Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics,
Speaker 1: where we discuss the top political headlines with some of
Speaker 1: today's best minds. And the legos have joined the eminem's
Speaker 1: in being Woke. We have a show packed with thrilling,
Speaker 1: thrilling stuff. Ruth ben Guiatt, author of Strong Men, How
Speaker 1: They Rise, Why They Succeed, How They Fall. We'll talk
Speaker 1: to us about Ron De Santis's recent aggressions and the
Speaker 1: stupidity of a national divorce. Then we'll talk to Washington
Speaker 1: Post Aaron Blake about the Georgia grand Jury four women's
Speaker 1: media tour causing problems. But first we have the Washington
Speaker 1: Post Plumbline editor Greg Sargeant. Welcome too, Fast Politics, Greg Sargeant,
Speaker 1: thanks for having me on. I always love stopping by.
Speaker 1: We're delighted to have you in our post apocalyptic apocalypse.
Speaker 1: So let's first talk about Tucker Carlson and his extremely
Speaker 1: good friend and Kevin McCarthy. Sure this is not the
Speaker 1: first time Kevin McCarthy and Tucker Carlson have had a
Speaker 1: symbiotic relationship. In January, Tucker Carlson told Kevin McCarthy if
Speaker 1: he wanted to be speaker, that he was going to
Speaker 1: need to open a church commission and put Thomas Massey
Speaker 1: as the head of it. Incredible move, remember that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the Committee to Weaponize Government un ironically named. Now Kevin
Speaker 1: McCarthy has given Tucker Carlson a little prize. Yes, Kevin
Speaker 1: McCarthy has apparently given exclusive access to all of the
Speaker 1: January sixth Capital surveillance footage to Tucker Carlson. I think
Speaker 1: we don't know exactly what the arrangement is, but it
Speaker 1: may be and I stressed that this is a make
Speaker 1: because I'm speculating it may be that the producers have
Speaker 1: access to some sort of database where they're watching it
Speaker 1: all a little bit similar to how the January sixth
Speaker 1: Committee access that. Explain that more to me because I'm stupid. Well, okay,
Speaker 1: so the January sixth Committee got access to the footage
Speaker 1: because congressional committees and congressional leadership can get that kind
Speaker 1: of thing from the Capitol Police if they ask for it,
Speaker 1: and the committee did, and according to reports, and according
Speaker 1: to my own reporting as well, the arrangement that was
Speaker 1: worked out was that the committee investigators were allowed to
Speaker 1: watch the footage from the surveillance cameras on some kind
Speaker 1: of password protected database under fairly strict security constraints, and
Speaker 1: they also took care to not air any footage at
Speaker 1: the hearings unless it was cleared with the Capitol Police
Speaker 1: first to avoid compromising security information. My strong suspicion is
Speaker 1: that Tucker's Carlson his producers have a similar arrangement. Maybe
Speaker 1: I don't know what happens if they want to air
Speaker 1: parts of the footage yet, that kind of remains to
Speaker 1: be seen. But my guess is that Tucker's producers are
Speaker 1: watching the footage right now on a similar password protected
Speaker 1: database at the Capital. I guess something like that. Oh wow,
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess that's a little bit better that
Speaker 1: they're not just taking the video and watching it in
Speaker 1: their office. Right. It's not like, as far as I
Speaker 1: can tell, it wasn't like just turned over to them
Speaker 1: on a thumb. Jo Tucker isn't just like sort of like,
Speaker 1: you know, watching it in wherever the hell he lives. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's such an interesting and strange kind of reality we're
Speaker 1: living in. So explain to me what your thesis was
Speaker 1: about this turnover. So the piece that I did today
Speaker 1: argued that if McCarthy is going to give this exclusive
Speaker 1: access to the footage to Tucker Carlson, who's a known
Speaker 1: liar and propagandist who has deceived people serially about January
Speaker 1: sixth for a very long time, then Democrats should give
Speaker 1: access to the footage to major news organizations. I was
Speaker 1: able to confirm that that's a real possibility. As you know,
Speaker 1: as we talked about earlier, the January sixth Committee investigators
Speaker 1: already accessed it. But right now Democratic leaders and I
Speaker 1: think committee heads too, can request access to that footage
Speaker 1: and essentially do what they want with it. I think
Speaker 1: that's sort of being figured out right now by a
Speaker 1: lot of people. It certainly seems highly plausible that if
Speaker 1: Democratic leaders wanted to, they could access the footage, set
Speaker 1: up some sort of arrangement with major news organizations allowing
Speaker 1: them to view it in some way or other, maybe
Speaker 1: subject to some kind of vetting for before they use
Speaker 1: it or report on it. Maybe it gets vetted by
Speaker 1: Capitol Police for security concerns, or maybe news organizations wouldn't
Speaker 1: be willing to do that, but some kind of arrangement
Speaker 1: could conceivably be worked out. Yeah, makes sense. I want
Speaker 1: to ask you this. I asked you this before, but
Speaker 1: it really important. What do you think this sort of
Speaker 1: reason is that Democrats haven't done this before. Now. Their
Speaker 1: reaction to the McCarthy decision to turn it over to
Speaker 1: Tucker was that it would be highly compromising in security terms.
Speaker 1: And as we talked about earlier, the January six Committee
Speaker 1: members were exceptionally careful to not air footage without getting
Speaker 1: it vetted by Capitol Police first to be sure they
Speaker 1: weren't compromising things. And so my guess is that they've
Speaker 1: been hesitant to make it available on similar grounds. And
Speaker 1: I guess we should also recall that the January sixth
Speaker 1: Committee report really only just came out a few months ago, right,
Speaker 1: whatever the reason, though, I mean, I think that they
Speaker 1: could do it now. By the way, I think we
Speaker 1: should note that it's actually legitimate to be worried about
Speaker 1: the security concerns here. The right wing is sort of
Speaker 1: playing this slimy little game right now where they're pretending
Speaker 1: that there's like not actually any issues whatsoever associated with
Speaker 1: making the footage available to people, and there are. I
Speaker 1: still think that it could be worked around, and I
Speaker 1: think that Demoscrats should try to do that, But the
Speaker 1: way the rights approached This is just to sort of
Speaker 1: erase the actual complications involved, because that's what they do, right,
Speaker 1: They just you know, they deceive and mislead pretty much
Speaker 1: all the time, and that's what they're doing here too, right, Right,
Speaker 1: I want to ask you about the Avanka Jared subpoena situation.
