Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics,
Speaker 1: where we discussed the top political headlines with some.
Speaker 2: Of today's best minds.
Speaker 1: And Donald Trump's rally crowd went silent when he confused
Speaker 1: Obama and President Biden. Yet again. We have such an
Speaker 1: interesting show today. Former Rolling Stone editor Noah Shackman joins
Speaker 1: us to talk about prescription drug use in the Trump
Speaker 1: White House.
Speaker 2: Then we'll talk to the host.
Speaker 1: Of the five to four podcast, Michael Leroff and Peter
Speaker 1: sham Shurry about the Supreme Court's latest descent into maga.
Speaker 1: But first we have the host of the Enemy's List,
Speaker 1: the Lincoln Project's own Rick Wilson. Welcome back, too, Fast Politics,
Speaker 1: my friend and yours, Rick.
Speaker 2: Wilson, Mollie Jong Fast.
Speaker 3: As always, I am delighted to join you on the
Speaker 3: stage of history.
Speaker 1: Exactly on the stage of history which will absorb us
Speaker 1: like everyone else. This is such an interesting week because
Speaker 1: I feel like this is a week that the Biden
Speaker 1: administration did a lot of politically useful things that are
Speaker 1: like election focused. And that's not a criticism, it's actually
Speaker 1: a compliment because of the enormous stakes of this election.
Speaker 1: But you and I talked on the phone a little
Speaker 1: bit earlier, and the thing we wanted to start by
Speaker 1: talking about was the hottest crack addict we know, Hunter Biden.
Speaker 3: Look, I have to tell you the fact that he
Speaker 3: finally sat down for their behind closed doors deposition, wiped
Speaker 3: the floor and knocked, as we say in the South,
Speaker 3: there Dickson the dirt.
Speaker 2: I've never heard that.
Speaker 3: He absolutely shamed and humiliated the moron crew of comer
Speaker 3: Jordan Gates, et cetera, et cetera. He just absolutely kicked
Speaker 3: their asses up one side and down the other. And
Speaker 3: his opening statement had a combination of very very well written,
Speaker 3: clear denunciation of their tactics and also absolutely dismantled the
Speaker 3: four witnesses that they have in this thing as criminals, frauds,
Speaker 3: people who are in jail for fraud, or Russian intelligence assets.
Speaker 3: It was masterful, and there's a reason they wanted to
Speaker 3: do this behind closed doors because they were afraid something
Speaker 3: like this could happen.
Speaker 1: I thought they wanted to do it behind closed doors
Speaker 1: because they hoped that they could then spin it.
Speaker 3: They did. But the fact that the deal was a
Speaker 3: release of the transcript, that was absolutely a masterstroke in
Speaker 3: this thing that prevented them from you know, just going
Speaker 3: on on Sean Hannity and saying, well, we found another
Speaker 3: seven hundred witnesses at Maurisma who said that we're perls
Speaker 3: of cash were taken to Delaware and look, this impeachment
Speaker 3: is dead. It is dead. It has no political viability.
Speaker 3: I spoke to a source last night who has some
Speaker 3: visibility into the thinking of the leadership left of it.
Speaker 3: They want this over, they want this over.
Speaker 2: Is that Colber's service dog, I mean, who is that?
Speaker 3: No, well, it's somebody with visibility into what's going on.
Speaker 1: Into the dusty attic that is James Comer's brain.
Speaker 3: Into the flaming pit of wild stupidity that is James Commer. Yes,
Speaker 3: but at the leadership level there are even people who
Speaker 3: you would sink are very maga, who are now like
Speaker 3: this has to stop. This is crazy.
Speaker 1: The only person I think who was like a little
Speaker 1: excited about it was maga Mad Gates.
Speaker 3: I'd be real careful, like talking about other people's addictions.
Speaker 2: That's sadd And you're not the only person who said
Speaker 2: that Hunter Biden said that to him.
Speaker 3: He did.
Speaker 1: Indeed, I'm trying to find where he said to mad
Speaker 1: Gates that if I wouldn't be arguing about substance abuse
Speaker 1: if I were you.
Speaker 2: Pretty incredible.
Speaker 1: But also there was Eric Swallwell saying, did you get
Speaker 1: two billion dollar from the Saudi government?
Speaker 2: I know, I know, I know.
Speaker 3: Listen, you know I got to say. I think the
Speaker 3: two people that have legitimately the most sort of like, yeah,
Speaker 3: there's this old phrase called berzuker Gang, which meant like
Speaker 3: the fury of the vikings, right, the two guys with
Speaker 3: the Berserker Gang, with the real excitement here, they love
Speaker 3: to go oh fuck me, no, in fact, fuck y'all
Speaker 3: to the magas are Moskowitz and Swallow, and they just
Speaker 3: they've become masters at inverting the bullshit gotcha game that
Speaker 3: has been the Fox News producer's greatest ally for the
Speaker 3: last ten years. They don't want to do this anymore
Speaker 3: on the Republican side in public because they know now
Speaker 3: there are people who are going to clown them with
Speaker 3: better and more photogenic moments.
Speaker 2: Producer Jesse has come along and saved usk.
Speaker 1: Mister Gates, were you on drugs when you were on
Speaker 1: the Barisma board?
Speaker 2: The witness otherwise known as Hunter Biden.
Speaker 1: Mister Gates, look me in the eye, you really think
Speaker 1: that's appropriate to ask me, mister Gates, absolutely the witness
Speaker 1: of all the people sitting around this table, do you
Speaker 1: think that's appropriate to ask me Matt Gates?
Speaker 2: Unbelievable?
Speaker 3: Yeah, listen, Matt Or as they call him now in Florida,
Speaker 3: Governor Gates, who is running for who? No, No, he's
Speaker 3: running for governor in Florida. He keeps denying it, but
Speaker 3: then he comes to Tallahassee and sits down and has
Speaker 3: meetings with all of the political operatives in the state
Speaker 3: that are ready to go for his run for governor.
Speaker 3: This is a guy who has never spent a day
Speaker 3: of his life worried about consequences because Daddy would always
Speaker 3: spend the money, write the check, get him out of trouble.
Speaker 3: A lot of the crap that they've laid on Hunter
Speaker 3: Biden and look, Molly, you can speak to this, but
Speaker 3: a lot of the stuff about Hunter he was taking
Speaker 3: responsibility for his addiction is something these fuckers would never
Speaker 3: do in a million years. And a lot of them
Speaker 3: have their own suite of addictions, including the ko Kayim.
Speaker 3: And I mean, I would say sex addiction is probably
Speaker 3: more prevalent on Capitol Hill than on a per capita
Speaker 3: basis in any place I've ever been.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is the thing.
