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Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics,

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Speaker 1: where we discuss the top political headlines with some of

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Speaker 1: today's best minds. And the legos have joined the eminem's

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Speaker 1: in being Woke. We have a show packed with thrilling,

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Speaker 1: thrilling stuff. Ruth ben Guiatt, author of Strong Men, How

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Speaker 1: They Rise, Why They Succeed, How They Fall. We'll talk

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Speaker 1: to us about Ron De Santis's recent aggressions and the

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Speaker 1: stupidity of a national divorce. Then we'll talk to Washington

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Speaker 1: Post Aaron Blake about the Georgia grand Jury four women's

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Speaker 1: media tour causing problems. But first we have the Washington

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Speaker 1: Post Plumbline editor Greg Sargeant. Welcome too, Fast Politics, Greg Sargeant,

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Speaker 1: thanks for having me on. I always love stopping by.

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Speaker 1: We're delighted to have you in our post apocalyptic apocalypse.

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Speaker 1: So let's first talk about Tucker Carlson and his extremely

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Speaker 1: good friend and Kevin McCarthy. Sure this is not the

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Speaker 1: first time Kevin McCarthy and Tucker Carlson have had a

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Speaker 1: symbiotic relationship. In January, Tucker Carlson told Kevin McCarthy if

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Speaker 1: he wanted to be speaker, that he was going to

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Speaker 1: need to open a church commission and put Thomas Massey

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Speaker 1: as the head of it. Incredible move, remember that. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: the Committee to Weaponize Government un ironically named. Now Kevin

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Speaker 1: McCarthy has given Tucker Carlson a little prize. Yes, Kevin

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Speaker 1: McCarthy has apparently given exclusive access to all of the

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Speaker 1: January sixth Capital surveillance footage to Tucker Carlson. I think

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Speaker 1: we don't know exactly what the arrangement is, but it

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Speaker 1: may be and I stressed that this is a make

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Speaker 1: because I'm speculating it may be that the producers have

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Speaker 1: access to some sort of database where they're watching it

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Speaker 1: all a little bit similar to how the January sixth

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Speaker 1: Committee access that. Explain that more to me because I'm stupid. Well, okay,

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Speaker 1: so the January sixth Committee got access to the footage

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Speaker 1: because congressional committees and congressional leadership can get that kind

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Speaker 1: of thing from the Capitol Police if they ask for it,

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Speaker 1: and the committee did, and according to reports, and according

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Speaker 1: to my own reporting as well, the arrangement that was

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Speaker 1: worked out was that the committee investigators were allowed to

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Speaker 1: watch the footage from the surveillance cameras on some kind

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Speaker 1: of password protected database under fairly strict security constraints, and

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Speaker 1: they also took care to not air any footage at

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Speaker 1: the hearings unless it was cleared with the Capitol Police

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Speaker 1: first to avoid compromising security information. My strong suspicion is

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Speaker 1: that Tucker's Carlson his producers have a similar arrangement. Maybe

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Speaker 1: I don't know what happens if they want to air

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Speaker 1: parts of the footage yet, that kind of remains to

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Speaker 1: be seen. But my guess is that Tucker's producers are

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Speaker 1: watching the footage right now on a similar password protected

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Speaker 1: database at the Capital. I guess something like that. Oh wow,

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Speaker 1: I mean, I guess that's a little bit better that

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Speaker 1: they're not just taking the video and watching it in

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Speaker 1: their office. Right. It's not like, as far as I

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Speaker 1: can tell, it wasn't like just turned over to them

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Speaker 1: on a thumb. Jo Tucker isn't just like sort of like,

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Speaker 1: you know, watching it in wherever the hell he lives. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's such an interesting and strange kind of reality we're

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Speaker 1: living in. So explain to me what your thesis was

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Speaker 1: about this turnover. So the piece that I did today

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Speaker 1: argued that if McCarthy is going to give this exclusive

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Speaker 1: access to the footage to Tucker Carlson, who's a known

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Speaker 1: liar and propagandist who has deceived people serially about January

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Speaker 1: sixth for a very long time, then Democrats should give

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Speaker 1: access to the footage to major news organizations. I was

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Speaker 1: able to confirm that that's a real possibility. As you know,

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Speaker 1: as we talked about earlier, the January sixth Committee investigators

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Speaker 1: already accessed it. But right now Democratic leaders and I

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Speaker 1: think committee heads too, can request access to that footage

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Speaker 1: and essentially do what they want with it. I think

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Speaker 1: that's sort of being figured out right now by a

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Speaker 1: lot of people. It certainly seems highly plausible that if

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Speaker 1: Democratic leaders wanted to, they could access the footage, set

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Speaker 1: up some sort of arrangement with major news organizations allowing

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Speaker 1: them to view it in some way or other, maybe

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Speaker 1: subject to some kind of vetting for before they use

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Speaker 1: it or report on it. Maybe it gets vetted by

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Speaker 1: Capitol Police for security concerns, or maybe news organizations wouldn't

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Speaker 1: be willing to do that, but some kind of arrangement

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Speaker 1: could conceivably be worked out. Yeah, makes sense. I want

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Speaker 1: to ask you this. I asked you this before, but

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Speaker 1: it really important. What do you think this sort of

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Speaker 1: reason is that Democrats haven't done this before. Now. Their

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Speaker 1: reaction to the McCarthy decision to turn it over to

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Speaker 1: Tucker was that it would be highly compromising in security terms.

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Speaker 1: And as we talked about earlier, the January six Committee

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Speaker 1: members were exceptionally careful to not air footage without getting

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Speaker 1: it vetted by Capitol Police first to be sure they

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Speaker 1: weren't compromising things. And so my guess is that they've

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Speaker 1: been hesitant to make it available on similar grounds. And

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Speaker 1: I guess we should also recall that the January sixth

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Speaker 1: Committee report really only just came out a few months ago, right,

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Speaker 1: whatever the reason, though, I mean, I think that they

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Speaker 1: could do it now. By the way, I think we

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Speaker 1: should note that it's actually legitimate to be worried about

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Speaker 1: the security concerns here. The right wing is sort of

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Speaker 1: playing this slimy little game right now where they're pretending

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Speaker 1: that there's like not actually any issues whatsoever associated with

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Speaker 1: making the footage available to people, and there are. I

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Speaker 1: still think that it could be worked around, and I

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Speaker 1: think that Demoscrats should try to do that, But the

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Speaker 1: way the rights approached This is just to sort of

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Speaker 1: erase the actual complications involved, because that's what they do, right,

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Speaker 1: They just you know, they deceive and mislead pretty much

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Speaker 1: all the time, and that's what they're doing here too, right, Right,

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Speaker 1: I want to ask you about the Avanka Jared subpoena situation.

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Speaker 1: What is happening? Well, I don't really know. I mean,

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Speaker 1: I think obviously they're the investigators. They're being pretty damn

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Speaker 1: aggressive at this point. I think we can see that, right,

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Speaker 1: And it's kind of hard to imagine that there won't

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Speaker 1: be indictments at some point on one of these fronts,

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Speaker 1: isn't it? I do badly when I need to predict

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Speaker 1: the future. It certainly seems like he's being aggressive in

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Speaker 1: a way that Muller wasn't. Though Mueller did, didn't he

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Speaker 1: have those two testify? I can't recall that, honestly. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's like ten million years ago. Yes, that probably happened.

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Speaker 1: Let's talk about Tucko Crawlson's interest in the Ohio train disaster,

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Speaker 1: because you wrote about that yesterday. Can you give us

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Speaker 1: a little bit of a sort of four one one

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Speaker 1: on how that went down? There's been an effort on

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Speaker 1: the right to kind of racialize the East Palestine train derailments.

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Speaker 1: And I should be fair here, like that's not the

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Speaker 1: only thing that people like Tucker Carlson and JD. Vans

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Speaker 1: are saying. There's actually a fair amount of things that

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Speaker 1: we're hearing from people like Jade Vans and Mark Urrubio

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Speaker 1: that I think we could agree with. About the need

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Speaker 1: to hold Norfolk Southern the railway company accountable, about the

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Speaker 1: need to figure out why the accident happened in a

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Speaker 1: good faith way, About the need to make sure that

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Speaker 1: government agencies are properly and effectively communicating a sense to

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Speaker 1: people that they should feel reassured about chemical dangers. At

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Speaker 1: this point, these are all legit things I think that

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Speaker 1: some of these populess right wingers have talked about. But

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Speaker 1: in addition to that, there's been a kind of strain

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Speaker 1: that's developed, whether essentially trying to turn the disaster area

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Speaker 1: into a symbol of a place that woke Democrats have

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Speaker 1: a band and woke elite Democrats of a band, and

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Speaker 1: because it's got a very high percentage of white people,

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Speaker 1: and they're sort of saying this in all kinds of

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Speaker 1: sleazy little ways with various little insinuations the way they

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Speaker 1: always do, and then they kind of piously pretend that's

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Speaker 1: not what they're doing, but it is. And so one

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Speaker 1: of the things they've done is they've pulled a quote

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Speaker 1: from Transportation Secretary Pete Buddha Judge in which he was

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Speaker 1: talking about the problem of white construction workers being imported

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Speaker 1: into high jobless minority neighborhoods to work on projects in them,

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Speaker 1: and he was talking about whether that's something that should