Speaker 1: What is happening? Well, I don't really know. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think obviously they're the investigators. They're being pretty damn
Speaker 1: aggressive at this point. I think we can see that, right,
Speaker 1: And it's kind of hard to imagine that there won't
Speaker 1: be indictments at some point on one of these fronts,
Speaker 1: isn't it? I do badly when I need to predict
Speaker 1: the future. It certainly seems like he's being aggressive in
Speaker 1: a way that Muller wasn't. Though Mueller did, didn't he
Speaker 1: have those two testify? I can't recall that, honestly. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like ten million years ago. Yes, that probably happened.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about Tucko Crawlson's interest in the Ohio train disaster,
Speaker 1: because you wrote about that yesterday. Can you give us
Speaker 1: a little bit of a sort of four one one
Speaker 1: on how that went down? There's been an effort on
Speaker 1: the right to kind of racialize the East Palestine train derailments.
Speaker 1: And I should be fair here, like that's not the
Speaker 1: only thing that people like Tucker Carlson and JD. Vans
Speaker 1: are saying. There's actually a fair amount of things that
Speaker 1: we're hearing from people like Jade Vans and Mark Urrubio
Speaker 1: that I think we could agree with. About the need
Speaker 1: to hold Norfolk Southern the railway company accountable, about the
Speaker 1: need to figure out why the accident happened in a
Speaker 1: good faith way, About the need to make sure that
Speaker 1: government agencies are properly and effectively communicating a sense to
Speaker 1: people that they should feel reassured about chemical dangers. At
Speaker 1: this point, these are all legit things I think that
Speaker 1: some of these populess right wingers have talked about. But
Speaker 1: in addition to that, there's been a kind of strain
Speaker 1: that's developed, whether essentially trying to turn the disaster area
Speaker 1: into a symbol of a place that woke Democrats have
Speaker 1: a band and woke elite Democrats of a band, and
Speaker 1: because it's got a very high percentage of white people,
Speaker 1: and they're sort of saying this in all kinds of
Speaker 1: sleazy little ways with various little insinuations the way they
Speaker 1: always do, and then they kind of piously pretend that's
Speaker 1: not what they're doing, but it is. And so one
Speaker 1: of the things they've done is they've pulled a quote
Speaker 1: from Transportation Secretary Pete Buddha Judge in which he was
Speaker 1: talking about the problem of white construction workers being imported
Speaker 1: into high jobless minority neighborhoods to work on projects in them,
Speaker 1: and he was talking about whether that's something that should
Speaker 1: be addressed through efforts to hire from the communities and
Speaker 1: essentially talking about how to increase opportunities for minorities in
Speaker 1: construction work. And they've taken that quote and linked it
Speaker 1: to the East Palestine disaster by saying the following, Oh,
Speaker 1: Pete Buddha Judge is neglecting this heavily white community that's
Speaker 1: suffering in a disaster because he thinks a bigger problem
Speaker 1: in American life is that there are too many white
Speaker 1: construction workers. Right. So this is like when Pete talked
Speaker 1: about this idea that the Robert Moses Highways, which were
Speaker 1: built two black areas, were racist, and they were like,
Speaker 1: it's the racist highways, right, So they're making light of
Speaker 1: a very known fact what I have argued about this
Speaker 1: is Look, if you want to disagree with Pete Buddha
Speaker 1: Judge about that, about that question, about that policy question
Speaker 1: of whether something should be done to make more construction
Speaker 1: work in minority communities of available to its residents, fine,
Speaker 1: go ahead and disagree. But the sleazy thing is to
Speaker 1: connect it to the East Palestine disaster. Right, they create
Speaker 1: the impression that the federal government and the woke Democrats
Speaker 1: who run it are deliberately neglecting a heavily white area
Speaker 1: suffering through an environmental chemical disaster, heavily neglecting that community
Speaker 1: because their score settling with whites in some other way.
Speaker 1: The implication of it all put together is right, that
Speaker 1: there's an intentionality there. This is a Republican idea that
Speaker 1: they're like not taking care of you because they're making
Speaker 1: the government take care of someone else, right them, right,
Speaker 1: taking care of them. Everything is always about that. It's always, oh,
Speaker 1: they're taking care of them, not you, right, exactly right.
Speaker 1: And like I say, I mean, I don't care if
Speaker 1: somebody wants to criticize Pete Buddha Judge for saying that
Speaker 1: about white construction workers, Go ahead, who cares, Like let's
Speaker 1: have that argument or whatever, but like, don't connect it
Speaker 1: to the East Palestine disaster, right right, right, Well, it's
Speaker 1: not relevant and it's really fundamentally very dishonest, which of
Speaker 1: course is the it's sort of the brand. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: interesting to me because for so long we would hear
Speaker 1: Trump rail and rail on regulation, right, like, you know,
Speaker 1: I mean, one of his favorites, you know, things he
Speaker 1: would say. It's say, for every regulation we have, there's another,
Speaker 1: you know, regulation we're taking away. And it was like
Speaker 1: I always thought, like, well, this is kind of nuts,
Speaker 1: but this is what happens when you take away regulation.
Speaker 1: So for example, even though this break regulation that came
Speaker 1: from the Obama time wouldn't have necessarily affected this train,
Speaker 1: there was an effort to have more regulation. And this
Speaker 1: company had spent quite a lot of money on lobbyists
Speaker 1: and had actually been working hard to push back this regulation.
Speaker 1: And they had they had one lobbyist who had worked
Speaker 1: in Joe Manchel office. All right, and it's an important
Speaker 1: part of the story. And like I should stress to
Speaker 1: be fair that some of these right wingers seem to
Speaker 1: be saying the right things about the degree to which
Speaker 1: the story implicates whether we need more heavily regulated railways
Speaker 1: right on freight railways. And you know, there are a
Speaker 1: bunch of things that are being debated right now that
Speaker 1: seem it's a little hard to tell whether any particular
Speaker 1: one of them would have prevented this particular disaster. But
Speaker 1: it's all good that we're having a conversation, I guess,
Speaker 1: about what we can do to minimize derailments and make
Speaker 1: communities feel a little more confident that lethal chemicals aren't
Speaker 1: being dangerously handled in their backyard. It's like, that's all good.
Speaker 1: What frustrates me is that for some of these on
Speaker 1: some of these people on the right, like that's not enough.
Speaker 1: It's not enough for it to be about the story
Speaker 1: to be about corporate greed or deregulation, things that we
Speaker 1: could actually debate. They always have to bring in a
Speaker 1: white victimization component to it because otherwise it's just not
Speaker 1: I don't know, it's not interesting, right, you know, it's
Speaker 1: not if it's just about corporate greed and deregulated railroads.
