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 Vice President Harris will not run
Speaker 1: from California governor.
Speaker 2: We have such a great show for you today.
Speaker 1: Media Matterson, Angelo Kearrasone will join us to talk about
Speaker 1: how the right is trying.
Speaker 2: To silence the left.
Speaker 1: Then we'll talk to Congressman Greg Kassar about Greg Abbot's
Speaker 1: in Sane Texas redistricting map, which involves a whole new
Speaker 1: level of jeremandering.
Speaker 2: But first the stories the media is missing. Molly.
Speaker 3: There's this thing called the Rule of five that is
Speaker 3: not a cheesy show that was on NBC in the
Speaker 3: two thousands. That is a way that the Democrats can
Speaker 3: use a rule to force the release of Epstein documents.
Speaker 2: Voters have been mad at Democrats.
Speaker 1: We have been very cranky with Democrats, and this is
Speaker 1: a kind of stuff we wanted. We wanted them to
Speaker 1: do stuff like this. Congressional Democrats are trying to capitalize
Speaker 1: on the Epstein issue, which has dogged President Trump for
Speaker 1: almost a month and opened fissures between him and some
Speaker 1: of his most ardent supporters. This is good you know,
Speaker 1: good for Schumer for doing this. Schumer says, it's not
Speaker 1: a stunt, it's not symbolic, it's formal exercise of congressional
Speaker 1: power under the law.
Speaker 2: And you know, we really have been talking about this
Speaker 2: a lot.
Speaker 1: Congress is being unable or unwilling to exercise its congressional power,
Speaker 1: and it's pretty cool to.
Speaker 2: See them doing this.
Speaker 1: I'm really I'm glad, like this is what we wanted,
Speaker 1: this is what we needed, We wanted Congress to do this,
Speaker 1: so it's very cool, like this is exactly the right thing.
Speaker 2: And I'm really just.
Speaker 1: Thrilled about this and thrilled to see them do this,
Speaker 1: and it's really good, So very excited.
Speaker 2: We'll see what happens.
Speaker 1: But the Committee on Government Operations of the House of
Speaker 1: Representatives can actually do the same thing. With a group
Speaker 1: of seven members, Schumer says he could force the release.
Speaker 2: And again, by the way, if you're trying.
Speaker 1: To block the release of these of these files, the
Speaker 1: question has to be why why are you trying to
Speaker 1: do it, because I think you should just let all
Speaker 1: the files be released. It's this is a really good
Speaker 1: issue for Democrats in a lot of ways because it
Speaker 1: really does to vote against it means you have some
Speaker 1: kind of feeling that you want Jeffrey Epstein to have
Speaker 1: gotten away with this.
Speaker 2: I just don't understand how you can be against this.
Speaker 4: Yep.
Speaker 3: Well, speaking of DEM's fighting, I can't believe I have
Speaker 3: two instances of this in the segment. But the said
Speaker 3: that dums are launching a lastage bid to block Trump's tariffs.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Again, another thing that we had just sort of been
Speaker 1: begging Democrats to do is that they're now doing. And look,
Speaker 1: maybe it doesn't work, but the point here is that
Speaker 1: you have to try. Maybe it works, maybe it doesn't work,
Speaker 1: but you have to try. We need you to try,
Speaker 1: and trying is the is the goal here. And so
Speaker 1: this is very good good to see them trying. I mean, like,
Speaker 1: this is the thing, like when you look at these numbers,
Speaker 1: it says the tariff could add about twenty four hundred
Speaker 1: dollars to the average Americans household expenses.
Speaker 2: That's a lot of money.
Speaker 1: Like twenty four hundred dollars for someone who's making you know,
Speaker 1: thirty forty fifty thousand dollars, that's a huge, huge amount
Speaker 1: of money. Jean Shihei from New Hampshire on Wednesday, evening,
Speaker 1: we'll ask lawmakers to unanimously pass a bill affirming the
Speaker 1: tariffs cannot be authorized under the International Economic Emergency Economic
Speaker 1: Powers Act. Why this is important, and I think it
Speaker 1: really is important, is that, believe it or not, Congress
Speaker 1: has the tariff power. Trump doesn't have this power. He
Speaker 1: took it from Congress using this emergency powers declaration.
Speaker 2: Again, like emergency.
Speaker 1: Powers, these are not his powers to use, right Like,
Speaker 1: one of the big mistakes I think that politicians have
Speaker 1: done is they've allowed emergency powers to continue on and
Speaker 1: if that is created place where the executive was easier
Speaker 1: for the executive to take power, and it's really bad.
Speaker 1: So Sheen said that, you know, she has a group
Speaker 1: to do this, So we'll see what happens.
Speaker 3: Yes, unfortunately, something bad has happened, which is the Senate
Speaker 3: has confirmed a well I'm trying to think of words
Speaker 3: that won't get me in trouble for a wibel. But
Speaker 3: a person that I really don't think should be in
Speaker 3: this office, mil beauvais.
Speaker 1: Yeah, another Trump lawyer, which I think is important to remember.
Speaker 1: This is his second Trump lawyer. There were tons of
Speaker 1: whistleblower complaints. There are any number of reasons not to
Speaker 1: put him in this lifetime appointment. Three different complaints in
Speaker 1: recent weeks, two alleging he suggested violating court orders. They're
Speaker 1: saying he reportedly misled Congress on the dropping of bribery charges.
Speaker 1: So basically, this guy's a liar and now he has
Speaker 1: a lifetime appointment. Republican Senators Murkowski and Collins crossing the
Speaker 1: isle to join the Democrats but knowing. I mean, this
Speaker 1: thing where the two Republicans vote with the Democrats but
Speaker 1: they still know they have advanced to break the tie
Speaker 1: is just absolutely so fucking corrupt, right Like it's like
Speaker 1: they're pretending they care. It's so shitty, and a lot
Speaker 1: of people are really worried. This is the runway for
Speaker 1: Trump to nominate him to the Supreme Court. When Alido
Speaker 1: or Thomas goes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's so bad.
Speaker 3: Well, something that could turn out well, but probably won't.
Speaker 3: Josh Holly had a stock trading band that originally included
Speaker 3: banning the president and the vice president from them, but
Speaker 3: you'll be shocked to hear they carved those offices out,
Speaker 3: but it has gone on to a vote in the Senate.
Speaker 2: Look, man, I'm no Josh Holly fan but you know,
Speaker 2: if you can get this done, do it.
Speaker 1: Man.
Speaker 2: I'm delighted. If they can get this pass, that would
Speaker 2: be amazing. Good for them. If this works, good for them.
Speaker 2: If this works would be amazing.
