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 Lindsey Graham says Donald Trump technically
Speaker 1: violated the law by firing over a dozen Inspectors General.
Speaker 1: We have such a great show for you today. The
Speaker 1: Linked Project's own Rick Wilson stops by to talk about
Speaker 1: Trump's first week in office. Then we'll talk to Bloomberg's
Speaker 1: Davy Alba and Leon Yan about how Trump's speaking to
Speaker 1: YouTubers helped Trump win the presidency.
Speaker 2: But first the news my Trump's first week. We'll have
Speaker 2: concluded by the time everyone listens to this and this
Speaker 2: IRS thing he's doing, there's a lot of stupid going on,
Speaker 2: but this feels really stupid.
Speaker 1: Republicans going to war with the IRS is something this
Speaker 1: party is like obsessed with, and it's part of it
Speaker 1: is because Biden hired a bunch of new IRS a gens.
Speaker 1: So now he's saying he might terminate the contract of
Speaker 1: thousands of RS workers, reviving debunk claims that the agency
Speaker 1: had hired eighty eight thousand enforcement agents to go after
Speaker 1: taxpayers in the past few years. Again, look, this is
Speaker 1: this project twenty twenty five, thing like a war on
Speaker 1: the federal government, trying to make it so useless that
Speaker 1: you know, it just no longer works. This is the
Speaker 1: whittle it down so it's small, so small you can
Speaker 1: drown in a boutub and this fits that quite well.
Speaker 3: Yep.
Speaker 2: So last week there was a large debate over hand
Speaker 2: gestures and one Elon musk. A lot of people pointed
Speaker 2: out that there was a lot of evidence of why
Speaker 2: he would do that hand gesture, and it seems he's
Speaker 2: just poured a little more fuel on the fire.
Speaker 1: Elon gave a speech he was zoomed into a speech
Speaker 1: actually listened to some of it for the AfD, which
Speaker 1: is the far right Nazi party, and he and the
Speaker 1: chairman of Israel's official Holocaust Memorial accused Elon of insulting
Speaker 1: the victims of Nazism and engineering Germany's democratic future. After
Speaker 1: the billionaire addressed this rally and basically he's said so
Speaker 1: he spoke to the AfD, the alternative for deutsch Land.
Speaker 1: He said, and here's the quote. It's worth sort of
Speaker 1: thinking about. There is too much focus on past guilt
Speaker 1: and we need to move beyond that. He said to
Speaker 1: the rally, it's just like clear where this is going.
Speaker 4: And if you think.
Speaker 1: About how this is a person who made a hand gesture,
Speaker 1: he made it twice that certainly seems like it could
Speaker 1: connect to a certain worldview, and then speaks at a
Speaker 1: rally for a group that has a certain worldview and
Speaker 1: then tells that group not feel bad about the Holocaust. Perhaps,
Speaker 1: perhaps it just when everything points to a certain worldview,
Speaker 1: one has to wonder if the person who is musing
Speaker 1: about that worldview actually has that worldview.
Speaker 2: When they have to, at least once a night, at
Speaker 2: some ungodly hour of the night, reply to some person
Speaker 2: with a Nazi thing in their timeline about something, it
Speaker 2: just feels a little strange. So, speaking of the first buddy,
Speaker 2: doge get into work in the first eighty hours, before
Speaker 2: it even started, we got rid of a vak ramas swami.
Speaker 2: And now they say that they have really done some cutting.
Speaker 1: They announce results from its first eighty hours of work,
Speaker 1: and they are you'll be shocked to hear a little
Speaker 1: behind schedule. It's canceled approximately four hundred and twenty million
Speaker 1: dollars worth of current or impending government contracts. Who even
Speaker 1: knows what they are as well as two leads. According
Speaker 1: to Business Insider's calculation, that amounts to canceling one hundred
Speaker 1: and twenty six million dollars worth of contracts per day.
Speaker 1: If the group works at that pace for all of
Speaker 1: the five hundred and thirty days between January twentieth, twenty
Speaker 1: twenty five and Doge's target date of July fourth, twenty
Speaker 1: twenty six, it will cancel about sixty seven billion in
Speaker 1: contracts each year. That would end up being three percent
Speaker 1: of Musk's original goal of slashing two trillion from the
Speaker 1: federal budget or his seven percent of his paradomn goal
Speaker 1: of one trillion. Look, man, the man, he knows what
Speaker 1: he's doing, and obviously all of us are the problem.
Speaker 1: We shall see. Stay tuned, stay tuned, or don't.
Speaker 2: My favorite is that, of course, because it's Elon and
Speaker 2: his sick offense, that they have to make it as
Speaker 2: stupid meme and make it the number four to twenty
Speaker 2: as a marijuana reference, because that's what we're he on
Speaker 2: with here now. So in news that I really really
Speaker 2: don't like, Montana Republicans now have a bill that would
Speaker 2: charge parents of trans kids with child abuse.
Speaker 1: This was always where this is going No one should
Speaker 1: be surprised by this. But it's the fifth time in
Speaker 1: three years Montana State Senator John Fuller has introduced legislation
Speaker 1: targeting transgender youth. It's the fifth time, right that he's
Speaker 1: done this. The state Supreme Court overturned a similar law
Speaker 1: sponsored by Fuller in twenty twenty three. And we know
Speaker 1: there are gop thing tanks that print up these laws,
Speaker 1: that write them for state legislatures. They give them to
Speaker 1: these legislators and try to get them to keep putting
Speaker 1: them on the floor. So on Wednesday, January twenty second,
Speaker 1: Senate Bill one hundred and sixty four would criminalize gender
Speaker 1: firm and care such as surgery, as puberty blockers, and
Speaker 1: hormone replacement therapy for trans kids. You know how many
Speaker 1: people is this actually? One hundred people? How many people
Speaker 1: in Montana have a trans kid? One hundred fifty forty.
