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 Donald Trump vows to end birthright citizenship.
Speaker 2: We have such an interesting show today.
Speaker 1: Vermont Representative Becca Blint talks to us about how the
Speaker 1: freshman class of Congress relates to the rest of the body.
Speaker 1: Then we'll talk two third ways Matt Bennett about the
Speaker 1: danger that is no labels and how they're working to
Speaker 1: get Trump elected under the guise of a third party candidate.
Speaker 2: But first we have the Washington.
Speaker 1: Posts, the plumb Lines. Greg Sergeant, Welcome back to Fast Politics.
Speaker 2: Fan favorite Greg.
Speaker 3: Sargeant, Thanks for having me and not always fun.
Speaker 1: I want to talk to you first about this piece
Speaker 1: you wrote that was published this morning that I immediately read
Speaker 1: what is happening in Florida and it reminds me of
Speaker 1: like brown back in Kansas.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a really interesting comparison. Hadn't occurred to me.
Speaker 3: But what we wrote about was in Hernando County, which
Speaker 3: is in the western part of Florida, and DISSANTUS won
Speaker 3: by forty points and Trump won by thirty points. There
Speaker 3: was like a ferocious amount of pushback from liberal parents
Speaker 3: and teachers and also kids against kind of the right
Speaker 3: wing culture warring that's going on in that county, which
Speaker 3: is really very very frialent and nasty. That's the place
Speaker 3: where the teacher got punished for showing her class a
Speaker 3: Disney film with a gay character, and people were very
Speaker 3: upset about that and all the other right wing culture
Speaker 3: war craziness that's going on. And so this thing went
Speaker 3: on for like seven hours or something, maybe eight hours,
Speaker 3: and it was really quite a show of force for
Speaker 3: the anti anti woke side. If that's the right way
Speaker 3: to put it. I guess that's not quite the way right,
Speaker 3: just the pro woke, the pro woke side, that's a
Speaker 3: much better way to put it.
Speaker 1: I Mean, what I think is interesting here is that
Speaker 1: you have a lot of students being like, I just
Speaker 1: want to learn.
Speaker 2: Yes, can you talk about that?
Speaker 1: Because I feel like there's a really good point here.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And that seems to be having paid attention to
Speaker 3: a bunch of these kinds of outbreaks of liberal resistance
Speaker 3: in red states all over the place, which is a
Speaker 3: really big story. By the way, I want to say this,
Speaker 3: This is a big story.
Speaker 4: People.
Speaker 3: The press constantly hangs over every word of what the
Speaker 3: right wing says on this stuff and treats Moms for
Speaker 3: Liberty as like a set of really authentic voices when
Speaker 3: they're just really right activists and minority position. They represent
Speaker 3: a minority position in their communities a lot of the talk.
Speaker 3: But so you know, there's a liberal counter mobilization happening
Speaker 3: all over the place, and that's a big story, but
Speaker 3: the pros isn't really covering it. It's starting to change now,
Speaker 3: but anyway, and part of it is what you just said,
Speaker 3: which is that the students are just absolutely sick of
Speaker 3: being told that they're being in duc trenated by liberals, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, they just want to do school.
Speaker 1: So do you think that it comes back to this
Speaker 1: idea that the smartest lie Republicans ever told the mainstream
Speaker 1: media was that they were too liberal and so they
Speaker 1: are constantly overcompensating.
Speaker 3: You could draw a parallel back to twenty nine to
Speaker 3: twenty ten when the Tea Party was really kind of
Speaker 3: getting going. The same thing happened. Then they were treated
Speaker 3: like this really authentic on the ground movement, and it
Speaker 3: felt a lot like the press was terrified of missing
Speaker 3: what's really going on out there in right wing America.
Speaker 3: You saw that same thing happened with the Trump voters
Speaker 3: and diners, right right, there's sort of this perennial terror
Speaker 3: among the media that they're missing the real authentic America
Speaker 3: that's out there, and often it's right wing America that
Speaker 3: they're talking about when they say that, and center left
Speaker 3: to America, which is pretty substantial judging by the last
Speaker 3: you know, eight presidential elections, right, or I should say,
Speaker 3: the popular vote in the last presidential elections is sort
Speaker 3: of rarely accorded that same kind of respect and deference
Speaker 3: and kind of fawning coverage. And it's a strange disconnect.
Speaker 3: And maybe you're right that that's the cause of it.
Speaker 3: That the smartest lie that the right ever told was
Speaker 3: that reporters are overly liberal, and so that could be
Speaker 3: the cause of a part of it. But I think
Speaker 3: there's also like a genuine feeling among a lot of
Speaker 3: reporters that they are kind of culturally out of step
Speaker 3: with some sort of real authentic America that's out there
Speaker 3: somewhere that they're missing.
Speaker 1: And I would like to add that the entire career
Speaker 1: of Selena Zeitel was you know made by her pretending
Speaker 1: to go to diners.
Speaker 3: That is a good point. And you know, there's sort
Speaker 3: of another effect that you can kind of discern here,
Speaker 3: which is that someone like that is fairly skillfully playing
Speaker 3: on the press's kind of insecurities about missing that quote
Speaker 3: unquote real America out there. And so whenever someone like
Speaker 3: that publishes these stories that supposedly tap into this authentic
Speaker 3: sentiment out there, a lot of mainstream reporters feel obliged
Speaker 3: to sort of bow down and kind of suck up
Speaker 3: to that kind of coverage and say, this person really
Speaker 3: seems to be onto something. And it's a very frustrating dynamic.
Speaker 1: Another thing that I really want to talk to you
Speaker 1: about is the debt ceiling compromise has passed the House
Speaker 1: yet another time when Biden did not have a ton
Speaker 1: of good options really at all their stuff in there
Speaker 1: for everyone to dislike. Don't get me wrong, And the
Speaker 1: thing that keeps me up at night is some of
Speaker 1: the permitting reform staff because that is not clear and
Speaker 1: it looks like it opens the door to some environmental
Speaker 1: stuff that's not good. But I mean, still a pretty
Speaker 1: good deal considering that a large number of their publican
Speaker 1: party wants to crash the economy.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, look, you know, I was surprised by it.
Speaker 3: A lot of other people in sort of our space
Speaker 3: were surprised by it. I still think though, that it
Speaker 3: was the right take to say beforehand, particularly you know,
Speaker 3: a month ago or so, that Biden should be prepared
Speaker 3: with a backup option, a unilateral option to exercise as
Speaker 3: a last resort if.
Speaker 2: Which would have been the discharge petition I.
Speaker 3: Think, or the fourteenth Amendment route where the Treasury Secretary
Speaker 3: keeps paying the bills because it'sction requires it.
Speaker 1: The question of whether like this debt crisis pulls you
Speaker 1: into recession is as much about the perception as it
Speaker 1: is about the reality.
Speaker 3: Well, that's I think another reason to sort of look
Speaker 3: at what happened here and not celebrate. Right. There's sort
Speaker 3: of a weird kind of smug tone among certain pundit
Speaker 3: types and economists who kind of predicted that something like
Speaker 3: this would happen. They seem very happy about what happened.