Speaker 3: Well we should say why this is important too, because
Speaker 3: do you believe the way I believe that this will
Speaker 3: get us much better candidates if they are not going
Speaker 3: into office just the trade stocks.
Speaker 2: I believe that nobody should make money while working in government.
Speaker 1: That I mean, I think that the worst possible thing
Speaker 1: is to have members of Congress trading stocks.
Speaker 2: I think it's wrong.
Speaker 1: I think it's morally wrong, I think it's ethically wrong,
Speaker 1: and I think that they're not serving the people, they're
Speaker 1: serving themselves.
Speaker 5: So yes, I think we'll have better people running out.
Speaker 2: So just think it's not okay, right, Like, it's not
Speaker 2: how any of this should work. So I agree. Angelo
Speaker 2: Kirasone is the CEO of Media Matters. Welcome to Fast Policy's.
Speaker 5: Antelo, Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: I want you to talk about this legal battle that
Speaker 1: you guys have been in, which is basically the legal
Speaker 1: battle that all of us are going to be in
Speaker 1: in the media right talk us through exactly what happened
Speaker 1: and where you are right now.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I.
Speaker 5: Think what makes this significant is exactly what you said
Speaker 5: in the intro. It's not just a lawsuit, right, you know,
Speaker 5: we're not just getting sued by Twitter, you know, more
Speaker 5: x whatever. That itself would be a hefty thing, right,
Speaker 5: And we've seen that type of action play out all
Speaker 5: the time, you know, to devastating consequences, even if it's
Speaker 5: designed to suppress participate speech.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 5: But this is so much different and bigger than that,
Speaker 5: And I think it's hard for people to really understand
Speaker 5: appreciate what's happening because this all started back in twenty
Speaker 5: twenty three, and we don't have to get into the mechanics.
Speaker 5: We published reports, we got sued for the reports by Twitter.
Speaker 5: But beyond that, and this is why it's turning into
Speaker 5: a significant battle for all of us, is that when
Speaker 5: that took place, Steven Miller encouraged Elon Musk publicly to
Speaker 5: encourage republic and state ags to launch investigations into media
Speaker 5: matters that were parallel to the litigation, and that happened.
Speaker 5: Ken Paxton launched an investigation, Andrew Barely launched an investigation
Speaker 5: from Missouri, and the way that those investigations play out
Speaker 5: typically is that they launched an investigation. You then argue
Speaker 5: about whether or not you're going to give them the documents.
Speaker 5: Eventually they go to state court. They sue you in
Speaker 5: state court, and you eventually either win or lose, but
Speaker 5: you have to go through this protracted battle there. We
Speaker 5: sort of knew that there was a new playbook being written.
Speaker 5: This is before Trump got elected, and because this is
Speaker 5: what we do, we literally lived in these fever stops.
Speaker 5: So we did something proactive. We said, wait, we can't
Speaker 5: fight this out in the multi front war. We have
Speaker 5: to actually be really engaged and sue the AGS to
Speaker 5: shut that down, right, We need to actually start developing
Speaker 5: new laws to this playbook.
Speaker 2: So that happened.
Speaker 5: But so the litigation was in excessuing US in Texas,
Speaker 5: also suing US in Singapore and the and Ireland threatening
Speaker 5: to sue US in the UK. That's the civil litigation,
Speaker 5: and there were state Attorney general investigations. We have been
Speaker 5: successful there.
Speaker 1: We won.
Speaker 5: The court agreed that it was a campaign of government harassment.
Speaker 5: We won against Ken Paxton. Andrew Bailly lost and then
Speaker 5: asked to settle with us. He has to settle with
Speaker 5: us Paxston appealed to the d C Circuit Court. We
Speaker 5: just won that victory back in May, so those are gone.
Speaker 5: But then Trump got elected. Stephen Miller is now the
Speaker 5: Deputy chief of staff. All of these MAGA figures are
Speaker 5: spread around government, and we've seen them weaponized government against
Speaker 5: a whole bunch of media properties and all their civic institutions.
Speaker 5: The FTC launched an investigation into media matter as well
Speaker 5: that was very similar to the State of g investigation
Speaker 5: and so in totality, and this is part of the
Speaker 5: calculus that we see with even the media companies. It's
Speaker 5: not just oh, it's a really bad civil lawsuit and
Speaker 5: nobody wants to fight it. Yeah, nobody wants to fight
Speaker 5: it because civil lawsuits suck. But what everybody forgets when
Speaker 5: they talk about CBS and ABC and Paramount is that
Speaker 5: in the first week in office, Trump's FCC Commissioner, Brendan
Speaker 5: Carr launched investigations into all of these media properties, the
Speaker 5: same types of investigations we're receiving now. And the idea
Speaker 5: is it's a one two punch. You drain people, you
Speaker 5: drain resources, and civil litigation you leverage federal and government
Speaker 5: power for rapid investigations and then all the potential consequences
Speaker 5: that could flow from that. And by leveraging those two
Speaker 5: things hand in hand, you have a lot of leverage.
Speaker 5: They have all the cards, and so I think that's
Speaker 5: the big picture here. And everyone is folding. Everyone is folding,
Speaker 5: and we're fighting. So it's gonna suck. We are definitely bruised.
Speaker 5: We've done a lot of big work and good work,
Speaker 5: so I'm not discounting that. But I'm not going to
Speaker 5: hide either. We are not We're bruised, but we're still fighting.
Speaker 5: And the last thing else say on because I think
Speaker 5: I keep thinking about this comment that Steve Bannon said
Speaker 5: in a PBS interview last week. He was talking about
Speaker 5: the fact that the reason why they're doing all that
Speaker 5: they're doing is and why they're going to win is
Speaker 5: because everyone's gonna fault. And he points to every civic, institutional,
Speaker 5: law firms, right, media, and education, and his point is
Speaker 5: you just don't have the stomach for a fight. Well,
Speaker 5: we don't, and I think that and if we don't fight,
Speaker 5: then everybody else will then receive the same type of attack.
Speaker 5: It's inevitable. And you know that's it. So that's the summary.
Speaker 5: I mean, they're running, they're building a new playbook, and
Speaker 5: we're really on the front line of that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think it's I mean, Steve Bannon is
Speaker 1: quite smart and he is absolutely knows exactly how to
Speaker 1: get what he wants, and he's We're watching it happen
Speaker 1: in real time. And the thing that I'm struck bot,
Speaker 1: which is so crazy in this whole thing, is that
Speaker 1: they are trying to silence people. And why I was
Speaker 1: so glad that you did this article on the New
Speaker 1: York Times where you talk to them about this, or
Speaker 1: where you were engaging with this, is that a lot
Speaker 1: of this stuff is going on and nobody knows.