Speaker 1: I mean, remember the idea here is to make it
Speaker 1: seem like it's a lot more people than it does.
Speaker 2: Yeah, when you look at the population demographics of Fontana,
Speaker 2: I'm betting that we may even be overestimated.
Speaker 4: So all right. Rick Wilson is the founder of the
Speaker 4: Lincoln project in the host of the enemy's list. Welcome back,
Speaker 4: Rick Wilson.
Speaker 3: Oh, he junk fast. I'm delighted to be back with you.
Speaker 4: So are you still very sick?
Speaker 3: No, I'm through it now. My voice is still a
Speaker 3: little bit raspy.
Speaker 5: But man, if you could avoid getting what I call
Speaker 5: the Portland flu, avoid it, because I was out there
Speaker 5: for meetings, and everyone that was at the meeting who
Speaker 5: lived there, and everyone who went on the trip got it.
Speaker 5: And it's taken two and a half weeks and it's
Speaker 5: been subpar, no fun.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that sounds bad.
Speaker 1: It's been the first if Trump as eggs are now
Speaker 1: much cheaper away.
Speaker 3: Ukraine was resolved within minutes of day one day.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Look, and as we're recording this, we're having the great
Speaker 3: news that Donald Trump has imposed twenty five percent sanctions
Speaker 3: on all goods coming in from Colombia.
Speaker 4: But tell them why Oh, because they.
Speaker 3: Wouldn't allow him to land planes full of deportees. The
Speaker 3: secondary issue of it was they wouldn't tell the Colombians
Speaker 3: who was on the plane. They just said, Nope, were
Speaker 3: landing a plane there, we're taking them back. They're coming
Speaker 3: back to you. They didn't know if they were Guatemalans,
Speaker 3: if they were Mexican, if they were Colombian, if they
Speaker 3: were Venezuelan. They had no idea. So they said no,
Speaker 3: as a sovereign nation has the right to do. Dommy
Speaker 3: was extremely angry about that. So he puts twenty five
Speaker 3: percent sanctions on today, and he says they'll go up
Speaker 3: to fifty percent within a.
Speaker 4: Week if they won't take more.
Speaker 3: Right, So here's the thing. Enjoy your non existent eggs
Speaker 3: with your with your thirty dollars cup of Starbucks this week,
Speaker 3: because that's what's going to happen. He is going to
Speaker 3: raise the prices for every person who buys drinks coffee
Speaker 3: in this country. Luckily, no one drinks coffee in America.
Speaker 1: So one of the things I want to point out here,
Speaker 1: it's historically one of the big problems with mass deportation.
Speaker 1: This has been true with every president, Democrat, Republican, and
Speaker 1: it's also been true with dictators and other people who
Speaker 1: wanted to rid their country of ethnic groups they don't like.
Speaker 4: Is that there's no country that will take them.
Speaker 1: And it doesn't matter who they is, right like, it
Speaker 1: can be Jews in Germany, it can be Palestinians when
Speaker 1: countries try to get rid of a group of immigrants,
Speaker 1: they tend to have the very problem.
Speaker 4: That Donald Trump is having.
Speaker 1: So the question is, and I think this is a
Speaker 1: real question, is what does Donald Trump do now?
Speaker 3: Well, look, Trump's in a position right now where he
Speaker 3: politically had to co out and do the performative splashy,
Speaker 3: I'm sending them all back thing for his base. That's
Speaker 3: one of the few things they understand. You know, those
Speaker 3: are words and actions they understand. Did they go back
Speaker 3: or did they not go back? They did they do
Speaker 3: this or did they not do this? Well, it turns
Speaker 3: out that political impulse to do this, as they always
Speaker 3: do in every culture that tries this, ends up with
Speaker 3: massive unintended consequences. Now in America, the consequences are somewhat different.
Speaker 3: They're they're somewhat centered more on the economic axis, and
Speaker 3: so you are going to see a spike in inflation,
Speaker 3: pressure in food, in construction, in energy production, in all
Speaker 3: these areas where folks from other countries come to our
Speaker 3: country to work hard and pay taxes, and Donald Trump
Speaker 3: wants to throw them all out, and a lot of
Speaker 3: them are just stay at home now. They're just like Nope,
Speaker 3: not going to work, going to sit this one out
Speaker 3: and see what happens. He's at a really tough spot
Speaker 3: right now.
Speaker 1: It's not clear that he's deported more people, right, Like,
Speaker 1: this first week was a lot of it was theater, right,
Speaker 1: Like you had doctor phil embedded.
Speaker 3: You know, built an immigration expert, doctor Ville, Chicago.
Speaker 1: Well, but the point is, right, the point is not
Speaker 1: to get real coverage. The point is to get the
Speaker 1: kind of propaganda which Trump like loves.
Speaker 3: Right, that's right, that's right, And.
Speaker 1: So the goal is to show his people that he's
Speaker 1: doing what he wants. But we've talked about this before, Right,
Speaker 1: Obama deported more people than Trump did in his first term.
Speaker 1: Obama deported twice as many people as Trump did. Now,
Speaker 1: part of that was because Obama was quite a bit
Speaker 1: more efficient, and part of that was because you know,
Speaker 1: he just wasn't so liberal in some ways. And that's
Speaker 1: not a criticism because obviously it worked for him.