Speaker 1: They have a very just completely fucked up view of
Speaker 1: how this is going to go. I also think what's
Speaker 1: interesting to me, and we talked about this before, and
Speaker 1: I want to talk about the Biden border trip now,
Speaker 1: is that what they're doing in the White House is
Speaker 1: And I know because I was.
Speaker 2: I was also there this week and we were talking
Speaker 2: about it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, drop that a bad Yeah, baby, I didn't get any.
Speaker 2: Of the cookies.
Speaker 1: They have these cookies with a seal, and I forgot
Speaker 1: to get the fucking you can ask for.
Speaker 2: The cook and they have em.
Speaker 1: And m's I'm aworried. The two things they said. They're
Speaker 1: really trying to do this thing where they fight back.
Speaker 1: So Biden goes on the same day that Trump goes
Speaker 1: to the border. Biden goes the border, and Biden says, Okay,
Speaker 1: you want to make immigration this issue, let's go. You know,
Speaker 1: he's really calling their bluff, right. They have this very
Speaker 1: very right leaning bill gives them everything they want, can
Speaker 1: close the border, can do this, can do that, and
Speaker 1: and I mean the speech that Biden gave was like,
Speaker 1: you know, they can come to the table anytime they want.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's annoying on some level because as someone
Speaker 1: who doesn't necessarily think that a guy who is not
Speaker 1: the president should be setting the tone, it's annoying, but
Speaker 1: it's also brilliant discuss.
Speaker 3: Look, Joe Biden has recognized that you can take the
Speaker 3: strong argument on immigration, okay, which is we're going to
Speaker 3: secure the border. We're going to appropriately and humanly manage
Speaker 3: our border. We're going to toughen up border patrol, We're
Speaker 3: going to give ice and border patrol resources that they
Speaker 3: need to do their jobs, and that Donald Trump is
Speaker 3: the one guy who is stopping that. The White House
Speaker 3: realized that, the Biden campaign realized that, Joe Biden himself
Speaker 3: realized that, and now they're putting it back on Donald Trump.
Speaker 3: They're saying, Okay, y know, if this is such a crisis,
Speaker 3: if the fentanyl is rolling in by the dump truck load,
Speaker 3: and it's an immediate crisis. If the child smugglers are
Speaker 3: bringing the babies across the border for bad people, then
Speaker 3: it's an immediate crisis. If there's one bajillion, trillion, gazillion
Speaker 3: immigrants crossing over every day with their with their with
Speaker 3: their strange foreign languages and their delicious ethnic foods. We
Speaker 3: have to stop it.
Speaker 2: If that's the case, language is that no one's ever
Speaker 2: heard languages no one speaks.
Speaker 3: Yeah, in Donald Trump's case, one of those languages would
Speaker 3: be English. But this idea that they've inverted the dynamic
Speaker 3: of power and the strong side of the argument, assertive
Speaker 3: side of the argument. You know, Biden is now the
Speaker 3: guy who wants to close the border. He wants to
Speaker 3: enforce the border, and this popular Fox illusion of Biden
Speaker 3: opened the border for the brown caravans. It's all a lie.
Speaker 3: It is about as truthful as the Hunter Biden evidence,
Speaker 3: which was to say, not truthful at all. And so
Speaker 3: now Biden's like, Okay, Donald, come to the table, Matto
Speaker 3: and Manno, If the dividing line in this race becomes
Speaker 3: Joe Biden saying we should secure the border and Donald
Speaker 3: Trump saying we should build concentration camps before we deport them,
Speaker 3: Joe Biden's gonna win on that issue.
Speaker 1: And I think that's the cow goes Sean Hannity, perhaps
Speaker 1: you'll remember him, said, Biden visiting the border is a
Speaker 1: cynical sit political stunt, and beyond disgraceful. Joe Biden should
Speaker 1: know that the only people allowed to visit the border
Speaker 1: for sick political stunts are Republicans. He then, in the
Speaker 1: same brats plugs his upcoming show with Trump to be
Speaker 1: aired from the border.
Speaker 3: I will never get over, you know, seeing Lindsey Graham
Speaker 3: and Tim Scott and Ted Cruz and all these other
Speaker 3: guys down there wearing their wish dot Com, fake LBB
Speaker 3: bulletproof best plate carriers, and they're wrap around Oakley's thinking
Speaker 3: that there's some sort of like costplay special operator bullshit.
Speaker 3: All of them go down to the border at the
Speaker 3: drop of the hat, stare across the rio grad and say,
Speaker 3: dear God, the care that it sweeps the horizon, and
Speaker 3: it's all people with not a single blue eyed soul
Speaker 3: among them. Oh my god, the drama, the drama that
Speaker 3: these assholes indulge themselves in about the border. It's only
Speaker 3: increased because, like heroin addicts, they're chasing the dragon of
Speaker 3: that first flush of how great it was, you know
Speaker 3: when they first started going down there. Now they have
Speaker 3: to do the barbed wire barricades and the floating razor
Speaker 3: balls and all that crap in the river and they've
Speaker 3: become part of the Fox News production cycle. They've become
Speaker 3: part of the scare tactic cycle, over and over and
Speaker 3: over again.
Speaker 1: We are a country of immigrants, right, I mean, the
Speaker 1: whole premise of this fucking country is that we all
Speaker 1: became here and then killed all the indigenous people because
Speaker 1: this was the dream of America. So the idea, and again,
Speaker 1: like the other thing which I think even Democrats have
Speaker 1: gotten a little bit removed frum is like immigrants are
Speaker 1: good for the economy, Like you have a tight line market,
Speaker 1: you need these people.
Speaker 3: Let me just say this not super widely known, but
Speaker 3: my family is in agriculture, citrus, soy hogs, peanuts, corn.
Speaker 3: Florida agriculture right now is in a desperate collapse because
Speaker 3: you know what, nobody's here anymore. They can't get workers.
Speaker 3: They can't get people to come and do the work.
Speaker 3: And so the idea of oh, well, well, of course
Speaker 3: these immigrants are taking this backbreaking minimum wage labor away
Speaker 3: from deserving white men.
Speaker 2: People who don't want it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, guess what, you can't get people right now in Florida.
Speaker 3: You can't get him in California and Arizona. We are
Speaker 3: killing a giant sector of our economy, the ag sector
Speaker 3: in particular is suffering. But you know, this is also
Speaker 3: why states are like, we've got to get those thirteen
Speaker 3: year olds working again. My god, the moral failing of
Speaker 3: this country where the kids can't go down the urine
Speaker 3: for the coal mine.
Speaker 1: Right exactly, But it is, I mean, that is is
Speaker 1: a really good point. And like I yesterday, I was
Speaker 1: talking to a guy who works at pro publica does
Speaker 1: very cool private sure partnerships with local news, and he
Speaker 1: was talking about they have been writing about the farmers
Speaker 1: in Wisconsin. Right there are a ton of undocumented people
Speaker 1: working in farms in Wisconsin, and a lot of them
Speaker 1: don't speak English.
