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

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Speaker 1: we discuss the top political headlines with some of today's

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Speaker 1: best minds. And Peter Thiel says the Trump administration is

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Speaker 1: staffed by not very smart, but very loyal people. We

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Speaker 1: have such a great show for you today. The Lincoln

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Speaker 1: Project's Rick Wilson joins us to discuss the consequences of

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Speaker 1: Trump being the most unpopular president of all time heading

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Speaker 1: into a midterm election. Then we'll talk to journalist Anand

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Speaker 1: Giriradas about his new book, Man in the Mirror, Hope, Struggle,

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Speaker 1: and Belonging in American City. But first, the news.

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Speaker 2: So, Molly, a Trump-appointed judge is again holding the administration

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Speaker 2: in contempt over deportation.

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Speaker 1: Yes, they just keep doing this and they keep doing

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Speaker 1: it in a way that is illegal. And then judges say, no,

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Speaker 1: you can't do that. And then they keep doing it.

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Speaker 1: And then the judges find them in contempt. This is

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Speaker 1: a Trump appointed federal judge held the administration in contempt

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Speaker 1: Friday for deporting a young asylum seeker to El Salvador.

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Speaker 1: It's a violation of three court orders. And he ordered

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Speaker 1: the government to bring him back to the U.S., The

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Speaker 1: Trump administration keeps breaking the law. And that's why the

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Speaker 1: judges keep finding them in contempt. Why this story is

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Speaker 1: important is obviously what happens to people is important. And

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Speaker 1: what happens to these asylum seekers is important. And the

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Speaker 1: whole like American experiment is the opposite of this. But

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Speaker 1: it's also important because there's a lot of really bad

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Speaker 1: stuff happening that we're not talking about. And that's like

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Speaker 1: the Dilley Detention Center in New Jersey. That's like there's

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Speaker 1: a lot of that kind of mistreatment of people is

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Speaker 1: still happening. And so while we talk, you know, we

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Speaker 1: talk about some of it. It is not staying in

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Speaker 1: the news, even though we all know it's continued to happen.

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Speaker 1: And part of that's just because we don't have the reporting.

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Speaker 1: We don't have the eyes in there to be able

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Speaker 1: to see what's actually happening.

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Speaker 3: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: I think this story is important because we're talking about

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Speaker 1: immigration again. And like the Stephen Miller agenda is continuing.

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Speaker 1: It's happening right now. And even if you're not hearing

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Speaker 1: about it, assume that it's happening behind the scenes.

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Speaker 3: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: And speaking of the Stephen Miller agenda, what we saw

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Speaker 2: here is a DOJ prosecutor has quit because they had

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Speaker 2: no case and they were given orders on the Broadview

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Speaker 2: six trial.

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Speaker 1: So the Broadview Six, these are the people in Chicago.

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Speaker 1: One of these people is Kat Abugazala, who was running

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Speaker 1: for the seat that is soon to be Daniel Biss

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Speaker 1: in Illinois. So the point is the Broadview Six were arrested.

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Speaker 1: They were prosecuted with a, you know, this is the

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Speaker 1: thing this administration does where they try to trump up

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Speaker 1: the charges to scare other people. And basically, the prosecutor

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Speaker 1: who they tried to get to do this prosecution has

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Speaker 1: now resigned. And in her resignation letter, she basically gives

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Speaker 1: us a sort of view of what was happening behind

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Speaker 1: the scenes. And you will be very unsurprised to find

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Speaker 1: out that, in fact, what's behind... happening behind the scenes

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Speaker 1: is the usual Trump dysfunction that we see in every

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Speaker 1: part of the federal government. But this case was a

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Speaker 1: disaster for the DOJ. They tried to hit these people

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Speaker 1: in the Broadview Six with felony conspiracy charges, which could

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Speaker 1: have had them in jail for at least six years

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Speaker 1: for blocking an ICE vehicle. So anyway, this case is gone.

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Speaker 1: It's dead. And it was overzealous prosecution. But More importantly,

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Speaker 1: it's just a really good example of this administration is dysfunctional,

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Speaker 1: but it's also really overreaching in every which way.