Speaker 4: But the thing is.
Speaker 1: That I've been struck by were he got he set through,
Speaker 1: even though McConnell voted against it, I think that's meaningful.
Speaker 1: I don't think that any of these people are like,
Speaker 1: know how the vote count is going to go. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think somehow they told Tillis that if he didn't
Speaker 1: vote for heg Seth, blah blah blah blah blah. God
Speaker 1: knows what they told him. I think you have a
Speaker 1: real chance now that there are three Republican senators who
Speaker 1: you could lose on a cash battel, and then you
Speaker 1: only need one.
Speaker 3: Mores every day passes Molly Trump's power wings and heg
Speaker 3: Seth was a big lift. And I heard from a
Speaker 3: couple of folks in the Senate side, one Republican staff
Speaker 3: or one Democratic staffer that I knew pretty well, both
Speaker 3: of them independently of one another, had the same take,
Speaker 3: which was we gave him heg Seth. It's going to
Speaker 3: be a lot harder for Tulsi. It's going to be
Speaker 3: a lot harder for RFK particularly.
Speaker 4: But Tulsi is.
Speaker 1: A meaningless job. I mean, Will it's a sort of
Speaker 1: a fake job. I mean, it's real, but it's also vague.
Speaker 3: Right, But go on, Yeah, but you don't want Tulca Gabbard.
Speaker 3: And I think the serious people inside of the inside
Speaker 3: of the administration, and there are you know, at the
Speaker 3: Susie Wiles sort of tier, they're going to listen I
Speaker 3: think more closely on this. And look, there's a reason
Speaker 3: Trump wanted hecseeth and put Markers down for hegseth. It's
Speaker 3: that Fox News chemistry. And he really believes that the
Speaker 3: Defense Department is going to be a centerpiece of his
Speaker 3: anti immigration strategy, of his invasion of Canada or Greenland
Speaker 3: or wherever the hell he gets up his ass and
Speaker 3: decides to do one morning. I think there are some
Speaker 3: senators who are feeling shaky. I think they do understand. Again,
Speaker 3: this is Donald Trump's very best week. He is at
Speaker 3: forty seven percent approval, which is about where he always is.
Speaker 3: He never gets much higher, he never gets much lower.
Speaker 3: He got lower during COVID.
Speaker 4: He's going to get a lot lower.
Speaker 3: I mean he's going to get a lot lower.
Speaker 1: When people figure out that he's not going to make
Speaker 1: anything cheaper. I think that that is not going to
Speaker 1: be great for him.
Speaker 3: I truly believe we're in a moment right now where
Speaker 3: Donald Trump has a you know, I've started the Golden age.
Speaker 3: And if it's not a golden age, because that's a
Speaker 3: pretty clear thing, that's a pretty simple bright line test.
Speaker 3: Is it a Golden age or not. Are things better
Speaker 3: or worse? Is the price of eggs up or down?
Speaker 3: And frankly, the price of eggs is not going down.
Speaker 3: Is gas up or down? It's not down. Are the
Speaker 3: things that he promises people even viable, even imaginable, and
Speaker 3: they're really not. It's going to be a lot harder
Speaker 3: for them to bullshit themselves a week from now or
Speaker 3: ten days from hour, two months from now on the
Speaker 3: real outcomes of what Trump has promised. This is a
Speaker 3: guy who has always been able to distract his base
Speaker 3: and move on to the next thing and the next
Speaker 3: thing and the next thing. And in some ways, you know,
Speaker 3: right now, the nomination fights for the next few weeks
Speaker 3: are still going to have static in the in the
Speaker 3: system effect. People are going to be watching RFK and
Speaker 3: Cash Patel and all this their stuff. But when it
Speaker 3: gets down to governing, when you get down to having
Speaker 3: to do things like, you know, do another cr and
Speaker 3: pass the tax bill he wants, and pass an immigration
Speaker 3: you know system that he wants, and do all these
Speaker 3: things that are going to require the White House to
Speaker 3: do more than write performative press releases and executive orders.
Speaker 3: I think it becomes more complicated, and I think he
Speaker 3: has a much much a substance of chance of persuading
Speaker 3: people that the only thing stopping me is, you know,
Speaker 3: Mitch McConnell wouldn't vote for Pete hegg Seth or whatever.
Speaker 1: No, I definitely think they squandered a lot of goodwill
Speaker 1: on Pete hagg Seth. And again there's just the optics
Speaker 1: of having a Defense secretary who was a tie break vote.
Speaker 1: I think there's no historical precedent for that.
Speaker 3: Zero, No, none. I have worked with one and consulted
Speaker 3: for another one, and known four of the Defense secretaries
Speaker 3: in my lifetime in some capacity. And they had to
Speaker 3: cash a lot of checks, They had to burn a
Speaker 3: lot of favors for Pete hegg Sith. He was not qualified.
Speaker 3: They knew it. Even some of their lobbying behind the
Speaker 3: scenes was don't worry, he'll have smart people around him.
Speaker 3: To members of the Senate, don't worry, he'll be taking
Speaker 3: guidance from Donald directly.
Speaker 4: And oh well, that makes everyone feel better.
Speaker 3: What could possibly go rock?
Speaker 1: It is interesting to watch right now because you know,
Speaker 1: Trump has this kind of he's pretty interested in, like
Speaker 1: a lot of stuff that the American people had no
Speaker 1: buy in for so I'm thinking about things like the
Speaker 1: one I'm thinking about the most is more with Greenland,
Speaker 1: right conquering the Panama Canal, Like, what's the play there?