Speaker 2: What is interesting on the ground is he told.
Speaker 1: Me that people who are employing these people know that
Speaker 1: they need that.
Speaker 3: They absolutely understand it, They absolutely know it, and they
Speaker 3: don't care. Right, they don't care.
Speaker 2: It is an.
Speaker 3: Astounding and bitter reality. This is a country that its
Speaker 3: largest trading partner is south of the border. We have
Speaker 3: a crossflow of work and workers and products back and forth.
Speaker 3: And this idea that the border is wide open is
Speaker 3: of course a lie. But we need in this country
Speaker 3: for the first time in forty five years to assis
Speaker 3: establish a legitimate, straight up guess worker system where they
Speaker 3: pay taxes in the system. And the fact that Donald
Speaker 3: Trump is the one holding the border open right now,
Speaker 3: all the negative consequences of having a border that is
Speaker 3: not being enforced right now, the whole fantasy of that
Speaker 3: they're smuggling hundreds of Al Qaeda in every day, and
Speaker 3: you know that five million children are trafficked over the
Speaker 3: border every half hour, and all this other garbage. There
Speaker 3: are bad things that happen at the border. There are
Speaker 3: legitimate concerns at the border, but they are not at
Speaker 3: the scale that you would think they are on Fox News.
Speaker 3: And the downsides of the idea of putting an iron
Speaker 3: wall across the border is that we're going to collapse
Speaker 3: several sectors of our economy pretty dramatically if we had
Speaker 3: the fantasy wall of Donald Trump from Baja to Brownsville.
Speaker 2: The idea that somehow building an enormous.
Speaker 1: Wall with I mean, the fact that we're even talking
Speaker 1: about this eight years later, right is such proof that
Speaker 1: everything has gotten so stupid.
Speaker 2: Right, there's no world in which an.
Speaker 1: Enormous concrete wall in a porous border it's going to
Speaker 1: do anything but enriched the construction companies, which is why
Speaker 1: it's such a great trumpy scam.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: Look, I mean Steve Bannon and his people. They wanted
Speaker 3: to take it private and build their a private.
Speaker 1: Wall, yes, where you have to pay to look at it.
Speaker 1: The whole thing is preposterous.
Speaker 3: It's absurdity.
Speaker 1: But speaking of preposterous, there's one last thing we have
Speaker 1: to talk about, which is Donald Trump a master at
Speaker 1: punting when it comes to his legal challenges.
Speaker 3: Discuss Well, Look, the court as I call it now,
Speaker 3: the Red Court. They gave Donald Trump two great gifts.
Speaker 3: They gave him time, and they gave him this comfort. Basically,
Speaker 3: the time that they gave him to push this thing
Speaker 3: into July is the clock running on Merrick Garland. Hey,
Speaker 3: how you'll like Merrick Garland. Now by the way out there,
Speaker 3: I'm just saying, but Merrick Garland is going to pick
Speaker 3: up the phone to Jack Smith and say, hey, look
Speaker 3: you did a great job. Clock ran out where it goes.
Speaker 3: You got to wrap it up. He's the Republican nominee,
Speaker 3: and that was the thing they gave Trump.
Speaker 2: Is by that.
Speaker 3: Point the convention won't matter. He'll have the delegates and
Speaker 3: they're going to do it by acclamation. Sooner than later
Speaker 3: he'll be the Republican nominee, and that is going to
Speaker 3: buy him a hall pass on this and the Court.
Speaker 3: For all that people say, oh, John Roberts is an
Speaker 3: institutionalist and he was to protect you. Guess what, John Roberts.
Speaker 3: There are three people on the Court who are the
Speaker 3: products of the MAGA era. Okay, Gorsich, Cavanaugh and Comy Barrett.
Speaker 3: They are for all Donald Trump makes jokes about it,
Speaker 3: they are his people. To whatever degree Alito and Thomas
Speaker 3: represented an earlier time, they are both now obviously locked
Speaker 3: in on a partisan frame where they don't care. I
Speaker 3: think Clarence Thomas now is even though his wife is
Speaker 3: a part of the case and he should recuse himself.
Speaker 3: He's basically an extend the little finger to the country,
Speaker 3: and Roberts doesn't even have the moral courage to tell
Speaker 3: Thomas he should recuse. I'm not going to give John
Speaker 3: Roberts a lot more grace and running room here because
Speaker 3: this was a decision. Look, I was around for Bush v.
Speaker 3: Gore and they took it up in three days.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we're gonna not talk about bushfe Gore. Thank you.
Speaker 2: Rick Wilson any time. Did you know?
Speaker 1: Rick Wilson and I are bringing together some friends for
Speaker 1: a general election kickoff party at City Winery in New
Speaker 1: York on March sixth. We're going to be chatting right
Speaker 1: after Super Tuesday about what's going on, and it is
Speaker 1: going to probably be the one fun night for the
Speaker 1: next eighty days.
Speaker 2: If you're in.
Speaker 1: The New York area, please come by and join us.
Speaker 1: You can go to City Winery's website and grab a ticket.
Speaker 1: And Noah Shackman is the former editor in chief of Rolings.
Speaker 1: Don't welcome back, frend boss, colleague, Noah Schapman.
Speaker 2: Yo, my mind, let's talk about drugs.
Speaker 4: Great, one of my favorite.
Speaker 2: You have a huge scoop that has just dropped today.
Speaker 1: It's Monday, or at least it'll be Monday and you're
Speaker 1: listening to this, or maybe it will be Tuesday, Wednesday, whatever.
Speaker 1: It centers on the Trump White House and all the
Speaker 1: stuff that everyone was taking.
Speaker 2: So talk us through exactly how this went down.
Speaker 4: Sure, so, about six weeks ago there was a report
Speaker 4: by the Defense Departments Inspector General that laid up all
Speaker 4: these irregularities in the way that they were handing out
Speaker 4: prescription medications, but it was all kind of vague and
Speaker 4: it was all kind of weird. And addedly, white houses
Speaker 4: have been for a long time handing out prescription medications
Speaker 4: on flights to make sure that you know, ambient, to
Speaker 4: make sure people, you know, sleep on an overseas fly
Speaker 4: or something like that. But what my colleague and I
Speaker 4: discovered is freaking crazy, which is and there's a couple
Speaker 4: of different parts to it. Let's go over the first
Speaker 4: part first, which is just wide spread abuse of a
Speaker 4: very powerful stimulant called provigel or medopinos, the generic name.
Speaker 4: It's a drug that the military pilots us to keep
Speaker 4: awake when they're on like long, long, long, long missions.
