Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Molly John Fast, and this is Fast Politics,
Speaker 1: where we discuss the top political headlines with some of
Speaker 1: today's best minds and Trump's former chief of staff, John
Speaker 1: Kelly says Trump's quote unquote, scared shitless. We have a
Speaker 1: fantastic show today, The Daily Beasts Can Fight. Our newsletter
Speaker 1: author Lachlan Cartwright stops by to tell us about the
Speaker 1: shakeups at CNN and the media's coverage of Trump. Then
Speaker 1: we'll talk to The Washington Post Paul Kine about the
Speaker 1: chaos inside the GOP's congressional class. But first we have
Speaker 1: the one, the only, the author of Too Much and
Speaker 1: Never Enough, The Mary Trump Shows, Mary Trump, So welcome
Speaker 1: back to Fast Politics. Mary Trump, Mary Trump.
Speaker 2: Maulli jun Fast, Malli Junk Fast.
Speaker 1: We're at this moment in the state of our nation
Speaker 1: and the state of our lives with Donald Trump, where
Speaker 1: I feel like it's so bad I have to laugh.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, see I witness me laughing right now. What
Speaker 2: else are you gonna do?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 4: I mean, you have to laugh because otherwise you'll cry.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's very difficult to get a little bit of
Speaker 5: space from things to the extent that that's possible. And
Speaker 5: then to be dragged back in by this bizarre spectacle
Speaker 5: and another stark reminder about how badly the mainstream media
Speaker 5: fails us time after time, and also to be reminded
Speaker 5: that people really don't get it. I mean, there are
Speaker 5: people whose opinions I respect and whose views I value
Speaker 5: going out there talking about how we have to bend
Speaker 5: over backwards to treat Donald as innocent before proven guilty
Speaker 5: and make sure that he is treated like any other
Speaker 5: person in his position, as if there ever has been.
Speaker 5: But I mean that suggests that he's not being treated fairly,
Speaker 5: or rather that there is this double standard and he's
Speaker 5: suffering at the hands of that double standard. But Molly,
Speaker 5: I mean, Jesus Christ, has anybody been treated better or
Speaker 5: lescessarily in this sense that it always redounds to his benefit.
Speaker 5: He left there a freeman able to do whatever he wants.
Speaker 5: You and I would be in prison for the rest
Speaker 5: of our lives pending trial.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: I mean, that is the incredible thing about trump Ism
Speaker 1: is that Trump has somehow convinced and again, like I
Speaker 1: feel like the top line here is democracy dies and stupid. Right,
Speaker 1: This guy reality television host who paints himself orange has
Speaker 1: convinced the entire Republican Party, including the grown ups, quote unquote,
Speaker 1: that somehow him getting in trouble for refusing to return
Speaker 1: classified documents and telling.
Speaker 2: Lawyers to lie about it and.
Speaker 1: Showing these classified documents to other people is somehow convinced
Speaker 1: them that this is in some way an.
Speaker 2: Affront to him.
Speaker 5: Yeah, there's that for sure, and the fact that none
Speaker 5: of the several dozen now other candidates for the Republican
Speaker 5: nomination don't seem to be able to find a way
Speaker 5: to use his vast criminality and treason his behavior against him.
Speaker 2: But you know, again, there's also on the left a
Speaker 2: reluctance to be very clear about what's going on here.
Speaker 2: And this is frustrating for lay people like me because
Speaker 2: I don't have to worry about the niceties of the
Speaker 2: legal system.
Speaker 5: We know he's guilty, not only because we saw it
Speaker 5: with our own eyes and hurt it with our own ears.
Speaker 5: The evidence has been unfolding in front of us for
Speaker 5: over two years now, and it's just maddening how the
Speaker 5: emphasis seems to be on just making sure everything's fair
Speaker 5: for dom.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's unbelievable.
Speaker 1: Yeah, if you were just to look at the case
Speaker 1: just the documents case, right, Mike Pence had accident. Let's
Speaker 1: just say they accidentally took home. You know, Mike Penn's
Speaker 1: excellently took documents. Joe Biden accidentally took documents, they returned them.
Speaker 2: Period paragraph.
Speaker 4: Donald Trump again took many, many boxes.
Speaker 1: Maybe there was an accident, Okay, I mean I a
Speaker 1: very hard time believing that from the fact that he
Speaker 1: then told Mark Meadows, biographer, right, but that was who
Speaker 1: he was talking to. He told someone, I have all
Speaker 1: these secret documents. I could have declassified them, but now
Speaker 1: I'm not. Look there secret secret you know, Russell paper.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know what, these are crimes. They're not
Speaker 1: just crimes because Donald Trump is very popular.
Speaker 5: No, no, And again, when has this man ever faced
Speaker 5: the consequences of his actions. Never, There's always somebody there
Speaker 5: to bail them out. So it's almost as if that
Speaker 5: aura of invincibility means to many people that he should
Speaker 5: always be able to crime with no consequences. It's completely insane.
Speaker 5: And also what gets left out of the conversation, and
Speaker 5: this is the part I just do not understand. There's
Speaker 5: a very real possibility that American allies or American people
Speaker 5: in the Secret Service were had their lives endangered.
Speaker 4: By his actions, right exactly.
Speaker 5: And you know we're talking we're not just talking about
Speaker 5: the stubborn refusal to follow the rules, right because he
Speaker 5: doesn't think the rules apply to him.
Speaker 2: We're not just talking about that.
Speaker 5: And by the way, that's enough, that's serious enough for
Speaker 5: him to be spending decades in prison. We're talking about
Speaker 5: treason of the highest level here and the undermining of
Speaker 5: American national security which is ongoing. So that the idea
Speaker 5: that this is all about spectacle and making sure that
Speaker 5: you know, cameras have to be there to see when
Speaker 5: he leaves the driveway and when he pulls up and
Speaker 5: what he gets out of the car, right right, right,
Speaker 5: It just makes it like it's it's flashbacks to the
Speaker 5: empty podiums and the tarmacs Lane's idling on tarmacs in
Speaker 5: twenty sixteen.
Speaker 2: But it's worse because there's so much more at stake now.
Speaker 1: Right, I mean, this is this is the thing that
Speaker 1: I'm struck by, is that we here is a man
Speaker 1: who has won the attention economy, right, he has dominated
Speaker 1: you know what he did in twenty fifteen was he
Speaker 1: got all the media and actually I read a statistic
Speaker 1: that he had, you know, some billion dollar, hundreds of
Speaker 1: millions of dollars in free media, right that he had
Speaker 1: somehow he had gotten so much free media from his
Speaker 1: Howard Sterns sort of shock jockey kind of stuff that
Speaker 1: he had sort of won on that right. And as
Speaker 1: you watch the car to the tarmac, the tarmac to
Speaker 1: the jet, the jet to that, I mean, nobody needs
Speaker 1: to see this and it is just helping the Donald
Speaker 1: Trump brand yet.