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Speaker 1: be addressed through efforts to hire from the communities and

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Speaker 1: essentially talking about how to increase opportunities for minorities in

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Speaker 1: construction work. And they've taken that quote and linked it

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Speaker 1: to the East Palestine disaster by saying the following, Oh,

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Speaker 1: Pete Buddha Judge is neglecting this heavily white community that's

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Speaker 1: suffering in a disaster because he thinks a bigger problem

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Speaker 1: in American life is that there are too many white

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Speaker 1: construction workers. Right. So this is like when Pete talked

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Speaker 1: about this idea that the Robert Moses Highways, which were

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Speaker 1: built two black areas, were racist, and they were like,

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Speaker 1: it's the racist highways, right, So they're making light of

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Speaker 1: a very known fact what I have argued about this

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Speaker 1: is Look, if you want to disagree with Pete Buddha

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Speaker 1: Judge about that, about that question, about that policy question

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Speaker 1: of whether something should be done to make more construction

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Speaker 1: work in minority communities of available to its residents, fine,

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Speaker 1: go ahead and disagree. But the sleazy thing is to

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Speaker 1: connect it to the East Palestine disaster. Right, they create

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Speaker 1: the impression that the federal government and the woke Democrats

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Speaker 1: who run it are deliberately neglecting a heavily white area

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Speaker 1: suffering through an environmental chemical disaster, heavily neglecting that community

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Speaker 1: because their score settling with whites in some other way.

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Speaker 1: The implication of it all put together is right, that

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Speaker 1: there's an intentionality there. This is a Republican idea that

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Speaker 1: they're like not taking care of you because they're making

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Speaker 1: the government take care of someone else, right them, right,

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Speaker 1: taking care of them. Everything is always about that. It's always, oh,

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Speaker 1: they're taking care of them, not you, right, exactly right.

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Speaker 1: And like I say, I mean, I don't care if

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Speaker 1: somebody wants to criticize Pete Buddha Judge for saying that

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Speaker 1: about white construction workers, Go ahead, who cares, Like let's

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Speaker 1: have that argument or whatever, but like, don't connect it

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Speaker 1: to the East Palestine disaster, right right, right, Well, it's

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Speaker 1: not relevant and it's really fundamentally very dishonest, which of

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Speaker 1: course is the it's sort of the brand. Yeah, it's

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Speaker 1: interesting to me because for so long we would hear

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Speaker 1: Trump rail and rail on regulation, right, like, you know,

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Speaker 1: I mean, one of his favorites, you know, things he

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Speaker 1: would say. It's say, for every regulation we have, there's another,

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Speaker 1: you know, regulation we're taking away. And it was like

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Speaker 1: I always thought, like, well, this is kind of nuts,

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Speaker 1: but this is what happens when you take away regulation.

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Speaker 1: So for example, even though this break regulation that came

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Speaker 1: from the Obama time wouldn't have necessarily affected this train,

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Speaker 1: there was an effort to have more regulation. And this

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Speaker 1: company had spent quite a lot of money on lobbyists

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Speaker 1: and had actually been working hard to push back this regulation.

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Speaker 1: And they had they had one lobbyist who had worked

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Speaker 1: in Joe Manchel office. All right, and it's an important

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Speaker 1: part of the story. And like I should stress to

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Speaker 1: be fair that some of these right wingers seem to

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Speaker 1: be saying the right things about the degree to which

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Speaker 1: the story implicates whether we need more heavily regulated railways

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Speaker 1: right on freight railways. And you know, there are a

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Speaker 1: bunch of things that are being debated right now that

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Speaker 1: seem it's a little hard to tell whether any particular

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Speaker 1: one of them would have prevented this particular disaster. But

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Speaker 1: it's all good that we're having a conversation, I guess,

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Speaker 1: about what we can do to minimize derailments and make

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Speaker 1: communities feel a little more confident that lethal chemicals aren't

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Speaker 1: being dangerously handled in their backyard. It's like, that's all good.

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Speaker 1: What frustrates me is that for some of these on

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Speaker 1: some of these people on the right, like that's not enough.

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Speaker 1: It's not enough for it to be about the story

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Speaker 1: to be about corporate greed or deregulation, things that we

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Speaker 1: could actually debate. They always have to bring in a

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Speaker 1: white victimization component to it because otherwise it's just not

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Speaker 1: I don't know, it's not interesting, right, you know, it's

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Speaker 1: not if it's just about corporate greed and deregulated railroads.

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Speaker 1: The thing I'm struck by, and I just wrote this

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Speaker 1: piece about how I wonder if there's like a lane

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Speaker 1: for a quote unquote normal Republican candidate. It's a good question, right,

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Speaker 1: there isn't, but I mean maybe there is, but probably

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Speaker 1: there isn't. But the question is, like, one of the

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Speaker 1: things I'm struck by is what Jared and Bill Steppian

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Speaker 1: decided not to do a twenty twenty policy platform for

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Speaker 1: the Republican Party, and then in twenty twenty two, Mitch

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Speaker 1: initiatives before twenty twenty two. And what I'm struck by is, like, really,

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Speaker 1: why they get so deep into these culture wars and

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Speaker 1: the racism. I mean, besides the fact that whatever they

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Speaker 1: clearly the base likes it, but some of it is

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Speaker 1: because they don't have very popular legislation. I think another

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Speaker 1: reason for it is that it's become the sort of

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Speaker 1: self petrooting feedback loop where this sort of supercharged, these

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Speaker 1: rage inducing tropes kind of create an expectation in the audience,

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Speaker 1: in the far right audience, for more of it, and

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Speaker 1: that's the only thing that actually gets people really going.

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Speaker 1: So they just it's sort of like they're sort of

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Speaker 1: sucked into a vortex of this kind of culture war

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Speaker 1: and this reactionary culture warring. There's some Huberts there too, right,

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Speaker 1: because they did win the Virginia governor's race for the

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Speaker 1: first time in a while. Glenn Youngcan did campaign on

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Speaker 1: a bunch of school related culture war issues, although I

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Speaker 1: do think that was complicated by the fact that what

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Speaker 1: was really weighing on parents were the pandemic closures. Right. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: What I thought was so interesting was these Republicans had

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Speaker 1: a very good opportunity. The school closings were unpopular, right,

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Speaker 1: even though they were necessary, and they started because of

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Speaker 1: anxiety because we didn't know how the virus was spread.

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Speaker 1: But then they went on probably a lot longer than

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Speaker 1: any of us wanted. And some of that was because

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Speaker 1: of the teachers union, which we love and support deeply

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Speaker 1: in this podcast. But there was problems getting teachers back

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Speaker 1: into the classroom for obvious reasons, because they didn't want

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Speaker 1: to get sick and die. But I do think that

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Speaker 1: Republicans had an opening there. But you know, that was

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Speaker 1: like two years ago, and so now for them to

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Speaker 1: be like it's parents' rights, it's all about parents rights,

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Speaker 1: Like nobody's closing a school for COVID. I mean, that

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Speaker 1: hasn't happened in a long time, and so this story

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Speaker 1: doesn't make sense without the kind of they saw an

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Speaker 1: opening and then they're now on it two years too late. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: And also I think Ronda sense is undeniable. Reelection success,

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Speaker 1: which was a tremendous victory for him and them, also

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Speaker 1: kind of feeds the sense that these issues are big

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Speaker 1: winners for them, and I think that's maybe true in

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Speaker 1: decentis this case, although it might be kind of complicated,

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Speaker 1: But at the same time, outside of Florida and outside

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Speaker 1: of the Virginia governor's race, a bunch of these candidates

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Speaker 1: ran on some pretty virulent right wing culture warring, especially

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Speaker 1: around schools and LGBTQ rights and stuff, and they lost.

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Speaker 1: And that this was in a cycle where they were

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Speaker 1: heavily favored. And what's odd to me is that the

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Speaker 1: kind of hubrists that these issues, that reactionary culture waring

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Speaker 1: is a big winner for them, seems undiminished by all

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Speaker 1: the contrary evidence that it works. I mean, it's a

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Speaker 1: mixed picture, right, Like, correct me if I'm wrong, But

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Speaker 1: I think you know you probably agree with me that

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Speaker 1: the picture is not uniformly a positive one for cultural liberals. Right,

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Speaker 1: it's right, it's bad. That De Santis is doing so well.

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Speaker 1: It's it's troubling that Juncan was able to win on

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Speaker 1: those issues. But at the same time we say that

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Speaker 1: there's a whole bunch of contrary evidence showing that in

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Speaker 1: place like Michigan and Pennsylvania and Arizona, real swing territory.

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Speaker 1: Maybe Michigan lest so, but in real swing territory, democrats

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Speaker 1: were able to defeat the culture warriors. And that just

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Speaker 1: doesn't enter the picture for the right, like the Chris

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Speaker 1: Rufo types, they're just They're humors is undiminished and it's

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Speaker 1: just weird. Well, it's good for liberals, right, I mean

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Speaker 1: like they have now lost. They lost mid terms, they

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Speaker 1: lost twenty eighteen. I mean, ask Senator herschel Walker how

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Speaker 1: it's going, right, It's not so. I do think the

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Speaker 1: good news is they seem to not have any sense

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Speaker 1: of how unpopular this is in the rest of the world.