Speaker 5: Yeah, because it's scary, you know. That's the other part
Speaker 5: about it, you know. I always tell this some of
Speaker 5: my stabmins. People think history doesn't have a lot of heroes.
Speaker 5: That's what we know about them, right, Because people's natural
Speaker 5: reaction when you're under attack is to duck and cover,
Speaker 5: or when the people around you are under attack is
Speaker 5: to duck and cover. It's an honest and understandable reflex.
Speaker 5: And so when you are under attack in this level
Speaker 5: of intensity, especially for an organization like ours, I mean
Speaker 5: the shad fraud of us, you know, even is like
Speaker 5: the right just could not be more excited, right, I mean,
Speaker 5: the Shatonfoy is there, but when you put that to
Speaker 5: the side, it's like you just you they have not
Speaker 5: just civil litigation, so all the expansive discoveries against the
Speaker 5: world richest person, but now the federal government stiffing art.
Speaker 5: And again there are people involved in these investigations that
Speaker 5: a year ago were outside in Model World telling my
Speaker 5: staff and me that they were going to put us
Speaker 5: in the gulags if Trump got a let kid, sending
Speaker 5: us notes that they were going to put us in jail.
Speaker 5: And now they're in power doing the very thing that too.
Speaker 5: Janine Piro is the US attorney, you will be deciding
Speaker 5: whether or not to prosecute us. Yeah, and that is
Speaker 5: I mean, this is so I think to the point
Speaker 5: that nobody knowing it, You just you hope you can
Speaker 5: get through it, and so you're quiet. That's the first thing.
Speaker 5: The second is your you. And I think we shouldn't
Speaker 5: discount this, and this is partly why it's so significant
Speaker 5: and where the soul what is for everyone. I don't
Speaker 5: think people should care about it. I think they should,
Speaker 5: but if it doesn't matter of the dot. I always
Speaker 5: tell people be selfish. Here's the thing. Part of the
Speaker 5: reason you don't talk about it is because you're being
Speaker 5: brutaliated against. It is a retribution campaign. We like the
Speaker 5: whole point of the First Amendment. It's not some academic thing.
Speaker 5: It's so that you can say things and free from
Speaker 5: retribution from the government. This is literally them doing it brazenly.
Speaker 5: And if you look at history and look at in
Speaker 5: recent history, in places like Hungary and El Salvador, where
Speaker 5: lawfare is very effective, you close off civic spaces by
Speaker 5: making an example out of a few parts in individual sectors,
Speaker 5: and you shrink what is acceptable. Are people going to
Speaker 5: do the same thing. Are they going to be as
Speaker 5: willing to criticize and be vocal as we have been.
Speaker 1: Of course not.
Speaker 5: They'll self censor to avoid the types of assault that
Speaker 5: we're experiencing. That's the other part is there's a genuine
Speaker 5: concern that the more you talk about it. I know,
Speaker 5: even internally when we have these discussions, we very rarely
Speaker 5: engage on it. Even now, I say no to discussions
Speaker 5: about it publicly more than I say yes, because I
Speaker 5: know that anytime I say something, it will lead to
Speaker 5: more letters, more demands, more at tax from the government
Speaker 5: and elsewhere, and potentially more consequences.
Speaker 2: And it's worst.
Speaker 5: And this is the last thing I was just say
Speaker 5: on the second again spun up, is that we're not
Speaker 5: just doing this in a vacuum like at a video game.
Speaker 5: But we have all the money we need to do
Speaker 5: this fight.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 5: I imagine this thought experiment where George Soros and Barack
Speaker 5: Obama got together to leverage money and the government against
Speaker 5: Charlie Kirk six years ago, right ago, it would be
Speaker 5: the biggest thing in the world. Everything he would be
Speaker 5: swimming in cash because the right wing would never allow
Speaker 5: that tactic to be legitimized. Right, But the left has
Speaker 5: not done that. Right, what they think that they've tried
Speaker 5: to do. And I don't just mean individuals, I mean
Speaker 5: like the foundations, the places that are celebrating that they
Speaker 5: raised a quarter billion dollars to protect civic spaces. Everyone
Speaker 5: is saving it for a rainy day while standing in
Speaker 5: two feet of water. I mean, the water is after
Speaker 5: their needs and they are talking about how they're saving
Speaker 5: these resources for a rainy day. And that's the real
Speaker 5: tension here, I think is that you're not just being
Speaker 5: asked to do it, you're asked to engage in an
Speaker 5: environment where you're on a razor thin amount of resources.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And also that there's a certain denial right. People
Speaker 1: don't want to see what's happening. It's scary and it's
Speaker 1: you know what. I've been so struck with the difference
Speaker 1: between Trump one point oh and Trump two point Zho
Speaker 1: is Trump one point oh? The reason why Trump wasn't
Speaker 1: able to do a lot of stuff was because it
Speaker 1: was a resistance. And then we were told that the
Speaker 1: resistance was cringe and that nobody wanted to resist, and
Speaker 1: so nobody resisted. And now the voting public is furious.
Speaker 1: I mean I everywhere I go, normal people are like,
Speaker 1: what the fuck? Why are people doing anything? And you
Speaker 1: have to say, well, look, we had this intellectual conversation.
Speaker 1: We decided resistance was cringe. I'm sorry, I don't know
Speaker 1: what to tell you, but.
Speaker 2: The trends have changed.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's an insane way to be, and especially
Speaker 1: when we can see Russia and Hungary and all the
Speaker 1: different places where this playbook has worked.
Speaker 5: It's kind of wild, it is, and I think you know,
Speaker 5: you're totally right that I think about that comparison a
Speaker 5: lot too, because I think about what it means and
Speaker 5: about how much people have already internalized where we're going,
Speaker 5: you know, and some of it is that people have
Speaker 5: already given up. And the part that the two things
Speaker 5: that I take away from this is one I constantly
Speaker 5: remind myself that today will be the freest day we
Speaker 5: feel that every day we will feel less safe, less free,
Speaker 5: less secure unless we intervene.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 5: The only way to slow that down is to fight,
Speaker 5: is to is to defy and to stand on very
Speaker 5: basic principles like the First Amendment.
Speaker 2: I fight. What we mean is fight for our First
Speaker 2: Amendment right.
Speaker 1: We don't mean fighting in any sense other than continuing
Speaker 1: with the first Amendment right we have that are being
Speaker 1: stripped away from us by this government.
