 6: If that's what their concern is. And I think Democrats
Speaker 6: aren't doing themselves any favors by ignoring it. That doesn't
Speaker 6: mean they have to like throw out Joe Biden and
Speaker 6: throw out Chuck Schumer right now, but they should at
Speaker 6: least say, hey, we hear you, and change is coming
Speaker 6: and we and we get that you're speaking to a
Speaker 6: real issue within the party. It's not going to be
Speaker 6: us forever, and that might help on the sheer numbers
Speaker 6: of it. The Biden economy has been great for inequality.
Speaker 6: I mean, obviously inequality persists, but he's brought it down substantially. Right,
Speaker 6: There's just been a lot of churn in this post
Speaker 6: pandemic period, but policy wise and in the economy, and
Speaker 6: it has you know, while on the whole brought income
Speaker 6: inequality down, it has also created these weird things where
Speaker 6: like a bunch of people get kicked off of Medicaid
Speaker 6: and student.
Speaker 2: Loans are going to be forgiven, but then they're not.
Speaker 1: So a lot of the things that have happened during
Speaker 1: the Biden administration that have been bad are things that
Speaker 1: were consequences of this Supreme Court. Right, yes, So for example,
Speaker 1: the fall of Row not being able to forgive the
Speaker 1: student debt that he wanted to forgive, stuff like that.
Speaker 1: So I've heard takes that Biden gets blamed for that
Speaker 1: even though it wasn't his fault. I mean, do you
Speaker 1: think that's a real phenomenon.
Speaker 2: I think it's totally plausible.
Speaker 6: I mean, I think it's a little bit mystifying why
Speaker 6: Biden continues to be I mean, it's not like he's
Speaker 6: we must respect the sanctity of the Supreme Court, and
Speaker 6: I trust the good faith of all the nine justices.
Speaker 6: He has gone further than that, right, he is willing
Speaker 6: to say that there's problems there, but he has not
Speaker 6: really been willing to hold them up as a foil.
Speaker 1: I'm surprised by that because I know the idea of
Speaker 1: more justices is wildly unpopular, but the idea of term
Speaker 1: limits is not.
Speaker 2: Yes.
Speaker 6: And I mean, I don't think Biden necessarily has to
Speaker 6: come out in favor of court pack He's actually come
Speaker 6: out against it, so I doubt he's going to come
Speaker 6: out in favor of it. But he could say sort
Speaker 6: of vaguer thing like this Supreme Court, which Republicans stole,
Speaker 6: is corrupted by money and has issued these illegitimate rulings,
Speaker 6: and we are going to undo them. We are going
Speaker 6: to bring back row, we are going to bring back
Speaker 6: student debt relief, and we are going to use our
Speaker 6: checks and balances to make sure that they don't for
Speaker 6: the will of the people anymore. I mean, there's a
Speaker 6: lot of ways you could message it without saying thirteen
Speaker 6: justices or bust. And I think that to the extent
Speaker 6: that Democrats pick up that their natural supporters don't really
Speaker 6: understand that the Supreme Court was the reason that abortion
Speaker 6: got thrown out.
Speaker 2: Although I think almost everyone realizes that.
Speaker 6: Or that the Supreme Court is the reason the student
Speaker 6: loan reform got thwarted, which I think many maybe many.
Speaker 2: People don't realize that.
Speaker 6: If there's some knowledge gap there, fill it just say
Speaker 6: the Supreme Court is the reason. But we have power
Speaker 6: to checks and balances are the foundation of the American system,
Speaker 6: and they have shown that they need to be checked,
Speaker 6: and so we're going to check them. And then that's
Speaker 6: how we're going to restore reproductive rights, and that's how
Speaker 6: we're going to restore a student debt relief.
Speaker 2: I would that's what I would say.
Speaker 1: So interesting, Who do you think is going to be
Speaker 1: Speaker of the House? Go?
Speaker 3: It can be.
Speaker 6: Crazy, probably Patrick McHenry. I think that it's not going
Speaker 6: to be that interesting. Probably when all of a sudden done,
Speaker 6: it's going to probably be a crazy process to get there.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's my take too. Go on.
Speaker 6: My take is that all of the possible outcomes seems
Speaker 6: so imp osbi, but one of them has to be true.
Speaker 2: Right, So somebody from.
Speaker 6: The problem solvers realm, you know, who's like has tried
Speaker 6: to create distance from MAGA is going to be elected
Speaker 6: with like fifty to fifty support from Democrats, Republicans, or
Speaker 6: they'll find a conservative like like Tom Cole from Oklahoma
Speaker 6: who's very conservative but has like never really been part
Speaker 6: of the MAGA scene, you know what I mean. And
Speaker 6: I think Democrats think that he's like somebody you can
Speaker 6: talk to and work with, and he could get he
Speaker 6: could get seventy five percent of the votes from Republicans
Speaker 6: and twenty five percent from Democrats.
Speaker 2: But it's a strange situation.
Speaker 3: They got to get to eighteen man.
Speaker 6: Yeah, And I think Democrats have some you know, have
Speaker 6: some messaging options. They can say, we need if you
Speaker 6: want our votes, we need a speaker who doesn't reject
Speaker 6: the twenty the results of the twenty twenty election, like
Speaker 6: doesn't reject ad Ukraine.
Speaker 3: Such a low bar. I'm laughing to keep from crime. Yes,
Speaker 3: thank you, Brian.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 6: Molly was great the moment second Jesse.
Speaker 7: Cannon, Molly Jong Fast. I have never seen someone more
Speaker 7: thirsty for attention than Marjorie Taylor Green and how excited
Speaker 7: she is at the idea that mister Trump is coming
Speaker 7: to visit the GOP clucus and could maybe be their
Speaker 7: new Speaker of the House.
Speaker 1: It's the Donald Trump friend, Olympics and Marjorie Taylor Green
Speaker 1: is a candidate no listen.
Speaker 3: First of all, I would it's hard for me.
Speaker 1: To imagine a worse candidate for Speaker if you want
Speaker 1: to rewin the House than Donald Trump, and so I
Speaker 1: encourage Republicans to please nominate this person. Those eighteen vulnerable
Speaker 1: House Republicans are going to be completely and utterly screwed
Speaker 1: if Donald Trump becomes Speaker of the House.
Speaker 3: And that is our moment of fuck Erray.
Speaker 1: That's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in
Speaker 1: every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday to hear the best minds
Speaker 1: in politics makes sense of all this chaos. If you
Speaker 1: enjoyed what you heard, please send it to a friend
Speaker 1: and keep the conversation going. And again, thanks for listening.