Speaker 1: The thing I'm struck by, and I just wrote this
Speaker 1: piece about how I wonder if there's like a lane
Speaker 1: for a quote unquote normal Republican candidate. It's a good question, right,
Speaker 1: there isn't, but I mean maybe there is, but probably
Speaker 1: there isn't. But the question is, like, one of the
Speaker 1: things I'm struck by is what Jared and Bill Steppian
Speaker 1: decided not to do a twenty twenty policy platform for
Speaker 1: the Republican Party, and then in twenty twenty two, Mitch
Speaker 1: McConnell decided not to release policy ideals before or policy
Speaker 1: initiatives before twenty twenty two. And what I'm struck by is, like, really,
Speaker 1: why they get so deep into these culture wars and
Speaker 1: the racism. I mean, besides the fact that whatever they
Speaker 1: clearly the base likes it, but some of it is
Speaker 1: because they don't have very popular legislation. I think another
Speaker 1: reason for it is that it's become the sort of
Speaker 1: self petrooting feedback loop where this sort of supercharged, these
Speaker 1: rage inducing tropes kind of create an expectation in the audience,
Speaker 1: in the far right audience, for more of it, and
Speaker 1: that's the only thing that actually gets people really going.
Speaker 1: So they just it's sort of like they're sort of
Speaker 1: sucked into a vortex of this kind of culture war
Speaker 1: and this reactionary culture warring. There's some Huberts there too, right,
Speaker 1: because they did win the Virginia governor's race for the
Speaker 1: first time in a while. Glenn Youngcan did campaign on
Speaker 1: a bunch of school related culture war issues, although I
Speaker 1: do think that was complicated by the fact that what
Speaker 1: was really weighing on parents were the pandemic closures. Right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: What I thought was so interesting was these Republicans had
Speaker 1: a very good opportunity. The school closings were unpopular, right,
Speaker 1: even though they were necessary, and they started because of
Speaker 1: anxiety because we didn't know how the virus was spread.
Speaker 1: But then they went on probably a lot longer than
Speaker 1: any of us wanted. And some of that was because
Speaker 1: of the teachers union, which we love and support deeply
Speaker 1: in this podcast. But there was problems getting teachers back
Speaker 1: into the classroom for obvious reasons, because they didn't want
Speaker 1: to get sick and die. But I do think that
Speaker 1: Republicans had an opening there. But you know, that was
Speaker 1: like two years ago, and so now for them to
Speaker 1: be like it's parents' rights, it's all about parents rights,
Speaker 1: Like nobody's closing a school for COVID. I mean, that
Speaker 1: hasn't happened in a long time, and so this story
Speaker 1: doesn't make sense without the kind of they saw an
Speaker 1: opening and then they're now on it two years too late. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And also I think Ronda sense is undeniable. Reelection success,
Speaker 1: which was a tremendous victory for him and them, also
Speaker 1: kind of feeds the sense that these issues are big
Speaker 1: winners for them, and I think that's maybe true in
Speaker 1: decentis this case, although it might be kind of complicated,
Speaker 1: But at the same time, outside of Florida and outside
Speaker 1: of the Virginia governor's race, a bunch of these candidates
Speaker 1: ran on some pretty virulent right wing culture warring, especially
Speaker 1: around schools and LGBTQ rights and stuff, and they lost.
Speaker 1: And that this was in a cycle where they were
Speaker 1: heavily favored. And what's odd to me is that the
Speaker 1: kind of hubrists that these issues, that reactionary culture waring
Speaker 1: is a big winner for them, seems undiminished by all
Speaker 1: the contrary evidence that it works. I mean, it's a
Speaker 1: mixed picture, right, Like, correct me if I'm wrong, But
Speaker 1: I think you know you probably agree with me that
Speaker 1: the picture is not uniformly a positive one for cultural liberals. Right,
Speaker 1: it's right, it's bad. That De Santis is doing so well.
Speaker 1: It's it's troubling that Juncan was able to win on
Speaker 1: those issues. But at the same time we say that
Speaker 1: there's a whole bunch of contrary evidence showing that in
Speaker 1: place like Michigan and Pennsylvania and Arizona, real swing territory.
Speaker 1: Maybe Michigan lest so, but in real swing territory, democrats
Speaker 1: were able to defeat the culture warriors. And that just
Speaker 1: doesn't enter the picture for the right, like the Chris
Speaker 1: Rufo types, they're just They're humors is undiminished and it's
Speaker 1: just weird. Well, it's good for liberals, right, I mean
Speaker 1: like they have now lost. They lost mid terms, they
Speaker 1: lost twenty eighteen. I mean, ask Senator herschel Walker how
Speaker 1: it's going, right, It's not so. I do think the
Speaker 1: good news is they seem to not have any sense
Speaker 1: of how unpopular this is in the rest of the world.
Speaker 1: This was amazing. I appreciate you so much. I hope
Speaker 1: you will come back, Yes, of course I will. Thanks
Speaker 1: for having me on. Ruth Benjiyat is the author of
Speaker 1: strong Men, How They Rise, Why They Succeed, How They Fall.
Speaker 1: Welcome to Fast Politics. Ruth, thank you. I'm glad to
Speaker 1: be back. So I wanted to ask you about this
Speaker 1: national divorce, right, Marjorie Tyler Green, who is like at
Speaker 1: this point, you know, kind of the intellectual powerhouse of
Speaker 1: the GOP in the house, has been tweeting about a
Speaker 1: national divorce. Can you explain to us the significance of
Speaker 1: what people really mean when they talk about that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: my take on it is it's very easy to ridicule her,
Speaker 1: and it's tempting, but she's extremely dangerous because of the
Speaker 1: power she holds now. She definitely is close with Kevin McCarthy,
Speaker 1: sits on homeland security, and she has consistently made herself
Speaker 1: the voice along with Tucker Carlson and others of points
Speaker 1: of view of global autocracy, allied with the Kremlin, allied
Speaker 1: with Russia that want to take down the US as
Speaker 1: a superpower. And so the national divorce thing. Putin's biggest
Speaker 1: trauma was the collapse of the Soviet Union when it
Speaker 1: fell apart at the end of the Cold War and
Speaker 1: it imploded from within. And he's in my book and
Speaker 1: he's never gotten over that. He wishes heartily that other democracies,
Speaker 1: or that democracies would all meet the fate of the
Speaker 1: Soviet Union, which means he's been funding secessionist movements, separatist
Speaker 1: movements all over the world. Brexit was incredible operation of success,
Speaker 1: and so the big prizes of course for him, it's
Speaker 1: been for many years bringing down US democracy. You know,
Speaker 1: he's given support to California's secessionis Texas, and then we
Speaker 1: have our own, obviously, the whole legacy of the Civil War.