Speaker 5: One, because you know, they think that just his very
Speaker 5: existence is more important than anything else. That was one
Speaker 5: of the signs in twenty sixteen that we were heading
Speaker 5: for trouble. There's Hillary Clinton giving a very substantive, very
Speaker 5: important policy speech and nobody showed it because they were
Speaker 5: waiting for Donald to come and I don't know, sell
Speaker 5: bottled water or something. So it is quite something. Even
Speaker 5: worse though, we have them cutting from their analysis to
Speaker 5: his lawyer, who's not even a lawyer on this case,
Speaker 5: speaking to reporters and lying through her teeth about everything.
Speaker 5: Alena Haba, Elena Habba. You know, up until Donald tired
Speaker 5: her was operating out of a strip mall somewhere in
Speaker 5: New Jersey. No context, no analysis of all everything she
Speaker 5: lied about. I mean, just say, President Biden hates America,
Speaker 5: and if you if you hate Donald Trump, you hate
Speaker 5: America because the two have become equated.
Speaker 2: In these people's minds.
Speaker 5: And then you've got people, even people like Rachel Matto saying,
Speaker 5: you know, we need to kind of deal with Donald
Speaker 5: and you know, just will will drop their charges as
Speaker 5: long as he doesn't run or something in white universe?
Speaker 2: Is that justice? Right?
Speaker 6: Well?
Speaker 1: And also the other thing is that none there's no
Speaker 1: mechanism for that. I mean, the thing that I'm so
Speaker 1: struck by is that what has happened is we've never
Speaker 1: had someone who is so good at criming that, you know,
Speaker 1: and so correct. You know, we always had some you know,
Speaker 1: we've always had a president or someone you know where
Speaker 1: they've you know where they've sort of been Abraham not
Speaker 1: Abraham Lincoln, but George Washington ask you know, I'm going
Speaker 1: to take the high road. Even Nixon, you know, and
Speaker 1: the guy is a and all. Even Nixon is like,
Speaker 1: I guess it's time to go, right. But we have
Speaker 1: someone here who's like his thing as he gets away
Speaker 1: with it, and so he has decided he's going to
Speaker 1: get away with it.
Speaker 2: I think what's interesting.
Speaker 1: As you look at the is I mean, there's just
Speaker 1: no precedence for any of this, right, We're at state indictments,
Speaker 1: federal indictments.
Speaker 4: There's more state indictments coming.
Speaker 1: I mean, there's never been a situation where you have
Speaker 1: like a real legal world and then you have this
Speaker 1: guy who's.
Speaker 2: Like fuck you.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and it shows you how danger it is not
Speaker 5: to hold people accountable in real time instead of you know,
Speaker 5: waiting for the decades of criming finally maybe potentially to
Speaker 5: catch up with him. One of the things that I've
Speaker 5: always found deeply worrisome is that because it takes so
Speaker 5: long when they say justice Guyd's slow.
Speaker 2: But fine, I think we need a new you know,
Speaker 2: justice gruns.
Speaker 5: I don't know, infinitesimly and maybe not so fine after
Speaker 5: all that all of these cases in different venues are
Speaker 5: happening now at around the same time. Also, thanks very
Speaker 5: much for the fact that Merrick Garland did nothing, nothing
Speaker 5: for over a year, which is unforgivable.
Speaker 2: So I could see if you're so.
Speaker 5: Inclined to be paranoid and to think that Donald Trump
Speaker 5: really is somebody who's unfairly targeted.
Speaker 2: I can see where it might seem like that.
Speaker 5: Because so many people coming after him at the same time,
Speaker 5: because he's committed so many crimes, But again, it seems
Speaker 5: so unlikely, Like, how could that be possible? How could
Speaker 5: somebody possibly get away with all of that for so long?
Speaker 5: And it's only now when he's running again.
Speaker 2: I don't know, man.
Speaker 5: You know, for those of us who who prefer reality,
Speaker 5: the problem is that it's so obvious that he's guilty,
Speaker 5: especially in Georgia and in this document's case, Like, how
Speaker 5: can you like, why does it take so long? The
Speaker 5: evidence has already been presented, and its evidence in his
Speaker 5: own words, right exactly.
Speaker 1: I do think like one of the things when we
Speaker 1: look back on, like how American democracy barely survived.
Speaker 4: That's what my That's going to be my that's my.
Speaker 1: Top line, because I don't want it to die. But
Speaker 1: you know, when we look back on this time, we're
Speaker 1: going to you know, I think one of the things
Speaker 1: we're going to say is that, like if Merrick Garland
Speaker 1: had moved a little faster than you know, like he
Speaker 1: I mean, you we all saw in real time last
Speaker 1: year when Trump decided to run because he knew it
Speaker 1: would hurt their chances of being able to prosecute him.
Speaker 2: I mean, that was it.
Speaker 4: That was We saw that happen in real time.
Speaker 1: And now you know he's up there and Republicans are
Speaker 1: saying they're trying to keep him from running for president.
Speaker 2: There's not a.
Speaker 1: Republican in the world who really believes that, except maybe
Speaker 1: Marjorie Taylor Green.
Speaker 2: Oh she doesn't, right.
Speaker 5: Bobert, And your your your favorite former super person in
Speaker 5: Congress who we go over, and yeah, maybe a couple
Speaker 5: of others like ghosts are but they don't believe any
Speaker 5: of it. And I think that's this cynicism of all.
Speaker 5: This is another thing that is so debilitating. Donald's breathtaking
Speaker 5: cynicism of literally running for the highest office in the land,
Speaker 5: not because he gives a shit about America and not
Speaker 5: because he cares about the Constitution, which he's never read,
Speaker 5: but because he wants to stay out of jail and
Speaker 5: it's easier to grift from the oval office. Almost every
Speaker 5: single elective Republican having made the political calculation that right
Speaker 5: now they're stuck with him, So what are you going
Speaker 5: to do?
Speaker 2: Every single one.
Speaker 5: Of them, even though I mean maybe two people have
Speaker 5: spoken out against him. The rest are either completely in
Speaker 5: his corner or like McConnell, are saying nothing.
Speaker 2: They'll all vote for him if he gets the nomination.
Speaker 5: I mean, that's just beyond that shoe serves to legitimize
Speaker 5: him in the minds of many, many millions of people,
Speaker 5: which has always been one of the most dangerous things,
Speaker 5: right right.