Speaker 1: I mean, does he think voters will forget about that?
Speaker 3: I think that Donald Trump is no longer kidding about
Speaker 3: those things. They may have started out as a joke.
Speaker 3: They may have started out as a Trump sort of trollish,
Speaker 3: prankish whatever, but I actually think he really believes that
Speaker 3: stuff now. I actually think he really thinks of some
Speaker 3: sort of American imperium, at least in the Western hemisphere.
Speaker 3: And the fuck is that? How do you think it
Speaker 3: ends up us trying to invade Greenland? And we're not
Speaker 3: going to buy Greenland. The Danes aren't going to sell
Speaker 3: Greenland to Donald Trump.
Speaker 6: There are a.
Speaker 1: Number of people who don't want that to happen, including
Speaker 1: the people of Greenland.
Speaker 3: Correct this idea that we're going to seize the Panama
Speaker 3: Canal in some way. I was around for the last
Speaker 3: time we invaded Panama. It was pretty simple then, it
Speaker 3: was pretty easy, or we were going to stick around.
Speaker 3: This is something where he is essentially saying we're going
Speaker 3: to at the minimum make Panama an American territory of something.
Speaker 3: It's a sovereign nation. These things are not as like
Speaker 3: a lot of things with Trump. They're not as easy
Speaker 3: as they look like in his brain or on his
Speaker 3: Twitter or on his true social feed. And I think
Speaker 3: all of these things cost him political capital, and the
Speaker 3: silliness of it cost him political capital.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean it seems ridiculous. So let's talk about
Speaker 1: what's on the docket.
Speaker 4: Now. What do you think Democrats should be doing right now?
Speaker 3: Well, they should be trying to make viral videos about
Speaker 3: Tunis sandwiches. Obviously, yes, this is I'm making it.
Speaker 1: Let people talk about this. We're not talking about this.
Speaker 1: This leaked conversation from inside a meeting where supposedly they
Speaker 1: were musing about a viral anything that is that's restricted
Speaker 1: on this podcast.
Speaker 4: So go on that.
Speaker 3: Sort of thing of like trying to say, be funny, haha,
Speaker 3: make a funny meme. No stop.
Speaker 1: I want to point out that, like the people who
Speaker 1: instructed Harris and Hillary Clinton and Biden were all super
Speaker 1: timid and cautious and terrified of their people doing their
Speaker 1: own tweets, doing their own videos, doing their own anything.
Speaker 1: I mean, the Biden world, he didn't do that many interviews.
Speaker 1: He didn't do his own social He was the least
Speaker 1: accessible president ever, and I am starting to suspect that may.
Speaker 4: Not have served him.
Speaker 3: It did not, It did not.
Speaker 4: I would rather more of them out there than less.
Speaker 3: I'd rather see clumsy authenticity. Then when someone says, we're
Speaker 3: bringing in a social media consultant right over.
Speaker 1: Focused group nightmare they put out there that didn't connect
Speaker 1: with anyone.
Speaker 3: Right, that is never an outcome that ends well anymore.
Speaker 3: The lack of authenticity is detectable and immediate and powerful.
Speaker 3: And if you don't fix it quickly with the Democrats,
Speaker 3: Trump will be seen as flawed but authentic.
Speaker 4: Right, Well, that's what happened, right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, We've got to live in the world as it is,
Speaker 3: not as we want it to be. And that's what happened, right.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm definitely seeing Democrats doing videos. They seem good,
Speaker 1: I mean, narrating what's happening. If they don't kind of
Speaker 1: get that out there, I wonder who does.
Speaker 3: Look, they need to do the high and the low.
Speaker 3: They need to do the stake and the sizzle. And
Speaker 3: part of this is going to be if you're going
Speaker 3: to be the opposition to Donald Trump. You have to
Speaker 3: oppose him. So I get it. The most powerful thing
Speaker 3: in Washington, and I know they're Polsters and their focus
Speaker 3: group people like they just want us to get along there.
Speaker 3: They want us to all cooperate. And again, if Donald
Speaker 3: Trump was President Ted Cruz or President Mike Lee or
Speaker 3: President Tom Tillis or whomever, that would be perfectly acceptable
Speaker 3: and ordinary and explicable. But every time you get in
Speaker 3: the trough with this pig, you come up covered in
Speaker 3: pig shit. This is not the kind of relationship that
Speaker 3: presidents and their counterparts have traditionally had. So we want
Speaker 3: to give him a little bit of the shitty things
Speaker 3: he wants to do. Is that the way we're going
Speaker 3: to do this thing. I disagree with that approach because
Speaker 3: the voters, they have told us kind of clearly now,
Speaker 3: they are not looking for the Democrats at this point
Speaker 3: to come out and offer seven thousand page policy proposals.
Speaker 3: They are looking for God save us, they are looking
Speaker 3: for people who can be engaging and contemporary.
Speaker 1: But I also think Democrats have a bigger problem, which
Speaker 1: is there isn't much in the mainstream media left, So
Speaker 1: if they don't narrate what's happening.
Speaker 4: I'm not sure.