Speaker 5: That's right. Advocate is what I say. Right every fight, essentially,
Speaker 5: I say advocate. And you know the second thing is
Speaker 5: that you know it's it's that in a way, twenty
Speaker 5: seventeen of this, if we were doing this all over
Speaker 5: again and the same stuff was happening to us, people
Speaker 5: wouldn't have taken it into seriously and we would be
Speaker 5: a cause to Leb maybe you know, we'd be because
Speaker 5: it would be it would be like part of this
Speaker 5: badge of honor thing. But now in a way people
Speaker 5: have internalized, oh, this is different, this is darker. They're
Speaker 5: serious now, and I think that's the fear. The fear
Speaker 5: has sort of already started said. And the thing that
Speaker 5: kind I feel is important to consider is that power
Speaker 5: perceived is power achieved, and they're still in the perception
Speaker 5: place right now. They're they're doing this on purpose to
Speaker 5: create a sense of inevitability.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think that's a really good point, that that this
Speaker 1: is power perceived, is power achieved, and that this is
Speaker 1: all a kind of shell game at this minute. Right
Speaker 1: they don't have the power. They certainly don't have his
Speaker 1: longest country, but most people are not on board with this.
Speaker 1: Much of the vote republic is still wants the Epstein
Speaker 1: files released. I mean, they're not even they're not even
Speaker 1: in this conversation. So I yeah, So I think that's
Speaker 1: a really good point. So Elon and Trump together were
Speaker 1: this unbelievably powerful force. Elon is no longer in the admin.
Speaker 1: He can no longer ask for favors. Did you notice
Speaker 1: a change in it because remember, your original lawsuit is
Speaker 1: Elon and Matt just explained to us the original how
Speaker 1: you got on the wrong side of Trump's ire so
Speaker 1: to speak.
Speaker 5: Look, I mean what the original thing is we wrote,
Speaker 5: We wrote, we published some articles about Twitter that they
Speaker 5: sued us about back in twenty twenty That Twitter suit
Speaker 5: us about back in twenty twenty three.
Speaker 2: That was when Twitter was newly bought by Elon.
Speaker 5: That's right, that's right. And you know, at that time,
Speaker 5: you know, he was talking about us a lot. You know,
Speaker 5: it was calling us the most evil organization and the world.
Speaker 5: And you know, you know, Tucker was out there telling
Speaker 5: everyone of the three greatest risks were the Washington Post,
Speaker 5: the German government, and media matters. And I mean like
Speaker 5: it was this moment where it just felt like media
Speaker 5: matters needed to be stopped. And that's kind of what
Speaker 5: he fell into. Obviously that overlapped with musks ascent into
Speaker 5: Trump World. The thing to consider about these individuals is
Speaker 5: that it's so much bigger than them. Worth remembering that
Speaker 5: Steven Miller was out of the deputy chief of SAFF
Speaker 5: when he was outside of the administration and he was
Speaker 5: setting up his legal institute received a significant portion of
Speaker 5: the funding for that institute from Elon Musk, right, I mean,
Speaker 5: and so it's not just him. There's a whole constellation
Speaker 5: of these individuals who are now in positions of power.
Speaker 5: So you can the fallout between Musk and Trump is real.
Speaker 5: But then in all these layers of government, you have
Speaker 5: people that have these these sort of dual loyalties in
Speaker 5: a way or at minimum and affinity for both. You know,
Speaker 5: they're not they weren't forced to choose the side they've
Speaker 5: you know, they obviously must still has a lot of
Speaker 5: influence in juice, and but that's how we sort of
Speaker 5: got on the radar. And look, I've been on Trump's
Speaker 5: raider for a long time. Media matters has been all
Speaker 5: the way back before he was president. So it's not
Speaker 5: like it's a total uh in the middle. Have any
Speaker 5: sense that we're a target. I think the biggest thing
Speaker 5: is that we've made a lot of right wingers mad.
Speaker 5: And this is the thing to remember. It's more than
Speaker 5: two dozen Fox News figures in senior administration officials.
Speaker 2: They all know us, you know.
Speaker 5: It's like and Dan Bongino. I remember when Dan Bongino
Speaker 5: was starting out as a podcaster when he was a
Speaker 5: guest on Alex Jones's show, we sign used to read
Speaker 5: those flags, and then he got a podcast on nra
Speaker 5: A TV. We've been with dam Bongino his entire career. Yeah,
Speaker 5: like all of these figures, we have a very long
Speaker 5: history with and they don't like us, and they've been
Speaker 5: very open about it. So that's how we're on the radar.
Speaker 5: And I think the other thing is that they see
Speaker 5: us as Look, if you break us, who are built
Speaker 5: for this.
Speaker 2: Is in our DNA to have you right right?
Speaker 5: What does I mean for the next group that's actually
Speaker 5: not We're designed to have this type of back and forth.
Speaker 5: What happens when the other organizations that do different types
Speaker 5: of work, important work, they're actually not in their DNA
Speaker 5: is not fighting with the right right? What happens when
Speaker 5: you go after them? And I think that's the other
Speaker 5: piece of this. So there's so much connective tissue within
Speaker 5: this space that even independent of this fallout, it hasn't
Speaker 5: actually changed the trajectory, which is to break us.
Speaker 1: One of the many great things about you is that
Speaker 1: you understand this world almost better than anyone. Like I'm
Speaker 1: very online, though less so lately which is is weird,
Speaker 1: but but you are.
Speaker 2: You really know everyone.
Speaker 1: So explain to me why Dan Vongino and Cash Battel
Speaker 1: are the heads of like these major the FBI, right that,
Speaker 1: I mean, these guys are like there, they are like
Speaker 1: the heads of this incredibly powerful, enormous agency.
Speaker 2: Why have they sort of disappeared?
Speaker 5: Dan Bongo is the deputy director of the FBI and
Speaker 5: yet his principal concern right now is his credibility as
Speaker 5: a podcaster. So that is one and that explains your question,
Speaker 5: which is that that for a lot of these figures,
Speaker 5: you know, they're not civil servants who were going toward
Speaker 5: a public life to do this type of work, right,
Speaker 5: especially the positions that you described, you sort of you
Speaker 5: have a trajectory to get there.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 5: I think a lot of the status called needed breaks
Speaker 5: them out romanticizing that. But the point is it's a
Speaker 5: certain type of work to be a civil servant for them.
Speaker 5: This is part of their continual mess characters in this
Speaker 5: right wing story that they've been a part of us
Speaker 5: so long. We're gonna get in, We're gonna break the
Speaker 5: deep state. We're gonna you know, we're gonna train our
Speaker 5: mill operators to do better work. We're gonna we're gonna
Speaker 5: expose all these secrets. So they get into these positions
Speaker 5: because part of it is just it's just it's just
Speaker 5: character development for their podcast career. And so that's the
Speaker 5: reason why they're a little bit back, is that they
Speaker 5: were forced to go out there up front and sort
Speaker 5: of take the first hit, uh, you know, from a
Speaker 5: public relations perspectives, to sort of soften the ground. They
Speaker 5: were supposed to soft from the ground about the Epstein
Speaker 5: stuff when they went out there and did this joint
Speaker 5: interview saying that Epstein killed himself. We've seen the files.