Speaker 3: But what I don't quite get is can't we imagine
Speaker 3: something better? Can't we imagine not negotiating an enormous spending
Speaker 3: package under threat of default it's still not okay that
Speaker 3: I'm unspooled that way.
Speaker 1: Well, I mean, Ed Luce had a really good column
Speaker 1: in the Ft about how like it didn't end up
Speaker 1: being a catastrophe but it should have. I mean, if
Speaker 1: we're going to Monday morning quarterback, and I don't want
Speaker 1: to because I feel like, you know, we're seeing McCarthy
Speaker 1: take a victory lap, and we're seeing pundits talk about
Speaker 1: how maybe he's not as stupid as we all know
Speaker 1: he is, when in fact, this is, if anything, you know,
Speaker 1: it would theoretically be a Biden victory. But I do
Speaker 1: think it's important to mention that they should have done
Speaker 1: this in twenty twenty two when they could.
Speaker 3: Oh absolutely yeah. I mean, I think there's a legitimate
Speaker 3: argument over whether it was possible. Mansion and the Senators
Speaker 3: Joe Manchin and Kirsten Cinema appeared to pose to doing
Speaker 3: anything about the debt limit, but it's really clear that
Speaker 3: there wasn't a very serious effort to do it, and
Speaker 3: I think it really is unclear whether democratic leaders even
Speaker 3: want it right.
Speaker 1: I mean, there's that reporting which says that some Democrats
Speaker 1: were saying it might actually make Democrats look good.
Speaker 3: Yes, I think that's right, and that was just a
Speaker 3: baffling kind of reading of it. And I will say
Speaker 3: that that reading doesn't look quite as bad now as
Speaker 3: it did a month ago, right, right, But still, I
Speaker 3: think we got to come back to this point, like,
Speaker 3: there's no reason to be doing this under this kind
Speaker 3: of threat of duress. It's just it's crazy. It's no
Speaker 3: one should ever say that's okay.
Speaker 1: No, I agree, And I also think that sort of
Speaker 1: more central to this is that in the end, McCarthy
Speaker 1: did not have the votes.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, that's true, and I think we always
Speaker 3: knew that it would require a large block of House
Speaker 3: Democrats pass, and you know, I think there's maybe some
Speaker 3: thought on the left that more could have been gotten
Speaker 3: because of that fact. I don't know if that's right
Speaker 3: or not, but I suppose it's worth thinking about.
Speaker 1: Hell, I mean, there was a snap expansion that is
Speaker 1: sort of shocking to May.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but it comes.
Speaker 1: Back to this idea that Republicans don't really like you
Speaker 1: can't I mean, and I think this is a problem
Speaker 1: McCarthy stumbled himself into. Though may not understand because I
Speaker 1: don't think he understands things this complicated, But the Republicans
Speaker 1: don't have a platform.
Speaker 3: Anymore, right, I mean, it was actually kind of reasonable
Speaker 3: to fear that maybe they'd want to crash the economy.
Speaker 3: I mean, Donald Trump was saying that that's what should happen.
Speaker 3: And I'm pretty sure he's like the leading candidates for
Speaker 3: the Republican presidential nomination.
Speaker 1: Yeah, if anything, right, they're more interested in crashing the
Speaker 1: economy than they are in shrinking the I mean, like
Speaker 1: for so many years you could say Paul Ryan wants
Speaker 1: to shrink the economy. You could say, well, they want
Speaker 1: want to shrink the government, not the economy. But they
Speaker 1: will shrink the economy by shrinking the government, you know.
Speaker 1: And but but all of a sudden, that's not what
Speaker 1: Trump wants at all. He doesn't want to shrink the government.
Speaker 1: If anything, you know, he wants more of an erduan
Speaker 1: like give people money to vote for me situation.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 3: Although you know, I think one of the things that
Speaker 3: sort of the characters like Steve Benn and you know,
Speaker 3: Marjorie Taylor Green is a bit of a puzzle in
Speaker 3: all this. I've always thought of her as kind of
Speaker 3: a little bit in the benin kind of nihilist slash
Speaker 3: far right populist slash wants to bring everything crashing down
Speaker 3: to rebuild a new order, a new nationalist order or whatever.
Speaker 3: And she's kind of been much more allied with McCarthy
Speaker 3: than I think a lot of people expected, right, But
Speaker 3: it did seem like there was sort of a mega
Speaker 3: position emerging which was to be kind of pro default,
Speaker 3: because it kind of goes back to the Flight ninety
Speaker 3: three election argument, right, like, if we're in a cultural emergency,
Speaker 3: as as some of these you know, right wing types
Speaker 3: seem to think or pretend to think, then and if
Speaker 3: the Biden presidency is an emergency that borders being overrun,
Speaker 3: woke misses destroying our institutions from within and so forth,
Speaker 3: in saws want default to kind of bring it all
Speaker 3: crashing down and build up a new order.
Speaker 2: Right, It's the Jill Stein presidency argument.
Speaker 1: It's interesting when we talk about this interest one of
Speaker 1: the things I'm struck by which McCarthy maybe did play well.
Speaker 1: And again, I never want to give him credit for anything,
Speaker 1: because I think he's an object moren but I do
Speaker 1: think it is interesting he took that very far right
Speaker 1: flank and he brought them in and he became you know,
Speaker 1: you saw Jim Jordan and Marjorie Taylor Green become his
Speaker 1: biggest sort of boosters, and you have to wonder if
Speaker 1: it's really true that these people actually don't believe in anything.
Speaker 1: They just want friends.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean Kevin McCarthy seems like that. That seems
Speaker 3: like a good reading of Kevin McCarthy, right, he really,
Speaker 3: I mean it's pretty shrewd the way he seems to
Speaker 3: have defined the possibility of a challenge to his leadership.
Speaker 3: I still don't feel like I understand that dynamic very well,
Speaker 3: do you.
Speaker 1: I mean, right, I thought he was nice to the
Speaker 1: people who always felt that they were kind of outsiders
Speaker 1: and that nobody was nice to them. And that's Marjorie
Speaker 1: Tayler Green and Jim Jordan. And because these people don't
Speaker 1: ultimately really believe in anything, I mean, you could see,
Speaker 1: like Chip Roy, but even Thomas Massey, I mean, Thomas
Speaker 1: Massey wants to you know, he's a real full libertarian,
Speaker 1: wants to destroy the federal government.
Speaker 2: So he votes yes. Yeah, I'm glad he.
Speaker 1: Voted yes, because I don't want the federal government to
Speaker 1: be destroyed. But you know, if you do believe in things,
Speaker 1: then you should theoretically believe in them. I'm just this
Speaker 1: is sort of the Yogi bearra school of politics. So
Speaker 1: that was my question, is like, what is happening here?
Speaker 1: I do also think, and again this was something that
Speaker 1: we saw earlier on when when McCarthy couldn't win all
Speaker 1: those votes votes.