Speaker 1: Right, No, I mean, it's just I mean, I guess
Speaker 1: I know how we got here, you know, all.
Speaker 2: The parties here.
Speaker 1: I feel like, and you have this psychological I've talked
Speaker 1: about this when I've had you on the podcast before,
Speaker 1: but I think it's really important you have this psychological
Speaker 1: perspective of like what it's like to live with a
Speaker 1: person who has the sort of weird pathologies that your
Speaker 1: uncle has.
Speaker 4: How does this play?
Speaker 7: Now?
Speaker 1: If you're going to game it out, you don't have
Speaker 1: to be right, But just like, psychologically.
Speaker 2: He keeps going. I mean, my sense is he never quits.
Speaker 5: Oh no, no, no, no, he can't because look, for
Speaker 5: two reasons. One is because he literally believes, and he
Speaker 5: may not be wrong, that his future freedom depends on
Speaker 5: getting into the White House.
Speaker 2: So there's that. The other thing, and we see this
Speaker 2: very clearly in the documents case is he can't admit
Speaker 2: he's wrong.
Speaker 5: Course correcting mature people understand it as taking an information
Speaker 5: processing it understanding that you need to go in a
Speaker 5: different direction.
Speaker 2: It doesn't mean, oh my god, I was wrong and
Speaker 2: I have to admit I was wrong and now to
Speaker 2: do something else. But that's Donald's perspective.
Speaker 5: If I course correct, then I have to admit I'm wrong,
Speaker 5: and I can never be wrong. So he's on this
Speaker 5: path and the only thing that takes him off of
Speaker 5: the path is some external force, which remains to be seen,
Speaker 5: because right now it doesn't look like any of these cases,
Speaker 5: any of them, will interfere with his ability to run
Speaker 5: for office, which is insanity.
Speaker 2: The one thing that does surprise me.
Speaker 5: It's very difficult to be reminded repeatedly that our system
Speaker 5: is in place to protect those who want to destroy it.
Speaker 2: Like for whom is this justice? I don't even know.
Speaker 5: And that's the other thing that gets lost here. This
Speaker 5: is a crime against the people of the United States.
Speaker 5: It's not like he did something wrong and it was
Speaker 5: a crime against the White House or whatever, right right exactly,
Speaker 5: you know, this is a guy with serious mental illness.
Speaker 5: He's got serious psychiatric disorders, and they're untreated. Any untreated illness,
Speaker 5: no matter what it is, worse since over time.
Speaker 4: Right, that's a really good point.
Speaker 5: Yeah, And we see instances of that, like he has
Speaker 5: literally no impulse control anymore. He used to be able
Speaker 5: to go into a deposition and you know, just say
Speaker 5: I don't know, don't remember, no I and just play
Speaker 5: it that way. Now he just can't shut up. And
Speaker 5: he as we saw in the fabulous CNN town hall
Speaker 5: and as we saw at Bedminster the other night, he's
Speaker 5: really good at continuing to incriminate.
Speaker 4: Himself, really good.
Speaker 5: Yeah, but you know he's not decompensating in a way
Speaker 5: that renders him in totally incapable of continuing. And I
Speaker 5: think again that's because the guy's always been institutionalized. He's
Speaker 5: always had people around him, you know, doing everything for him.
Speaker 5: He has so much stolen money that you know, he
Speaker 5: can hire people, he doesn't have to feed himself, he
Speaker 5: doesn't have to buy lowes for himself, he doesn't have
Speaker 5: to lift a finger to do the rest of the
Speaker 5: things all of us have to do in order to
Speaker 5: survive in this world. And I think that's partially what
Speaker 5: kind of holds him together better than he would be
Speaker 5: holding up if he had to live.
Speaker 2: A life in the real world. Right, That's what I
Speaker 2: think too.
Speaker 1: I just think that this is how it's going to
Speaker 1: go now, and there's now recourse, and I think it
Speaker 1: seems like that George Conway is right that eventually he
Speaker 1: just destroys the Republican Party and not the rest.
Speaker 2: Of us, well exactly.
Speaker 5: I mean, if his destruction could be limited to a
Speaker 5: Republican Party, that's great, but there's no guarantee of that, because,
Speaker 5: as you know as well as anybody, the Republican Party
Speaker 5: is on a mission to make sure that they don't
Speaker 5: have to win anymore in order to get their person
Speaker 5: in the White House.
Speaker 4: Right, And that is ultimately why.
Speaker 2: We should all be very very worried.
Speaker 4: Mary Trump, please come back soon.
Speaker 5: Absolutely Well, it's going to be a long journey and
Speaker 5: we definitely need to be sticking together, that's for sure.
Speaker 1: Lockland Cartwright is an editor at large of The Daily
Speaker 1: Beast and author of the newsletter Confider.
Speaker 4: Welcome to Fast Politics, lock and Cartwright.
Speaker 2: Good night, Good to be emli So Locklan.
Speaker 4: You write one of the absolutely best.
Speaker 1: Media newsletters in all of media World and you get
Speaker 1: all the scoops, and your newsletter is called Confider and
Speaker 1: your tagline.
Speaker 7: Is everyone loves it until they're in it. And it's
Speaker 7: free and you can subscribe on the dailybase dot com Confider.
Speaker 1: So let's talk about what's happening right now. Last week
Speaker 1: was a huge week for CNN, and I'm hoping you
Speaker 1: could talk to us about what is.
Speaker 4: Happening on one of the most famous cable news channels.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I mean, look, it's been a quite turbulent period
Speaker 7: for CNN. A little over a year ago, it was
Speaker 7: announced that Chrislick was being named as the CEO and chairman,
Speaker 7: replacing Jeff Zucker, who was a legendary figure and incredibly
Speaker 7: well liked by not only the talent at CNN, but
Speaker 7: by producers journalists. He was an incredibly warm figure in
Speaker 7: the newsroom and a real presence. So they went from Soccer,
Speaker 7: who was ousted over this relationship he had with Alison Goldholst,
Speaker 7: who also worked at CNN. Then Chris Lick came into
Speaker 7: the building and almost immediately put people off by moving
Speaker 7: up to an office well above the news room, not
Speaker 7: taking a Zucker's old office, turning it into a conference
Speaker 7: room and then you know, making changes like firing Brian Stelter,
Speaker 7: so people were incredibly wary of him on the way in,
Speaker 7: but he did nothing to really you know, win the
Speaker 7: support of the rank and file, and things just kind
Speaker 7: of got worse from there. He declared a town hall
Speaker 7: there wouldn't be layofs well actually months later that they
Speaker 7: were laos and just a series of missteps and you know,
Speaker 7: self inflected wounds which really built to the Trump town hall,
Speaker 7: which was an utter mitigated disaster. And then you know,
Speaker 7: finding the Tim Lberto Atlantic profile. You know, that really
Speaker 7: left David Zazof, you know, the head of Wanted Discovery
Speaker 7: with with no choice but to to to resign in
Speaker 7: and Leck exited the building last week and in his
Speaker 7: place there's kind of a four person management team now
Speaker 7: David Levy and the and tallis Eric Shirling and Virginia
Speaker 7: Mosley while they go on this search for a new CEO.