Speaker 3: Who does the collapse of the mainstream media. As as
Speaker 3: somebody joked here the day, It's like at some point
Speaker 3: Doug Balloon at a New York Times pitch pot, it
Speaker 3: stopped being just ironic, it started being descriptive. And you
Speaker 3: know the Washington Post. We're seeing it at the LA Times,
Speaker 3: We're seeing it at CNN, We're seeing it. The networks
Speaker 3: are all saying things, you know, with a couple of exceptions. Obviously,
Speaker 3: they're taking what I consider, in my opinion to be
Speaker 3: the wrong lesson of Trump, and that wrong lesson is
Speaker 3: that he won a sweeping landslide and we have to
Speaker 3: now accommodate his bullshit. I mean, the job of journalism,
Speaker 3: to my mind, at least the last time I checked
Speaker 3: before all this was not to comfort the comfortable, but
Speaker 3: to afflict the afflicted. I fucked that up somehow.
Speaker 4: But you know, right, I know you mean though, And.
Speaker 3: Lawrence O'Donnell pointed out today one of those first press
Speaker 3: conferences in the Oval office, they weren't yelling over each other,
Speaker 3: they weren't screaming over each other. They weren't asking about
Speaker 3: his mental acuity when he was saying stupid things or
Speaker 3: weird things, or things that didn't seem logical. It was
Speaker 3: I won't say bending the knee, but there are a
Speaker 3: lot of journalists right now who are kind of smug
Speaker 3: about the moment we're in. I think they believe that
Speaker 3: Trump does represent some kind of alteration in a permanent
Speaker 3: sense of the American polity, and I think they're covering
Speaker 3: him in a way that reflects that belief.
Speaker 4: Thank you.
Speaker 1: Rick Wilson, d v Alba, and Leon Yen are reporters
Speaker 1: at Bloomberg. Welcome, Too Fast Politics. Excellent Bloomberg team. We
Speaker 1: have two out of four of.
Speaker 6: You right out of let's see, oh gosh, five.
Speaker 1: Now, Davy and Leon, while come to both of you.
Speaker 6: Thanks for having us, Thanks for having us.
Speaker 1: Whoever wants to go first, I'm going to let you
Speaker 1: guys decide amongst yourselves. Explain to us about this investigation,
Speaker 1: which basically answers the question should there be a liberal
Speaker 1: Joe Rogan. What this piece does is an interesting investigation
Speaker 1: of how male conservative YouTubers helped each other. So explain
Speaker 1: to us, Davey, why don't you start by explaining us
Speaker 1: how you got to this piece.
Speaker 6: Yeah, we know that these podcasters are extremely popular and
Speaker 6: influential and increasingly started to have a role in politics.
Speaker 6: You know, I think the scenes from the inauguration weekend
Speaker 6: where Joe Rogan was in the Capitol rotunda as Trump
Speaker 6: was being sworn in, really speaks to that and symbolizes
Speaker 6: it so perfectly, while you know, someone like Ron DeSantis,
Speaker 6: who's a public and luminary, was confined to overflow. So
Speaker 6: we know that these podcasters are extremely influential and that
Speaker 6: they are increasingly involved in politics. We also know that
Speaker 6: they are influential among young men, not for politics, but
Speaker 6: just for speaking about pop culture and you know, sort
Speaker 6: of influencer beef, online gambling, pranks, all those sorts of
Speaker 6: topics that seemingly don't have anything to do with politics.
Speaker 6: But in watching you know, over two thousand videos, we
Speaker 6: found that these podcasters sandwich political topics among some of
Speaker 6: these seemingly apolitical discussions, and that as the election neared,
Speaker 6: the frequency of political messages increased and there was a
Speaker 6: real push to get the audience to go out and vote.
Speaker 6: And you know, you can't exactly say that there was
Speaker 6: you know, this is a causative thing that these podcasters
Speaker 6: caused the election to it to be one for Trump.
Speaker 6: But I think we can say that these podcasters are
Speaker 6: extremely influential. We know that this election swung hard for Trump,
Speaker 6: for young men especially. You know, it's there are some
Speaker 6: statistics that say that this is the biggest swing among
Speaker 6: that demographic in the last two decades. And we wanted
Speaker 6: to investigate what exactly is the draw of these podcasters,
Speaker 6: what do they talk about, how did they start to
Speaker 6: get into politics, and what will their role be now
Speaker 6: that Trump is in power? And I think that that
Speaker 6: is something that will continue to watch and that we
Speaker 6: expect that, you know, the grievances that they talk about
Speaker 6: on these podcasts will be transformed to policy and that
Speaker 6: could have lasting effects even beyond Trump's term.
Speaker 1: So, Leon, there's a sort of interesting synchronicity to these
Speaker 1: podcasts and each other.
Speaker 4: Can you explain that does?
Speaker 7: Yeah? I mean, first and foremost, like these channels, they're
Speaker 7: all they're men who create content primarily for other men,
Speaker 7: right Like, their identity as men is so central to
Speaker 7: their messaging and their audience. A lot of what they
Speaker 7: discuss is kind of about the you know, social hierarchy
Speaker 7: of where where men are in America, and you know,
Speaker 7: given what's going on with the economy, a lot of
Speaker 7: young people feel like they don't have the opportunities that
Speaker 7: they're promised, Like where's my American dream?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 7: Why are other people getting you know, advantages when I'm not?
Speaker 7: And so so much of what is discussed kind of
Speaker 7: puts that right in the core about you know, like
Speaker 7: how do we get here? Is it fair? And so
Speaker 7: oftentimes when they talk about these politics, it's all about
Speaker 7: the social order, right. A lot of it is about,
Speaker 7: you know, what is masculinity in this era? Right, Like
Speaker 7: what does it mean to be a man? What are
Speaker 7: like where what happened to traditional gender roles? And that
Speaker 7: inevitably lends itself to so many other topics like immigration, right,
Speaker 7: like why are immigrants allowed to get in this country
Speaker 7: to take jobs that you know I should be having.