Speaker 5: That was the soft launch of all of this, you know,
Speaker 5: well before it became a controversy. They just don't want
Speaker 5: to put themselves on the line publicly. And I think
Speaker 5: that calls you a lot.
Speaker 1: It's so interesting that like the possible thing that might
Speaker 1: sort of save American democracy if we're gonna, I mean
Speaker 1: that we if this ends up being that, like democracy continues,
Speaker 1: it will be because of things like these guys in
Speaker 1: their podcasts.
Speaker 2: Yes, because they have to.
Speaker 5: That is their goal. They even though they left their
Speaker 5: podcast role, they are still the same character. They're now
Speaker 5: just in a different environment, but they're still thinking about
Speaker 5: that business, that audience relationship and how do you go
Speaker 5: on after this? Like they're not going to go join boards, right,
Speaker 5: and even though they want to be, they want the
Speaker 5: same influence that they had before they became they had
Speaker 5: this job, and and that that is very revealing, even
Speaker 5: people at Toulsi right, who didn't go all in on Epstein.
Speaker 5: Instead she helped support the cause by trying to deflect
Speaker 5: by putting out all this Obama stuff and.
Speaker 1: Insane Obama treason thing, which is like, by the way,
Speaker 1: if you're Tulsi, like that's all you cook up.
Speaker 2: I mean, but it's like it's Obama, like there's no like,
Speaker 2: at least go after.
Speaker 1: Bill Clinton, Like that makes a little you know, he's
Speaker 1: in the flight logs, like go after someone where there's
Speaker 1: some churum of believability.
Speaker 5: Yep. And that I think that's a good point here,
Speaker 5: you know that that it's revealing that if we do
Speaker 5: ultimately get saved, this strong word, but they they will
Speaker 5: be their their own selfishness well be a part of that.
Speaker 5: It's not altruism, it's it is born out of this
Speaker 5: idea that they are characters in this larger right wing
Speaker 5: media story, and that is to me, the thing that
Speaker 5: drew me to this work, and key especially now keeps
Speaker 5: me here is that, Yeah, the politics are important, the elections,
Speaker 5: but elections take place in an environment, and that environment
Speaker 5: is shaped by the media landscape, the information landscape, and
Speaker 5: the right wing it dominates it. Trump's power is his
Speaker 5: narrative dominance. And part of the reason why the Epstein
Speaker 5: story is so interesting is because he's losing his narrative
Speaker 5: dominance in this moment as a result of it. And
Speaker 5: so that that is so is so hard to escape
Speaker 5: the day to day work from these externalities because ultimately,
Speaker 5: part of the very check here why they've sort of
Speaker 5: retreated into the bushes while they let Trump try to
Speaker 5: sort this out himself, is that they are they are
Speaker 5: more loyal to the larger information and media landscape than
Speaker 5: even Trump.
Speaker 2: It It is wild, I mean, it's just wild. We
Speaker 2: are in just I can't figure out if we're in
Speaker 2: end times or if this is I don't know, will
Speaker 2: you please, I just got got a sandwich between two
Speaker 2: realities right one retail, Yeah, and we're like we somehow
Speaker 2: bounce it between and it's very disorienting.
Speaker 5: All the time basically, and yeah, that's that's kind of
Speaker 5: how I feel about it.
Speaker 1: Congressman Greg Kassar represents Texas's thirty fifth district. Welcome to
Speaker 1: fast Politics, Congressman Gazarre, Hey, here we are. We're like
Speaker 1: reacting to the breaking news that your state, Texas is
Speaker 1: somehow going to do this insane redistricting. Which will I
Speaker 1: think we can all take a top line here and go, Like,
Speaker 1: Donald Trump is worried about losing the House of Representatives
Speaker 1: because he's doing a lot of wildly unpopular stuff. So
Speaker 1: he's decided to make Republicans and they're happy to do
Speaker 1: it because they're because they're completely just in an arm
Speaker 1: of the Trump presidency now redistrict in order to make
Speaker 1: it so he won't lose the House of Representatives.
Speaker 2: Is that fair? Is that what we're watching happen in
Speaker 2: real time?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 4: Basically, Trump doesn't have a plan for winning the midterm elections,
Speaker 4: so this is his plan for rigging those elections before
Speaker 4: we ever get a chance to vote. So all these folks,
Speaker 4: of course ask me a great question all the time,
Speaker 4: what do we do to stop all of the awfulness
Speaker 4: and the craziness? And we oftentimes have said let's organize
Speaker 4: for the midterm elections. Then now Trump wants to screw
Speaker 4: that up now by radically racially jerrymandering Texas in a
Speaker 4: way we've never seen before. And that's part of what
Speaker 4: I think is really scary and new about this is
Speaker 4: that Texas is already illegally jerrymandered to the hilt, but
Speaker 4: now Trump is pushing an even more illegal jerrymander, basically
Speaker 4: shredding the Voting Rights Act as we know it. And
Speaker 4: if he's allowed to do it in Texas and in
Speaker 4: Central Texas where I'm based, and he wants to spread
Speaker 4: that all over the country. He's already saying that.
Speaker 1: There is no precedent for this for a president saying
Speaker 1: I'm going to lose, so let's change the maps. It's like,
Speaker 1: I feel like Eric Holder, It's like, I don't know,
Speaker 1: it's like cheating plus plus plus right. I think Texas
Speaker 1: has really been this kind of lab where Trump has
Speaker 1: been able to sort of do crazy stuff and the
Speaker 1: end the leadership has really been so partisan and so
Speaker 1: insane that they've been happy to do it. But but
Speaker 1: talk to me about what this app looks like.
Speaker 2: This is really sick.
Speaker 4: Basically, this is a kind of map that was supposed
Speaker 4: to be made illegal by the Voting Rights Act of
Speaker 4: nineteen sixty five. You know what MLK marched for. LBJ
Speaker 4: signed it. Handed the pen to MLK after he signed
Speaker 4: the Voting Rights Act. This sort of activity was supposed
Speaker 4: to be banned by that. Basically, what they do and
Speaker 4: what Trump explicitly said he wanted to do was he said,
Speaker 4: had that DOJ send a letter to Texas saying there
Speaker 4: are multiple districts where most of the voters are people
Speaker 4: of color, and we don't like that anymore.
Speaker 2: Get rid of it.
Speaker 4: And Texas is supposed to be handling addressing the flooding
Speaker 4: that just killed.