Speaker 4: But in the Trump White House it was being passed
Speaker 4: around like old school speed. And in fact, when we
Speaker 4: talked to Trump White House staffers, they talked about a
Speaker 4: White House that was quote a wash in speed. And
Speaker 4: if you're taking the speed before or any of these uppers,
Speaker 4: they do not exactly produce clear thinking over the long haul.
Speaker 4: They do not exactly produce rational thought in the long term,
Speaker 4: even if they're good at keeping you awake in the
Speaker 4: short term. So that's the first of several things which felt.
Speaker 1: We don't know who was taking it though, right, it
Speaker 1: could be anyone in that White House.
Speaker 2: It wasn't clear who.
Speaker 4: Well put it to you this way, there was thousands
Speaker 4: and thousands and thousands of pills ordered over a very
Speaker 4: short time, like a few months, so it not only
Speaker 4: literally could have been anybody, it might have literally been everybody,
Speaker 4: if you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: I mean, how does this compare to normal white houses?
Speaker 4: There's really no comparison. So let's just say that my
Speaker 4: colleagues Win Soups saying, and I talked to like everybody involved,
Speaker 4: including people that were involved in other white houses. And
Speaker 4: while they would occasionally hand out this drug if you know,
Speaker 4: there was like an overnight flight and someone had trouble
Speaker 4: sleeping and need to be up for a meeting with
Speaker 4: a world leader the next day, they never ever used
Speaker 4: it like the Trump white House did, which was you know,
Speaker 4: speech writers would use it to jam out speeches, comms,
Speaker 4: people would use it to spin the media. Lawyers or
Speaker 4: I'm not sure about lawyers, but people responding to Robert
Speaker 4: Mueller's probe would use it to you know, try to insist,
Speaker 4: you know, called with new es for the why they
Speaker 4: totally weren't in bed with Russia, like it was really
Speaker 4: a pretty widespread usage.
Speaker 2: Is this all Ronnie Jackson? I mean, where does this originated?
Speaker 4: Right? So, Ronnie Jackson, who was the head of the
Speaker 4: White House medical Unit and physician to the President under
Speaker 4: both Obama and Trump, this all seems to circle back
Speaker 4: on him. Now Ronnie Jackson is.
Speaker 1: He's now a member of Congress, which is the most
Speaker 1: amazing part of this whole story.
Speaker 4: Yeah, which is wild. He was not the planet's most
Speaker 4: respected doctor. So for Corple, the Pentagon did a different
Speaker 4: report about his behavior when he was Obama's doctor, and
Speaker 4: he seem to have a habit of getting wasted and
Speaker 4: banging on female subordinates hotel room doors. They couldn't verify
Speaker 4: whether he had gotten wasted and crashed a carl. There
Speaker 4: was that allegation. And this is my favorite part is
Speaker 4: that they interviewed sixty of his current and former subordinates
Speaker 4: and fifty six saw him being abusive or had him
Speaker 4: being abusive to them. So he's not the best and
Speaker 4: so a lot of these problems were traced back to him.
Speaker 4: That said. Jackson was out of the Trump White House
Speaker 4: by twenty nintheen and even though his subordinates, his minions
Speaker 4: were kind of running the shop. These problems persist in
Speaker 4: the Trump White House right to the very end.
Speaker 1: Right so when he left there was another doctor who
Speaker 1: came from the same scool of doctor Fieldgod Madison Well.
Speaker 4: I would say that Jackson had both installed his minions
Speaker 4: and key spots throughout the administration on the medical side,
Speaker 4: and that the culture that he had promoted, what one
Speaker 4: source told us was a kind of wild West in
Speaker 4: which any one quote got anything they wanted. That that
Speaker 4: culture took a long time to unwind, and really took
Speaker 4: at least through the Trump administration through the end of it.
Speaker 2: What else is sort of shocking.
Speaker 4: The medofinal the military grade speed was only the beginning of.
Speaker 4: Like I said, there was a culture of anything, anytime,
Speaker 4: anywhere you need. And one of the drugs that people
Speaker 4: seem to need the most was xanax, which is an
Speaker 4: anti anxiety medication. Why is it and it's also a
Speaker 4: very powerful sedative you.
Speaker 2: Know need I'm a Jewish woman. You don't need to
Speaker 2: tell me what xanax's now.
Speaker 1: That said, I have been sober since I was nineteen,
Speaker 1: but you know, you explaining xanax to me like, Okay, what.
Speaker 2: You take to come down from cocaine anyway?
Speaker 4: Continue, That's like explaining like astronomy on ride.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: So, not only was the Trump White House an incredibly
Speaker 4: stressful place to work, but if you're already hopped up
Speaker 4: on uppers, you need something to be able to sleep
Speaker 4: in a couple hours through the night. And so there
Speaker 4: was a pretty widespread culture of Xanax usage too. Now
Speaker 4: that's important for a bunch of different reasons, including a
Speaker 4: Xanax was never mentioned in that initial Pentagonal report. I
Speaker 4: mentioned that was one of the things. So that was
Speaker 4: not written down in these ledgers that they obtained of
Speaker 4: all these various drugs that were prescribed at the Trump
Speaker 4: White House as something else. And then the other thing
Speaker 4: is that they were not only taking xanax, but many
Speaker 4: of them were taking xanax and drinking too. Now, one
Speaker 4: xan x by itself can mellow you out. You started
Speaker 4: taking xan x and having a couple of drinks with it,
Speaker 4: and it can be really serious, and you know, you
Speaker 4: do too much of that and can have huge risks
Speaker 4: to your health. So doing sort of uppers and xen
Speaker 4: x with booze. That is a really scary rollercoaster to ride.
Speaker 1: Do you think that this will have repercussions to doctor Jackson?
Speaker 4: I don't know, Honestly, I didn't surprise he hasn't suffered
Speaker 4: war repercussions already. I'm surprised he got into Congress. So
Speaker 4: I'm not sure what the consequences will be for doctor Jackson.
Speaker 4: I think the consequences for the country if this kind
Speaker 4: of drugstore cowboy rodeo returns to the White House, I
Speaker 4: think are really serious. I mean, we already know the
Speaker 4: will be.
Speaker 2: He'll be visiting us in fortunately a man.
Speaker 4: Yes, continue, well, I mean I feel like, look, we
Speaker 4: already know these guys have some some really kooky plans
Speaker 4: in place. So if you layer on top of that
Speaker 4: kookie plans and even you know, kookie or decision making
Speaker 4: more erratic, more hopped up, that seems like a really
Speaker 4: bad combination.
Speaker 2: It does.