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Speaker 1: This was amazing. I appreciate you so much. I hope

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Speaker 1: you will come back, Yes, of course I will. Thanks

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Speaker 1: for having me on. Ruth Benjiyat is the author of

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Speaker 1: strong Men, How They Rise, Why They Succeed, How They Fall.

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Speaker 1: Welcome to Fast Politics. Ruth, thank you. I'm glad to

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Speaker 1: be back. So I wanted to ask you about this

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Speaker 1: national divorce, right, Marjorie Tyler Green, who is like at

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Speaker 1: this point, you know, kind of the intellectual powerhouse of

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Speaker 1: the GOP in the house, has been tweeting about a

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Speaker 1: national divorce. Can you explain to us the significance of

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Speaker 1: what people really mean when they talk about that. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: my take on it is it's very easy to ridicule her,

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Speaker 1: and it's tempting, but she's extremely dangerous because of the

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Speaker 1: power she holds now. She definitely is close with Kevin McCarthy,

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Speaker 1: sits on homeland security, and she has consistently made herself

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Speaker 1: the voice along with Tucker Carlson and others of points

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Speaker 1: of view of global autocracy, allied with the Kremlin, allied

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Speaker 1: with Russia that want to take down the US as

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Speaker 1: a superpower. And so the national divorce thing. Putin's biggest

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Speaker 1: trauma was the collapse of the Soviet Union when it

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Speaker 1: fell apart at the end of the Cold War and

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Speaker 1: it imploded from within. And he's in my book and

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Speaker 1: he's never gotten over that. He wishes heartily that other democracies,

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Speaker 1: or that democracies would all meet the fate of the

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Speaker 1: Soviet Union, which means he's been funding secessionist movements, separatist

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Speaker 1: movements all over the world. Brexit was incredible operation of success,

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Speaker 1: and so the big prizes of course for him, it's

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Speaker 1: been for many years bringing down US democracy. You know,

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Speaker 1: he's given support to California's secessionis Texas, and then we

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Speaker 1: have our own, obviously, the whole legacy of the Civil War.

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Speaker 1: So these come together, these giant narratives of US history

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Speaker 1: and global autocracy come together in Marjorie Taylor Green's statement,

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Speaker 1: and it's highly dangerous but very revealing to take her seriously,

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Speaker 1: right right, I want to ask you about sort of

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Speaker 1: the authoritarian leaning we're seeing here, because when we get

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Speaker 1: going with Trumps, um, okay, we see that's authoritarian. But

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Speaker 1: it seems to me alike there's now a large part

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Speaker 1: of the Goop, like when it comes to De Santis,

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Speaker 1: that is also authoritarian. I was wondering if you could

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Speaker 1: talk to us a little bit about that the GOP,

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Speaker 1: which of course the Santis is arguably part of the

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Speaker 1: future of the goop as Trump for many, if not

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Speaker 1: for his base, seems to be the past. So the

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Speaker 1: GOP has become an autocratic party. It is aligned its platforms,

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Speaker 1: it's rhetoric, the things it cares about, its homophobia, its

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Speaker 1: obsession with wokeness, all these things are aligned with the

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Speaker 1: autocratic parties of Hungary, of Turkey, of all of the

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Speaker 1: ones all over the world, and of course the hub

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Speaker 1: in Moscow. And it's been very difficult for Americans to

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Speaker 1: see that. It's very scary to think because we are

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Speaker 1: uniquely vulnerable, because we're a bipartisan system. We only have

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Speaker 1: these two giant parties. I mean, I know there's the

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Speaker 1: third party, the Forward Party formed Now we don't talk

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Speaker 1: about the Forward Party on this podcast. Yeah, okay, So

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Speaker 1: it's we have the two parties and what happens rhetorical

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Speaker 1: but not rhetorical question when one of the two parties

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Speaker 1: exits democracy and becomes a force inside the nation for

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Speaker 1: taking democracy down. This is the reality. And there's been

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Speaker 1: studies that have come out this year last year that

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Speaker 1: really look at comparative politics, studies that look at all

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Speaker 1: the rhetoric and the platforms, and some of them may

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Speaker 1: say they're conservatives, but they are not. They are aligned

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Speaker 1: with all of the autocratic parties in the world, and

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Speaker 1: then Tucker Carlson, you know, yes, he gets a lot

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Speaker 1: of attention, but a systematic analysis of him. He is

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Speaker 1: championing Wilsonaro when he was there, surrection, and of course

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Speaker 1: the relationship of him and the GOP with Hungary it's

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Speaker 1: very very close or bonds like their mentor in all

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Speaker 1: things autocratic. We have to just recognize that this is

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Speaker 1: the reality. And DeSantis, you know, I started writing about

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Speaker 1: him in twenty twenty one saying that he is making

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Speaker 1: Florida into a model autocracy. He's rehearsing on the state level,

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Speaker 1: using his government governor powers to see what that would

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Speaker 1: look like in America. So we have to follow that

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Speaker 1: very very closely. And all the talking points, you know,

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Speaker 1: the homophobic legislation, the racist legislation, it's going to look differently,

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Speaker 1: it articulates differently in the American context, but again it

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Speaker 1: aligns with autocratic governments and parties all over the world. Right,

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Speaker 1: It's so interesting that we find ourselves in this shift.

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Speaker 1: I'm always curious, like, how did we get here? How

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Speaker 1: do you think the Republican Party got to this? I

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Speaker 1: think that they were already moving in this direction in

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Speaker 1: terms of embracing white nationalism, a radical populism, radical right

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Speaker 1: wing populism. This was the Tea Party. Bannon has been

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Speaker 1: very important. But this is what happens in history when

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Speaker 1: somebody like Trump, a charismatic demagogue, comes on the scene,

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Speaker 1: they consciously address themselves to all extremists. They create a

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Speaker 1: big tent for all kinds of extremists, you know, just racists,

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Speaker 1: neo Nazis. They give permission to people to be intolerant,

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Speaker 1: to be authoritarian. He also used his rallies from twenty

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Speaker 1: fifteen on. This was the basis of the report I

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Speaker 1: wrote for the January sixth Committee. He used his rallies

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Speaker 1: to emotionally retrain people and to santisism is continuing this

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Speaker 1: to think that violence is okay, that violence might even

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Speaker 1: be necessary, that violence is the way that you solve

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Speaker 1: political problems, and you deal with your enemies, and you

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Speaker 1: do have to have them as enemies. So these were

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Speaker 1: processes that went on over the last five years that

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Speaker 1: have gotten us to where we are now. Do we

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Speaker 1: think that this can scale what we've seen historically, and

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Speaker 1: by historically I mean since twenty fifteen. Is this sort

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Speaker 1: of sense in which Trumpism has not historically scaled so

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Speaker 1: you know, like Carrie Lake was not able to take

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Speaker 1: the mantle. Even Don Junior has not been able to

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Speaker 1: take the mantle. So my question for you is, how

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Speaker 1: does De Santis, who's like Trump but without the personality,

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Speaker 1: take the mantle. Yeah, so I had just written myself

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Speaker 1: a note to talk about this. It's depressing but interesting

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Speaker 1: in a systemic, big picture thing. When somebody like Trump

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Speaker 1: comes on the scene, who's incredible, loose canon, he does

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Speaker 1: the job that we just talked about before. He radicalizes everyone.

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Speaker 1: He submits the party to an authoritarian political culture. Loyalty

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Speaker 1: is all that matters, violence all that, but those people

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Speaker 1: are so out there that they often can't be sustained,

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Speaker 1: and it creates a need among many Conservatives and others

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Speaker 1: for somebody who is more normalized, somebody who's more disciplined extremists.

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Speaker 1: So that's De Santis, who integrates and absorbs literally even

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Speaker 1: the hand gestures all kinds of stuff from Trump, but

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Speaker 1: he's too smart to ever say, well, I could stand

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Speaker 1: on Fifth Avenue and shoot someone. He's not going to

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Speaker 1: talk about personally shooting anyone, but he's fine if other

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Speaker 1: people do, right. So that's a systemic change and it

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Speaker 1: happens in other countries. Happened in the Philippines, where you

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Speaker 1: had Duterte who was like, I love throwing people out

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Speaker 1: of helicopters. I'd do it again tomorrow. He was like

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Speaker 1: so violent, so out there, and then people got tired

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Speaker 1: of that and he stepped aside, and they have Marcos now,

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Speaker 1: who's the representative of the past military regime but looks

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Speaker 1: quote more normal. Right. The one thing that might save

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Speaker 1: American democracy I'm laughing because otherwise I'll start crying, is

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Speaker 1: that there's a possibility, right that Trump will not go quietly.

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Speaker 1: This is not the air Trump picked, No, no, and

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Speaker 1: we should never expect him to go quietly in any way.