Speaker 2: Is that there's not anyone who really wants this job.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I mean, if you think back to Bayner, John Bayner
Speaker 3: and Paul Ryan, those guys were just so visibly unhappy
Speaker 3: in their role. I don't know if I don't know
Speaker 3: if your listeners will remember this, but there was a
Speaker 3: moment that I always think back to when John Bayner
Speaker 3: and he was probably you know, maybe his mental state
Speaker 3: was altered by some sort of liquid substance or something.
Speaker 2: I don't know what you're talking about.
Speaker 3: But he was really very visibly pissed off at the
Speaker 3: right for not getting on board with immigration reform. That
Speaker 3: was when Republicans there was a sizable block of Republicans
Speaker 3: who wanted to do immigration reform, not back then.
Speaker 2: Yeah, hard to imagine.
Speaker 3: And he did this cull routine right in front of
Speaker 3: reporters where he just mocked the shit out of these
Speaker 3: right wingers in all kinds of crazy, funny ways. And
Speaker 3: you know, his his visible you know, dislike of the
Speaker 3: job was so clear.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean I think we can all agree this is
Speaker 1: not a good job. Yeah, Scalize doesn't want it. And
Speaker 1: you even look at like what's happened in the leadership,
Speaker 1: like it doesn't seem that people are just delighted with
Speaker 1: the experience of being in the GOP leadership.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, can we float this though? Does Kevin
Speaker 3: McCarthy kind of like it?
Speaker 1: I think he is his lifelong dream, That's all he's
Speaker 1: ever wanted. I mean, you know, the man had to like,
Speaker 1: you know, lapdog to Trump.
Speaker 2: Mike Kevin. Yeah, remember Mike Kevin.
Speaker 5: Yes.
Speaker 3: And also I think if you think back to just
Speaker 3: before that, right, or well not just before that, but
Speaker 3: right after January sixth, Trump had practically literally sent his
Speaker 3: supporters into Kevin McCarthy's office to do some pretty serious damage,
Speaker 3: and Kevin McCarthy privately started saying to people that he
Speaker 3: should resign, and then he made that pilgrimage Tomorrow Lago,
Speaker 3: which was one of the most abject things, to use
Speaker 3: your word, that I think we've ever seen in politics.
Speaker 3: At least can contemporary politics, and so at that point
Speaker 3: it was clear that he had made his deal to
Speaker 3: get speakership by essentially insulating Trump from accountability at all costs,
Speaker 3: which he did for years.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the deal with the Devil that Kevin McCarthy made
Speaker 1: was that he decided that he would put his quest
Speaker 1: for the speakership over American democracy.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's very clear. I mean, he did everything he
Speaker 3: could to frustrate a real accounting into January sixth. Let's
Speaker 3: recall this, right, the deal that he made with I
Speaker 3: guess we should call it a sort of a long
Speaker 3: term kind of deal with the devil type situation with
Speaker 3: Marjorie Taylor Green. But remember she was on the hook
Speaker 3: for openly espousing something like real political violence. She had
Speaker 3: engaged in some pretty naked anti Muslim bigotry, and he
Speaker 3: protected her through all that stuff.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: No, I mean that is absolutely true. Some progressives voted
Speaker 1: against it. But do you think ultimately everyone's largely happy
Speaker 1: and relieved.
Speaker 3: Well, I think there's a genuine sort of unhappiness among progressives.
Speaker 3: To go back to what we talked about earlier, I
Speaker 3: think everybody's very pissed about the fundamental the structural aspects
Speaker 3: of the situation. Right that the very fact that this
Speaker 3: had to occur under duress is itself infuriating, and I
Speaker 3: think progressives are right to continue to raise hell about that.
Speaker 3: It's not okay. I mean, there's a legitimate argument to
Speaker 3: be had about whether there was an actual ransom paid
Speaker 3: for the hostage, right, But there's no doubt that a
Speaker 3: hostage was taken, and there was visible damage to the country,
Speaker 3: like lots and lots of people were frightened about their
Speaker 3: losing their social security and so forth, and there was
Speaker 3: talk of a debt downgrade, and that actually happened during
Speaker 3: the last one.
Speaker 2: Right in twenty eleven.
Speaker 3: In twenty eleven. And so what we never factor in
Speaker 3: when we talk about this deal that was reached is
Speaker 3: the long term downside of legitimizing extortion as a kind
Speaker 3: of conventional tool of politics. Right, it can't be okay,
Speaker 3: And that's one of the things that progressives are rightly
Speaker 3: pissed off about, and I think they should continue to
Speaker 3: raise holy hell about that. Thank you so much, Thanks
Speaker 3: very much.
Speaker 1: Rebecca Ballant represents Vermont's first district. Welcome to Fast Politics, Congresswoman.
Speaker 4: Balant, Thank you so much. I'm excited to be here.
Speaker 2: Well, we're excited to have you.
Speaker 1: We will now have had all of the federal legislators
Speaker 1: from Vermont. Fantastic, Yes, we'll have the TRIFACTA. So you
Speaker 1: are the one congresswoman from Vermont, that's right, the lone one,
Speaker 1: the loan congresswoman. Let's first talk about this incredible legislation
Speaker 1: you guys passed yesterday. Tell me what was happening, what
Speaker 1: was going through your head, and also how you voted
Speaker 1: and how it went down.
Speaker 4: Okay, first of all, to understand what happened on the
Speaker 4: floor yesterday, you have to go back to our first
Speaker 4: week on the job, when there were fifteen votes per speaker. Right.
Speaker 4: And so when you think about how it was that
Speaker 4: McCarthy was able to become a speaker to begin with,
Speaker 4: that he cut deals with the most extreme elements of
Speaker 4: his conference. That is literally how he became speaker. And
Speaker 4: so none of us should be surprised that we even
Speaker 4: had this emergency. Right, this was a manufactured crisis. They
Speaker 4: raised the dead stealing three times under Trump. Right, this manufacturer.
Speaker 4: But the moment when I thought, oh my gosh, they
Speaker 4: really are not ready for prime time, They really don't
Speaker 4: know what they're doing. Was when it was a procedural vote,
Speaker 4: just to bring it to the floor, right, you need
Speaker 4: a rule suspension, and McCarthy didn't.
Speaker 2: Have the votes to do it because we're.
Speaker 4: All standing there watching the board really like, seriously, you
Speaker 4: don't even have the votes for the procedural vote. And
Speaker 4: so in the end, I believe it was twenty nine
Speaker 4: Democrats needed to switch their vote to give them to
Speaker 4: give McCarthy the ability to bring it to the floor.