Speaker 2: And that special sception, this special session.
Speaker 4: Is legislature supposed to be together about flooding, instead of
Speaker 4: respecting texans lives, instead of recognizing the deaths of young
Speaker 4: girls and so many others. They are just pushing through
Speaker 4: this plan. And like you just said, Molly, there's not
Speaker 4: even Texas Republican officials or congress people that say they're
Speaker 4: for this. They all privately say they're against it because
Speaker 4: they're screwing up their own districts and screwing over their
Speaker 4: own constituents. It's just one man in mar A Lago
Speaker 4: who is saying he wants to pick the members of
Speaker 4: Congress from Texas rather than Texas voters. And now they've
Speaker 4: released a map that does things like merge my district
Speaker 4: here in central Texas with joining Congressman Doggett's district, essentially
Speaker 4: getting rid of a Latino seat and merging it into
Speaker 4: just one Democratic seat. Now that we're put in the
Speaker 4: same place, they've gone and completely changed the historic district
Speaker 4: in Houston that was Barbara Jordan's and Mickey Leland in
Speaker 4: Shila Jackson Lee's and completely changed it. All of us
Speaker 4: is to say, they're suppressing the votes of millions of
Speaker 4: working class Texans and Latino Texans and black Texans and
Speaker 4: they think they can get away with it. And if
Speaker 4: the Supreme Court rubber stamps it. Trump has already said, okay,
Speaker 4: five from Texas, then he wants to go to Missouri
Speaker 4: and take one there, take a few from Ohio, and
Speaker 4: make it so that by the time we vote in
Speaker 4: the midterms, he's basically already made it so the House
Speaker 4: can't hold them accountable.
Speaker 1: Explain how jerrymandering works and why this is actually kind
Speaker 1: of a gamble for him the.
Speaker 4: Way jerrymandering usually works, and it should be illegal, to
Speaker 4: be clear, I believe was every Democrat I think in
Speaker 4: Congress right now has voted for getting rid of jerrymandering
Speaker 4: and just having independent commissions across the country. But our
Speaker 4: problem right now is you have blue states with these
Speaker 4: commissions and then states like Texas. Yeah, and that's a problem,
Speaker 4: but generally you have the Republican members of Congress jerry mander.
Speaker 4: They're men app which is bad, but it usually results
Speaker 4: in those Republican incumbents having their districts the way they
Speaker 4: want them and then making they make themselves safe by
Speaker 4: creating these democratic districts. In this case, Donald Trump's White
Speaker 4: House drew the maps, or maybe it was Mari Lango,
Speaker 4: and then they just we had a bunch of hearings,
Speaker 4: a three hearing, not a bunch, I mean it's actually
Speaker 4: poultry three hearings this last week, and the Republicans in
Speaker 4: the legislature kept saying, we don't have a map. We're
Speaker 4: just having hearings with no map. Basically they're still waiting
Speaker 4: on the email from the White House. And then today
Speaker 4: the email landed. They publish a map, and it's Trump
Speaker 4: that drew it, and so that means that some of
Speaker 4: these Republican members of Congress will represent totally different areas
Speaker 4: than they're used to, and that gives us the chance
Speaker 4: to run again, you know, run great candidates against them.
Speaker 4: But they did try to shore themselves up and basically
Speaker 4: crack minority communities apart into a bunch of different districts
Speaker 4: to delete their votes and get rid of Democratic members
Speaker 4: in the process.
Speaker 1: It's funny because it's like there's so many parts of
Speaker 1: this story that are like Trump knows he's losing, and
Speaker 1: so Trump is trying to figure out ways to cheat.
Speaker 2: They explain to us what the next step is with
Speaker 2: the gerrymandering.
Speaker 4: With the jerrymandering. They have one more hearing, supposedly this Friday,
Speaker 4: and so we are going to mobilize everyone we can
Speaker 4: who cares about our democracy to come out against the
Speaker 4: map on Friday. Then they'll try to jam it down
Speaker 4: everyone's throats. The hope is that we draw this out.
Speaker 4: We don't let them win here in the next few days.
Speaker 4: And Texas has a great tradition of filibusters, like Wendy
Speaker 4: Davis's filibuster against abortion, restrictions of quorum breaks where Democrats
Speaker 4: if they leave the state actually under our constitution, then
Speaker 4: the legislature shuts down. And so they could leave and
Speaker 4: quorum break and demand that the session be about flooding,
Speaker 4: not about carrying Donald Trump water. We can drag that
Speaker 4: fight out, and then we need everyone listening in today
Speaker 4: to be calling their governor calling their legislators to stop
Speaker 4: this from happening in Texas because if people like Governor
Speaker 4: Gavin Newsom keep pushing that, they'll retaliate against Greg Abbott.
Speaker 4: If more governors get involved, that's our real chance to
Speaker 4: stop this, because if they could just get away with this,
Speaker 4: I mean, Trump wants to spread it like wildfire. So
Speaker 4: we got to drag this out. Support right brave legislators
Speaker 4: that drag it out, and then get the whole country involved.
Speaker 1: This is a really good point, like this should be
Speaker 1: a line in the sand. If you care about democracy,
Speaker 1: you don't want governors fucking with congressional maps, period paragraph.
Speaker 1: If the sense says gives you more numbers in different districts,
Speaker 1: you change the maps. But you don't change the maps
Speaker 1: because you have an unpopular incumbent who might lose the House.
Speaker 4: That's right. I mean, right now, Trump is it knows
Speaker 4: that if the Democrats regain the House, then we're investigating
Speaker 4: the Epstein files and more, we could subpoena all of
Speaker 4: the folks that are doing corrupt business deals with his family.
Speaker 4: I mean, Trump remembers last time that we took the House,
Speaker 4: how he got investigated and impeached, and how that helped
Speaker 4: ultimately bring Trump's presidency to a halt. I mean, he
Speaker 4: wouldn't be able to pass all these horrible bills that
Speaker 4: kick people off their healthcare if Democrats take the House.
Speaker 4: And so instead of trying to win the election fair
Speaker 4: and square, he wants to change the lines right now.
Speaker 4: And we've got to We've got to stop it, and
Speaker 4: we all have to get involved and say, you know,
Speaker 4: there's got to be a cost to Trump and Abbot
Speaker 4: if they go through with this.
Speaker 1: There's a number of interesting things happening in your state,
Speaker 1: and I would love you to talk first about the flooding,
Speaker 1: because there seems like there's some breakdown of emergency communication
Speaker 1: with the flooding. Talk us through what you're seeing on that,
Speaker 1: what sort of culpability there with the flooding is and
Speaker 1: where you think that takes us.