Speaker 1: And we've seen lots of authoritarian regimes that were powered
Speaker 1: by speed.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's true. And then you know the other thing
Speaker 4: speaking of authoritarian regimes is like, you know, there's a
Speaker 4: real climate in the Trump White House of fear and paranoia,
Speaker 4: you know, and New was sometimes the benefits of reporters
Speaker 4: like us, where you know, people would be more inclined
Speaker 4: to snitch on their you know, bureaucratic rivals than they
Speaker 4: were to actually do their jobs. And people are constantly
Speaker 4: scared and constantly trying to jockey for position, to get
Speaker 4: in Trump's favor, and it created this atmosphere, especially with
Speaker 4: Roddy Jackson, of fear and paranoia. And we uncovered something
Speaker 4: new that really added to that climate of fear and paranoia,
Speaker 4: which is I tracked down a mental health worker who
Speaker 4: was doing therapy sessions for administration officials in the Trump
Speaker 4: White House. And what this source told me was that
Speaker 4: they were marched to a particular you know, officials office,
Speaker 4: the therapy session would happen, and then immediately afterwards the
Speaker 4: therapist was grilled about what the Trump officials said in
Speaker 4: therapy amazing, which is it's.
Speaker 1: Not how any of this is supposed to work, but
Speaker 1: it's really not.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And so reaching that kind of therapist confidentiality, you know,
Speaker 4: it was particularly shocking to me. I'm I'm married to
Speaker 4: a psychiatrist, and obviously, as a as a New York.
Speaker 2: Jew, therapy is something near and dear to your.
Speaker 4: Heart, But I mean, I think it's shocking to pretty
Speaker 4: much everyone. The one of the senior people at the
Speaker 4: White House Medical, a professional named Keith Bass who's now
Speaker 4: at the VA and who served many presidents. He claimed
Speaker 4: that this was all just to make sure that people
Speaker 4: that were military members were still fit for duty and
Speaker 4: still fit for top secret clearance. That was his claim
Speaker 4: and pulled it to us on the record. So he
Speaker 4: admitted that the therapist was grilled after sessions. However, then
Speaker 4: I went back to the therapist and was like, what's
Speaker 4: up with this, and the therapist said, no, no, no, that's
Speaker 4: not right. First of all, you know, I saw both
Speaker 4: military and civilians, so that military only things long. And
Speaker 4: number two, the therapist really felt like while the question
Speaker 4: started out broad, they really went down a slippery slope
Speaker 4: and really just contributed to anything goes atmosphere where could
Speaker 4: hand out any drug and say anything about any patient
Speaker 4: behind their back, and that information was really handled loosely.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm shocked. Yeah, I know, it's one of these things.
Speaker 4: Like to me, it like honestly, it helped make a
Speaker 4: little bit more sense of that madhouse because people were
Speaker 4: literally on drugs and spying on each other.
Speaker 1: Yeah, who could have seen it? It's basically everything you think.
Speaker 1: It strikes me that it seems like there hasn't been
Speaker 1: a ton of accountability for any of this.
Speaker 4: No, there hasn't been.
Speaker 1: Call me a Pollyanna, but like, isn't there a world
Speaker 1: where people get in trouble for doing bad illegal stuff?
Speaker 2: For now?
Speaker 4: Yeah? I mean, look, I think I'm a little surprised
Speaker 4: there hasn't been also, like just medical repercussions for people,
Speaker 4: Like a little surprised people involved in this haven't suffered
Speaker 4: any repercussions, you know, just within their their licensing bureaus
Speaker 4: or whatever. That sounds like small potatoes, prefer doctor. It's
Speaker 4: really not.
Speaker 2: So.
Speaker 4: No, there haven't been a repercussions yet. But I think
Speaker 4: what we've been able to do is really show like
Speaker 4: a little bit more why things happen the way they
Speaker 4: happen at the Trump White House and what might happen
Speaker 4: in the future. Like I just want to say the
Speaker 4: other thing, like, you know, this is a story for
Speaker 4: Rolling Stone, right, Rolling Stone is on anti drug you know,
Speaker 4: outfit or anything like that. Yes, yes, I'm aware, So
Speaker 4: I'm not trying to be all sober. Yeah, I'm hardly that,
Speaker 4: as you know. But like I think, there's a big
Speaker 4: difference between having some fun or expanding your mind in
Speaker 4: the way you choose and abusing prescription meds at the
Speaker 4: highest levels of government. Those would be like two different things.
Speaker 4: And so you know, I'm not trying to be all
Speaker 4: par clutching here, but this is fund Yeah, this is
Speaker 4: the ain't great And honestly I was shot with what
Speaker 4: I found, really shot.
Speaker 2: Noah shank Man, thank you so much for joining us.
Speaker 4: Thanks wellie.
Speaker 1: Michael Leirov and Peter Shamshery are the hosts of the podcast.
Speaker 2: Five to four.
Speaker 1: My favorite podcast is this podcast called five to four
Speaker 1: about how the Supreme Court.
Speaker 2: Sucks and I'm a huge fan.
Speaker 1: And yesterday when the Supreme Court did yet another incredibly
Speaker 1: fucked up thing, I thought, wonder if I could email
Speaker 1: Leon and ask him if we could get two of
Speaker 1: the hosts of five to four.
Speaker 2: So we did and they're here. Help me.
Speaker 5: Welcome Michael, Hi, everybody, very pleased to be here.
Speaker 1: Well, we're thrilled to have you and Peter hello, and
Speaker 1: very excited to have you both.
Speaker 2: Two of the three hosts. Rihanna's not here. Someone talk
Speaker 2: us through what the fuck happened yesterday?
Speaker 4: I can walk you through the basics.
Speaker 5: I guess Donald Trump is Obviously, he's been indicted in
Speaker 5: a few different states by a few different actors, but
Speaker 5: one of them, the Special Council Jack Smith, has indicted
Speaker 5: him in federal court in the District of Columbia for
Speaker 5: crimes related to the January sixth riot, including conspiracy against
Speaker 5: rights and conspiracy to defraud the United States. President Trump
Speaker 5: has raised a defense saying he is immune from criminal
Speaker 5: prosecution for his actions around and leading up to January sixth,
Speaker 5: and yesterday the Supreme Court agreed to hear that argument
Speaker 5: and scheduled oral argument for late April, which had the
Speaker 5: effect of delaying the ability to try Donald Trump on
Speaker 5: these charges and take that trial to completion before the election.
Speaker 5: That seems impossible now.
Speaker 6: And if I can add some color here, the DC
Speaker 6: Circuit had basically ruled against Trump earlier this month, So
Speaker 6: the Supreme Court had a couple of options. They could
Speaker 6: have just allowed that to stand and said you're not
Speaker 6: immune the trials going forward, or they could have taken
Speaker 6: up the case in some form or fashion, which is
Speaker 6: what they did. What they did that was so bizarre.