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Speaker 1: And he's still leading in many polls. So the genius

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Speaker 1: of the Big Lie, which truly was one of the

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Speaker 1: top propaganda campaigns it will go down as such of

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Speaker 1: the twenty first century, is that when you have a

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Speaker 1: personality cult which is formidable like Trump's, the Big Lie

427
00:26:54,400 --> 00:26:58,280
Speaker 1: allowed his followers to keep seeing him as the winner,

428
00:26:58,640 --> 00:27:00,960
Speaker 1: and Bosonaro did the same thing. That's how you get

429
00:27:01,040 --> 00:27:04,560
Speaker 1: people who stage an insurrection for you. They never give

430
00:27:04,640 --> 00:27:08,520
Speaker 1: up on you. So we can expect him to not

431
00:27:08,680 --> 00:27:13,480
Speaker 1: step aside quietly indeed become far more pugnacious. That's why

432
00:27:13,520 --> 00:27:16,520
Speaker 1: he's you know, they're with Nick Fuentes, you know, And

433
00:27:16,640 --> 00:27:19,640
Speaker 1: that's where Marjorie Taylor Green, So you think the Nick

434
00:27:19,720 --> 00:27:23,800
Speaker 1: Fuentes meeting is a is actually a real thing and

435
00:27:23,960 --> 00:27:26,560
Speaker 1: not just an accident. Where does he have to go

436
00:27:26,920 --> 00:27:29,919
Speaker 1: if he goes more to the center, that's Ronta Santis.

437
00:27:30,640 --> 00:27:34,080
Speaker 1: So he goes the opposite direction. And he really truly

438
00:27:34,119 --> 00:27:37,399
Speaker 1: has an autocratic personality. He matches all the people in

439
00:27:37,400 --> 00:27:41,240
Speaker 1: my book. When they're threatened, they never become more centrist.

440
00:27:41,280 --> 00:27:44,400
Speaker 1: They become way more extremist, and they will truly burn

441
00:27:44,520 --> 00:27:48,000
Speaker 1: the whole place down as revenge. If they think they're

442
00:27:48,040 --> 00:27:51,480
Speaker 1: going down, they blame their people. We know he doesn't

443
00:27:51,480 --> 00:27:54,320
Speaker 1: care about anybody, right, He doesn't care if you live

444
00:27:54,400 --> 00:27:57,600
Speaker 1: or die from COVID or from anything. So we can

445
00:27:57,720 --> 00:28:01,399
Speaker 1: expect him to try and make as much chaos and

446
00:28:01,520 --> 00:28:04,320
Speaker 1: disarray as possible. But there is a world where he

447
00:28:04,400 --> 00:28:07,760
Speaker 1: just destroys the Republican Party, Yes, there is. That's the

448
00:28:07,840 --> 00:28:13,040
Speaker 1: bright spot. Yes. And in August twenty sixteen, I wrote

449
00:28:13,040 --> 00:28:16,399
Speaker 1: a piece for The Atlantic, an American authoritarian on Trump,

450
00:28:16,560 --> 00:28:19,520
Speaker 1: and I ended up saying it was like comparing him

451
00:28:19,520 --> 00:28:22,920
Speaker 1: with Mussolini when MUSSLINI was a Prime Minister of democracy.

452
00:28:23,160 --> 00:28:25,920
Speaker 1: And it ended by saying that Trump was going to

453
00:28:25,960 --> 00:28:29,159
Speaker 1: take the Republican Party and transform it out of all

454
00:28:29,240 --> 00:28:33,359
Speaker 1: recognition and would probably destroy it. Right, that's the best

455
00:28:33,400 --> 00:28:38,040
Speaker 1: case scenario, yes, but in the process of destroying it,

456
00:28:38,120 --> 00:28:41,200
Speaker 1: because we are the other unique thing about America is

457
00:28:41,280 --> 00:28:45,200
Speaker 1: the guns and the violence. It could be rough times.

458
00:28:45,480 --> 00:28:49,120
Speaker 1: Oh yeah. The positive thing is it's as we see

459
00:28:49,280 --> 00:28:51,920
Speaker 1: from the people like Kerry Lake and Mark Fincham who

460
00:28:51,920 --> 00:28:55,000
Speaker 1: were not able to prevail, there's a limit to Americans

461
00:28:55,040 --> 00:29:00,280
Speaker 1: appetites for this kind of thing. Unfortunately, the medium term

462
00:29:00,480 --> 00:29:02,840
Speaker 1: solution could be de Santis, who will be like our

463
00:29:02,920 --> 00:29:08,000
Speaker 1: victor orbon who will be smooth talking and transform American

464
00:29:08,120 --> 00:29:11,160
Speaker 1: to some kind of autocracy. Hopefully none of this happens

465
00:29:11,240 --> 00:29:14,520
Speaker 1: because there is a continuation of the midterms in a

466
00:29:14,600 --> 00:29:17,640
Speaker 1: democratic ground swell. We don't have to go through this

467
00:29:17,720 --> 00:29:23,120
Speaker 1: at all. That's, of course, my fervent hope for my country. Yeah. Yeah,

468
00:29:23,800 --> 00:29:27,200
Speaker 1: so horrible. I mean, it's just such a grim reality.

469
00:29:27,760 --> 00:29:31,080
Speaker 1: I want to ask you just give us a little bit,

470
00:29:31,120 --> 00:29:34,720
Speaker 1: because I agree that to Santa is an authoritarian. But

471
00:29:35,280 --> 00:29:38,680
Speaker 1: just explain to our listeners, to my dad, hi, dad,

472
00:29:39,000 --> 00:29:42,640
Speaker 1: what the things are that make you know he's an authoritarian.

473
00:29:42,920 --> 00:29:47,960
Speaker 1: His style of leadership is one that's based on bullying people,

474
00:29:48,280 --> 00:29:52,160
Speaker 1: right on firing people who won't do his bidding, so

475
00:29:52,240 --> 00:29:55,680
Speaker 1: that the attorney general. That's one big thing. There's a

476
00:29:55,760 --> 00:29:59,280
Speaker 1: quote that was said anonymously by a form of Florida

477
00:29:59,480 --> 00:30:02,880
Speaker 1: legislation said there's no second chances with him. If you

478
00:30:02,960 --> 00:30:06,040
Speaker 1: cross him, you're dead. And this could also refer to

479
00:30:06,040 --> 00:30:08,600
Speaker 1: Trump and many other of these leaders So his personal

480
00:30:08,920 --> 00:30:12,440
Speaker 1: and also his remoteness from people, all of these personal

481
00:30:12,520 --> 00:30:16,640
Speaker 1: qualities they do matter in this style of leadership because

482
00:30:16,680 --> 00:30:19,880
Speaker 1: they set the tone for how you deal with political opponents.

483
00:30:20,440 --> 00:30:23,480
Speaker 1: And we've seen, you know what he does. Then there's

484
00:30:23,560 --> 00:30:27,680
Speaker 1: all of his policies, which again match the GOP. But

485
00:30:27,800 --> 00:30:32,080
Speaker 1: he's really making Florida. He's practicing what's called autocratic capture.

486
00:30:32,640 --> 00:30:36,400
Speaker 1: That is where you put radicals who share your view

487
00:30:36,400 --> 00:30:39,600
Speaker 1: extremeness in charge of your institutions. So we have the

488
00:30:39,640 --> 00:30:43,400
Speaker 1: Department of Health. He has a conspiracy theorist as his

489
00:30:43,520 --> 00:30:45,440
Speaker 1: chief of health, and we saw what happened with his

490
00:30:45,520 --> 00:30:49,280
Speaker 1: COVID policies. Now it's the Department of Education where there's

491
00:30:49,320 --> 00:30:53,160
Speaker 1: you know, the enormous anti woe G anti CRT capture,

492
00:30:53,480 --> 00:30:57,400
Speaker 1: and so you intimidate, you bully, you let you use law,

493
00:30:57,880 --> 00:31:01,480
Speaker 1: so you have the legislation. And he's making new College

494
00:31:01,480 --> 00:31:04,440
Speaker 1: an example to be scaled up. So you have to

495
00:31:04,480 --> 00:31:08,280
Speaker 1: make an example and then you intimidate, you use law,

496
00:31:08,360 --> 00:31:11,440
Speaker 1: and you use intimidation and then you scale it up.

497
00:31:11,520 --> 00:31:15,000
Speaker 1: So he's very consciously doing these test cases. That's another

498
00:31:15,040 --> 00:31:20,840
Speaker 1: authoritarian thing. Interesting. Yeah, the education stuff is so interesting.

499
00:31:20,920 --> 00:31:24,240
Speaker 1: I have another, like slightly annoying because it's a weirdly

500
00:31:24,400 --> 00:31:29,040
Speaker 1: optimistic question, but is there a world where this gets

501
00:31:29,080 --> 00:31:31,960
Speaker 1: where they're like, and again, there are no heroes in

502
00:31:32,000 --> 00:31:34,720
Speaker 1: this Republican party if we've seen anything, that's true. But

503
00:31:35,320 --> 00:31:39,640
Speaker 1: is there a world where somebody like Mitt Romney. I mean,

504
00:31:39,720 --> 00:31:42,840
Speaker 1: this has not happened since twenty fifteen, so I'm not

505
00:31:42,880 --> 00:31:46,120
Speaker 1: that optimistic, But is there a world where more normal

506
00:31:46,200 --> 00:31:49,280
Speaker 1: Republicans go come in and say like, this is not

507
00:31:49,320 --> 00:31:52,840
Speaker 1: who we are or now it could happen because an

508
00:31:52,840 --> 00:31:56,400
Speaker 1: authoritarian party ends up doing this thing. Well, in our

509
00:31:56,440 --> 00:32:00,120
Speaker 1: country it's called rhino where you eat your own as

510
00:32:00,200 --> 00:32:03,080
Speaker 1: you become more radicalized. And the preface here I didn't

511
00:32:03,080 --> 00:32:06,840
Speaker 1: say it before, is that January sixth was a hugely

512
00:32:06,960 --> 00:32:10,320
Speaker 1: radicalizing thing for the party because they saw that and

513
00:32:10,400 --> 00:32:13,400
Speaker 1: people like Marjorie Taylor Green who openly boast about like,

514
00:32:13,440 --> 00:32:15,800
Speaker 1: if I'd planned the coup, it would have succeeded and

515
00:32:15,840 --> 00:32:19,000
Speaker 1: there would have been more guns. So it gives people

516
00:32:19,040 --> 00:32:23,640
Speaker 1: permission to see the possibilities of autocratic takeovers. So that

517
00:32:23,680 --> 00:32:27,840
Speaker 1: was very radicalizing. But these processes of as the party

518
00:32:27,880 --> 00:32:31,480
Speaker 1: becomes more extreme, they turned back on each other because

519
00:32:31,840 --> 00:32:35,480
Speaker 1: just as Trump needed people to be more and more loyal, right,

520
00:32:35,480 --> 00:32:38,120
Speaker 1: because the longer they stay, the more paranoid they get.