Speaker 4: I think clearly there were failures at every level of government,
Speaker 4: and we need to look into those failures, not because
Speaker 4: it's a blame game or political but because if we
Speaker 4: want to respect the dead and then protect the living,
Speaker 4: we need to know what we did right and what
Speaker 4: went wrong. It seems clear there were issues at the
Speaker 4: local level. The state of Texas also denied grants to
Speaker 4: the local governments to put in alert systems that they needed.
Speaker 4: We need to ask questions about why. And then at
Speaker 4: the federal level, we have whistleblowers that said that Christy Noam,
Speaker 4: who's Trump's cabinet secretary above all of this, delayed search
Speaker 4: and rescue for seventy two hours before approving it. That's
Speaker 4: not something you should think about for seventy two seconds.
Speaker 4: So we've got to actually really look into why that is.
Speaker 4: The head of Search and Rescue at FEMA resigned over this.
Speaker 4: They're trying now to smear him, but I think it's
Speaker 4: important we look into that. And then also the National
Speaker 4: Weather Service and Noah, who are the scientists that help
Speaker 4: us know when a storm is coming and communicate that
Speaker 4: to local communities. They've been deeply understaffed, and so I
Speaker 4: myself and Converse Woman Jasmine Crockett led an effort to
Speaker 4: ask an independent Inspector General to do an investigation, and
Speaker 4: that independent investigator, who separate from the Trump administration, said
Speaker 4: they're going to look into that understaffing and how that
Speaker 4: affected our response to this storm. None of this can
Speaker 4: bring back the dead, but we know there's going to
Speaker 4: be more storms in Texas, more floods. We've got to
Speaker 4: protect people from that. And this understaffing is happening right
Speaker 4: now where there can be hurricanes and all sorts of
Speaker 4: parts of the country. So we've got to be looking
Speaker 4: into it now. This is what the legislators should be
Speaker 4: looking into. Instead, they're, you know, Republican members are trying
Speaker 4: to ignore the floods, cover up the Epstein files, and
Speaker 4: then just protect Trump in the next election. I mean,
Speaker 4: it's just cowardice at its core. And even worse, they're
Speaker 4: doing it by trying to shred the Voting Rights Act
Speaker 4: of nineteen sixty five. They took us bat PRE nineteen
Speaker 4: sixty five on medicaid, now they want to take us
Speaker 4: PRE nineteen sixty five on voting rights. It is the
Speaker 4: example of what it looks like when these just wealthy,
Speaker 4: powerful guys just do everything they can to protect themselves
Speaker 4: and don't care about who they screw over in the process.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of drama happening in Texas with the
Speaker 1: John Cornett and Ken Paxton drama.
Speaker 4: So Ken back, I get that whole bag of goons
Speaker 4: confused sometimes too.
Speaker 1: The man and the Ken Baxton story is so because
Speaker 1: I think of Ken Paxton as the guy who overturned
Speaker 1: grow Vy Wade. Really who was the person who enacted
Speaker 1: SBA the you know, the sort of guy who put
Speaker 1: the wheels in motion on that. But he also is
Speaker 1: an adulterer. Explain to us what's happening there. And by
Speaker 1: the way, just the story like you couldn't make it up.
Speaker 1: It's so incredibly craven.
Speaker 4: I mean, look at this point, pull after pull after
Speaker 4: pull seems to indicate that Ken Paxton, you know, who
Speaker 4: has been indicted for corruption, who was actually impeached by
Speaker 4: his own Republican colleagues in the House, is likely really
Speaker 4: the front runner for the Republican nomination by far. So
Speaker 4: I expect he will be the front runner. And so
Speaker 4: I just think that a very clear focus on the
Speaker 4: fact that he's been ripping off Texans, the fact that, yeah,
Speaker 4: he's the guy trying to deport dreamers, I mean, people
Speaker 4: who have been here their entire lives he wants to
Speaker 4: kick out. He was, you know at January sixth.
Speaker 5: You know, he's the guy that.
Speaker 4: Was trying to overthrow and overturn the election. You know,
Speaker 4: this is just this is Trump's guy. But he is frankly,
Speaker 4: you know, not supported by even some Texas Republicans, you know,
Speaker 4: who voted to impeach him. So it creates a real
Speaker 4: opportunity for us to take the Texas Senate seat. On
Speaker 4: the Democratic side, I know a few names have been
Speaker 4: tossed out there. I know Colin Allread is running. We're
Speaker 4: gonna you know, support are Democratic nominee strongly there. And
Speaker 4: of course, you know he's got all sorts of packs
Speaker 4: in of course, as you mentioned, has his personal issues.
Speaker 4: But frankly, you know, you don't even have to start that.
Speaker 4: I mean, he is corrupt and you know, he literally
Speaker 4: was doing business deals with folks that have like wind
Speaker 4: up in jail. He's got federal indictments and federal investigations
Speaker 4: into the way that he's handled his money, and so
Speaker 4: it is just a disaster for him and creates a
Speaker 4: real opportunity for us. So if Republicans jerrymander and create
Speaker 4: their seats a little bit more vulnerable, if they've got
Speaker 4: Ken Paxton at the top of the ticket, then we've
Speaker 4: got a run like we've never run before in Texas
Speaker 4: and we have some real pickup opportunities. At the same time,
Speaker 4: we've got to stop the jerrymandering plan, because even if
Speaker 4: we do an excellent job trying to flip some of
Speaker 4: these seats, at the end of the day, they shouldn't
Speaker 4: be allowed to suppress the votes of millions of people
Speaker 4: and frankly steal at least some of these seats away
Speaker 4: from us.
Speaker 2: I just don't see where this is fair at all.
Speaker 4: It's deeply unfair and should send a chill down the
Speaker 4: spine of every American. I mean, we talk a lot
Speaker 4: about gerrymandering. I just kind of want to give you
Speaker 4: a sense of what this looks like. What it means
Speaker 4: is you've got usually, you know, neighborhoods that have more
Speaker 4: black voters or more Latino voters. And what these guys
Speaker 4: in the White House go and do is they go
Speaker 4: and say this neighborhood. We're going to chop it into
Speaker 4: four or five or six little pieces so that those
Speaker 4: folks can't all vote together for the person that's going
Speaker 4: to represent them, and then they get stuck in districts
Speaker 4: with folks that do not care about them. You do
Speaker 4: not represent those neighborhoods, in fact, might resent those voters,
Speaker 4: and they're just a little slice of a district to
Speaker 4: be represented by you know, Chip Roy for example. You
Speaker 4: know that's not going to be his priority if some
Speaker 4: of these neighborhoods get put into his district or Troy Nell's.
Speaker 2: You know, you could look that up.