Speaker 1: So these come together, these giant narratives of US history
Speaker 1: and global autocracy come together in Marjorie Taylor Green's statement,
Speaker 1: and it's highly dangerous but very revealing to take her seriously,
Speaker 1: right right, I want to ask you about sort of
Speaker 1: the authoritarian leaning we're seeing here, because when we get
Speaker 1: going with Trumps, um, okay, we see that's authoritarian. But
Speaker 1: it seems to me alike there's now a large part
Speaker 1: of the Goop, like when it comes to De Santis,
Speaker 1: that is also authoritarian. I was wondering if you could
Speaker 1: talk to us a little bit about that the GOP,
Speaker 1: which of course the Santis is arguably part of the
Speaker 1: future of the goop as Trump for many, if not
Speaker 1: for his base, seems to be the past. So the
Speaker 1: GOP has become an autocratic party. It is aligned its platforms,
Speaker 1: it's rhetoric, the things it cares about, its homophobia, its
Speaker 1: obsession with wokeness, all these things are aligned with the
Speaker 1: autocratic parties of Hungary, of Turkey, of all of the
Speaker 1: ones all over the world, and of course the hub
Speaker 1: in Moscow. And it's been very difficult for Americans to
Speaker 1: see that. It's very scary to think because we are
Speaker 1: uniquely vulnerable, because we're a bipartisan system. We only have
Speaker 1: these two giant parties. I mean, I know there's the
Speaker 1: third party, the Forward Party formed Now we don't talk
Speaker 1: about the Forward Party on this podcast. Yeah, okay, So
Speaker 1: it's we have the two parties and what happens rhetorical
Speaker 1: but not rhetorical question when one of the two parties
Speaker 1: exits democracy and becomes a force inside the nation for
Speaker 1: taking democracy down. This is the reality. And there's been
Speaker 1: studies that have come out this year last year that
Speaker 1: really look at comparative politics, studies that look at all
Speaker 1: the rhetoric and the platforms, and some of them may
Speaker 1: say they're conservatives, but they are not. They are aligned
Speaker 1: with all of the autocratic parties in the world, and
Speaker 1: then Tucker Carlson, you know, yes, he gets a lot
Speaker 1: of attention, but a systematic analysis of him. He is
Speaker 1: championing Wilsonaro when he was there, surrection, and of course
Speaker 1: the relationship of him and the GOP with Hungary it's
Speaker 1: very very close or bonds like their mentor in all
Speaker 1: things autocratic. We have to just recognize that this is
Speaker 1: the reality. And DeSantis, you know, I started writing about
Speaker 1: him in twenty twenty one saying that he is making
Speaker 1: Florida into a model autocracy. He's rehearsing on the state level,
Speaker 1: using his government governor powers to see what that would
Speaker 1: look like in America. So we have to follow that
Speaker 1: very very closely. And all the talking points, you know,
Speaker 1: the homophobic legislation, the racist legislation, it's going to look differently,
Speaker 1: it articulates differently in the American context, but again it
Speaker 1: aligns with autocratic governments and parties all over the world. Right,
Speaker 1: It's so interesting that we find ourselves in this shift.
Speaker 1: I'm always curious, like, how did we get here? How
Speaker 1: do you think the Republican Party got to this? I
Speaker 1: think that they were already moving in this direction in
Speaker 1: terms of embracing white nationalism, a radical populism, radical right
Speaker 1: wing populism. This was the Tea Party. Bannon has been
Speaker 1: very important. But this is what happens in history when
Speaker 1: somebody like Trump, a charismatic demagogue, comes on the scene,
Speaker 1: they consciously address themselves to all extremists. They create a
Speaker 1: big tent for all kinds of extremists, you know, just racists,
Speaker 1: neo Nazis. They give permission to people to be intolerant,
Speaker 1: to be authoritarian. He also used his rallies from twenty
Speaker 1: fifteen on. This was the basis of the report I
Speaker 1: wrote for the January sixth Committee. He used his rallies
Speaker 1: to emotionally retrain people and to santisism is continuing this
Speaker 1: to think that violence is okay, that violence might even
Speaker 1: be necessary, that violence is the way that you solve
Speaker 1: political problems, and you deal with your enemies, and you
Speaker 1: do have to have them as enemies. So these were
Speaker 1: processes that went on over the last five years that
Speaker 1: have gotten us to where we are now. Do we
Speaker 1: think that this can scale what we've seen historically, and
Speaker 1: by historically I mean since twenty fifteen. Is this sort
Speaker 1: of sense in which Trumpism has not historically scaled so
Speaker 1: you know, like Carrie Lake was not able to take
Speaker 1: the mantle. Even Don Junior has not been able to
Speaker 1: take the mantle. So my question for you is, how
Speaker 1: does De Santis, who's like Trump but without the personality,
Speaker 1: take the mantle. Yeah, so I had just written myself
Speaker 1: a note to talk about this. It's depressing but interesting
Speaker 1: in a systemic, big picture thing. When somebody like Trump
Speaker 1: comes on the scene, who's incredible, loose canon, he does
Speaker 1: the job that we just talked about before. He radicalizes everyone.
Speaker 1: He submits the party to an authoritarian political culture. Loyalty
Speaker 1: is all that matters, violence all that, but those people
Speaker 1: are so out there that they often can't be sustained,
Speaker 1: and it creates a need among many Conservatives and others
Speaker 1: for somebody who is more normalized, somebody who's more disciplined extremists.
Speaker 1: So that's De Santis, who integrates and absorbs literally even
Speaker 1: the hand gestures all kinds of stuff from Trump, but
Speaker 1: he's too smart to ever say, well, I could stand
Speaker 1: on Fifth Avenue and shoot someone. He's not going to
Speaker 1: talk about personally shooting anyone, but he's fine if other
Speaker 1: people do, right. So that's a systemic change and it
Speaker 1: happens in other countries. Happened in the Philippines, where you
Speaker 1: had Duterte who was like, I love throwing people out
Speaker 1: of helicopters. I'd do it again tomorrow. He was like
Speaker 1: so violent, so out there, and then people got tired
Speaker 1: of that and he stepped aside, and they have Marcos now,
Speaker 1: who's the representative of the past military regime but looks
Speaker 1: quote more normal. Right. The one thing that might save
Speaker 1: American democracy I'm laughing because otherwise I'll start crying, is
Speaker 1: that there's a possibility, right that Trump will not go quietly.