Speaker 4: That does not bode well, right, the next vote coming, right,
Speaker 4: because that's just the procedural hurdle. So it's more of
Speaker 4: the same, right, it's more of this this extremist element
Speaker 4: of his conference in the driver's seat. And so I
Speaker 4: really my feelings about the deal went through all different stages,
Speaker 4: almost like the stages of grief, right, right. And so
Speaker 4: when we got the top lines on Sunday night from
Speaker 4: the White House, it was before we even saw the
Speaker 4: text of the bill, I was feeling generally like okay,
Speaker 4: like crisis averted. It seems like the negotiators in the
Speaker 4: White House did did a good job with the bad
Speaker 4: hand they'd been dealt. And then on Monday I was
Speaker 4: in meetings, as many of my colleagues were for hours,
Speaker 4: hours and hours on Monday trying to dive into the details.
Speaker 4: And then as we were diving into the details, I
Speaker 4: felt like, ugh, like.
Speaker 2: The permitting reform, the environmental stuff freak you out?
Speaker 4: Yes, right, oh, totally completely. And in the fact that
Speaker 4: they're always beating up on poor people right right, I
Speaker 4: mean again this trope again.
Speaker 1: But they are so stupid that they did actually increase snap.
Speaker 4: I know, it's pretty genius.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, no, it was.
Speaker 4: Masterful on the part of the President and his negotiators
Speaker 4: because in the end we got more people covered, but
Speaker 4: not before again they dragged poor people and poor working
Speaker 4: families through the mud again, right, for essentially very little
Speaker 4: in supports. And we're not going to balance the budget
Speaker 4: eliminating people's you know, food support.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure anyone's even interested in balancing the budget
Speaker 1: at this point.
Speaker 4: Exactly.
Speaker 6: Well, that's it, you said the quiet part out loud, right,
Speaker 6: which is no, they're not. They're not, because if you
Speaker 6: add a seriousness and purpose, you would be looking at
Speaker 6: what added to this deficit under the Trump ears, right,
Speaker 6: where these devastating tax cuts that weren't paid for adding
Speaker 6: over a trillion dollars, right, So I ran through through
Speaker 6: all kinds of emotions. But when seeing the dysfunction and
Speaker 6: realizing they couldn't even get a procedural boat passed, it
Speaker 6: was clear to me that there was real danger that
Speaker 6: we could default, and I'm not going to be part
Speaker 6: of that. That is, you know what I was saying
Speaker 6: to a reporter earlier. The bill is distasteful, A default
Speaker 6: is catastrophic.
Speaker 4: And so you know, you you make the best of
Speaker 4: the cards you're dealt, and you fight like hell on
Speaker 4: the Appropriations Bill and on the Farm bill and all
Speaker 4: that stuff that is going to come up. But it
Speaker 4: should be surprising to know one that this is how
Speaker 4: the conference is leading, given how McCarthy handed over the
Speaker 4: steering wheel too, folks like Marjorie Taylor Green, Lauren Bobert,
Speaker 4: Paul Gosart, like the extremist of the conference.
Speaker 1: But what I was a little bit interested in, and again,
Speaker 1: you never want to hand it to McCarthy's I am
Speaker 1: in no way handing it to mcarthury. He made overtures
Speaker 1: to those guys like Jim Jordan, and then they supported him, Yes,
Speaker 1: which is proof that if you're just nice to them.
Speaker 2: They don't actually have any values. That's it. They don't
Speaker 2: have any values.
Speaker 4: And also who's their cash cow? Right? Some of this
Speaker 4: comes right down to money in their districts, right. So
Speaker 4: unfortunately that is the always the underbelly, which is where
Speaker 4: you're getting your money from. But yes, Marjorie Taylor Green
Speaker 4: has been right by his side. I think he was
Speaker 4: even quoted as saying is I will never abandon that woman,
Speaker 4: which she was just like I can have her, man.
Speaker 7: Right, you washed the bile out of my mouth, you know.
Speaker 1: I Mean what I'm struck by is the way in
Speaker 1: which she was like, it's a shit sandwich, and then
Speaker 1: she's like, but I'm gonna vote for it exactly. So
Speaker 1: that incredible. Yeah, So I know, director Young really was
Speaker 1: sort of the hero of this story.
Speaker 4: Right, absolutely, And when she walked into caucus yesterday morning,
Speaker 4: we all gave her a skin ovation. That's how well
Speaker 4: respected she is. Even though there were parts of the
Speaker 4: deal that we didn't like, Even though we are so
Speaker 4: angry that we're even in this situation, she is absolutely
Speaker 4: should be hailed as a hero because she's incredibly smart,
Speaker 4: she is incredibly experienced, and she knows how to work
Speaker 4: with people. Oh shocking. You need people negotiations who know
Speaker 4: how to work people. And yeah, I actually it's on
Speaker 4: my list of notes to write this week. There's not
Speaker 4: to like a handwritten note and drop her a line
Speaker 4: and just tell her, like, what a great job that
Speaker 4: she did, not just for you know, this isn't about
Speaker 4: Democrats versus Republicans. This is about she did work on
Speaker 4: behalf of the American people to make sure we didn't default.
Speaker 4: And that's that's huge, huge.
Speaker 1: She is also the first African American woman to ever
Speaker 1: have that job exactly.
Speaker 4: Yeah. Again, like we love to celebrate first, I was
Speaker 4: a first right, first woman to represent form, first queer person.
Speaker 4: All these things we do need to celebrate first and
Speaker 4: also we have to, you know, at the same time
Speaker 4: time shake our heads and say, really, it took this long, Right,
Speaker 4: it took this long for an African American woman to
Speaker 4: be in those negotiations. It is shocking. Yeah, I'm so
Speaker 4: pleased that she is in a position that she said.
Speaker 1: I wanted just one last second on the director of
Speaker 1: Office of Office Management and Budget, Right, is that.
Speaker 2: What it's called her?
Speaker 4: That's right?
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yes, she also went supposedly McCarthy said that she was
Speaker 1: so respected even he could not say something bad about
Speaker 1: her to sort of that was the effect of what
Speaker 1: I read exactly.
Speaker 4: And mckenry, one of the negotiators for McCarthy, said a
Speaker 4: similar thing, that it was this sense of almost an
Speaker 4: exhaling moment for everyone that, oh, like, we're getting serious
Speaker 4: about these negotiations. This isn't for show. Shalanda's in the room.
Speaker 4: This must mean that we're actually going to negotiate an
Speaker 4: actual deal. And that just speaks volumes for the word
Speaker 4: that she did for years. I believe she was a
Speaker 4: staffer on the Appropriations committee at so she knows. She
Speaker 4: knows how to build budgets. She knows how to again,
Speaker 4: as I said, bring people together. It is. It is
Speaker 4: a lost art and I want to be part of those,
Speaker 4: you know, part of that coalition bringing back the lost
Speaker 4: art of actually working well with people. And yeah, it is,
Speaker 4: it is critically important.
Speaker 2: You are also in a very insane freshman class.
Speaker 1: So well, I feel like we just had like the
Speaker 1: lovely light government sometimes works. I mean, let's be honest here,
Speaker 1: it seems like Democrats fell asleep at the wheel a
Speaker 1: little bit with the House losing the House because you
Speaker 1: know there are eighteen seats in this House that are
Speaker 1: occupied by Republicans in Biden districts.