521
00:32:38,280 --> 00:32:41,720
Speaker 1: These parties will become more and more extremist, and so

522
00:32:41,880 --> 00:32:44,200
Speaker 1: at some point they're going to turn on each other.

523
00:32:44,440 --> 00:32:47,440
Speaker 1: And that already happened many times during Trump, where people

524
00:32:47,440 --> 00:32:50,440
Speaker 1: who voted for his impeachment had to buy body armor

525
00:32:50,720 --> 00:32:54,360
Speaker 1: the Republicans. That could very well spark some kind of

526
00:32:54,680 --> 00:32:57,880
Speaker 1: counter movement, and we're already seeing it's a little bit

527
00:32:57,920 --> 00:33:00,320
Speaker 1: like the older GOP and the newer gpon you crane,

528
00:33:00,400 --> 00:33:03,200
Speaker 1: where Mitch McConnell and Lindsey Graham are like, no, we

529
00:33:03,280 --> 00:33:07,280
Speaker 1: have to support Ukraine exactly. It's not really age based

530
00:33:07,680 --> 00:33:13,400
Speaker 1: because Paul Gossar is not so much younger of course, right.

531
00:33:13,680 --> 00:33:18,560
Speaker 1: It's radicalization based. Yes. So the reason this can happen

532
00:33:18,680 --> 00:33:20,480
Speaker 1: is that there are no other parties for these people

533
00:33:20,560 --> 00:33:23,320
Speaker 1: to go to. The bipartisan thing is when we do

534
00:33:23,400 --> 00:33:25,720
Speaker 1: any kind of a comparative analysis, we have to keep

535
00:33:25,760 --> 00:33:29,760
Speaker 1: coming back to like these people don't have anywhere to go, Like,

536
00:33:29,840 --> 00:33:32,440
Speaker 1: they can't just go to another party, and then that

537
00:33:32,600 --> 00:33:37,560
Speaker 1: third party becomes the conservative challenge. There could be a

538
00:33:37,640 --> 00:33:40,560
Speaker 1: movement to reform from within because there is no other choice.

539
00:33:40,760 --> 00:33:44,600
Speaker 1: Oh okay, that's really interesting. Thank you, thank you, thank you, Ruth.

540
00:33:44,640 --> 00:33:47,640
Speaker 1: I hope you'll come back anytime. It's always a pleasure.

541
00:33:48,560 --> 00:33:52,400
Speaker 1: I know you, our dear listeners are very busy and

542
00:33:52,440 --> 00:33:54,600
Speaker 1: you don't have time to sort through the hundreds of

543
00:33:54,640 --> 00:33:58,560
Speaker 1: pieces of punditentry each week. This is why every week

544
00:33:58,760 --> 00:34:02,680
Speaker 1: I put together a newsletter of my five favorite articles

545
00:34:02,720 --> 00:34:05,600
Speaker 1: on politics. If you enjoy the podcast, you will love

546
00:34:05,680 --> 00:34:09,520
Speaker 1: having this in your inbox every Friday. So sign up

547
00:34:09,560 --> 00:34:12,880
Speaker 1: at Fast politics pod dot com and click the tab

548
00:34:12,960 --> 00:34:20,080
Speaker 1: to join our mailing list. That's fast politicspod dot com.

549
00:34:20,120 --> 00:34:23,760
Speaker 1: Aaron Blake is a senior political reporter at the Washington Post.

550
00:34:24,200 --> 00:34:28,480
Speaker 1: Welcome to Fast Politics, Aaron Blake, Thank you for having me.

551
00:34:28,760 --> 00:34:32,640
Speaker 1: Very delighted. Okay, so first we have to talk about

552
00:34:32,680 --> 00:34:37,799
Speaker 1: this George grand jury foreman's media tour, because I am

553
00:34:37,840 --> 00:34:42,279
Speaker 1: not a lawyer, but that didn't strike me. So I mean,

554
00:34:42,320 --> 00:34:44,279
Speaker 1: I want to just sort of set the scene here.

555
00:34:44,920 --> 00:34:48,400
Speaker 1: She is the foreman. It is a special grand jury,

556
00:34:48,480 --> 00:34:51,319
Speaker 1: so I hope you'll explain to our listeners just how

557
00:34:51,360 --> 00:34:54,520
Speaker 1: that differs from a normal grand jury, and then also

558
00:34:55,000 --> 00:34:59,279
Speaker 1: a little bit about her Roldwind media tour. The process

559
00:34:59,280 --> 00:35:03,120
Speaker 1: in George differs from some other states. Basically, there are

560
00:35:03,400 --> 00:35:06,360
Speaker 1: likely to be two grand juries involved. One is a

561
00:35:06,440 --> 00:35:10,600
Speaker 1: special grand jury which hears evidence and makes recommendations. And

562
00:35:10,640 --> 00:35:13,000
Speaker 1: then at this point that special grand jury is done

563
00:35:13,040 --> 00:35:15,640
Speaker 1: with its duties, and at that point the district Attorney,

564
00:35:15,640 --> 00:35:18,680
Speaker 1: which is Fanny Willis, can try to seek an indictment

565
00:35:18,760 --> 00:35:22,760
Speaker 1: or indictments from what would be a separate regular grand jury,

566
00:35:22,800 --> 00:35:25,200
Speaker 1: which will not include this fore woman or the other

567
00:35:25,239 --> 00:35:27,480
Speaker 1: people who have taken part in the process so far.

568
00:35:27,640 --> 00:35:29,960
Speaker 1: So it's important to note that at the outset that

569
00:35:30,000 --> 00:35:33,160
Speaker 1: there's a degree of separation here which is not a

570
00:35:33,239 --> 00:35:36,239
Speaker 1: woman the fore woman who's speaking out, who is going

571
00:35:36,280 --> 00:35:40,319
Speaker 1: to be making decisions on indictments. Right, the case has

572
00:35:40,320 --> 00:35:43,840
Speaker 1: already left her hands, right, she's done. So she definitely

573
00:35:43,840 --> 00:35:45,960
Speaker 1: wouldn't be talking if this was still going on, if

574
00:35:45,960 --> 00:35:48,160
Speaker 1: she was still involved in the process. But even the

575
00:35:48,200 --> 00:35:50,960
Speaker 1: fact that she is speaking even when the process is

576
00:35:50,960 --> 00:35:55,360
Speaker 1: over is unusual and in some people's minds, problematic, some

577
00:35:55,400 --> 00:35:57,920
Speaker 1: of the experts I spoke to, because this is a

578
00:35:57,960 --> 00:36:00,960
Speaker 1: situation in which people haven't been in I did, And

579
00:36:01,120 --> 00:36:03,960
Speaker 1: there is an oath that these grand jurors take to

580
00:36:04,040 --> 00:36:08,000
Speaker 1: not discuss deliberations unless they're called upon to do so,

581
00:36:08,080 --> 00:36:10,880
Speaker 1: and so to have somebody like this to be talking

582
00:36:10,920 --> 00:36:15,239
Speaker 1: about things, even in extremely vague ways, which she generally has,

583
00:36:15,640 --> 00:36:18,360
Speaker 1: is unusual. And there is some thought among the experts

584
00:36:18,360 --> 00:36:20,480
Speaker 1: that I talked to that it could be raised at

585
00:36:20,520 --> 00:36:23,480
Speaker 1: a future trial if somebody is charged to argue that

586
00:36:23,520 --> 00:36:27,520
Speaker 1: there is something untoward about this process because this special

587
00:36:27,520 --> 00:36:30,319
Speaker 1: Grandeur has decided to speak out in these ways. The

588
00:36:30,440 --> 00:36:32,759
Speaker 1: experts are not the only people who avoid in on this.