Speaker 7: Why are we talking about transgender people so much? I
Speaker 7: don't know any transgender people. They seem to have an
Speaker 7: advantage in sports. Children are seemingly transitioning in an alarming rate,
Speaker 7: like something is clearly going on. And then often that
Speaker 7: conversation lends itself to be like, well, it's probably because
Speaker 7: of the political establishment, the media establishment, the medical establishment,
Speaker 7: right Like, in addition to the centering the American man
Speaker 7: in the narrative, it's also extremely anti establishment, and the
Speaker 7: establishment is what is is kind of viewed as a
Speaker 7: source of problems. And by tuney and join the team,
Speaker 7: you are anti establishment. Who is the most anti established
Speaker 7: man there is? It is Donald Trump, and so inevitably
Speaker 7: the votes kind of led to him. But it didn't
Speaker 7: start that way. You know, we saw that RFK and
Speaker 7: Vek Ramaswami other you know, Republican candidates made the rounds,
Speaker 7: right besides Trump. RFK was booked in six or seven
Speaker 7: of the shows of the nine that we looked at,
Speaker 7: but he didn't garner that many views. And then when
Speaker 7: he turned to join the Trump administration, a lot of
Speaker 7: that kind of following join too, and so a sources
Speaker 7: kind of referred to this as like salting the earth,
Speaker 7: where these candidates made the rounds. You know, Jade Vance
Speaker 7: showed up as well, and then eventually Donald Trump, and
Speaker 7: so the talking points we saw were salted, and so
Speaker 7: were the political pundits and candidates that would follow to
Speaker 7: and then Trump eventually, and then they repeat the exact
Speaker 7: same talking points on these political topics about the election
Speaker 7: was stolen. You know, the pandemic is in the vaccine
Speaker 7: are used to control the public and to tell you
Speaker 7: what to do and to profit from that.
Speaker 1: It goes on on, Davie, can you explain to us
Speaker 1: sort of what the landscape looks like, who's sort of
Speaker 1: the biggest and who are sort of more and how
Speaker 1: they communicate with each other.
Speaker 6: Yeah, it's really interesting when you start looking at the
Speaker 6: guest networks of these folks, and just to list out
Speaker 6: who we're talking about, we looked at the podcasters and
Speaker 6: streamer Aiden Ross, Andrew Schultz, the Neelk Boys, Logan, Paul
Speaker 6: Joe Rogan, Lex Friedman, Patrick Bett, David Sean Ryan and
Speaker 6: Theo Vaughn and all of these podcasters and streamers had
Speaker 6: Trump on as a guest in the months leading to
Speaker 6: the election. So we started there and you know, once
Speaker 6: you start watching, you start to see the same names repeated.
Speaker 6: Dana White, the CEO of the Ultimate Fighting Championship UFC, is.
Speaker 4: A friend of the shows.
Speaker 6: He's often invoked rfks as well. And you know there
Speaker 6: are these friends of the shows, but there's also who
Speaker 6: are the guests who draw in the most number of views,
Speaker 6: and when you start to look at that, I was
Speaker 6: pretty surprised that Andrew Tait was up there right after
Speaker 6: Donald Trump in drawing views. He appeared on three podcasts
Speaker 6: and he has eighty million views in total. He is
Speaker 6: someone who has been banned from YouTube to be clear,
Speaker 6: for you know, his hateful rhetoric and you know he's
Speaker 6: he's currently under investigation by Romanian officials for human trafficking.
Speaker 6: He's he's been kicked off a lot of platforms, but
Speaker 6: there's a policy loophole on YouTube that allows him to
Speaker 6: be a guest. So he is the number two guest
Speaker 6: on these shows. The next few sort of guests by
Speaker 6: viewership include Tucker Carlson, Elon Musk, and Shane Gillis, who's
Speaker 6: a comedian. Jadie Vance is up there, Ben Shapiro. We
Speaker 6: have the full list in our GitHub. If people want
Speaker 6: to go and look at that list, it's available there.
Speaker 6: But yeah, I think that what we showed is how
Speaker 6: these podcasters network with each other, invite the same people on.
Speaker 6: You know, inevitably, the guests have their spiel and message
Speaker 6: and that is repeated throughout this network, and then it
Speaker 6: really takes hold among their audiences.
Speaker 7: A lot of these folks are the comedians, their Internet superstars, right,
Speaker 7: their streamers, and you know, many of them have their
Speaker 7: origins reality TV. So everyone is sort of coming from
Speaker 7: this like kind of idea of like spectacle and clashing
Speaker 7: right of personalities, and YouTube has always rewarded that kind
Speaker 7: of behavior, right, Like the most viral things on YouTube.
Speaker 7: I mean take a Logan Paul for example, right, Like
Speaker 7: Logan Paul, he's a vine star, right, he moved to YouTube.
Speaker 7: There's that controversy when he was in Japan. He was
Speaker 7: live streaming in this forest and they found someone at
Speaker 7: their own life, and you know, they upload on YouTube
Speaker 7: and it went gangbusters and then I think it was removed.