Speaker 4: Yeah, we need to do a better job in twenty
Speaker 4: twenty four. Absolutely, we need to not take any fee
Speaker 4: for granted, right, We need to get back at least
Speaker 4: five vot you know, guaranteed VOTs to get to flip
Speaker 4: those seats, get back those seats that we lost in
Speaker 4: New York and California that we never should have lost. Absolutely,
Speaker 4: and so yeah, we have we of course we have
Speaker 4: some blame here as well as this whole debacle over
Speaker 4: the debt ceiling. We could have you know, done away
Speaker 4: with it when we were in charge, and we didn't.
Speaker 4: That's on us, right, So that's work that we have
Speaker 4: to do going forward. And so what is inspiring to me,
Speaker 4: even in my frustration about being in the minority and
Speaker 4: looking at the dysfunction of the Republican Conference, the thing
Speaker 4: that gives me inspiration is the number of really inspiring
Speaker 4: Democratic freshmen who have come in with me. I love
Speaker 4: my class.
Speaker 1: Tell me about the inspiring Democratic freshman, because I've seen
Speaker 1: some not so inspiring George Santos's.
Speaker 4: That is right, all right, So let's talk about them.
Speaker 4: There's so many of them, and many of them serve
Speaker 4: with me on oversight. So you've got Jasmine Crockett, You've
Speaker 4: got Summer Great Kassar, Maxwell Frost.
Speaker 2: We just had Summer lay on Yes and Maxwell Frost.
Speaker 4: I know, I listen and Robert Garcia and then Daddio
Speaker 4: Ramirez and Morgan McGarvey from Louisville. I love my class.
Speaker 4: I feel a kinship with them, even if we don't
Speaker 4: agree on all political policies. Like we have a tight
Speaker 4: group of you know, it goes from the blue dogs
Speaker 4: to the progressives within our class, and we have a
Speaker 4: signal chat. We all are talking with each other. We
Speaker 4: lift each other's work up to the group. It was
Speaker 4: one of my biggest fears in leaving the Vermont legislation.
Speaker 4: So I was the president of the Senate. We pass
Speaker 4: some really progressive legislation in Vermont, including codifying reproductive rights
Speaker 4: in our constitution. Like we did some really great stuff,
Speaker 4: And my biggest fear was I'm leaving a very functioning
Speaker 4: body to come here to Congress, and will I have allies?
Speaker 4: Will I feel a kinship? Will I have a group
Speaker 4: that will continue to really nourish me because it's the
Speaker 4: hard work, right. You need to get inspiration from the
Speaker 4: people around you because there's so much to spare, and
Speaker 4: I do get that from them. And even when we're
Speaker 4: in oversight and once again they're beating up on queer
Speaker 4: people or trans kids or poor people, right, I know
Speaker 4: that Maxwell Frost is to my right and Summerly is
Speaker 4: to my left, and together we're going to be refuting
Speaker 4: the misinformation and disinformation and we all make each other laugh, like, yeah,
Speaker 4: you can't lose your sense of humor. And so I
Speaker 4: just feel very fortunate to be coming in at this time.
Speaker 4: And it's no accident. Right, pretty much every Democratic freshman
Speaker 4: ran because of what happened on January sixth, So it
Speaker 4: was an absolute pivotal, crystallizing moment. Democracy is fundamentally at risk,
Speaker 4: and so we have that finding us together, and it's
Speaker 4: really powerful.
Speaker 2: You're gay.
Speaker 4: I am very gay.
Speaker 2: I have a gay kid.
Speaker 1: It seems like I've never ever I mean no, I
Speaker 1: had a lot of members.
Speaker 2: Of my family were gay. Most of them have died.
Speaker 2: But that's why I say were, Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean Republicans are just attacking gay people in a
Speaker 1: way that I did not think whatever happen now.
Speaker 4: Yeah, we're seeing the nineteen seventies all over again, as
Speaker 4: we're seeing has come back again. And when we see this,
Speaker 4: when you make advances, the backlash comes and we're in
Speaker 4: the backlash. And what is the most disheartening for me
Speaker 4: is that they are punching down. They're picking on kids constantly, right,
Speaker 4: And that's the piece for me. I'm an adult. I
Speaker 4: have dealt with the homophobia my whole life. It's another
Speaker 4: issue entirely when you are going after queer entrance kids
Speaker 4: in their families. I mean, these are some of these kids,
Speaker 4: are you know, ten eleven years old? I certain I
Speaker 4: knew when I was eleven that I was gay. I
Speaker 4: didn't come out to my friends or family till much later.
Speaker 4: But a couple of weeks ago, we had an extraordinary
Speaker 4: meeting with parents of trans kids. They came to the
Speaker 4: capital to talk to us about what their experiences are,
Speaker 4: and somewhere from quote unquote blue blue states, some from
Speaker 4: red states, and they all had the same thing to say,
Speaker 4: which is, you have no idea how painful it is
Speaker 4: for our children for them to watch their own government
Speaker 4: attack them.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 4: Yeah, there is the toll it's taking in terms of
Speaker 4: the care they're not being able to get, whether they're
Speaker 4: they're not able to get their gender affirming care. But
Speaker 4: then there's also the psychological and emotional toll that your
Speaker 4: government hates you, that your government hates you, and that
Speaker 4: there are people who have absolutely no qualms about showing
Speaker 4: that hatred because they believe that the base on the
Speaker 4: right will respond. And it is very disheartening. But we
Speaker 4: have been here before, like I know this, I know
Speaker 4: this play. That's what they always go to when they
Speaker 4: don't have any substantive politan discussions, when they don't want
Speaker 4: to actually talk about the unfair tax code or the
Speaker 4: fact that we're burning the planet or you know, any
Speaker 4: of those things. Let's beat up on people who are
Speaker 4: vulnerable because we don't think there are enough people to
Speaker 4: speak for them. And that's the message that I want
Speaker 4: to let people know. And actually I listened to your
Speaker 4: great interview with Megan Hunt. We got to know each
Speaker 4: other through the Victory Fund, which is an organization that
Speaker 4: supports who are in trans candidates. And you know, she
Speaker 4: is a hopeful person. I'm a hopeful person. One of
Speaker 4: the takeaways that I had and listening to that interview
Speaker 4: you did, was that we need allies. We need people
Speaker 4: for whom this doesn't impact their lives day in and
Speaker 4: day out, to stand up for us because we are
Speaker 4: tired and we're attacked. I feel like I have figured
Speaker 4: out a way not to let the homophobia and a
Speaker 4: hatred get to me. Like I don't read the comments, right,
Speaker 4: I don't, but you know all those things, never to comment.
Speaker 4: And also I've just been deciding, I'm in a blue district.
Speaker 4: I'm going to be unapologetically myself and be joyful about it.