Speaker 7: But they're in no hurry to make that decision. I
Speaker 7: think they've learnt their lesson in the fact that you know,
Speaker 7: they didn't interview anyone for Zucker's position as a joke
Speaker 7: and could fighter Chris Lick is our favorite schmoozer, basically
Speaker 7: because he schmoozed his way into this gig and Zaz
Speaker 7: didn't interview anyone, there wasn't a search. He just appointed
Speaker 7: Lick and that totally blew up on him. So they
Speaker 7: will take their time. They're basically settling everything down right now.
Speaker 7: They'll take the summer and see cast a wide net
Speaker 7: and see what emerges are in the fall.
Speaker 1: So the crew that is in there right now too,
Speaker 1: these are really old school CNN people who really know
Speaker 1: what they're doing.
Speaker 2: Will you talk a little bit.
Speaker 1: I mean I feel like they sort of went you know,
Speaker 1: they had brought someone in who was not a CNN person,
Speaker 1: and now they have a real kind of safety net again.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I mean Amy and tell us we could probably
Speaker 7: start there because my money would be on her as
Speaker 7: the red hot favorite to be named a CEO.
Speaker 2: She's been at CNN five decades.
Speaker 7: She's incredibly well respected, incredibly well l liked, and she
Speaker 7: was there before Zucker, she was there during Zucker, she
Speaker 7: survived under Leak, she's now steadying the ship again. And
Speaker 7: you know, different people I speak to in the building
Speaker 7: to say she's completely unflappable. She is a very cool
Speaker 7: head in what it has been quite a disruptive time.
Speaker 7: Then you've got Virginia Mosley, who's head of news gathering again,
Speaker 7: someone that is a safe pair of hands. My money
Speaker 7: probably wouldn't be on her taking the reins. You know,
Speaker 7: she is managing the ship day to day. Eric Shirling
Speaker 7: is a well accomplished producer. And then David Levy is
Speaker 7: one of doz is lieutenants, and he's kind of really
Speaker 7: sort of more on the corporate front. But it's these
Speaker 7: four who are setting the ship. Particularly Amy is someone
Speaker 7: that people internally really like, really respect, and after the
Speaker 7: leak debacle, is someone that I you know, I'd be
Speaker 7: putting my money on as the favorite to take over
Speaker 7: a CEO.
Speaker 1: So what happens now to like the people who didn't
Speaker 1: survive the Lift administration? Like, I mean, is there a
Speaker 1: world where any of those people you think come back
Speaker 1: or do you think it's just that they.
Speaker 2: Are sort of collateral damage?
Speaker 7: I mean, Chris Lick is an incredible, well accomplished show runner.
Speaker 7: Joe much success there. CBS This Morning on to Colbert.
Speaker 7: There's a couple of things here we really need to
Speaker 7: dig into. The first being is the hand of Zazz.
Speaker 7: So ye know, David Zaslov was really in the background
Speaker 7: during Lick's entire tenure, you know, giving him advice, stroke orders.
Speaker 7: Lick was carrying that out, carrying out Zazo's vision of
Speaker 7: bringing CNN more into the enter, having Republicans on, and so,
Speaker 7: you know, I definitely think Lick can bounce back. I
Speaker 7: think it's going to take a little bit of time.
Speaker 7: But you know, he went from running and I've pointed
Speaker 7: this out and confider, he went from running shows of
Speaker 7: you know, two dozen max three dozen stuff as to
Speaker 7: running a four thousand person international news network. I mean
Speaker 7: that's a huge leap. And so you've got to really
Speaker 7: put a lot of this back at the feet of
Speaker 7: David Zaslov. And I think the wider theme is ISAs
Speaker 7: going to back off for the next person if it
Speaker 7: is Amyan Tallis is she going to have to deal
Speaker 7: with late night, early morning phone calls from David Zaslov saying,
Speaker 7: you know, we need to put this person on, or
Speaker 7: we need to do more of this or less of this.
Speaker 7: And so I do feel for Chris Lick. I think
Speaker 7: he was in an impossible position, particularly towards the end
Speaker 7: of this mess. I do think there's a world where
Speaker 7: he comes back in another capacity, probably running something a
Speaker 7: lot smaller than CNN, but certainly a show runner for
Speaker 7: a major show. And then you know the people around
Speaker 7: him that that took the hit, the c and NPR
Speaker 7: people who were blamed for the Tilerlberder profile, they can certainly,
Speaker 7: they can certainly bounce back. There's a world where they
Speaker 7: come back in different different industries with different capacities. In
Speaker 7: the in the news business was you know, a mess
Speaker 7: that there were a lot of factors that contributed to it.
Speaker 7: I would say that, you know, David Zazov has a
Speaker 7: very prominent role to play and responsibility here is Azov?
Speaker 4: Why does he control CNN?
Speaker 2: Just explain that, can you?
Speaker 7: Yeah? I mean he heads up you know, Want of Discovery,
Speaker 7: and when Discovery took over Warner, they obviously took on CNN.
Speaker 7: And he has kind of made this, I guess a
Speaker 7: pet project of his with I think, you know in
Speaker 7: the background, John Malone, who's on the board of Want
Speaker 7: of Discovery and has voiced his I guess displeasure at
Speaker 7: the way CNN went in all on the resistance and
Speaker 7: in on giving so much airtime to try he has
Speaker 7: kind of, I think made it a mission of his
Speaker 7: to reshape CNN. Zaslov has and has really been in
Speaker 7: the background whispering in Lick's year. And you know, Lick
Speaker 7: has been carrying out that vision. So, you know, having
Speaker 7: more Republicans on the air, getting rid of Brian Stelta,
Speaker 7: all of these are things that Malone and Zadizlov wanted
Speaker 7: and Lick was just carrying that that vision out.
Speaker 1: The show that Brian Stelter hosted was a show called
Speaker 1: Reliable Sources, and it was a show about the media,
Speaker 1: and it was really the only media show on television.
Speaker 1: It was around for you know, a couple of decades.