Speaker 1: This is not the air Trump picked, No, no, and
Speaker 1: we should never expect him to go quietly in any way.
Speaker 1: And he's still leading in many polls. So the genius
Speaker 1: of the Big Lie, which truly was one of the
Speaker 1: top propaganda campaigns it will go down as such of
Speaker 1: the twenty first century, is that when you have a
Speaker 1: personality cult which is formidable like Trump's, the Big Lie
Speaker 1: allowed his followers to keep seeing him as the winner,
Speaker 1: and Bosonaro did the same thing. That's how you get
Speaker 1: people who stage an insurrection for you. They never give
Speaker 1: up on you. So we can expect him to not
Speaker 1: step aside quietly indeed become far more pugnacious. That's why
Speaker 1: he's you know, they're with Nick Fuentes, you know, And
Speaker 1: that's where Marjorie Taylor Green, So you think the Nick
Speaker 1: Fuentes meeting is a is actually a real thing and
Speaker 1: not just an accident. Where does he have to go
Speaker 1: if he goes more to the center, that's Ronta Santis.
Speaker 1: So he goes the opposite direction. And he really truly
Speaker 1: has an autocratic personality. He matches all the people in
Speaker 1: my book. When they're threatened, they never become more centrist.
Speaker 1: They become way more extremist, and they will truly burn
Speaker 1: the whole place down as revenge. If they think they're
Speaker 1: going down, they blame their people. We know he doesn't
Speaker 1: care about anybody, right, He doesn't care if you live
Speaker 1: or die from COVID or from anything. So we can
Speaker 1: expect him to try and make as much chaos and
Speaker 1: disarray as possible. But there is a world where he
Speaker 1: just destroys the Republican Party, Yes, there is. That's the
Speaker 1: bright spot. Yes. And in August twenty sixteen, I wrote
Speaker 1: a piece for The Atlantic, an American authoritarian on Trump,
Speaker 1: and I ended up saying it was like comparing him
Speaker 1: with Mussolini when MUSSLINI was a Prime Minister of democracy.
Speaker 1: And it ended by saying that Trump was going to
Speaker 1: take the Republican Party and transform it out of all
Speaker 1: recognition and would probably destroy it. Right, that's the best
Speaker 1: case scenario, yes, but in the process of destroying it,
Speaker 1: because we are the other unique thing about America is
Speaker 1: the guns and the violence. It could be rough times.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah. The positive thing is it's as we see
Speaker 1: from the people like Kerry Lake and Mark Fincham who
Speaker 1: were not able to prevail, there's a limit to Americans
Speaker 1: appetites for this kind of thing. Unfortunately, the medium term
Speaker 1: solution could be de Santis, who will be like our
Speaker 1: victor orbon who will be smooth talking and transform American
Speaker 1: to some kind of autocracy. Hopefully none of this happens
Speaker 1: because there is a continuation of the midterms in a
Speaker 1: democratic ground swell. We don't have to go through this
Speaker 1: at all. That's, of course, my fervent hope for my country. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so horrible. I mean, it's just such a grim reality.
Speaker 1: I want to ask you just give us a little bit,
Speaker 1: because I agree that to Santa is an authoritarian. But
Speaker 1: just explain to our listeners, to my dad, hi, dad,
Speaker 1: what the things are that make you know he's an authoritarian.
Speaker 1: His style of leadership is one that's based on bullying people,
Speaker 1: right on firing people who won't do his bidding, so
Speaker 1: that the attorney general. That's one big thing. There's a
Speaker 1: quote that was said anonymously by a form of Florida
Speaker 1: legislation said there's no second chances with him. If you
Speaker 1: cross him, you're dead. And this could also refer to
Speaker 1: Trump and many other of these leaders So his personal
Speaker 1: and also his remoteness from people, all of these personal
Speaker 1: qualities they do matter in this style of leadership because
Speaker 1: they set the tone for how you deal with political opponents.
Speaker 1: And we've seen, you know what he does. Then there's
Speaker 1: all of his policies, which again match the GOP. But
Speaker 1: he's really making Florida. He's practicing what's called autocratic capture.
Speaker 1: That is where you put radicals who share your view
Speaker 1: extremeness in charge of your institutions. So we have the
Speaker 1: Department of Health. He has a conspiracy theorist as his
Speaker 1: chief of health, and we saw what happened with his
Speaker 1: COVID policies. Now it's the Department of Education where there's
Speaker 1: you know, the enormous anti woe G anti CRT capture,
Speaker 1: and so you intimidate, you bully, you let you use law,
Speaker 1: so you have the legislation. And he's making new College
Speaker 1: an example to be scaled up. So you have to
Speaker 1: make an example and then you intimidate, you use law,
Speaker 1: and you use intimidation and then you scale it up.
Speaker 1: So he's very consciously doing these test cases. That's another
Speaker 1: authoritarian thing. Interesting. Yeah, the education stuff is so interesting.
Speaker 1: I have another, like slightly annoying because it's a weirdly
Speaker 1: optimistic question, but is there a world where this gets
Speaker 1: where they're like, and again, there are no heroes in
Speaker 1: this Republican party if we've seen anything, that's true. But
Speaker 1: is there a world where somebody like Mitt Romney. I mean,
Speaker 1: this has not happened since twenty fifteen, so I'm not
Speaker 1: that optimistic, But is there a world where more normal
Speaker 1: Republicans go come in and say like, this is not
Speaker 1: who we are or now it could happen because an
Speaker 1: authoritarian party ends up doing this thing. Well, in our
Speaker 1: country it's called rhino where you eat your own as
Speaker 1: you become more radicalized. And the preface here I didn't
Speaker 1: say it before, is that January sixth was a hugely
Speaker 1: radicalizing thing for the party because they saw that and
Speaker 1: people like Marjorie Taylor Green who openly boast about like,
Speaker 1: if I'd planned the coup, it would have succeeded and
Speaker 1: there would have been more guns. So it gives people
Speaker 1: permission to see the possibilities of autocratic takeovers. So that
Speaker 1: was very radicalizing. But these processes of as the party
Speaker 1: becomes more extreme, they turned back on each other because
Speaker 1: just as Trump needed people to be more and more loyal, right,
Speaker 1: because the longer they stay, the more paranoid they get.