Speaker 6: I think a lot of people expected that they might
Speaker 6: take up the case. But what they did that was
Speaker 6: so bizarre was take it up on such a kind
Speaker 6: of slow schedule. Usually they'd take something like this up
Speaker 6: on an expedited basis, so that we're getting it dealt
Speaker 6: with in the span of a few weeks rather than
Speaker 6: a few months, like Bush versus Gore right, or like
Speaker 6: they've sped along some other Trump proceedings like the Fourteenth
Speaker 6: Amendment claim, which they dealt with relatively quickly, and I think,
Speaker 6: you know, we'll probably see an opinion a little bit
Speaker 6: faster in that case. So they expedited things all the time.
Speaker 6: It's not uncommon, and it's pretty telling it they didn't
Speaker 6: do it here.
Speaker 5: Yeah, And to make that point even stronger, back in December,
Speaker 5: when Donald Trump indicated he was going to appeal on
Speaker 5: the basis of this immunity, the Special Council brought this
Speaker 5: to the Supreme Court and said, let's skip the DC circuit.
Speaker 5: This is a big important issue. It's going to end
Speaker 5: up here anyway, so why don't you just take this up?
Speaker 5: And the Court could have done that in December. They
Speaker 5: did that. They've skipped Circuit review in for example, the
Speaker 5: student loan case where they nullified Biden's student debt relief.
Speaker 5: They skipped the Circuit Court of Appeals there, this is
Speaker 5: something they could do, they've done recently. Instead, they kicked
Speaker 5: it down to the DC Circuit and wasted three months
Speaker 5: and then took it up just a total just wasting
Speaker 5: everybody's time.
Speaker 2: Clearly just delaying.
Speaker 5: This to put any possible resolution past the elections. The
Speaker 5: only possible explanation, the only plausible explanation.
Speaker 2: They granted cert. Right, can you explain what that means?
Speaker 6: Yeah, cert is just the court accepting a case. You
Speaker 6: need four justices to grant cert as opposed to five
Speaker 6: for an actual majority. They're just saying, yeah, we're going
Speaker 6: to hear this case on the merits. I think again,
Speaker 6: that was something people expected. People just didn't expect them
Speaker 6: to put it on a slow moving schedule.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: If you were trying to help out Donald Trump, this
Speaker 1: would be the way you would do it.
Speaker 5: Absolutely. Trump's main tactic, his main litigation strategy and all
Speaker 5: these cases has been delay, delayed, delayed, delay, with the
Speaker 5: hopes that he can win the twenty twenty four election
Speaker 5: and then use his power as president to shut down
Speaker 5: the investigations or prosecutions on the federal level and shields
Speaker 5: himself from having to pay any judgments or serve any
Speaker 5: prison time at the state level. That's what he's trying
Speaker 5: to do, and the court is helping him. They are
Speaker 5: just straight up enabling him.
Speaker 1: So I think of it as like there are three
Speaker 1: Trump installed justices, right, the smartest of whom is Amy.
Speaker 2: Comy Barrett by a large margin, but she's still a
Speaker 2: zellin yes, yes.
Speaker 1: And then you have like the Fox News brain damaged
Speaker 1: Alito and Thomas, and then you have like the sort
Speaker 1: of Roberts who is still like pretending that he's normal
Speaker 1: but he's not.
Speaker 2: Well.
Speaker 1: You look at this case, almost everyone thought that this
Speaker 1: would absolutely not be called up.
Speaker 2: And I'm hoping you talk about this week.
Speaker 1: On your excellent podcast, you guys talked about the Nixon case,
Speaker 1: which sets the which is is really preposterous.
Speaker 2: Will you talk about that and how that plays into
Speaker 2: all of this.
Speaker 6: Yeah, sure, So Nixon Vie Fitzgerald is really the only
Speaker 6: Supreme Court case that has dealt with immunity for presidents.
Speaker 6: It was from nineteen eighty two. It was by Nixon, standards,
Speaker 6: relatively small potatoes. It's just a guy who testified he
Speaker 6: was in the Air Force, and then Nixon fired him
Speaker 6: once Nixon got into office on the basis that he
Speaker 6: didn't like his testimony, and the guy sued for basically
Speaker 6: wrongful termination, and the Supreme Court said, well, we're not
Speaker 6: going to allow civil damages against presidents for things they
Speaker 6: do in office, for like official acts they take in office.
Speaker 6: There is really no case that deals with criminal immunity.
Speaker 6: So the Nixon case is sort of all we have,
Speaker 6: and frankly, it's just not really on point. You know,
Speaker 6: I think everyone agrees that, you know, hiring and firing
Speaker 6: within the military or executive agencies is something that is
Speaker 6: a part of the president's job to some degree. Whether
Speaker 6: facilitating a coup is part of the president's job is a.
Speaker 2: Whole different question.
Speaker 6: So we're in a totally different scenario here, and you know,
Speaker 6: we're sort of just staring at the Nixon case thinking, well,
Speaker 6: is there anything it can tell us about the Trump situation. Frankly,
Speaker 6: I'm not sure that there's too much.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I think that's right, And it's hard to say
Speaker 5: what precisely attack the Supreme Court is going to take here.
Speaker 5: But it does seem like they might be setting this
Speaker 5: up to say, well, does the Nixon I. Fitzgerald case
Speaker 5: extend to criminal liability as well, and to say no, no,
Speaker 5: that does not mean you're immune from criminal liability.
Speaker 2: They have no leg to stand on here though.
Speaker 6: No.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's it's a crazy and frankly frivolous argument. The
Speaker 5: Constitution explicitly contemplates the president being subject to criminal process
Speaker 5: after leaving the office. In the impeachment judgment clause, it says,
Speaker 5: after you're impeached, you know, that doesn't stop you from
Speaker 5: being prosecuted for crimes that you committed while in office.
Speaker 5: So it's right there in the text of the Constitution.
Speaker 5: It's a pretty wild claim, but it's not when I
Speaker 5: think Trump expected to win on just to drag this
Speaker 5: out long enough. His lacky's on the co have obliged him.
Speaker 2: In that everyone.
Speaker 1: I mean, I actually was talking on the phone or
Speaker 1: I was talking in person to it was one of
Speaker 1: those like very smart people who were like, oh, they're
Speaker 1: never going to take this up. And I feel like
Speaker 1: this Supreme Court does tend to plumb the depths.
Speaker 5: Yeah, you know, you'll never go broke betting that they
Speaker 5: will just whatever like the worst Fox News strained like
Speaker 5: you know fourteen or Reddit commenter wants them to do.
Speaker 3: It's pretty wild.
Speaker 5: This is very very hackish and in the tank for
Speaker 5: Trump in a way that is like even a little
Speaker 5: surprising to me, to be honest, And we are pretty
Speaker 5: cynical about this court.