Speaker 4: You know, they just are not I.
Speaker 5: Don't need to look up Troy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I mean, nor do I want to.
Speaker 4: For the folks that are listening, this isn't just about
Speaker 4: me as a member of Congress or somebody else. It's
Speaker 4: those voters get purposefully targeted because they are people of
Speaker 4: color and stuck into a district where their voices won't matter.
Speaker 4: That's literally what we try to get rid of in
Speaker 4: sixty five. And then on top of all that, the
Speaker 4: outcome that they try to get is that no matter
Speaker 4: how unpopular Trump's policies are, Trump gets his selected members
Speaker 4: of Congress. It's hard to not sound alarmist in this,
Speaker 4: but it's that alarming.
Speaker 1: Texas isn't like Missouri. It's a purple if state. It's
Speaker 1: becoming more purple. But you have a governor and an
Speaker 1: Attorney's General who who both are very crazy and very
Speaker 1: into enacting their own very right wing legislature or legislation.
Speaker 2: Why do you think that is?
Speaker 1: And I know there are a lot of talent to
Speaker 1: Democrats in the Texas State House. Do you feel like
Speaker 1: you're able to keep some of this at bay or?
Speaker 1: I mean, why is it so? It feels like it's
Speaker 1: just the state feels way more right wing than their
Speaker 1: constituents are.
Speaker 4: That's exactly right. That's the whole Texas contradiction is that,
Speaker 4: you know, demographically, we're not that different from say, California,
Speaker 4: We're just heavily under organized there. Our Democratic parties are
Speaker 4: so much more underfunded. Our state Democratic Party is puny
Speaker 4: in funding compared to traditional swing states that you could
Speaker 4: think of, like you know, Michigan or Nevada. And then
Speaker 4: you also have to recognize we're usually ranked at the
Speaker 4: very bottom of voter turnout of all of the states
Speaker 4: there are so many people who rightly say, you know,
Speaker 4: it doesn't matter if I vote or not. It seems
Speaker 4: like the same crazy stuff happens. And so we've got
Speaker 4: to get to a place where in this state of
Speaker 4: over thirty million people, we organize at scale. And right now,
Speaker 4: I know a lot of folks listening have heard about
Speaker 4: great candidates we've had, from Wendy Davis to bechel or Rourke.
Speaker 4: But if we just go in every four six years
Speaker 4: and hope that in the last few months of election
Speaker 4: we can rally as a country and pull it off,
Speaker 4: we just don't get there. We have to have a
Speaker 4: longer organizing strategy, and I think we could start it
Speaker 4: right now, you know, just up the road from where
Speaker 4: I am right now, we had an event in East
Speaker 4: Austin with Jasmine Crockett and betel Or Rourke and Juaquin
Speaker 4: Gastro and James Tall, Rico Gene and Ajosa myself. We
Speaker 4: were hoping, you know, maybe a thousand people would chill up.
Speaker 4: We had we blew past that, you know, well over
Speaker 4: three thousand folks on very short notice. And do you know,
Speaker 4: like planning anything else, usually you have an RSVP count
Speaker 4: and then you expect the numbers are going to go
Speaker 4: down a little bit. You don't usually think they're going
Speaker 4: to triple on you. So right now is when we
Speaker 4: can start organizing the state so that we have a
Speaker 4: real shot at beating Ken Paxton come next November.
Speaker 1: It just strikes me that it feels very out of
Speaker 1: whack over there. So how many sort of non voters
Speaker 1: voters do you have in your state?
Speaker 4: Yeah, in my state, the percentage of registered voters turn out,
Speaker 4: of course changes when it's a governor's race versus a
Speaker 4: presidential but we usually rank they're in forty eighth, forty
Speaker 4: ninth or fiftieth.
Speaker 5: Wow, yeah, turnout.
Speaker 4: Of the fifty states. And so what we badly need
Speaker 4: to do is, you know, if we got those folks participating,
Speaker 4: I think you'd have a totally different election. Folks argue
Speaker 4: Texas as really a blue state, or Texas a purple
Speaker 4: state or red state. I call it an under organized state.
Speaker 4: I means we identified after the last election that there's
Speaker 4: about one million anti Greg Abbott voters who we just
Speaker 4: never talked to. But it's a big state. It takes
Speaker 4: a lot of resources, and so part of what we've
Speaker 4: got to do is lift up the next generation of
Speaker 4: you know, leadership, be it elected officials and activists who
Speaker 4: are going to go out there and do the work
Speaker 4: of going and talking to folks, because I think too
Speaker 4: often we've kind of gotten comfortable in our existing democratic
Speaker 4: seats and people just govern over their democratic area, and
Speaker 4: we've got to be going out there and reaching out.
Speaker 4: That's why I've gone to multiple Republican districts myself and
Speaker 4: held town halls there. No I was, you know, out
Speaker 4: in the Texas Panhandle where they haven't seen their congressional
Speaker 4: Democrat in forever. It was just me and you had
Speaker 4: thousands of people in an auditorium. So we've got to
Speaker 4: be willing to go out there to those rural areas
Speaker 4: where you know, Democrats traditionally don't go, but people are
Speaker 4: waiting to hear from us. So that's what I'm committed
Speaker 4: to doing. We're going to fight this redistricting plan with
Speaker 4: everything we've got in US and here in central Texas
Speaker 4: where I'm sitting right now, you know, they're trying to
Speaker 4: merge me and my fellow congressman next door, and we're
Speaker 4: going to fight that like hell because it is just
Speaker 4: deeply wrong to try to get rid of us by
Speaker 4: merging districts together like ours.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Congressman, thank you, thank you. No Jesse Cannon
Speaker 2: my junk Fast.
Speaker 3: So this is, you know, really shocking news that this
Speaker 3: would happen under a Trump swatch. The Office of Civil
Speaker 3: Rights is now a place where white men replace minorities.
Speaker 3: Who would have thunk this would happen.
Speaker 1: So the education agency that investigates discrimination claims faces a
Speaker 1: sinister overhaul. Current and former staff telled The Times Donald
Speaker 1: Trump spent years raging against the Biden administration for elevating
Speaker 1: women and ethnic minorities into positions for which he said
Speaker 1: they were not qualified. Well, you'll be shocked to know
Speaker 1: now the president, that guy who was accused of bias,
Speaker 1: well now he's being accused of bias.
Speaker 2: I am shocked, I tell you shocked that this is
Speaker 2: what's going on.
Speaker 1: I am shocked, shocked, shocked, shocked, and by shocked I
Speaker 1: mean nater all shocked.
Speaker 2: That's it for this episode of Fast Politics.
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Speaker 2: Minds and politics make sense of all this chaos. If
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