Speaker 4: And so you know, we have these little stickers and
Speaker 4: T shirts that we made that just say scrappy little
Speaker 4: Dike on them because that's who I am. Like, I'm scrappy,
Speaker 4: I'm little, I'm a dyke, and you know what, I'm
Speaker 4: not going to hurt you. I'm just going to fight
Speaker 4: for everyone. That's my message. I'm fighting for everyone, and
Speaker 4: we need allies that will stand with us. I think
Speaker 4: you can bring people to you when you are joyful,
Speaker 4: So I try to go through my days in that way.
Speaker 1: I have one last question for you, what are you
Speaker 1: doing in Vermont? That is that the rest of the
Speaker 1: country should be doing legislatively.
Speaker 4: Yeah, well, certainly around reproductive rights, we absolutely should be
Speaker 4: doing that. We have been leading on our childcare initiatives,
Speaker 4: and I was just watching the local news this morning
Speaker 4: worrying about what the governor was be telling you.
Speaker 2: Have a Republican governor do exactly.
Speaker 4: He is a sort of an old styled New England Republican,
Speaker 4: which is of course like he's one of like what
Speaker 4: three left in New England. That's right, And so I
Speaker 4: was watching this morning. He may be setting us back
Speaker 4: on some of those initiatives. But I think one of
Speaker 4: the things that we've tried to do in Vermont is
Speaker 4: really look at who is suffering the most under this
Speaker 4: income inequality gap that has grown into a huge chasm
Speaker 4: in the last few decades, and how do we make
Speaker 4: sure that we are supporting those families and those individuals
Speaker 4: who are most vulnerable. And that's really what has been
Speaker 4: driving our budget decisions and our policy decisions. And I
Speaker 4: think rural America desperately needs this right now. And that's
Speaker 4: one of the reasons why I'm from a rural state, right.
Speaker 4: I mean, our largest city is Burlington, which is really
Speaker 4: not that big, and you know, and I'm not from there.
Speaker 4: I'm from the southern part of the state that is
Speaker 4: that is rural. The rest of the state is rural,
Speaker 4: and I really want to figure out a way to
Speaker 4: make these ideas not about blue state, red state, and
Speaker 4: more about this is what rural America needs right now,
Speaker 4: because we're dying.
Speaker 1: And rural America really has problems that the rest of
Speaker 1: America doesn't.
Speaker 4: Yes, they don't have access to medical care or dentists
Speaker 4: or psychologists, or depending on where you are, you don't
Speaker 4: have the infrastructure that is supporting you and your family,
Speaker 4: and you don't have mass transit, and you don't have
Speaker 4: the ability to shop locally all of those things. And
Speaker 4: I think there is a place for me right now,
Speaker 4: even as an as of a.
Speaker 7: Motorcycle riding gay woman from Rio from Vermont, to make
Speaker 7: the case that we do not need to be demonizing
Speaker 7: each other and dehumanizing each other on these extreme issues
Speaker 7: that the Republicans are bringing up because it's just killing
Speaker 7: people who are living on the margins.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much. This was great.
Speaker 1: Hi, it's Molly, and I am wildly excited that for
Speaker 1: the first time Fast Politics, the show you're listening to
Speaker 1: right now, is going to have merch for sale over
Speaker 1: at shop dot Fastpoliticspod dot com.
Speaker 2: You can now buy shirts.
Speaker 1: Hats, hoodies, and toe bags with our incredible designs.
Speaker 2: We've heard your.
Speaker 1: Cries to spread the word about our podcast and get
Speaker 1: a tow bag with my adorable Leo the Rescue Puppy
Speaker 1: on it, and now you can grab this merchandise only
Speaker 1: at shop dot fastpoliticspod dot com.
Speaker 2: Thanks for your support.
Speaker 1: Matt Bennett is the vice president of Third Way. Welcome
Speaker 1: to Fast Politics.
Speaker 2: Matt, thanks so much.
Speaker 1: Explain to us a little bit about who you are.
Speaker 5: And what you do.
Speaker 8: Sure, so, I am a co founder a EVP at
Speaker 8: a think tank and advocacy group called Third Way in Washington,
Speaker 8: and we're basically moderate Democrats. We work with the center left.
Speaker 8: I think Joe Biden as our ideology, and we do
Speaker 8: a whole range of things, and I spend a lot
Speaker 8: of my time thinking about politics, and especially at the
Speaker 8: moment presidential politics.
Speaker 2: Talk to me about what you're worry about.
Speaker 8: The thing that is really worrying us at the moment
Speaker 8: is an effort on the part of a group called
Speaker 8: No Labels to field a third party candidate in twenty
Speaker 8: twenty four. This kind of flew under the radar for
Speaker 8: a while until David Brooks wrote about it back in September,
Speaker 8: and it became clear that they have a lot of
Speaker 8: money and that they were intending to try to get
Speaker 8: on the ballot in every state. And when we looked
Speaker 8: at this, it became very evident not only that they
Speaker 8: could never possibly win the election, but if they go
Speaker 8: forward with this, they could serve as a spoiler and
Speaker 8: help reelect Trump.
Speaker 4: So that really worried us.
Speaker 1: Talk to us about where the no labels money comes from, Well.
Speaker 8: It's important to emphasize that we don't know exactly because
Speaker 8: they're organized as a five oh one C four, which
Speaker 8: means they can keep their donors secret, and they do.
Speaker 8: There has been some reporting on a few people who
Speaker 8: give to them. They tend to be center right or
Speaker 8: Republican finance types.
Speaker 2: They're not Democrats. I think is important to hit a
Speaker 2: point they're not.
Speaker 8: It used to be that they had a more bipartisan
Speaker 8: group of donors, but a while ago they got involved
Speaker 8: in a Senate race in Colorado and they endorsed Corey Gardner,
Speaker 8: the Republican, against Mark Yudahl, who was a moderate Democrat
Speaker 8: and a lot of their Democratic donors kind of fled
Speaker 8: after that. So it's Republican.
Speaker 1: So let's talk about what they're doing now to try
Speaker 1: to undermine this election.
Speaker 8: Well, what they say they're doing is offering voters a
Speaker 8: choice because nobody wants a rematch a Biden Trump.
Speaker 2: But that's bullshit, right, that's what they claim.
Speaker 8: What they actually are doing is they have people on
Speaker 8: the ground in every state or most states right now
Speaker 8: seeking ballot access, and there's a quirk in the law
Speaker 8: that in thirty five states they can do that even
Speaker 8: though they're a C four, Their donors are secret, they
Speaker 8: raise on limited amounts of money. They're not a political
Speaker 8: party operating under all these other rules that would apply
Speaker 8: if they were. And they have already collected at least
Speaker 8: forty million dollars. They claim they're on their way to
Speaker 8: seventy million. That's a lot of money for a third
Speaker 8: party effort. Yeah, and that's just to.
Speaker 2: Get on the ballot.
Speaker 8: They are playing foot seat with people like Joe Manchin
Speaker 8: and possibly Christian Cinema, Larry Hogan, the former governor of Maryland.