Speaker 2: Peter, are you surprised?
Speaker 6: I don't think I'm as surprised as a lot of
Speaker 6: other people. I do think that, you know, if you
Speaker 6: look at a lot of commentators from a few days ago,
Speaker 6: they were saying, well, the worst case scenario is that
Speaker 6: the Court will take up the case and drag this
Speaker 6: through late March, and what they actually did was drag
Speaker 6: it through late April at the earliest. So I do
Speaker 6: think it was a situation where just about everyone was
Speaker 6: caught off guard by the scale of what they did,
Speaker 6: whether you predicted some little part of it or not.
Speaker 6: So I don't want to pretend that I was the
Speaker 6: one person to see this coming. I really didn't see
Speaker 6: all of it coming. But it doesn't surprise me that
Speaker 6: four or five justices on the Court would want to
Speaker 6: deal with the immunity issue themselves rather than have the
Speaker 6: DC circuit be the last word.
Speaker 1: But do you think again, Jesse says, like bad podcasting
Speaker 1: is trying to predict the future.
Speaker 2: But it's so crazy.
Speaker 1: I mean, you think they're going to be like, you
Speaker 1: can be immune from all the crimes you did.
Speaker 2: No, I think that.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 6: Trump's bringing a few different arguments. The craziest one is basically,
Speaker 6: you know, the court lacks jurisdiction to review any of
Speaker 6: this due to separation of powers, which would basically mean
Speaker 6: that the president is a god king and can amit
Speaker 6: all sorts of heinous crimes as long as there's.
Speaker 2: Just Seal Team six, right, right.
Speaker 6: This is the theory that, like, you know, you can
Speaker 6: just kill your political opponent, and when Congress tries to
Speaker 6: impeach you, you kill them too, and this is all
Speaker 6: somehow technically legal, right. I don't think the court buys that.
Speaker 6: But there are some slightly subtler arguments that he is making.
Speaker 6: One is that they can just say, well, look, he's
Speaker 6: immune for certain types of actions, and this is one
Speaker 6: of those actions that we are going to say that
Speaker 6: this is sort of this is an official act, which
Speaker 6: is the term that the Court and Nixon v. Fitzgerald
Speaker 6: used Now Is that a good argument. No, but it
Speaker 6: is sort of a limiting principle that might prevent the
Speaker 6: worst case sort of scenarios. The other thing they can
Speaker 6: do is basically say that impeachment is the proper process
Speaker 6: to go through here, and that you sort of need
Speaker 6: to move your way through the entire impeachment and conviction
Speaker 6: process for any criminal proceeding to that and come thereafter.
Speaker 6: That's an argument that Trump has made. He's also made
Speaker 6: the complete reverse argument before when he was getting impeached.
Speaker 6: She said, no, you have to criminally prosecute me first.
Speaker 6: But he's making some arguments that are maybe just a
Speaker 6: little I don't think they're better arguments, but they are
Speaker 6: a little more tolerable to the median person in the
Speaker 6: United States. So the court might bounce some of those around.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I think ultimately it seems.
Speaker 5: Like a very John Roberts sort of move to say,
Speaker 5: you know, within a couple weeks of each other or
Speaker 5: a couple months of each other, Donald Trump has to
Speaker 5: be on the ballot. You can't use the Fourteenth Amendment
Speaker 5: insurrection band to bar him from the ballot. But he
Speaker 5: also has to stay in trial for any crimes he
Speaker 5: may have committed while in office, a real classic Roberts
Speaker 5: split the baby type thing. And oh, hopefully you don't
Speaker 5: notice why we were coming to this decision, this magnanimous decision.
Speaker 5: We delayed the trial well passed when it would have
Speaker 5: any political impact. That all feels very like his style.
Speaker 5: They did something similar with this case Trump vi. Mezaars,
Speaker 5: which was about subpoenaing the president, and they delayed that.
Speaker 5: They ultimately resolved it and Trump lost, but after it
Speaker 5: had any force or meaning because he had left office.
Speaker 5: So it wouldn't be surprising to me if that's the
Speaker 5: direction they go here. I think six seven years ago
Speaker 5: the political media might have been taken in by that approach.
Speaker 2: They don't seem as.
Speaker 4: Easily fooled by it.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 5: The New York Times had an editorial last night saying
Speaker 5: this was a huge win for Trump, and their front
Speaker 5: page this morning framed this as a victory for Trump.
Speaker 5: I think people are sort of wise to this little
Speaker 5: game that Roberts likes to play at this point, and
Speaker 5: the court has lost any benefit of the doubt it
Speaker 5: used to get, and I think that's a good thing.
Speaker 5: I think they should feel political repercussions for this you know,
Speaker 5: if the Democratic Party wants to impose them, I think
Speaker 5: it would be well received by the public.
Speaker 1: I have a question about this, which is this court
Speaker 1: when they overturned Row, they sort of made a decision,
Speaker 1: would you know, politics be damned? What's the political calculus
Speaker 1: of taking this case.
Speaker 6: Yeah, if you're looking at the big picture political calculus,
Speaker 6: it's probably bad for the institution of the court. But
Speaker 6: there are some pretty strong indicators that the justices don't
Speaker 6: really care about that and have basically made the decision
Speaker 6: that whatever happens to the institution of the Court, the
Speaker 6: Democrats don't have the political jews to pack the court.
Speaker 6: They don't have the political jews to impeach Clarence Thomas
Speaker 6: or anything along those lines. So will people get mad, sure,
Speaker 6: But that's sort of the cost of doing business. And meanwhile,
Speaker 6: you know, they're getting high fives at the Federal Society meetings.
Speaker 6: So from their perspective, you know, who cares. Maybe you
Speaker 6: get some bad op eds in the New York Times,
Speaker 6: but cost of doing business. That's the price you pay
Speaker 6: in their view for being a fearless truth teller who
Speaker 6: is defending Donald Trump, right. I think that's the Sam
Speaker 6: Alito calculus. Frankly, I do think it's somewhat detached from reality,
Speaker 6: but there's also a pragmatism to it. I think it's
Speaker 6: true that the Democratic Party doesn't really have the muscle
Speaker 6: right now to hold the Court accountable, and I think
Speaker 6: the Court's aware of that.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I think they learned a lesson from Dobbs, the
Speaker 5: case overturning Roe v. Wade, and not the one we
Speaker 5: would have wanted. Obviously, the Republican Party underperformed historically compared
Speaker 5: to expectations in the midterm elections that followed. But Joe Biden,
Speaker 5: the President, was very against any efforts to push back
Speaker 5: and reform the Court in the wake of Dobbs. He
Speaker 5: didn't really want to take them on at the time.