Speaker 7: But there's this long history of spectacle here. I mean
Speaker 7: the knelt Boys that you know, they had become or
Speaker 7: more openly right wing, you know, before they're kind of
Speaker 7: just about partying, you know, partying pranks like they gave
Speaker 7: Tucker Carl and a giants in container that I think
Speaker 7: a helicopter flew in, right, And so they are all
Speaker 7: these really viral moments. And the nature of much of
Speaker 7: this content, it's unedited, it's hours long, and so inevitably
Speaker 7: they do cover politics, right, but they cover in the
Speaker 7: same way where it's kind of like spectacle, right, like
Speaker 7: what's outrageous? And I think that that really lends itself
Speaker 7: to why I think this works so well in this
Speaker 7: kind of content, because politics is just a piece of it,
Speaker 7: but by making it a piece and not the primary,
Speaker 7: actually arguably becomes a better vehicle for the message, even
Speaker 7: if that's not their intention necessarily, which we'll never know.
Speaker 6: I would also add that I think something that was
Speaker 6: surprising to me as we looked at this network was
Speaker 6: that you might think of a character like Andrew Tait
Speaker 6: as someone who is sort of in the far right,
Speaker 6: extreme spectrum of politics, and I think what we've shown
Speaker 6: here is that that is not true. He is pretty mainstream.
Speaker 6: You know, all of these podcasts are mainstream, and we've
Speaker 6: sort of been calling it the new mainstream media because
Speaker 6: just the viewership and influence.
Speaker 4: And isn't it much bigger than cable news.
Speaker 6: Yes, we had looked at some numbers that showed that
Speaker 6: the most popular channel on Election night was Fox News,
Speaker 6: and Nielsen has them at drawing in around ten million
Speaker 6: viewers on Election night, and Trump's episode alone drew in
Speaker 6: one hundred million plus views over the inauguration weekend when
Speaker 6: Spotify and youtubeer holding events in DC. Someone from Spotify
Speaker 6: said that it was their biggest episode ever on podcasts
Speaker 6: on the platform. So the reach and influence of this
Speaker 6: network is really really something.
Speaker 1: Just say more about this idea that this media complex
Speaker 1: is made up of reality television actors.
Speaker 6: Donald Trump is a reality TV president in so many ways. Well,
Speaker 6: his star began to rise with shows like The Apprentice,
Speaker 6: and this really fits I think this, this this network
Speaker 6: really fits in with that. As Leon was talking about
Speaker 6: spectacle and you know, these outrageous moments, this is the
Speaker 6: kind of thing that the audience is really looking for
Speaker 6: and are really sticking to these podcasts for so I
Speaker 6: think that as they became such a key vehicle for
Speaker 6: political messages ahead of the election, you know, we expect
Speaker 6: that Trump will continue to turn to them. We have
Speaker 6: a source who told us that he expects Trump to
Speaker 6: treat them as an alternative press core and that we
Speaker 6: will continue to see millions of Americans receive their messages.
Speaker 6: The news, the you know, what they learn will be
Speaker 6: tied to these podcasts and how they talk about issue
Speaker 6: is It's an incredibly powerful way for Trump to build
Speaker 6: support for his political agenda.
Speaker 7: Many of the kind of hosts they say they're independent
Speaker 7: or you know, many of them like don't outright say
Speaker 7: that they're Trump and many, maybe some of them didn't
Speaker 7: vote for Trump. It's it's very likely that happening because
Speaker 7: they kind of are operating and kind of like what's spectacular?
Speaker 7: What's the w right, Like what's the most epic they
Speaker 7: could do? Getting Trump on was pretty epic and anti establishment?
Speaker 7: But now because he has the ultimate position again, what
Speaker 7: now he's no longer the underdog, right, he's you know,
Speaker 7: the establishment, so his establishment what happens now? Right? I
Speaker 7: mean that one of the things that strikes me is
Speaker 7: that a lot of the messaging is anti war. You know,
Speaker 7: a lot of the messagings like young men like you
Speaker 7: don't want to go to war, right, Like we got to.
Speaker 4: Stop spending money in wars, which is true.
Speaker 7: But now Trump is talking about you know, seasoned Greenland
Speaker 7: and the golf and like that sounds a lot like
Speaker 7: war to me. You know, So, like what happens when
Speaker 7: the reality sets in that the kind of selling points
Speaker 7: you know, deteriorate, Like we just don't know, but that's
Speaker 7: something that I'm watching closely.
Speaker 1: So this is a continual argument I have with Democrats.
Speaker 1: It's like they could have gone on these podcasts. I mean,
Speaker 1: Bernie has gone on Joe Rogan, and Rogan invited Harris
Speaker 1: and the Milk Boys. I mean, these podcasters. Maybe some
Speaker 1: of them are super ideological, but as you're talking, a
Speaker 1: lot of them are not. And they could have gone
Speaker 1: on these podcasts and they chose not to.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I think that's right. I mean, you know what, Yes,
Speaker 6: Democrats have definitely been on these podcasts. Bernie Sanders is
Speaker 6: when you mentioned she was also on THEO Vaughn and
Speaker 6: spoke at length there. John Fetterman has kind of made
Speaker 6: the rounds on these podcasts too. It seemed like Harris's
Speaker 6: strategy ahead of the election was It's worth saying she
Speaker 6: did go on some podcasts such as Call Her Daddy.
Speaker 1: But I mean Rogan, Milk Boys, Theovon, I mean to
Speaker 1: appeal to that group. And I love Alex Cooper. I
Speaker 1: think she's a genius, but it's a different audience. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's the thing that I am so struck by. You
Speaker 1: don't get in front of these people unless you go
Speaker 1: on their shows.