Speaker 8: They want to feel the bipartisan ticket, and they are
Speaker 8: telling their donors and supporters that they can do this
Speaker 8: in a way where they can actually win, But that's nonsense.
Speaker 8: What they will actually do is spoil.
Speaker 1: But they really only want to get on the ballot
Speaker 1: in states where they could throw the election to Trump.
Speaker 2: Too, It's hard to know.
Speaker 8: I mean, they actually have called for the ballot in
Speaker 8: a few red states, so I'm not sure that's right.
Speaker 2: Where have they qualified so far? Right?
Speaker 8: So the first place was Arizona, right, which is a
Speaker 8: place where they really could throw the election to that
Speaker 8: absolutely could. I mean, lecture was decided by zero point
Speaker 8: two percent last time. They are on in Florida and there,
Speaker 8: which has become unfortunately a red state, as Steve Shale
Speaker 8: writes about today in The Bulwark. But then they're they're
Speaker 8: trying to qualify basically everywhere. They have now said they
Speaker 8: want to be on in fifty states, and they've put
Speaker 8: out this electoral map where they claim they're going to
Speaker 8: win twenty five or twenty six states. It's insane to
Speaker 8: think that they could win anything much less twenty six states.
Speaker 8: But they are there purporting that this is a national effort,
Speaker 8: and it appears they have the money to do that.
Speaker 8: That's really scary, It really is I mean, just to
Speaker 8: put this in perspective about how damaging this could be.
Speaker 8: In twenty sixteen, Jill Stein and Gary Johnson were two
Speaker 8: third party candidates on the ballot. They did not have
Speaker 8: much money, they did not have any name idea almost anywhere.
Speaker 8: But they were an alternative for a lot of voters
Speaker 8: who didn't like either Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump. And
Speaker 8: a lot of voters, at least a lot, in the
Speaker 8: context of a very close race, chose that option. They
Speaker 8: got five six seven percent in a lot of swing states.
Speaker 8: Just to give you a sense of how devastating this
Speaker 8: was in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania, which is we all
Speaker 8: remember those were the three states that killed Clinton. If
Speaker 8: she'd won those, she'd have been president. She lost them
Speaker 8: very narrowly. In all three of those states, Trump won
Speaker 8: in twenty sixteen, and he lost them in twenty twenty. Nevertheless,
Speaker 8: his share of the vote in all three went up
Speaker 8: from sixteen to twenty. And the reason is some of
Speaker 8: the third party voters from sixteen went to Trump, but
Speaker 8: more went to Biden, so Biden. Biden's share relative to
Speaker 8: hillaryes went up by more. It's crystal clear evidence that
Speaker 8: a third party candidate can be a spoiler. It certainly
Speaker 8: wasn't twenty sixteen. It obviously was with Ralph Nader in
Speaker 8: two thousand and A very well financed third party candidate
Speaker 8: could be incredibly dangerous and damaging.
Speaker 2: Yes, what can we do to prevent this from happening?
Speaker 8: Well, unfortunately, the options are somewhat limited. I mean, it's
Speaker 8: a free country. They can do this if they want to.
Speaker 8: They have enough money to have a sophisticated operation to
Speaker 8: gather signatures and get on the ballot in the states
Speaker 8: where they're able to before they have a candidate. Incidentally,
Speaker 8: they claim they're going to hold a nominating convention in
Speaker 8: April next year in Dallas. They will choose their candidate then,
Speaker 8: and then that candidate will be in charge. So between
Speaker 8: now and April, what we are focused on is trying
Speaker 8: to convince both their donors and their potential candidates that
Speaker 8: this is a terrible and destructive idea that will lead
Speaker 8: to the reelection of Trump. And we're having a degree
Speaker 8: of success with that, And I think listeners can help
Speaker 8: by getting the word out that the no Labels effort
Speaker 8: is simply going to re elect Trump, whether they intend
Speaker 8: that or not, and they have run into some skepticism
Speaker 8: from some of their donors. It has made some of
Speaker 8: the people that are potential candidates for them, like Manchinsinna
Speaker 8: and Hogan somewhat defensive. And I think that Drumbeat needs
Speaker 8: to get a lot louder.
Speaker 1: So let me ask you where Harland Crowe figures into this.
Speaker 8: Yeah, so we all remember Harlan Crowe from the incredible
Speaker 8: reporting don about Clarence Thomas and the trips on his
Speaker 8: yacht and his Garden of Evil and all of that.
Speaker 8: It turns out that he is one of or perhaps
Speaker 8: the top donor to no Labels. Again, hard to know
Speaker 8: because it's all secret. Apparently, according to some reporting, he
Speaker 8: is a major donor of theirs. And they've got other people.
Speaker 8: There's a guy named Nelson Peltz who was close to Trump.
Speaker 2: At one time.
Speaker 8: He's a big donor. Andrew Tish, whose brother is a
Speaker 8: big Democratic donor. Andrew is a Republican. So to your
Speaker 8: point earlier, these are Republican donors. There are a lot
Speaker 8: more of them. There was a story recently in the
Speaker 8: Wall Street Journal about how manche Wall Street guys are
Speaker 8: really into this. I mean, they love the idea of
Speaker 8: a nonpartisan or a bipartisan ticket. It's all blowney, but
Speaker 8: it is selling well in the donor class.
Speaker 2: Right with Republican donors. Largely Republican donors, right.
Speaker 8: I mean, clearly, if you are a Biden donor, this
Speaker 8: will not appeal to you. If you're a core Trump supporter,
Speaker 8: there's probably more direct ways of helping Trump than this
Speaker 8: that would be kind of a double bank shot. For
Speaker 8: the most part, these donors, I think, believe in good
Speaker 8: faith that this is actually a thing that could work,
Speaker 8: that these guys could actually win the election, despite the
Speaker 8: fact that no one has ever come close to doing that.
Speaker 8: The person who got the closest was Teddy Roosevelt. He
Speaker 8: is carved into Mount Rushmore.
Speaker 2: He couldn't do it.
Speaker 8: The left office is one of the most popular president's
Speaker 8: of American history. Four years later, tried to run as
Speaker 8: a third party candidate and got smoked. But the way
Speaker 8: was a spoiler, and you know, at the time, the
Speaker 8: Republicans were the good guys, and he served as a
Speaker 8: spoiler and the Democrat one. So yeah, that the idea
Speaker 8: they could win is absurd. No one has won a
Speaker 8: single electoral vote as a third party candidate. Since nineteen
Speaker 8: sixty eight when George Wallace did it by appealing to racists. So,
Speaker 8: you know, not going to happen. But somehow, people, for
Speaker 8: the most part, on Wall Street have convinced themselves that
Speaker 8: this time is different, which is a thing you probably
Speaker 8: shouldn't convince yourself of on Wall Street because we know
Speaker 8: how that goes. You know, they're kind of credulously behind it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm sure you saw that yesterday what's his name,
Speaker 1: hedge fund manager was saying that Jamie Diamond should run
Speaker 1: for president.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Bill Backman, Bill Ackman, Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean, just like we're getting high on our own
Speaker 1: supply over here, team unbelievably so.