Speaker 5: And the Supreme Court care that the Republicans took a loss. Right,
Speaker 5: they're still in power. They are still able to overturn
Speaker 5: the student debt relief, for example, or end affirmative action,
Speaker 5: or any of the other number of horrible things they've
Speaker 5: done or will do. Get up there saying we'll hold
Speaker 5: all the cards, and you guys aren't even willing to
Speaker 5: talk about doing anything to take them from our hands.
Speaker 5: So why would we slow down. I think it's ultimately
Speaker 5: until an institutional counter emerges to them from either Congress
Speaker 5: or the executive that is willing to actually push back
Speaker 5: on them, they are going to feel completely uninhibited. And
Speaker 5: that's frightening.
Speaker 4: That's frightening to me.
Speaker 1: Thank you guys for coming on the show and making
Speaker 1: me more depressed. But also it's such an interesting problem
Speaker 1: because it really is Democrats have to get going on it.
Speaker 5: Yeah, you know, it's one of those things where I
Speaker 5: think their voters will be with you. Nobody's very happy
Speaker 5: with the court right now. You just got to do it.
Speaker 5: You got to fight the bullet.
Speaker 2: No moment, Rick Wilson, do you want me to go first?
Speaker 2: Or do you want to go first?
Speaker 3: You go first, you roll your moment of fuckery.
Speaker 1: Okay, So my moment of fuckery is, like we've been
Speaker 1: talking a lot about, like Republicans making absolutely moronic political
Speaker 1: decisions that will later cause them to lose everything. Continuing
Speaker 1: that theme, my moment of fuckery is Cindy Hyde Smith who.
Speaker 2: You may know her as Mema mem Yes, as mem She's.
Speaker 1: A United States senator, or at least they've sort of
Speaker 1: propped her.
Speaker 2: By the way Alabama.
Speaker 1: They have found every white woman who is like about
Speaker 1: eighty who may or may not be totally with it
Speaker 1: and prop them up right. They're like, we have women here.
Speaker 1: Cindy Hide Smith, she's from Mississippi. She once dressed up
Speaker 1: as a Confederate soldier. Because who among us Tammy Duckrose
Speaker 1: brought tried to codify IVF. We're not even talking about abortion.
Speaker 1: We're not even talking about, like you know, same sex marriage.
Speaker 1: We're talking about IVF. It's something that probably more Republicans
Speaker 1: because richer people tend to do IVF, but so probably
Speaker 1: more Republicans than Democrats. Who even knows, but a lot
Speaker 1: of people use IVF. Is not a controversial way to
Speaker 1: conceive a child. No, we are now Republicans refused. Cindy
Speaker 1: Hindsmith refused to do a vote to codify IVF. So
Speaker 1: the Republicans have now explained to us that they do
Speaker 1: not give a fuck.
Speaker 3: If I had gone first, I would have given you
Speaker 3: the exact same moment of fuckery. I want to actually
Speaker 3: encourage the Republicans to do something. Be true to yourselves,
Speaker 3: go out and say it. Say you don't want anybody
Speaker 3: to get IVF. Because after Hide Smith did it. Not
Speaker 3: one of them was out there saying, my god, my
Speaker 3: colleague on my side of the aisle is wrong. You
Speaker 3: know what they did. They all shut up and they hit.
Speaker 3: And guys, if you're gonna do this, if Republicans going
Speaker 3: to go this way and go up against against a
Speaker 3: process that is costly, painful, desperate of families who are hurting,
Speaker 3: desperate to have a child, if you guys want to
Speaker 3: go that way, have at it. Enjoy.
Speaker 1: Can I just ask you a question about this, because
Speaker 1: you actually know about the dark arts here. I just
Speaker 1: remember from when I got IVF because we had these
Speaker 1: two children made in a lab in New Jersey because
Speaker 1: we carried a Jewish genetic disease. When I was there,
Speaker 1: I was like, this doctor's office is so fucking fancy.
Speaker 1: They have fancy magazines, they have fancy coffee, they have fancy, fancy, fancy,
Speaker 1: And I thought to myself, these doctors make a ton
Speaker 1: of money.
Speaker 2: So let me just ask you.
Speaker 1: We don't have tort reform, right, we don't have tort
Speaker 1: reform because of that.
Speaker 2: Isn't this an enormous lobbying group?
Speaker 1: I mean, aren't these doctors gonna just lobby the hell
Speaker 1: out of Congress.
Speaker 3: It won't take the doctors to do it. Moly, It'll
Speaker 3: be the families. It'll be the people who. I mean, look,
Speaker 3: I had a long talk with a friend who has
Speaker 3: also done IVF the other day, and this is somebody
Speaker 3: who's not incredibly political, and she's like, I am furious.
Speaker 3: She said, two kids through IVF and it was painful
Speaker 3: and costly and hard. And these are not people who
Speaker 3: are super wealthy either, and they had to like, you know,
Speaker 3: second mortgage on their house to do this thing, and
Speaker 3: they were desperate for children. And it's like, do they
Speaker 3: know how many of us there are? And they clearly don't.
Speaker 3: They clearly don't. I think it's really an interesting moment
Speaker 3: right now of just how broken brained the Republican Party
Speaker 3: is to think that this is a winning issue for them.
Speaker 3: I mean, look, they sent out a Polton memo last
Speaker 3: week to their members saying don't do this, don't say this,
Speaker 3: But that didn't stop Mema and the rest of these
Speaker 3: weirdos from leaping into the deep end of the pool.
Speaker 1: It is amazing, though, And that is a really good point.
Speaker 1: And I also think, like the other thing we're going
Speaker 1: to see and we're seeing in an Oklahoma already as
Speaker 1: they're coming after Iud's why.
Speaker 3: Do you Dieud Molly kind of tramp.
Speaker 2: You know, that's basically the fucking message.
Speaker 6: You know.
Speaker 1: I feel like this is like it reminds me of
Speaker 1: Tip or Gore coming after a pornography. It's like, this
Speaker 1: is such a loser, and I look forward to you
Speaker 1: losing on it.
Speaker 3: I really want them if they want to go all
Speaker 3: the way, go all the way, you know. And then
Speaker 3: again we've joked about or talked about eventually, you know,
Speaker 3: it's like, oh, you can't divorce your husband while you're
Speaker 3: a pregnant little lady. You're not thinking clearly, why do
Speaker 3: you need a check book? Honey? The whole thing inevitably
Speaker 3: grinds down to this roaring, insane hatred of women. That's
Speaker 3: my moment of thuckery, and we shared a moment of thuckery.
Speaker 3: We'll see you all this week on Wednesday in New
Speaker 3: York City at the City Watery if you can still
Speaker 3: get a ticket, which you probably can't. About ten left,
Speaker 3: ten left, get on it.
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 well heard, please send it to a friend and
Speaker 1: keep the conversation going. And again thanks for listening.