589
00:36:32,960 --> 00:36:35,799
Speaker 1: Donald Trump, right, I think he got at this after

590
00:36:35,920 --> 00:36:38,919
Speaker 1: some other people started talking about it. You don't think

591
00:36:38,960 --> 00:36:42,040
Speaker 1: it was that was anything to cast it as a

592
00:36:42,040 --> 00:36:44,560
Speaker 1: witch hunt, right, But I think the process really got

593
00:36:44,600 --> 00:36:48,120
Speaker 1: started after CNN did its own interview with this woman,

594
00:36:48,160 --> 00:36:51,759
Speaker 1: Emily Cores, and one of their legal analysts, Elijnig, who

595
00:36:52,000 --> 00:36:54,600
Speaker 1: I tend to have a good regard for, called it

596
00:36:54,719 --> 00:36:57,000
Speaker 1: a horrible idea for her to be speaking out like

597
00:36:57,080 --> 00:36:59,680
Speaker 1: this and saying that this was something that would draw

598
00:37:00,080 --> 00:37:03,920
Speaker 1: Trump or whoever's lawyers to move to dismiss the charges

599
00:37:04,040 --> 00:37:06,520
Speaker 1: if it ever comes to that. The people I spoke

600
00:37:06,560 --> 00:37:08,680
Speaker 1: to don't think it would be that serious like this

601
00:37:08,719 --> 00:37:12,000
Speaker 1: would lead to a dismissal. But there are other ways

602
00:37:12,000 --> 00:37:15,200
Speaker 1: in which it can matter, including in getting transcripts of

603
00:37:15,200 --> 00:37:18,399
Speaker 1: the special grand jury for defense lawyers things like that.

604
00:37:18,520 --> 00:37:20,759
Speaker 1: And so the experts say, is generally just not a

605
00:37:20,800 --> 00:37:23,480
Speaker 1: good idea to be weighing in at any length or

606
00:37:23,680 --> 00:37:27,359
Speaker 1: on anything in particular that could create problems down the line. Right.

607
00:37:27,520 --> 00:37:33,480
Speaker 1: It certainly seems like just unnecessary risk. Yeah, I think

608
00:37:33,520 --> 00:37:36,080
Speaker 1: that's right. The thing that most people are focused on is,

609
00:37:36,120 --> 00:37:38,239
Speaker 1: of course, she's being asked, did you guys recommend that

610
00:37:38,560 --> 00:37:41,080
Speaker 1: Donald Trump be charged or his allies be charged? And

611
00:37:41,160 --> 00:37:44,400
Speaker 1: she's kind of talk around, talked around that while offering

612
00:37:44,480 --> 00:37:47,879
Speaker 1: some interesting answers that are being passed because we all

613
00:37:47,920 --> 00:37:50,279
Speaker 1: want to know where this process is headed. But I

614
00:37:50,320 --> 00:37:52,680
Speaker 1: think when it comes to the parts of the things

615
00:37:52,719 --> 00:37:55,600
Speaker 1: that she said that could come up in future cases,

616
00:37:56,160 --> 00:37:59,800
Speaker 1: it's more when she has provided some kind of offhand

617
00:38:00,000 --> 00:38:02,880
Speaker 1: comments about who was taking the fifth or who was

618
00:38:02,920 --> 00:38:05,919
Speaker 1: funny and who was forthcoming, and things like that which

619
00:38:05,920 --> 00:38:10,319
Speaker 1: could be construed, if argued in a certain ways, as

620
00:38:10,320 --> 00:38:13,400
Speaker 1: shedding some light on the deliberations of this grand jury,

621
00:38:13,440 --> 00:38:16,319
Speaker 1: which is which is where the prohibition lies. So I

622
00:38:16,360 --> 00:38:18,520
Speaker 1: think that's that's what we're likely to hear more of

623
00:38:18,719 --> 00:38:22,040
Speaker 1: down the line, rather than you know, her commentary about

624
00:38:22,040 --> 00:38:24,240
Speaker 1: whether Trump is going to be charged or not. Yeah,

625
00:38:24,280 --> 00:38:26,239
Speaker 1: I mean I also thought like the whole thing where

626
00:38:26,239 --> 00:38:28,320
Speaker 1: she's like I wanted to look him in the eye

627
00:38:28,600 --> 00:38:31,520
Speaker 1: and then she was like giggling. I mean, as someone

628
00:38:31,600 --> 00:38:35,680
Speaker 1: who myself is a partisan, that struck me as like

629
00:38:35,960 --> 00:38:40,080
Speaker 1: not great for either. So for the rule of law,

630
00:38:40,320 --> 00:38:43,479
Speaker 1: you know, it's that, and it's talking about an ice

631
00:38:43,480 --> 00:38:47,239
Speaker 1: cream party that District Attorney Fanny Willis's office through for

632
00:38:47,280 --> 00:38:50,800
Speaker 1: the special grand jurors, it's her talking in various ways

633
00:38:50,840 --> 00:38:54,759
Speaker 1: about what these witnesses said how forthcoming they were. I mean,

634
00:38:54,920 --> 00:38:56,759
Speaker 1: these are these are the kinds of things that at

635
00:38:56,840 --> 00:39:00,160
Speaker 1: least approach talking about what the deliberations were like, even

636
00:39:00,200 --> 00:39:02,879
Speaker 1: if she's not going into significant detail. I think if

637
00:39:02,880 --> 00:39:05,920
Speaker 1: you watched the CNN interview in particular, when she started

638
00:39:05,960 --> 00:39:09,880
Speaker 1: doing cable news interviews NBC News as well, she seemed

639
00:39:09,880 --> 00:39:16,400
Speaker 1: to relish the attention that she was getting. Yeah, not great. Yeah, yeah,

640
00:39:16,480 --> 00:39:18,759
Speaker 1: but you know, maybe that's not the best thing for

641
00:39:18,800 --> 00:39:23,799
Speaker 1: our judicial process here. Yeah, it's a good point. When

642
00:39:23,800 --> 00:39:25,600
Speaker 1: I saw that, I was like, oh my god, what,

643
00:39:26,040 --> 00:39:29,280
Speaker 1: why is this happening? Like just this is a nightmare

644
00:39:29,360 --> 00:39:31,640
Speaker 1: for all parties involved, and especially because it's been a

645
00:39:31,680 --> 00:39:35,120
Speaker 1: bad a little bit of a spread for judicial you

646
00:39:35,160 --> 00:39:37,480
Speaker 1: know what's happening there. So I want to ask you

647
00:39:37,560 --> 00:39:40,440
Speaker 1: about You've written a bunch of pieces, but there are

648
00:39:40,440 --> 00:39:42,360
Speaker 1: two things I want to talk to you about really

649
00:39:42,400 --> 00:39:45,440
Speaker 1: that felisteners of this podcast are pretty interested in. One

650
00:39:45,920 --> 00:39:49,879
Speaker 1: is this twenty twenty four Senate map, because it's never

651
00:39:49,960 --> 00:39:53,000
Speaker 1: too early to worry about twenty twenty four. It's a

652
00:39:53,040 --> 00:39:57,160
Speaker 1: bad map, right for Democrats. Yeah, there's no question. I

653
00:39:57,160 --> 00:40:00,000
Speaker 1: mean the Senate map, of course, is different every two year.

654
00:40:00,080 --> 00:40:02,759
Speaker 1: Years it depends on which states are up. And you know,

655
00:40:02,800 --> 00:40:05,120
Speaker 1: if one side had a good election in six years ago,

656
00:40:05,280 --> 00:40:07,160
Speaker 1: that could mean there's a lot of opportunities for the

657
00:40:07,200 --> 00:40:10,160
Speaker 1: other side to win those seats back. And what you

658
00:40:10,440 --> 00:40:12,560
Speaker 1: see when you look at the twenty twenty four Senate

659
00:40:12,600 --> 00:40:17,400
Speaker 1: map is basically the best eight or so opportunities for

660
00:40:17,680 --> 00:40:19,840
Speaker 1: one side or the other to pick off a seat

661
00:40:19,920 --> 00:40:23,799
Speaker 1: from the other party. All of those are Democratic health

662
00:40:23,800 --> 00:40:26,520
Speaker 1: seats that Republicans can go for. I mean, these are

663
00:40:26,600 --> 00:40:31,080
Speaker 1: the closest states in the past presidential elections. Three red

664
00:40:31,160 --> 00:40:34,680
Speaker 1: states in Ohio, West Virginia, in Montana, which which will

665
00:40:34,719 --> 00:40:37,640
Speaker 1: be big opportunities in a presidential election year. And the

666
00:40:37,640 --> 00:40:41,319
Speaker 1: best opportunities Democrats have are Florida and Texas. Florida of

667
00:40:41,320 --> 00:40:44,520
Speaker 1: courch which has gone significantly for Republicans in this last

668
00:40:44,520 --> 00:40:48,000
Speaker 1: election by sixteen plus points in every statewide race, and

669
00:40:48,040 --> 00:40:51,800
Speaker 1: then Texas, where yes it's gotten more competitive in recent years,

670
00:40:51,840 --> 00:40:54,760
Speaker 1: but we're still talking about a state where Democrats haven't

671
00:40:54,800 --> 00:40:58,520
Speaker 1: won statewide since nineteen ninety four in any race. So

672
00:40:58,719 --> 00:41:02,640
Speaker 1: when that's the map, it really and when your majority

673
00:41:02,719 --> 00:41:05,239
Speaker 1: is only two seats at this point, you know Democrats

674
00:41:05,239 --> 00:41:07,160
Speaker 1: can lose one or two seats that pulled the majority,

675
00:41:07,640 --> 00:41:11,160
Speaker 1: it becomes very difficult, regardless of where the environment is,

676
00:41:11,480 --> 00:41:15,520
Speaker 1: for Democrats to hold the Senate beyond the next two years. Yeah, exactly.