Speaker 1: These parties will become more and more extremist, and so
Speaker 1: at some point they're going to turn on each other.
Speaker 1: And that already happened many times during Trump, where people
Speaker 1: who voted for his impeachment had to buy body armor
Speaker 1: the Republicans. That could very well spark some kind of
Speaker 1: counter movement, and we're already seeing it's a little bit
Speaker 1: like the older GOP and the newer gpon you crane,
Speaker 1: where Mitch McConnell and Lindsey Graham are like, no, we
Speaker 1: have to support Ukraine exactly. It's not really age based
Speaker 1: because Paul Gossar is not so much younger of course, right.
Speaker 1: It's radicalization based. Yes. So the reason this can happen
Speaker 1: is that there are no other parties for these people
Speaker 1: to go to. The bipartisan thing is when we do
Speaker 1: any kind of a comparative analysis, we have to keep
Speaker 1: coming back to like these people don't have anywhere to go, Like,
Speaker 1: they can't just go to another party, and then that
Speaker 1: third party becomes the conservative challenge. There could be a
Speaker 1: movement to reform from within because there is no other choice.
Speaker 1: Oh okay, that's really interesting. Thank you, thank you, thank you, Ruth.
Speaker 1: I hope you'll come back anytime. It's always a pleasure.
Speaker 1: I know you, our dear listeners are very busy and
Speaker 1: you don't have time to sort through the hundreds of
Speaker 1: pieces of punditentry each week. This is why every week
Speaker 1: I put together a newsletter of my five favorite articles
Speaker 1: on politics. If you enjoy the podcast, you will love
Speaker 1: having this in your inbox every Friday. So sign up
Speaker 1: at Fast politics pod dot com and click the tab
Speaker 1: to join our mailing list. That's fast politicspod dot com.
Speaker 1: Aaron Blake is a senior political reporter at the Washington Post.
Speaker 1: Welcome to Fast Politics, Aaron Blake, Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1: Very delighted. Okay, so first we have to talk about
Speaker 1: this George grand jury foreman's media tour, because I am
Speaker 1: not a lawyer, but that didn't strike me. So I mean,
Speaker 1: I want to just sort of set the scene here.
Speaker 1: She is the foreman. It is a special grand jury,
Speaker 1: so I hope you'll explain to our listeners just how
Speaker 1: that differs from a normal grand jury, and then also
Speaker 1: a little bit about her Roldwind media tour. The process
Speaker 1: in George differs from some other states. Basically, there are
Speaker 1: likely to be two grand juries involved. One is a
Speaker 1: special grand jury which hears evidence and makes recommendations. And
Speaker 1: then at this point that special grand jury is done
Speaker 1: with its duties, and at that point the district Attorney,
Speaker 1: which is Fanny Willis, can try to seek an indictment
Speaker 1: or indictments from what would be a separate regular grand jury,
Speaker 1: which will not include this fore woman or the other
Speaker 1: people who have taken part in the process so far.
Speaker 1: So it's important to note that at the outset that
Speaker 1: there's a degree of separation here which is not a
Speaker 1: woman the fore woman who's speaking out, who is going
Speaker 1: to be making decisions on indictments. Right, the case has
Speaker 1: already left her hands, right, she's done. So she definitely
Speaker 1: wouldn't be talking if this was still going on, if
Speaker 1: she was still involved in the process. But even the
Speaker 1: fact that she is speaking even when the process is
Speaker 1: over is unusual and in some people's minds, problematic, some
Speaker 1: of the experts I spoke to, because this is a
Speaker 1: situation in which people haven't been in I did, And
Speaker 1: there is an oath that these grand jurors take to
Speaker 1: not discuss deliberations unless they're called upon to do so,
Speaker 1: and so to have somebody like this to be talking
Speaker 1: about things, even in extremely vague ways, which she generally has,
Speaker 1: is unusual. And there is some thought among the experts
Speaker 1: that I talked to that it could be raised at
Speaker 1: a future trial if somebody is charged to argue that
Speaker 1: there is something untoward about this process because this special
Speaker 1: Grandeur has decided to speak out in these ways. The
Speaker 1: experts are not the only people who avoid in on this.
Speaker 1: Donald Trump, right, I think he got at this after
Speaker 1: some other people started talking about it. You don't think
Speaker 1: it was that was anything to cast it as a
Speaker 1: witch hunt, right, But I think the process really got
Speaker 1: started after CNN did its own interview with this woman,
Speaker 1: Emily Cores, and one of their legal analysts, Elijnig, who
Speaker 1: I tend to have a good regard for, called it
Speaker 1: a horrible idea for her to be speaking out like
Speaker 1: this and saying that this was something that would draw
Speaker 1: Trump or whoever's lawyers to move to dismiss the charges
Speaker 1: if it ever comes to that. The people I spoke
Speaker 1: to don't think it would be that serious like this
Speaker 1: would lead to a dismissal. But there are other ways
Speaker 1: in which it can matter, including in getting transcripts of
Speaker 1: the special grand jury for defense lawyers things like that.
Speaker 1: And so the experts say, is generally just not a
Speaker 1: good idea to be weighing in at any length or
Speaker 1: on anything in particular that could create problems down the line. Right.