Speaker 8: I mean, Jamie Diamond seems like he's.
Speaker 2: Very good at his job.
Speaker 8: But what happened on Wall Street is when you become
Speaker 8: that rich, think you can do any job right. You know,
Speaker 8: the idea that this guy, that Jamie Diamond would be
Speaker 8: a good candidate for president is ridiculous, particularly in the
Speaker 8: context of a re election of an incredibly successful, very
Speaker 8: moderate and bipartisan Democratic president. I mean, what we saw
Speaker 8: last night in the House was this incredibly overwhelming victory
Speaker 8: for Joe Biden. I do not know what the No
Speaker 8: Label supporters want him to do. I mean he's doing
Speaker 8: pretty much precisely what seems that they would like.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is really about how handing the election to Trump.
Speaker 8: We've declined to question their motives. I don't know what
Speaker 8: is actually driving the people at No Labels or their donors,
Speaker 8: but you're exactly right in effect, which is, if they
Speaker 8: do this, they will elect Trump, whether they intended or not.
Speaker 1: So basically what's important now is that people write to
Speaker 1: and remind yirston Cinema crew, right, Yeah.
Speaker 8: I mean Mansion Cinema, Larry Hogan, but also anyone else
Speaker 8: who is thinking about this, and to their own members
Speaker 8: of Congress that they should make clear that this is
Speaker 8: a terrible idea. Just to give you an example, the
Speaker 8: Problem Solvers Caucus, which is this group of Democrats and
Speaker 8: Republicans that No Labels helped form. Say what you will
Speaker 8: about them, they're kind of centrist, bipartisan types, and some
Speaker 8: things they've done have been great, and you know, you
Speaker 8: could quipple with others, but there are a bunch of
Speaker 8: Democrats in the Problem Solver's Caucus and none of them
Speaker 8: can possibly support this because you can't be a democratic
Speaker 8: collected official and think Joe Biden shouldn't be president. Many
Speaker 8: of them have been clear about that, including their chair
Speaker 8: Josh Koheimer said he doesn't support this. Abigail Smamburger put
Speaker 8: out a flaming statement about this. But there's a bunch
Speaker 8: more and whether or not folks have members of Congress
Speaker 8: who are in the problem solvers, they should write to
Speaker 8: their members and say be clear publicly that this a
Speaker 8: bad idea exactly.
Speaker 1: And I think that's a really important point. What else
Speaker 1: are you watching with anxiety coming into twenty four?
Speaker 8: So many things beyond this. There are two huge keys
Speaker 8: to twenty twenty four. What is the economy doing and
Speaker 8: how do people feel about it? And right now those
Speaker 8: two things are really out of balance because if you
Speaker 8: look at the data, the economy is doing extraordinarily well.
Speaker 8: I mean, unemployments at a fifty year low. Black unemployment
Speaker 8: is the lowest it has ever been recorded. The stock
Speaker 8: market's doing really well. Inflation is too high, and that
Speaker 8: is absolutely a thing that hurts. But it does seem
Speaker 8: that people are reacting more grumpily to the economy than
Speaker 8: might be warranted, and that's going to matter. That will
Speaker 8: really drive decisions about who they vote for. So one
Speaker 8: thing is how's the economy doing and how are the
Speaker 8: people feeling about it? And then you know, the second
Speaker 8: thing is if Trump is their nominee, can we turn
Speaker 8: this into a choice and not a reference to mon Biden?
Speaker 8: And I think we can as long as it's head
Speaker 8: to head. If it's a three way race, it's much tougher.
Speaker 1: Yes, exactly, and that is really scary. What do you
Speaker 1: think is going to happen in Arizona with the Senate race?
Speaker 8: No Labels comes into play here in an interesting way
Speaker 8: as well, because they have qualified for the ballot in
Speaker 8: Arizona and there are ballot lines available to folks running
Speaker 8: for other offices. So it is conceivable that Cinema could
Speaker 8: run as a no labels candidate for Senate against Gego
Speaker 8: and then whoever the Republicans nominee. It's pretty unlikely that
Speaker 8: she will even contest the Democratic nomination because there's almost
Speaker 8: no way she could win. And then, you know, three
Speaker 8: way races are very very difficult, particularly if two of
Speaker 8: them are identified as basically Democrats. So it's a little
Speaker 8: nerve wracking there. I don't see a path forward yet,
Speaker 8: but you never know. I mean, Lisa Murkowski won a
Speaker 8: writing campaign for Senate Alaska, so anything's possible, right.
Speaker 2: I find it hard to bet against Reuben Diego.
Speaker 8: She's a very dynamic guy and he's got a lot
Speaker 8: of core supporters, and it will be very interesting to
Speaker 8: see how he does on this stage. I mean, he
Speaker 8: he was a very effective candidate for House, so we
Speaker 8: are hoping for the best.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, Thank you so much. This was really interesting.
Speaker 2: I hope you'll come back anytime.
Speaker 8: Happy to be here.
Speaker 5: No moment O.
Speaker 2: Fuck Jess he Cannon.
Speaker 9: Molly jung Fast, that Roger Stone. He got a little
Speaker 9: too close to the Trump world, and he did what
Speaker 9: they all do, which is they say the thing they're
Speaker 9: not supposed to say. Why don't we listen to what
Speaker 9: he said?
Speaker 5: I want to talk to you about Donald Trump. Someone
Speaker 5: who is a force of nature in himself, someone who
Speaker 5: marches to his own drummer, someone who is not handled,
Speaker 5: not managed control, A man who cannot be bossed and
Speaker 5: cannot be bought, which has made him one of the
Speaker 5: greatest presidents since Abraham Lincoln. I have a forty year
Speaker 5: record of being able to convince the big man to
Speaker 5: do It's in his best interest. He's not easy to
Speaker 5: deal with. It's complicated. He resents any implication that he
Speaker 5: has handled or managed or directed. You have to say,
Speaker 5: remember that night we were in Buffalo and you gave
Speaker 5: that speech, and it had to be ten thousand people,
Speaker 5: their biggest crowd they'd ever seen, and you said X,
Speaker 5: Y and Z. The place went crazy. Remember that. I
Speaker 5: don't know where you came up with that line, but
Speaker 5: it's one of the best things you've read. Yeah, Like,
Speaker 5: I'm gonna use that one again. It doesn't fucking matter
Speaker 5: that he never said, it doesn't matter. It's time consuming,
Speaker 5: but it works. I did it for thirty years.
Speaker 1: Roger Stone saying that no one can control Trump and
Speaker 1: then minutes later talking about how he controls Trump.
Speaker 2: That is our moment of Fuckeray.
Speaker 1: That's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in
Speaker 1: every Monday, Wednesday and Friday to hear the best minds
Speaker 1: in politics makes sense of all this chaos. If you
Speaker 1: enjoyed what you've heard, please send it to a friend
Speaker 1: and keep the conversation going. And again, thanks for listening.