Speaker 1: Now it's gone. Do you think that there should be
Speaker 1: a show about the media on cable? You know, I mean,
Speaker 1: is there stuff to learn from this kind of like
Speaker 1: a television show about the media, And do you think
Speaker 1: not having it as problematic?
Speaker 7: Yeah? I think coming into an election year, I think
Speaker 7: it is helpful to have a program that analyzes and
Speaker 7: criticizes the media, whether that's on cable or whether that's
Speaker 7: you know, a digital property. You know, I think there
Speaker 7: is an audience for that, you know. I think it
Speaker 7: was always very curious that one of Leck's first major
Speaker 7: moves was to fire Brian Stelter. I mean, what was
Speaker 7: the urgency in canceling that show? And what was the
Speaker 7: need to fire that bloke? You know, you could have
Speaker 7: rehoused him as a correspondent or an on air pundit.
Speaker 7: You know, that that move, that first move, you know,
Speaker 7: and I've wrote written about this and confider that was
Speaker 7: the hand of John Malone and David Zaslov No doubt
Speaker 7: they were in leeks a year, you know, saying let's
Speaker 7: let's show Republicans and let's show people that we're making
Speaker 7: some changes here. And Brian Stelter was a sacrificial lamb.
Speaker 7: While things do seem to be I guess a steadying
Speaker 7: a tad, the damage that's been done to this network,
Speaker 7: particularly in the ratings, is something that is going to
Speaker 7: take a long time to rebuild. MSNBC is just absolutely
Speaker 7: smashing it right now and creaming CNN. I mean, this week,
Speaker 7: particularly with the indictment, you would have thought would have
Speaker 7: been a big week for CNN. And while they're up
Speaker 7: a little bit, MSNBC is just absolutely crushing it right now.
Speaker 7: And they even beat Fox in primetime this week, So
Speaker 7: you know, it is important to know that there's been
Speaker 7: some real reputational damage done to CNN and in the
Speaker 7: ratings particularly. This is going to take some time for
Speaker 7: them to rebuild.
Speaker 4: So interesting talk to me about Washington Post.
Speaker 7: Yeah, so look what this week, the publisher, Fred Ryan
Speaker 7: stepped down after what has really been a last twelve
Speaker 7: months sup period of tumults. They've lost a lot of talent,
Speaker 7: a lot of big name reporters have departed to rival outlets.
Speaker 7: They've also lost a lot of important people on their
Speaker 7: business sides, and there's just been this simmering tension that
Speaker 7: has been going on between the newsroom and Fred Ryan,
Speaker 7: the publisher. And a lot of this has to do
Speaker 7: with the positioning of what Pole coming out of the
Speaker 7: Trump years. You look at the New York Times, they
Speaker 7: really built a subscription business, not just off the back
Speaker 7: of the great journalism they produced, but word all the cooking,
Speaker 7: acquiring the Athletic and what Pole really didn't make you
Speaker 7: any kind of similar savvy moves. So they've started to
Speaker 7: lose subscribers and added to that, the newsroom really started
Speaker 7: to lose confidence in their publisher. He made some comments
Speaker 7: at a town hall last year about about layoffs and
Speaker 7: then wouldn't take any questions. So there has been kind
Speaker 7: of a sense that he had lost the support of
Speaker 7: the newsroom. And then Jeff Bezos, the owner of the
Speaker 7: watching the Post, made a visit back in January, I think,
Speaker 7: sensing that there was some issues playing out and also
Speaker 7: some tension between the air in chief Sully Busby and
Speaker 7: Ryan and Bezos made a visit, also met with different
Speaker 7: key staff I guess to try and read the room temperature.
Speaker 7: And then several months later you now have the publisher
Speaker 7: who's departed, which I think people I've spoken to it
Speaker 7: what pole in the last week, are really rejoicing over
Speaker 7: hoping that this now turns a corner.
Speaker 4: Even though he was there for a long time, right.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I mean he's been there for you know, several years.
Speaker 7: You know, it was someone that the newsroom had just
Speaker 7: really lost confidence in. You know, he wasn't able to
Speaker 7: make any sort of clear decisions about what the direction
Speaker 7: of the Washington Post was going to take, you know,
Speaker 7: post the Trump years, and I think there were a
Speaker 7: couple of missteps there that has really cost them, you know,
Speaker 7: some key talent and inability to drive subscribers when you
Speaker 7: look at the success of the Times and the moves
Speaker 7: they've made. You know what Pole has really been left behind?
Speaker 1: So interesting We're now in another Trump world in like
Speaker 1: twenty fifteen all over again, because what.
Speaker 7: A time to be alive, Molly alive.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure we are, but it's two thousand and
Speaker 1: fifteen at nauseum.
Speaker 4: Do you think that there.
Speaker 1: Are lessons to be learned from that time in the
Speaker 1: way that Trump gets free media?
Speaker 7: Yeah, I think there are lessons to be learned, and
Speaker 7: I just look around and I don't think anyone.
Speaker 8: Has learned them.
Speaker 4: That's depressing.
Speaker 7: We've gone back to the future. And yeah, you look
Speaker 7: at what happened after the indictment. You know, he just
Speaker 7: turned it into a campaign rally again. And look, MSNBC
Speaker 7: and a couple of other networks cut away. But I
Speaker 7: picked up The Times straight after that. There was I
Speaker 7: think a double pay spread about it. He is a
Speaker 7: master at manipulating the press. I'm just not sure if
Speaker 7: the media has caught on to that.
Speaker 1: It's such an impossible, impossible problem.
Speaker 7: I mean, I think everyone, I think one's grappling with it.
Speaker 7: And I think that that's the first part that everyone
Speaker 7: is acknowledging we're going back into this, but I don't
Speaker 7: think the lesson has been fully fully learned. And you know,
Speaker 7: as we get closer to this, to going back through it,
Speaker 7: you know, I can just see a world in which,
Speaker 7: you know, we just have back to back coverage of
Speaker 7: this bloke and you know, allowing him to manipulate the
Speaker 7: press like he did, you know, the lost couple of
Speaker 7: go rounds.
Speaker 4: Oh Locke, one cart right. Thank you for giving me
Speaker 4: a heartburn.
Speaker 2: Please come back soon, Confider the Deadly Beast.
Speaker 1: Hi, It's Mollie 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
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Speaker 1: Paul Kaine is the Washington Post senior congressional correspondent. Welcome
Speaker 1: to Fast Politics Paul Kane.
Speaker 8: All right, thank you for having me. Appreciate it.
Speaker 1: We really wanted to have you because you've written about this.
Speaker 1: It seems like there's some pretty exciting and by exciting,
Speaker 1: I mean what is happening with the Republicans in Congress.