Speaker 6: Right, Yes, and you have to meet them somewhat on
Speaker 6: their terms. Trump traveled to Austin, Texas. I believe to
Speaker 6: do the Joe Rogan podcast, and you have to agree
Speaker 6: that you will do like an hour's long interview.
Speaker 4: For three hours.
Speaker 6: Yeah. Absolutely. Some of the podcasts we listened to were
Speaker 6: three plus hours long and no topic off limits, you
Speaker 6: know that sort of thing. And we'll probably look back
Speaker 6: on this and try to understand, like, was this missed
Speaker 6: opportunity for the Democrat.
Speaker 4: We don't have to look back. It was. Thank you
Speaker 4: guys so much. Appreciate you both. I'm sorry to cut
Speaker 4: you off, but we're out of time.
Speaker 1: Please keep going and come back when you have another
Speaker 1: investigation like this.
Speaker 4: So interesting things our pleasure.
Speaker 7: Thank you so much.
Speaker 6: Absolutely, Yeah, we'd be happy to.
Speaker 4: A moment fuck.
Speaker 3: Hey, so Molly, it's good to be back with you.
Speaker 3: Are we doing fuckery today?
Speaker 4: Yes, let's talk about our moment of fuckery.
Speaker 3: I think that the moment of fuckery here is firing
Speaker 3: either fifteen or seventeen inspector eighteen. Now what the body
Speaker 3: count keeps rising? Inspector generals? On Friday Night? This generation's
Speaker 3: Friday Night massacre.
Speaker 1: Trump cites changing priorities, so inspector generals. It's actually sort
Speaker 1: of interesting. It's a post Nixonian anti corruption thing put
Speaker 1: in place for obvious reasons after the last corrupt Republican
Speaker 1: president to have these inspector generals in each branch of
Speaker 1: the federal government, and their job is to root a corruption,
Speaker 1: to hold the agency accountable.
Speaker 3: Inspector rules and again, yes, they were codified in the
Speaker 3: post Watergate environment. Inspector generals have existed in governments for
Speaker 3: generations in America, they were codified and protected in such
Speaker 3: a way, especially in the post Trump era of Trump one,
Speaker 3: where before you fire an inspector general, Congress must be
Speaker 3: given thirty days notice. You may have noticed they were
Speaker 3: fired on day five a not thirty five. What does
Speaker 3: it tell you? It tells you Trump does not want
Speaker 3: any kind of oversight function in any government department. He
Speaker 3: wants his own people to be able to run roughshots.
Speaker 3: So if Cash Patel decides one day, hey, I'm going
Speaker 3: to send Rick Wilson and Molly Jong fast and to
Speaker 3: get moo, he doesn't want an inspector general in there
Speaker 3: who goes in and says, hey, Champ, that's against the law.
Speaker 3: You can't do that, and I have to issue a
Speaker 3: public report. Yeah, he wants his people to be protected
Speaker 3: from oversight and scrutiny.
Speaker 1: Michael Horowitz, the DOJ's inspector General, has not been fired.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 4: Interesting, just something to think about.
Speaker 3: It is interesting.
Speaker 1: We're not going to speculate because we don't want to
Speaker 1: get sued, but it's just something to think about. Interesting
Speaker 1: that some people are getting fired and not other people.
Speaker 3: Well, I think one of the things you've have to
Speaker 3: watch for here, along with a lot of other things
Speaker 3: he's trying to do with these executive orders, is they're
Speaker 3: going to be legal problems for the administration, who they
Speaker 3: do not want to believe that their courts and their
Speaker 3: judges will will do anything against Trump. But there are
Speaker 3: some bright line, black letter legal questions here that are
Speaker 3: not going to be easily waved away on the spectro generals,
Speaker 3: on birthrate, citizenship, and a lot of things both constitutional
Speaker 3: and legislative and statutory requirements that don't go away just
Speaker 3: because Donald Trump's fat ass is city in the oval
Speaker 3: office again.
Speaker 1: And the interesting thing in my mind is Trump has
Speaker 1: immunity forever and ever for everything. But you know who
Speaker 1: doesn't Everyone around him everybody out, so Trump feels even
Speaker 1: more embolden, and that's going to lead to I think
Speaker 1: a lot of people getting in trouble in a way
Speaker 1: that they might not have had he not have that
Speaker 1: same kind of broad sweeping at immun today.
Speaker 3: Yes, and he'll be saying to them, Oh, shut up,
Speaker 3: just do it, I'll pardon you. I think that's not
Speaker 3: really the same. I think that's not really the same
Speaker 3: level of certainty that people want when they're working for
Speaker 3: the president of the United States and potentially going to
Speaker 3: jail for breaking the law.
Speaker 1: Well, I just think we've seen people around Trump be
Speaker 1: very loyal and ultimately end him in jail.
Speaker 3: Well, you know, Roger Stone, Paul Mannifort, a certain ex
Speaker 3: army general, a whole bunch of other people, Gates, all
Speaker 3: these people that were around Trump in the first administration
Speaker 3: ran into a legal buzz sauce, and he pardoned them
Speaker 3: to protect himself from their testimony and from sending them
Speaker 3: to prison for long, long hauls. And he pardoned the
Speaker 3: January sixth idiots because he wants a shock troop army
Speaker 3: out there, people who have already been proven to be
Speaker 3: willing to do violence for him, that he can pardon
Speaker 3: again if they do bad things.
Speaker 1: So pretty interesting stuff. Thank you, Rick Wilson.
Speaker 3: As always, looking forward to being with you again next time.
Speaker 1: That's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in
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Speaker 4: Thanks for listening.