Speaker 1: It certainly seems like just unnecessary risk. Yeah, I think
Speaker 1: that's right. The thing that most people are focused on is,
Speaker 1: of course, she's being asked, did you guys recommend that
Speaker 1: Donald Trump be charged or his allies be charged? And
Speaker 1: she's kind of talk around, talked around that while offering
Speaker 1: some interesting answers that are being passed because we all
Speaker 1: want to know where this process is headed. But I
Speaker 1: think when it comes to the parts of the things
Speaker 1: that she said that could come up in future cases,
Speaker 1: it's more when she has provided some kind of offhand
Speaker 1: comments about who was taking the fifth or who was
Speaker 1: funny and who was forthcoming, and things like that which
Speaker 1: could be construed, if argued in a certain ways, as
Speaker 1: shedding some light on the deliberations of this grand jury,
Speaker 1: which is which is where the prohibition lies. So I
Speaker 1: think that's that's what we're likely to hear more of
Speaker 1: down the line, rather than you know, her commentary about
Speaker 1: whether Trump is going to be charged or not. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I also thought like the whole thing where
Speaker 1: she's like I wanted to look him in the eye
Speaker 1: and then she was like giggling. I mean, as someone
Speaker 1: who myself is a partisan, that struck me as like
Speaker 1: not great for either. So for the rule of law,
Speaker 1: you know, it's that, and it's talking about an ice
Speaker 1: cream party that District Attorney Fanny Willis's office through for
Speaker 1: the special grand jurors, it's her talking in various ways
Speaker 1: about what these witnesses said how forthcoming they were. I mean,
Speaker 1: these are these are the kinds of things that at
Speaker 1: least approach talking about what the deliberations were like, even
Speaker 1: if she's not going into significant detail. I think if
Speaker 1: you watched the CNN interview in particular, when she started
Speaker 1: doing cable news interviews NBC News as well, she seemed
Speaker 1: to relish the attention that she was getting. Yeah, not great. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: but you know, maybe that's not the best thing for
Speaker 1: our judicial process here. Yeah, it's a good point. When
Speaker 1: I saw that, I was like, oh my god, what,
Speaker 1: why is this happening? Like just this is a nightmare
Speaker 1: for all parties involved, and especially because it's been a
Speaker 1: bad a little bit of a spread for judicial you
Speaker 1: know what's happening there. So I want to ask you
Speaker 1: about You've written a bunch of pieces, but there are
Speaker 1: two things I want to talk to you about really
Speaker 1: that felisteners of this podcast are pretty interested in. One
Speaker 1: is this twenty twenty four Senate map, because it's never
Speaker 1: too early to worry about twenty twenty four. It's a
Speaker 1: bad map, right for Democrats. Yeah, there's no question. I
Speaker 1: mean the Senate map, of course, is different every two year.
Speaker 1: Years it depends on which states are up. And you know,
Speaker 1: if one side had a good election in six years ago,
Speaker 1: that could mean there's a lot of opportunities for the
Speaker 1: other side to win those seats back. And what you
Speaker 1: see when you look at the twenty twenty four Senate
Speaker 1: map is basically the best eight or so opportunities for
Speaker 1: one side or the other to pick off a seat
Speaker 1: from the other party. All of those are Democratic health
Speaker 1: seats that Republicans can go for. I mean, these are
Speaker 1: the closest states in the past presidential elections. Three red
Speaker 1: states in Ohio, West Virginia, in Montana, which which will
Speaker 1: be big opportunities in a presidential election year. And the
Speaker 1: best opportunities Democrats have are Florida and Texas. Florida of
Speaker 1: courch which has gone significantly for Republicans in this last
Speaker 1: election by sixteen plus points in every statewide race, and
Speaker 1: then Texas, where yes it's gotten more competitive in recent years,
Speaker 1: but we're still talking about a state where Democrats haven't
Speaker 1: won statewide since nineteen ninety four in any race. So
Speaker 1: when that's the map, it really and when your majority
Speaker 1: is only two seats at this point, you know Democrats
Speaker 1: can lose one or two seats that pulled the majority,
Speaker 1: it becomes very difficult, regardless of where the environment is,
Speaker 1: for Democrats to hold the Senate beyond the next two years. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: I mean the map looks really bad though. Tester is
Speaker 1: now running, which I guess is good. But you know,
Speaker 1: West Virginia, I mean, there are a lot of states
Speaker 1: that are not democratic states. The other thing I wanted
Speaker 1: to talk to you a little bit about was these
Speaker 1: encouraging signs for Democrats in these first twenty three elections.
Speaker 1: And you're talking about a election that we have talked
Speaker 1: about a lot in this podcast, which is the Wisconsin
Speaker 1: Supreme Court. Can you explain because it's a primary that's
Speaker 1: an open primary, it's not open Can you explain this
Speaker 1: to our listeners. It's a technically nonpartisan race, So these
Speaker 1: candidates are not on the ballot with ours and d's
Speaker 1: next to their names. And it's also an open primary,
Speaker 1: so you know, you could have, you know, a bunch
Speaker 1: of candidates that are right leaning and a munch that
Speaker 1: are left leaning, or one of one and a bunch
Speaker 1: of the other. All that matters is the two candidates
Speaker 1: that get the most votes. So it's kind of like
Speaker 1: a top two primary, which you might have seen in
Speaker 1: a state like Washington and California. We pretty much knew
Speaker 1: that one of these candidates was going to be more
Speaker 1: left leaning and the other candidate was going to be
Speaker 1: between two more conservative people who have been aligned with Republicans.
Speaker 1: What we wound up seeing was that the left leaning candidates,
Speaker 1: the two of them, got about fifty four percent of
Speaker 1: the vote, whereas the two right leaning candidates got about
Speaker 1: forty six percent. And that's better for Democrats than you know,
Speaker 1: of course recent presidential elections in Wisconsin, right, usually they're tight, right. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And also there was a two twenty Supreme Court race
Speaker 1: where the first vote, the open primary, when you split
Speaker 1: it up like this in the you know who leaned
Speaker 1: which way, it was very evenly split between the two sides,
Speaker 1: and that really set the stage for a very intense
Speaker 1: race between the final two candidates. Yeah. So now I
Speaker 1: just have one more question about this idea of what
Speaker 1: this means exactly, because could two liberals have won? Yeah,
Speaker 1: no question. I mean we see that from time to
Speaker 1: time in California, where we'll see two Democrats emerge in
Speaker 1: the top two primary or two Republicans. It could have
Speaker 1: been in this case, but the situation was such that
Speaker 1: one of the left leaning candidates that a judge from
Speaker 1: Milwaukee was with the clear front runner for her sides,
Speaker 1: you know, effective nomination, and the other one was going
Speaker 1: to go to one of these two conservative candidates, and
Speaker 1: the gap between the first and second place left leaning
Speaker 1: candidate wound up being such that there wasn't really a
Speaker 1: contest there. The Republican candidate, though, who won, was a
Speaker 1: trumpy candidate and who had been on the Supreme Court
Speaker 1: before and lost reelection. People might know the background better
Speaker 1: than I do, but I know both of these candidates
Speaker 1: were involved in Republican party politics to some degree. So,
Speaker 1: you know, some states have these judicial races where you know,
Speaker 1: judges are appointed, you don't have to actually campaign for
Speaker 1: the and when you do have a campaign, you wind
Speaker 1: up having judges who are, you know, doing campaign things
Speaker 1: and taking very partisan positions in advance of cases they
Speaker 1: might hear. So the judiciary is much more politicized than
Speaker 1: it used to be, or at least more overtly politicized.