Speaker 1: I think this started with the debt ceiling compromise, so
Speaker 1: it has created this incredibly fascinating story which I'm not
Speaker 1: seeing a ton of coverage jobs, So I would love
Speaker 1: you to walk us through it.
Speaker 8: So, yeah, you go back to the night of May thirty. First,
Speaker 8: you have this really surprising, big bipartisan vote for the
Speaker 8: debt ceiling lift, which you know comes with some spending
Speaker 8: constraints on what President Biden can do, but it you know,
Speaker 8: clears this path for two years. It gives a budget
Speaker 8: outline for two years, which should make it easier to
Speaker 8: avoid a government shut down on funding the federal agencies
Speaker 8: later this year and next year. So it was a
Speaker 8: good moment. And you know, Speaker McCarthy, against all you know, expectations,
Speaker 8: got more than two thirds of his conference to vote
Speaker 8: for this bill.
Speaker 4: I mean, were you surprised.
Speaker 8: I was surprised because it was you know that the
Speaker 8: deal was sort of announced on a Saturday evening that
Speaker 8: it was going to happen, and then you know, the
Speaker 8: bill text came out on Sunday evening, and there were
Speaker 8: a couple of days there where it felt like, you know,
Speaker 8: it felt like it was an airliner that was sort
Speaker 8: of losing altitude and momentum. And there were a couple
Speaker 8: of people here and there who announced that they were opposed,
Speaker 8: and sources of mine who were chiefs the staff or
Speaker 8: rank and file types were like, oh, my god, she's
Speaker 8: going to vote against this. That's not good. But then
Speaker 8: it just got a sort of reassuring amount of support
Speaker 8: from people who in the past would have been the
Speaker 8: Republican rebels. My friend at the New York Times, Carl Hols,
Speaker 8: has dubbed them the mutineers, the mutineers of the past.
Speaker 8: People like Jim Jordan and Marjorie Taylor Green and Thomas
Speaker 8: Massey were all in support of this bill.
Speaker 1: Even though Marjorie Taylor Green called it a shit sandwich.
Speaker 8: Yes, yes, it reassured things, and there was still some
Speaker 8: angry antagonists out there, but it appeared as if they
Speaker 8: were going to walk away feeling like, you know, all right,
Speaker 8: everybody was saying, are you guys going to try to
Speaker 8: do this quote unquote motion to vacate and expel McCarthy
Speaker 8: being speaker? And what we lost track of in all
Speaker 8: of that is we were kept saying are you going
Speaker 8: to expel McCarthy? And they're like, no, no, no, stop
Speaker 8: asking that question. What they had decided to do was
Speaker 8: not to force a vote that where they could try
Speaker 8: and get Kevin McCarthy out as speaker. They decided to
Speaker 8: simply shut down the House floor. You know, the way
Speaker 8: it works on any bill that is of real substance,
Speaker 8: you have to go to the Rules Committee, and the
Speaker 8: Rules Committee is the one that then decides on how
Speaker 8: many amendments are in order, how they'll be voted on.
Speaker 8: You know, is this up or down?
Speaker 3: Is there?
Speaker 8: You know, all sorts of aspects of the debate, how long,
Speaker 8: how much time each side gets, And so the Rules
Speaker 8: Committee sets that out and then you go to the
Speaker 8: floor and the full House has to approve that rule
Speaker 8: before the actual debate can begin. And so lo and behold,
Speaker 8: he's eleven to twelve. Rebels, mutineers, antagonists, far right, faction,
Speaker 8: cheese your phrase for whatever you want to call them.
Speaker 8: They had a little sneak attack, and they decided to
Speaker 8: tank this rule. You know, he's only got a margin
Speaker 8: of four five votes depending on attendance on that particular day,
Speaker 8: McCarthy does, and they had they had, you know, eleven
Speaker 8: to twelve depending on the moment who decided they were
Speaker 8: going to vote against the rule. And when it comes
Speaker 8: to voting on the rule, just by tradition, it is
Speaker 8: almost always the majority party that carries the rule, and
Speaker 8: so the minority party never puts up any votes. They
Speaker 8: did so to pass the debt ceiling bill on May
Speaker 8: thirty first.
Speaker 4: To avoid financial catastrophe.
Speaker 8: Yes, extraordinary circumstances, and you know, with the imperivature of
Speaker 8: Joe Biden saying, yes, this is a good bill, let's
Speaker 8: vote for it. And so but not, they're not going
Speaker 8: to do that day in and day out. So McCarthy
Speaker 8: has to get his side to approve a rules so
Speaker 8: that you can get to legislation. And so they just
Speaker 8: decided they were going to shut down the floor of
Speaker 8: the House as a bit of revenge. Now, what they
Speaker 8: were doing was impaleling themselves. This was a this was
Speaker 8: legislation that was all about, you know, just sort of
Speaker 8: hot button culture issue type of stuff.
Speaker 1: Wasn't it the gas stove legislation. So this is a
Speaker 1: messaging bill that says that something blah blah blah gas stoves.
Speaker 8: Right, yes, and it has no hope of passing. The
Speaker 8: Senate was never going to take it up, the President
Speaker 8: is ever going to sign it. The only reason this bill,
Speaker 8: and there was a package of them on other regulatory issues,
Speaker 8: the only reason this bill was coming to the floor
Speaker 8: was to appease people the right on the right wing faction.
Speaker 4: But they like gas stoves, yes.
Speaker 8: But they decided to make their point. They were willing
Speaker 8: to block their own bill, so they wanted to shut
Speaker 8: the floor down. And you know that happened on as
Speaker 8: it is. Well, it's a strange world of Congress, you know. Yeah,
Speaker 8: sometimes the way you mean is by punching yourself in
Speaker 8: the face. That's what they did. And it took about
Speaker 8: a week a week and a half to sort of
Speaker 8: unpack this whole problem. And they basically kept having these
Speaker 8: meetings in McCarthy's office trying to say, we want to
Speaker 8: get more assurances, more concessions that we thought we had
Speaker 8: gotten back in January. You know, we want to reopen
Speaker 8: that agreement. They were talking. They were using that phrase
Speaker 8: as if this was actually some sort of binding contract
Speaker 8: that we had all seen.
Speaker 4: What that McCarthy was running for speaker.
Speaker 2: I mean, how would that even work.
Speaker 8: Well, No, way back in January when he had to
Speaker 8: go through those fifteen different votes, McCarthy had gave in
Speaker 8: all a bunch of concessions, a lot that we know about,
Speaker 8: some that we don't know about, that were, you know,
Speaker 8: pretty big gives to the far right, giving them seats,
Speaker 8: giving them seats on important committees like the House Rules Committee,
Speaker 8: like the House Appropriations Committee, giving them, giving them the
Speaker 8: device by which they could expel McCarthy from from being speaker.