677
00:41:15,760 --> 00:41:18,319
Speaker 1: I mean the map looks really bad though. Tester is

678
00:41:18,320 --> 00:41:21,400
Speaker 1: now running, which I guess is good. But you know,

679
00:41:21,480 --> 00:41:23,240
Speaker 1: West Virginia, I mean, there are a lot of states

680
00:41:23,239 --> 00:41:27,080
Speaker 1: that are not democratic states. The other thing I wanted

681
00:41:27,120 --> 00:41:29,719
Speaker 1: to talk to you a little bit about was these

682
00:41:29,800 --> 00:41:33,840
Speaker 1: encouraging signs for Democrats in these first twenty three elections.

683
00:41:33,880 --> 00:41:38,040
Speaker 1: And you're talking about a election that we have talked

684
00:41:38,040 --> 00:41:41,120
Speaker 1: about a lot in this podcast, which is the Wisconsin

685
00:41:41,200 --> 00:41:45,680
Speaker 1: Supreme Court. Can you explain because it's a primary that's

686
00:41:45,719 --> 00:41:48,200
Speaker 1: an open primary, it's not open Can you explain this

687
00:41:48,440 --> 00:41:51,719
Speaker 1: to our listeners. It's a technically nonpartisan race, So these

688
00:41:51,760 --> 00:41:54,359
Speaker 1: candidates are not on the ballot with ours and d's

689
00:41:54,440 --> 00:41:57,279
Speaker 1: next to their names. And it's also an open primary,

690
00:41:57,400 --> 00:41:59,799
Speaker 1: so you know, you could have, you know, a bunch

691
00:41:59,840 --> 00:42:02,040
Speaker 1: of candidates that are right leaning and a munch that

692
00:42:02,080 --> 00:42:04,520
Speaker 1: are left leaning, or one of one and a bunch

693
00:42:04,560 --> 00:42:07,560
Speaker 1: of the other. All that matters is the two candidates

694
00:42:07,560 --> 00:42:09,000
Speaker 1: that get the most votes. So it's kind of like

695
00:42:09,000 --> 00:42:11,400
Speaker 1: a top two primary, which you might have seen in

696
00:42:11,440 --> 00:42:14,480
Speaker 1: a state like Washington and California. We pretty much knew

697
00:42:14,640 --> 00:42:16,520
Speaker 1: that one of these candidates was going to be more

698
00:42:16,600 --> 00:42:19,200
Speaker 1: left leaning and the other candidate was going to be

699
00:42:19,200 --> 00:42:23,680
Speaker 1: between two more conservative people who have been aligned with Republicans.

700
00:42:24,040 --> 00:42:27,080
Speaker 1: What we wound up seeing was that the left leaning candidates,

701
00:42:27,120 --> 00:42:29,279
Speaker 1: the two of them, got about fifty four percent of

702
00:42:29,280 --> 00:42:32,200
Speaker 1: the vote, whereas the two right leaning candidates got about

703
00:42:32,200 --> 00:42:36,279
Speaker 1: forty six percent. And that's better for Democrats than you know,

704
00:42:36,280 --> 00:42:40,960
Speaker 1: of course recent presidential elections in Wisconsin, right, usually they're tight, right. Yeah.

705
00:42:40,960 --> 00:42:43,960
Speaker 1: And also there was a two twenty Supreme Court race

706
00:42:44,440 --> 00:42:47,080
Speaker 1: where the first vote, the open primary, when you split

707
00:42:47,120 --> 00:42:48,879
Speaker 1: it up like this in the you know who leaned

708
00:42:48,920 --> 00:42:51,960
Speaker 1: which way, it was very evenly split between the two sides,

709
00:42:51,960 --> 00:42:54,160
Speaker 1: and that really set the stage for a very intense

710
00:42:54,440 --> 00:42:57,560
Speaker 1: race between the final two candidates. Yeah. So now I

711
00:42:57,719 --> 00:43:02,480
Speaker 1: just have one more question about this idea of what

712
00:43:02,920 --> 00:43:06,759
Speaker 1: this means exactly, because could two liberals have won? Yeah,

713
00:43:06,840 --> 00:43:08,719
Speaker 1: no question. I mean we see that from time to

714
00:43:08,719 --> 00:43:12,000
Speaker 1: time in California, where we'll see two Democrats emerge in

715
00:43:12,000 --> 00:43:15,080
Speaker 1: the top two primary or two Republicans. It could have

716
00:43:15,200 --> 00:43:18,439
Speaker 1: been in this case, but the situation was such that

717
00:43:18,880 --> 00:43:21,320
Speaker 1: one of the left leaning candidates that a judge from

718
00:43:21,360 --> 00:43:24,280
Speaker 1: Milwaukee was with the clear front runner for her sides,

719
00:43:24,640 --> 00:43:27,799
Speaker 1: you know, effective nomination, and the other one was going

720
00:43:27,840 --> 00:43:29,920
Speaker 1: to go to one of these two conservative candidates, and

721
00:43:30,239 --> 00:43:33,439
Speaker 1: the gap between the first and second place left leaning

722
00:43:33,480 --> 00:43:35,719
Speaker 1: candidate wound up being such that there wasn't really a

723
00:43:35,760 --> 00:43:40,960
Speaker 1: contest there. The Republican candidate, though, who won, was a

724
00:43:41,080 --> 00:43:43,719
Speaker 1: trumpy candidate and who had been on the Supreme Court

725
00:43:43,800 --> 00:43:47,399
Speaker 1: before and lost reelection. People might know the background better

726
00:43:47,440 --> 00:43:49,520
Speaker 1: than I do, but I know both of these candidates

727
00:43:49,760 --> 00:43:53,160
Speaker 1: were involved in Republican party politics to some degree. So,

728
00:43:53,600 --> 00:43:56,520
Speaker 1: you know, some states have these judicial races where you know,

729
00:43:56,640 --> 00:43:59,160
Speaker 1: judges are appointed, you don't have to actually campaign for

730
00:43:59,800 --> 00:44:02,319
Speaker 1: the and when you do have a campaign, you wind

731
00:44:02,400 --> 00:44:06,000
Speaker 1: up having judges who are, you know, doing campaign things

732
00:44:06,160 --> 00:44:09,879
Speaker 1: and taking very partisan positions in advance of cases they

733
00:44:09,960 --> 00:44:13,520
Speaker 1: might hear. So the judiciary is much more politicized than

734
00:44:13,520 --> 00:44:15,840
Speaker 1: it used to be, or at least more overtly politicized.

735
00:44:16,080 --> 00:44:18,600
Speaker 1: But this takes it to another level when you're going

736
00:44:18,600 --> 00:44:21,760
Speaker 1: to have millions and maybe tens of millions of dollars

737
00:44:21,760 --> 00:44:24,600
Speaker 1: flooding into this race because of worship rights around the line,

738
00:44:24,680 --> 00:44:27,800
Speaker 1: things like that, and that creates a situation in which

739
00:44:27,960 --> 00:44:30,360
Speaker 1: a judge is going to say I like Donald Trump

740
00:44:30,400 --> 00:44:32,200
Speaker 1: because that's going to get them a seat at the

741
00:44:32,239 --> 00:44:36,560
Speaker 1: table in the general election. Right, right, No, it's so interesting.

742
00:44:37,120 --> 00:44:41,880
Speaker 1: Besides the Wisconsin, Virginia's fourth congressional district, there was an

743
00:44:41,880 --> 00:44:45,120
Speaker 1: election there. Talk to me about that. Yeah, So the

744
00:44:45,400 --> 00:44:48,719
Speaker 1: Wisconsin race was the most watched, but it wasn't the

745
00:44:48,719 --> 00:44:52,880
Speaker 1: only race on Tuesday where the left leaning Democratic candidate

746
00:44:53,000 --> 00:44:56,600
Speaker 1: overperformed the fundamentals of where they were running. There was

747
00:44:56,960 --> 00:44:59,919
Speaker 1: a special election for a congressional seat in Virginia where

748
00:45:00,000 --> 00:45:02,319
Speaker 1: there was a lawmaker who died after the twenty twenty

749
00:45:02,320 --> 00:45:05,279
Speaker 1: two election, and the Democrat there won by about forty

750
00:45:05,360 --> 00:45:08,120
Speaker 1: nine points at last check. And this is a district

751
00:45:08,160 --> 00:45:11,759
Speaker 1: that Biden won by thirty six. The former incumbent was

752
00:45:11,760 --> 00:45:14,720
Speaker 1: winning by a round thirty and was actually pretty close

753
00:45:14,880 --> 00:45:18,600
Speaker 1: in the gubernatorial election that Glen young Can won. So

754
00:45:18,880 --> 00:45:22,080
Speaker 1: this and a couple other special elections in New Hampshire

755
00:45:22,239 --> 00:45:25,800
Speaker 1: and Kentucky for state legislative office kind of continue the trend.