Speaker 1: But this takes it to another level when you're going
Speaker 1: to have millions and maybe tens of millions of dollars
Speaker 1: flooding into this race because of worship rights around the line,
Speaker 1: things like that, and that creates a situation in which
Speaker 1: a judge is going to say I like Donald Trump
Speaker 1: because that's going to get them a seat at the
Speaker 1: table in the general election. Right, right, No, it's so interesting.
Speaker 1: Besides the Wisconsin, Virginia's fourth congressional district, there was an
Speaker 1: election there. Talk to me about that. Yeah, So the
Speaker 1: Wisconsin race was the most watched, but it wasn't the
Speaker 1: only race on Tuesday where the left leaning Democratic candidate
Speaker 1: overperformed the fundamentals of where they were running. There was
Speaker 1: a special election for a congressional seat in Virginia where
Speaker 1: there was a lawmaker who died after the twenty twenty
Speaker 1: two election, and the Democrat there won by about forty
Speaker 1: nine points at last check. And this is a district
Speaker 1: that Biden won by thirty six. The former incumbent was
Speaker 1: winning by a round thirty and was actually pretty close
Speaker 1: in the gubernatorial election that Glen young Can won. So
Speaker 1: this and a couple other special elections in New Hampshire
Speaker 1: and Kentucky for state legislative office kind of continue the trend.
Speaker 1: We saw late in the twenty twenty two cycle where
Speaker 1: Democrats were suddenly after Rove Wade Fell, doing a lot
Speaker 1: better in special elections, in these kind of off not
Speaker 1: on non election day races, and that proved to be
Speaker 1: a pretty good signal of where things were. And I think,
Speaker 1: at least for now, it suggests that at least electorally speaking,
Speaker 1: Democrats are getting their base out more than Republicans are
Speaker 1: right now. Yeah, talk to me about the Kentucky race,
Speaker 1: the state Senate, Yeah, state Senate race. You know, this
Speaker 1: is another, just like the Virginia race, a very Democratic
Speaker 1: leaning district in Louisville. The comparison we're making here is
Speaker 1: not odemocrat one. It's Democrats won by more than they
Speaker 1: generally win in this district. And so this was a
Speaker 1: district that Biden won by, you know, a little bit
Speaker 1: more than thirty points, but the Democrat in this race
Speaker 1: won by fifty four. New Hampshire was a state house race.
Speaker 1: They have these little, tiny state house districts where about
Speaker 1: two thousand people are voting, and this was a race
Speaker 1: that was actually a literal tie on election Day twenty
Speaker 1: twenty two. And in the rerun of this race, the
Speaker 1: Democrat won by eleven points, so a significant shift even
Speaker 1: from what was a pretty good election for Democrats in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty two. Yeah, I'll say, very interesting. Do you
Speaker 1: have any sense of like what these the sort of
Speaker 1: Senate races that are going to really be rough for
Speaker 1: Democrats are going to be. Yeah, So, you know, I
Speaker 1: think that you mentioned John Tester announced this week that
Speaker 1: he will seek another term. That's huge for Democrats because
Speaker 1: Montana is a state that's probably gone if he retires.
Speaker 1: I think that's the case to some degree with Shared
Speaker 1: Brown in Ohio, who's also going to be running. These
Speaker 1: are two candidates who have done better than you would
Speaker 1: expect Democrats to do in those states, but they also
Speaker 1: have run in good election cycles. Twenty twelve was when
Speaker 1: Obama was being reelected. Twenty eighteen was when Democrats were
Speaker 1: retaking the House. There's no guarantee it's going to be
Speaker 1: as favorable in an environment this year, So I think
Speaker 1: that it's obvious Republicans are going to go hard after that.
Speaker 1: And the next big thing I think to watch for
Speaker 1: here is what Joe Mansion does. Does he seek reelection
Speaker 1: because you know I talked about Montana being gone if
Speaker 1: Tester retired. West Virginia has definitely gone almost one hundred
Speaker 1: percent if Joe Mansion doesn't run for that seat again,
Speaker 1: and so you can bet that Democrats are really leading
Speaker 1: hard on him to run again. So those three red
Speaker 1: states are the big ones. And beyond that, you're talking
Speaker 1: about states like Pennsylvania, Michigan where there's an open seat
Speaker 1: being a big one, Wisconsin potentially kind of these rust
Speaker 1: belt states that have been so important in these recent
Speaker 1: elections might well determine who can rolls the Senate, as
Speaker 1: has become pretty much practice when it comes to designing
Speaker 1: elections of late. Yeah, I mean really so interesting. Aaron Blake.
Speaker 1: I hope he'll come back. Thank you, Well, he appreciate it.
Speaker 1: Molly Jong Fast Yeah whatever, sorry, go on, Hi. Yes,
Speaker 1: what this Rod Descant is the only thing worse than
Speaker 1: him is the people he surrounds himself with in the
Speaker 1: way his press people behave Listen man, as someone who
Speaker 1: has seen that firsthand, Really, you and Christina Pashaw have
Speaker 1: had some issues. I didn't notice. I mean, I think
Speaker 1: that when you have a group of people who they
Speaker 1: hope that if they attack people write about Rhonda Santis,
Speaker 1: it will keep people from writing about Rhonda Santis and
Speaker 1: that's what they're doing. Most recently, they decided that they
Speaker 1: weren't going to do any interviews with MSNBC or NBC.
Speaker 1: I would like to add he Era that this is
Speaker 1: like me saying I won't write any pieces for Fox News, right,
Speaker 1: a truly meaningful stand right. Like the last time that
Speaker 1: Ron De Santiss went on NBC or MSNBC was probably
Speaker 1: during a hurricane when they were one of the many
Speaker 1: places covering it. But anyway, he said he wouldn't go
Speaker 1: on it because he felt that Andrew Mitchell had maligned him.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's brilliant because it's Andrew Mitchell. So the
Speaker 1: chances of I mean her maligning him are quite are
Speaker 1: quite small. You know. The idea here is that again
Speaker 1: De santisis decided that a really good foil for him,
Speaker 1: just like as it was a foil for Trump, is
Speaker 1: the media, and so he's gonna go for it and
Speaker 1: solidarity with Roun. I'm not going on MSNBC tonight, either.
Speaker 1: Good for you. That's it for this episode of Fast Politics.
Speaker 1: Tune in every Monday, Wednesday and Friday to hear the
Speaker 1: best minds in politics. Makes sense of all this chaos.
Speaker 1: If you enjoyed what you've heard, please send it to
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Speaker 1: for listening.