Speaker 8: And so they thought they had certain commitments from him,
Speaker 8: and they might be stretching the truth here, but they
Speaker 8: thought that they could reopen this and try and get
Speaker 8: like ironclad guarantees that you will never again pass a
Speaker 8: bill just with Democratic votes or or you know where
Speaker 8: the majority, the majority on that big vote on the
Speaker 8: debt ceiling actually had fewer votes than the minority. There
Speaker 8: were one hundred and forty nine Republicans, but there were
Speaker 8: one hundred and sixty five Democrats. They wanted to to
Speaker 8: just talk about this stuff, invent about this stuff, and
Speaker 8: they wanted to try and get a few more concessions
Speaker 8: out of them, and they did. You know, the thing
Speaker 8: about Kevin McCarthy that you have to understand is that
Speaker 8: he's going to a cave. It's a math problem. He
Speaker 8: knows that the only way he can quote unquote govern
Speaker 8: is to give in to his exotics. And that means
Speaker 8: that you started seeing other things pop up, like there
Speaker 8: was a pretty far reaching attempt to not let people
Speaker 8: regulate guns and gun ammunition that got thrown into this
Speaker 8: package of bills that was considered sort of out of nowhere.
Speaker 8: One of the far far far right members, Anna Pauline Iluna,
Speaker 8: offered a central resolution to Adam Schiff.
Speaker 4: Right that was yesterday.
Speaker 1: Yeah, what she just threw that in there just to
Speaker 1: like get everybody upset.
Speaker 8: Yeah, it just became an additional thing, an additional demand,
Speaker 8: Like we're going to have this vote on the floor,
Speaker 8: and you know, the leadership was like, all right, we'll
Speaker 8: let you have the vote, but you're probably going to lose.
Speaker 8: And sure enough, they did have the vote, and they
Speaker 8: did lose, as almost thirty House Republicans voted against censuring
Speaker 8: Shift and they were going to include an insane sixteen
Speaker 8: million dollar fine toward him that was just absolutely unheard of.
Speaker 8: And this is all going back to statements he made
Speaker 8: about Russia's attempts to interfere in the twenty sixteen election.
Speaker 8: This was really playing toward Trump in all of the
Speaker 8: ways possible. These are their demands, these are the things
Speaker 8: that they want to see happen, and McCarthy is repeatedly
Speaker 8: giving in it unbelievable.
Speaker 4: It's almost like a hostage situation, now right.
Speaker 2: It is.
Speaker 8: It's different than a hostage situation because that those situations end,
Speaker 8: they end one way. They end one way or another way.
Speaker 8: In one way is like safe and sound and somebody's
Speaker 8: paid a ransom, and the other way is not good
Speaker 8: at all. This is just a repeated gathering of the
Speaker 8: hostage takers with the hostage and they are just you know,
Speaker 8: regularly meeting with him to explain the next time they
Speaker 8: might hold him hostage. And if you you can avoid
Speaker 8: this next moment, if you give us this, this and
Speaker 8: this now. And the response generally from McCarthy is okay,
Speaker 8: we'll have your vote. Go go put this crazy gunbill
Speaker 8: on the floor, Go do the central resolution. Okay, you've
Speaker 8: got it. There's a there's a lurking new demand that
Speaker 8: a Utah Republican Chris Stewart is resigning midterm. It's effective
Speaker 8: in September. He's on the Appropriations Committee. It's a really
Speaker 8: important committee that controls all the federal spending. And the
Speaker 8: far right is putting down their marker now saying we
Speaker 8: want one of our own to get that committee slot.
Speaker 8: You know, these things are just evolving. So that's why
Speaker 8: I'm saying, it's not like your standard hostage situation where
Speaker 8: there's a standoff and it's done and finished. It's kind
Speaker 8: of never finished. It's this ongoing, amorphous hostage holding.
Speaker 4: So it's a forever hostage situation, which it's like a lot.
Speaker 1: So if you want to put one of these far
Speaker 1: right people on the Appropriations What I think is a
Speaker 1: little bit interesting about this debt ceiling debacle is that
Speaker 1: what happened.
Speaker 4: Was that there actually was really a schism in that group.
Speaker 8: Right.
Speaker 1: I mean, the people who supported it are not the
Speaker 1: people who are mad at McCarthy right now, right, I
Speaker 1: mean they are like his people. So I mean there
Speaker 1: are people on the far right who are putting sand
Speaker 1: in the gears right, like people like Matt Gaates.
Speaker 8: Yeah, there is a real divide. We have for years now,
Speaker 8: since about twenty fourteen or fifteen, whenever the Freedom of
Speaker 8: Caucus was founded by the farthest to to three dozen
Speaker 8: farthest right Republicans, we've sort of used that as just
Speaker 8: quick code word freedom of caucus. But what you're seeing
Speaker 8: this year is that there are some real divides within
Speaker 8: that group of about three dozen. There's a dozen or
Speaker 8: maybe up to two dozen. They're kind of friendly to McCarthy.
Speaker 8: Marjorie Tayler Green and Jim Jordan are the best examples
Speaker 8: of it. They realize that McCarthy is weak and they
Speaker 8: can pretty much do almost whatever they want with McCarthy
Speaker 8: as speaker. So they like that. They like him. He
Speaker 8: lets them do whatever they want. He never tells them
Speaker 8: that they have to stop. And so the last thing
Speaker 8: they want is to have a new speaker who might
Speaker 8: try to be, you know, inforce some discipline.
Speaker 2: But Matt ga does not happen.
Speaker 8: Matt Gates is part of this faction of about a
Speaker 8: dozen or so who are both the most ardent Trumps
Speaker 8: supporters and also some of them like Chip Roy of
Speaker 8: Texas are really hardcore Heap Party descendants, and they actually
Speaker 8: believe in small government then less spending, and they actually
Speaker 8: kind of tend to gravitate more towards Ron DeSantis because
Speaker 8: they served in Congress with DeSantis and they actually kind of,
Speaker 8: you know, they don't admit this publicly, but they know
Speaker 8: that Trump is really a sellout the most of their
Speaker 8: ideological conservative causes. Trump Trump doesn't care about spending and
Speaker 8: debts and deficits, you know, at all. And so this
Speaker 8: group of about twelve or so of them are the hardest,
Speaker 8: you know, the hardest farthest to the right in that caucus,
Speaker 8: and they are going to repeatedly make things tough on McCarthy.