756
00:45:25,840 --> 00:45:29,200
Speaker 1: We saw late in the twenty twenty two cycle where

757
00:45:29,719 --> 00:45:33,239
Speaker 1: Democrats were suddenly after Rove Wade Fell, doing a lot

758
00:45:33,280 --> 00:45:36,560
Speaker 1: better in special elections, in these kind of off not

759
00:45:36,719 --> 00:45:39,239
Speaker 1: on non election day races, and that proved to be

760
00:45:39,239 --> 00:45:41,400
Speaker 1: a pretty good signal of where things were. And I think,

761
00:45:41,480 --> 00:45:44,280
Speaker 1: at least for now, it suggests that at least electorally speaking,

762
00:45:44,320 --> 00:45:47,279
Speaker 1: Democrats are getting their base out more than Republicans are

763
00:45:47,360 --> 00:45:50,040
Speaker 1: right now. Yeah, talk to me about the Kentucky race,

764
00:45:50,160 --> 00:45:52,879
Speaker 1: the state Senate, Yeah, state Senate race. You know, this

765
00:45:52,920 --> 00:45:56,319
Speaker 1: is another, just like the Virginia race, a very Democratic

766
00:45:56,400 --> 00:45:59,279
Speaker 1: leaning district in Louisville. The comparison we're making here is

767
00:45:59,280 --> 00:46:02,960
Speaker 1: not odemocrat one. It's Democrats won by more than they

768
00:46:03,000 --> 00:46:05,880
Speaker 1: generally win in this district. And so this was a

769
00:46:05,960 --> 00:46:08,920
Speaker 1: district that Biden won by, you know, a little bit

770
00:46:08,920 --> 00:46:11,279
Speaker 1: more than thirty points, but the Democrat in this race

771
00:46:11,760 --> 00:46:15,640
Speaker 1: won by fifty four. New Hampshire was a state house race.

772
00:46:15,719 --> 00:46:18,520
Speaker 1: They have these little, tiny state house districts where about

773
00:46:18,560 --> 00:46:21,120
Speaker 1: two thousand people are voting, and this was a race

774
00:46:21,160 --> 00:46:24,480
Speaker 1: that was actually a literal tie on election Day twenty

775
00:46:24,480 --> 00:46:29,440
Speaker 1: twenty two. And in the rerun of this race, the

776
00:46:29,560 --> 00:46:32,919
Speaker 1: Democrat won by eleven points, so a significant shift even

777
00:46:33,000 --> 00:46:36,120
Speaker 1: from what was a pretty good election for Democrats in

778
00:46:36,160 --> 00:46:40,200
Speaker 1: twenty twenty two. Yeah, I'll say, very interesting. Do you

779
00:46:40,200 --> 00:46:43,200
Speaker 1: have any sense of like what these the sort of

780
00:46:43,440 --> 00:46:46,560
Speaker 1: Senate races that are going to really be rough for

781
00:46:46,640 --> 00:46:49,759
Speaker 1: Democrats are going to be. Yeah, So, you know, I

782
00:46:49,800 --> 00:46:52,960
Speaker 1: think that you mentioned John Tester announced this week that

783
00:46:52,960 --> 00:46:56,520
Speaker 1: he will seek another term. That's huge for Democrats because

784
00:46:56,920 --> 00:46:59,880
Speaker 1: Montana is a state that's probably gone if he retires.

785
00:47:00,080 --> 00:47:02,000
Speaker 1: I think that's the case to some degree with Shared

786
00:47:02,040 --> 00:47:05,000
Speaker 1: Brown in Ohio, who's also going to be running. These

787
00:47:05,000 --> 00:47:07,279
Speaker 1: are two candidates who have done better than you would

788
00:47:07,280 --> 00:47:10,480
Speaker 1: expect Democrats to do in those states, but they also

789
00:47:10,520 --> 00:47:13,200
Speaker 1: have run in good election cycles. Twenty twelve was when

790
00:47:13,239 --> 00:47:17,160
Speaker 1: Obama was being reelected. Twenty eighteen was when Democrats were

791
00:47:17,160 --> 00:47:19,799
Speaker 1: retaking the House. There's no guarantee it's going to be

792
00:47:19,840 --> 00:47:22,479
Speaker 1: as favorable in an environment this year, So I think

793
00:47:22,480 --> 00:47:25,359
Speaker 1: that it's obvious Republicans are going to go hard after that.

794
00:47:25,600 --> 00:47:27,400
Speaker 1: And the next big thing I think to watch for

795
00:47:27,560 --> 00:47:30,719
Speaker 1: here is what Joe Mansion does. Does he seek reelection

796
00:47:30,840 --> 00:47:33,560
Speaker 1: because you know I talked about Montana being gone if

797
00:47:33,600 --> 00:47:37,080
Speaker 1: Tester retired. West Virginia has definitely gone almost one hundred

798
00:47:37,080 --> 00:47:39,839
Speaker 1: percent if Joe Mansion doesn't run for that seat again,

799
00:47:39,880 --> 00:47:43,160
Speaker 1: and so you can bet that Democrats are really leading

800
00:47:43,160 --> 00:47:44,960
Speaker 1: hard on him to run again. So those three red

801
00:47:45,000 --> 00:47:47,800
Speaker 1: states are the big ones. And beyond that, you're talking

802
00:47:47,840 --> 00:47:51,520
Speaker 1: about states like Pennsylvania, Michigan where there's an open seat

803
00:47:51,680 --> 00:47:55,080
Speaker 1: being a big one, Wisconsin potentially kind of these rust

804
00:47:55,080 --> 00:47:57,880
Speaker 1: belt states that have been so important in these recent

805
00:47:57,920 --> 00:48:01,120
Speaker 1: elections might well determine who can rolls the Senate, as

806
00:48:01,200 --> 00:48:03,600
Speaker 1: has become pretty much practice when it comes to designing

807
00:48:03,600 --> 00:48:08,360
Speaker 1: elections of late. Yeah, I mean really so interesting. Aaron Blake.

808
00:48:08,400 --> 00:48:16,000
Speaker 1: I hope he'll come back. Thank you, Well, he appreciate it.

809
00:48:16,200 --> 00:48:20,919
Speaker 1: Molly Jong Fast Yeah whatever, sorry, go on, Hi. Yes,

810
00:48:21,200 --> 00:48:26,480
Speaker 1: what this Rod Descant is the only thing worse than

811
00:48:26,560 --> 00:48:29,560
Speaker 1: him is the people he surrounds himself with in the

812
00:48:29,600 --> 00:48:33,239
Speaker 1: way his press people behave Listen man, as someone who

813
00:48:33,239 --> 00:48:37,200
Speaker 1: has seen that firsthand, Really, you and Christina Pashaw have

814
00:48:37,239 --> 00:48:39,680
Speaker 1: had some issues. I didn't notice. I mean, I think

815
00:48:39,719 --> 00:48:43,200
Speaker 1: that when you have a group of people who they

816
00:48:43,320 --> 00:48:46,440
Speaker 1: hope that if they attack people write about Rhonda Santis,

817
00:48:46,520 --> 00:48:49,880
Speaker 1: it will keep people from writing about Rhonda Santis and

818
00:48:49,960 --> 00:48:54,600
Speaker 1: that's what they're doing. Most recently, they decided that they

819
00:48:54,600 --> 00:48:58,560
Speaker 1: weren't going to do any interviews with MSNBC or NBC.

820
00:48:58,880 --> 00:49:00,799
Speaker 1: I would like to add he Era that this is

821
00:49:00,880 --> 00:49:04,640
Speaker 1: like me saying I won't write any pieces for Fox News, right,

822
00:49:05,280 --> 00:49:10,000
Speaker 1: a truly meaningful stand right. Like the last time that

823
00:49:10,080 --> 00:49:15,120
Speaker 1: Ron De Santiss went on NBC or MSNBC was probably

824
00:49:15,200 --> 00:49:18,319
Speaker 1: during a hurricane when they were one of the many

825
00:49:18,360 --> 00:49:21,000
Speaker 1: places covering it. But anyway, he said he wouldn't go

826
00:49:21,040 --> 00:49:25,560
Speaker 1: on it because he felt that Andrew Mitchell had maligned him.

827
00:49:25,840 --> 00:49:29,960
Speaker 1: I mean, it's brilliant because it's Andrew Mitchell. So the

828
00:49:30,040 --> 00:49:33,399
Speaker 1: chances of I mean her maligning him are quite are

829
00:49:33,480 --> 00:49:36,840
Speaker 1: quite small. You know. The idea here is that again

830
00:49:36,920 --> 00:49:39,840
Speaker 1: De santisis decided that a really good foil for him,

831
00:49:39,880 --> 00:49:42,480
Speaker 1: just like as it was a foil for Trump, is

832
00:49:43,200 --> 00:49:46,160
Speaker 1: the media, and so he's gonna go for it and

833
00:49:46,280 --> 00:49:49,560
Speaker 1: solidarity with Roun. I'm not going on MSNBC tonight, either.

834
00:49:49,880 --> 00:49:54,040
Speaker 1: Good for you. That's it for this episode of Fast Politics.

835
00:49:54,400 --> 00:49:57,319
Speaker 1: Tune in every Monday, Wednesday and Friday to hear the

836
00:49:57,360 --> 00:50:00,720
Speaker 1: best minds in politics. Makes sense of all this chaos.

837
00:50:01,040 --> 00:50:03,640
Speaker 1: If you enjoyed what you've heard, please send it to

838
00:50:03,680 --> 00:50:07,080
Speaker 1: a friend and keep the conversation going. And again thanks

839
00:50:07,080 --> 00:50:07,720
Speaker 1: for listening.