Speaker 8: And that's where he's dealing with that group that twelve
Speaker 8: to fourteen of them are. It's not the whole three
Speaker 8: dozen or so that are in the Freedom Caucus. It's
Speaker 8: that last dozen that are causing the biggest problems right now.
Speaker 1: So interesting, so we do have a dead ceialing deal.
Speaker 1: It will carry America until this next election, so that
Speaker 1: is not going to come up. What do you see
Speaker 1: in the future on the calendar that could I mean
Speaker 1: a lot of this stuff is it's annoying for Republicans,
Speaker 1: but it doesn't have any larger implications for the rest
Speaker 1: of us.
Speaker 8: True, there are two things, and they're intertwined. That are
Speaker 8: the next big land mines that are out here on
Speaker 8: the horizon where Congress will once again, through its own
Speaker 8: self inflicted behavior, become a big story again. By the
Speaker 8: end of September, you have the annual funding bills for
Speaker 8: federal agencies that come do in the previous four to
Speaker 8: five years. We had just sort of gotten into this rhythm.
Speaker 8: It's not really rhythm at all. It's a rhythmic where
Speaker 8: you don't meet the deadline of September thirtieth, and you
Speaker 8: punt you keep the government open at what's called the
Speaker 8: continuing resolution, and eventually, by either the mid middle of
Speaker 8: December or sometimes late februaryly March, they pass all the
Speaker 8: funding bills in one big, massive thing that we call
Speaker 8: it omnibus bill. Well, House Republicans heeded those bills and
Speaker 8: they did not want to do that. So this time
Speaker 8: they thought that they had set this up where you
Speaker 8: could start passing these bills one by one. They're supposed
Speaker 8: to be a dozen of them that pass individually. But
Speaker 8: now this hard right faction has said, we don't like
Speaker 8: these spending levels that you agreed to with Joe Biden,
Speaker 8: so we demand, we hear by demand that you will
Speaker 8: write these bills at about one hundred and twenty billion
Speaker 8: dollars less than what you had agreed to with Biden.
Speaker 8: And also you can't cut at from defense, veterans affairs,
Speaker 8: or order securities.
Speaker 2: How would that work?
Speaker 8: It would work by if it were to actually become law.
Speaker 8: It would mean that places like you know, Department of
Speaker 8: Health and Human Services, Department of Justice, Department of Education, ARC,
Speaker 8: and National Park Service would all get big massive cuts
Speaker 8: of ten, fifteen to twenty percent, which would probably be
Speaker 8: pretty unpopular if it were ever enacted into law, right,
Speaker 8: And it's it's if they actually are going to make
Speaker 8: some of their wing district moderates take those votes. Those
Speaker 8: are not good votes, whether they end up in law
Speaker 8: or not, and sort of become like made to order
Speaker 8: political attack ads for Democrats to run against them. It's
Speaker 8: setting up this system where the Senate is going to
Speaker 8: right there funding bills at the agreed upon level, and
Speaker 8: the House is not, and the House is going to
Speaker 8: vote move them at much lower and so it becomes
Speaker 8: very hard to figure out how to pass those two
Speaker 8: things if the Senate and the House are one hundred
Speaker 8: and twenty billion apart. Moreover, at some point later this year,
Speaker 8: the Biden administration is going to come in with a
Speaker 8: request for Ukraine war funding and they're going to need
Speaker 8: tens of billions of more dollars to support Zelenski and
Speaker 8: the war effort, and that is going to be a
Speaker 8: very very tricky vote. Normally, you would see that tacked
Speaker 8: onto one of these spending bills and it would just
Speaker 8: be a writer so called rider. Right now, in the
Speaker 8: Republican Party, you know, thanks to a lot of vitriol
Speaker 8: by Tucker Carlson and some others, they've really built up
Speaker 8: an antipathy toward this war, and a lot of members
Speaker 8: of the House Republican Conference, even the ones that are
Speaker 8: traditional anti Russia hawks, are really really leery of casting
Speaker 8: that vote for Ukraine war funding. And now if you're
Speaker 8: going to tack that onto a bill that is driven
Speaker 8: by the thenet and has higher funding levels for these
Speaker 8: government agencies than the far far right wanted to put
Speaker 8: on them, now you've got some real serious potential consequences
Speaker 8: here where you could have a government shut down at
Speaker 8: some point later in the year, and then you could
Speaker 8: also have the new hostage. Here could be funding for
Speaker 8: the Ukraine war, and that's going to get really difficult
Speaker 8: because I think Donald Trump will come out heavily against that.
Speaker 8: Trump stayed silent on the debt ceiling deal because, as
Speaker 8: I said earlier, deep down he really doesn't care about
Speaker 8: debts and death sits, and it's not his thing. But
Speaker 8: we have seen repeatedly over and over he does not
Speaker 8: want US funding the war against Putin, and he will
Speaker 8: most likely come out very much against that, and it
Speaker 8: will become.
Speaker 2: A harder and harder vote for McCarthy.
Speaker 1: Fascinating stuff. Thank you so much, Paul Caine. I hope
Speaker 1: you'll come back.
Speaker 8: Absolutely, this is fun.
Speaker 1: No Mofectly, Jesse Cannon.
Speaker 8: Molly Jong Fast this Michael knowlesfellow.
Speaker 3: A lot of people don't realize that he's one of
Speaker 3: those daily wire hosts that is, like, arguably in the
Speaker 3: top five most popular podcast hosts on the Internet, even
Speaker 3: though he flies under most people's radar.
Speaker 8: And I'm going to tell you something, You'll be shocked.
Speaker 8: He's a little extreme.
Speaker 2: He's not even a little extreme.
Speaker 1: He sucks, and he's also radicalizing whoever it is who's
Speaker 1: listening to that podcast. And his new thing is that
Speaker 1: he's very furious. By the way, the whole thing is.
Speaker 1: They're just furious. That's the stick. They're furious about everything
Speaker 1: right and right now. They're outraged about the Pride Flag,
Speaker 1: and so the Daily Wires Michael Knowles, he's like Ben Shapiro,
Speaker 1: but sort of a little bit longer. The Pride flag
Speaker 1: is quote unquote offensive to all normal people and should
Speaker 1: be banned from all public spaces because it's evil and degenerate.
Speaker 1: It is neither evil nor degenerate. But what is evil
Speaker 1: and degenerate is that these guys are brainwashing our youth,
Speaker 1: and so they are our moment of fuckery. That's it
Speaker 1: for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in every Monday,
Speaker 1: Wednesday and Friday to hear the best minds in politics
Speaker 1: makes sense of all this chaos. If you enjoyed what
Speaker 1: you've heard, please send it to a friend and keep
Speaker 1: the conversation going. And again, thanks for listening.