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Speaker 2: So my Pete Hegseth, as we know.

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Speaker 1: Is on this show. We call him Whiskey Pete.

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Speaker 2: This is true. He, of course, has no concern for

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Speaker 2: the law or the way anything is done. So he

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Speaker 2: issued veiled orders to the military to vote Republican.

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Speaker 3: In the midterms.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. By the way, so Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, or

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Speaker 1: as we call him, Whiskey Pete, basically he looked at

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Speaker 1: the 2024 election analysis and he claimed that 300,000 warriors

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Speaker 1: were not registered to vote that year and he would

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Speaker 1: like them to vote. But he would like them to

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Speaker 1: vote the right way. By the way, I just want

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Speaker 1: to point out that the military is super mad at

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Speaker 1: Whiskey Pete for any number of things. I mean, probably

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Speaker 1: not all of the military, but very few people I

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Speaker 1: know in that world are. are pretty mad because the

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Speaker 1: administration has done all sorts of stuff to kind of

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Speaker 1: target the military and make their lives harder and give them,

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Speaker 1: you know, testosterone tests, do things that don't help them and,

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Speaker 1: you know, not promote people who deserve promotions because they're

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Speaker 1: black or female, which, you know, I think it really

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Speaker 1: undermines the whole establishment when you go in there and

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Speaker 1: practice racism when everyone knows that's what you're doing. I

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Speaker 1: think this is like kind of going to backfire. on him.

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Speaker 1: But it is also just an insane thing to say.

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Speaker 1: Like it's an insane thing to say to a bunch

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Speaker 1: of army people where you're supposed to be nonpartisan. This

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Speaker 1: administration just like cannot understand the idea of being a

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Speaker 1: nonpartisan government employee. Like they just seem to only be

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Speaker 1: interested in the partisan nature of it. And I don't

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Speaker 1: think it helps them. I mean, not that we want

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Speaker 1: it to help them, but I don't think it does.

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Speaker 1: Like the thinking here is kind of deranged.

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Speaker 2: So we're seeing that today on Sunday, the major networks

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Speaker 2: who are a collective for the White House pool are

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Speaker 2: going to resume coverage, even though the White House is

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Speaker 2: still blocking CNN.

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Speaker 3: What do you think of there?

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Speaker 1: So, again, I don't know why they're doing that. I

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Speaker 1: assume that figured out that they've decided that they have.

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Speaker 1: have to. I think it's a mistake. It's like, you know,

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Speaker 1: it reminds me of Bonta making a deal. Paramount, if

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Speaker 1: something were keep going, you don't need to make a

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Speaker 1: deal when there is no deal to be had. Right.

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Speaker 1: Trump is still not letting CNN back. And, you know,

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Speaker 1: this is not a pool the way it's supposed to work.

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Speaker 1: So protesting and like the thing is, the protesting worked right.

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Speaker 1: Like Trump got upset that he wasn't on video. It

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Speaker 1: actually did work. So I don't know why you would

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Speaker 1: mess with it now. It doesn't make any sense. Rick

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Speaker 1: Wilson is the founder of the Lincoln Project and the

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Speaker 1: host of the Lincoln Project podcast. Rick Wilson.

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Speaker 3: Hello, Molly.

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Speaker 1: We have a Republican freak out every poll for Donald Trump.

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Speaker 1: He's just plumbing the depths disapproval.

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Speaker 3: As of this morning, he is less popular than he

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Speaker 3: was the day after he launched a terrorist attack on

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Speaker 3: the U.S. Capitol. that is a that is congrats donald

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Speaker 3: you you won the prize.

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Speaker 1: The smiles on our faces that's a gloating that's considered

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Speaker 1: to be gloating.

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Speaker 3: Oh i'm not even considering it to be gloating i'm

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Speaker 3: admitting it.

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Speaker 1: To be gloating we're a full-on decade into uh trumpism

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Speaker 1: and trump and finally the american people have said.

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Speaker 3: Uncle yeah they finally caught up with us um And

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Speaker 3: the people who are saying uncle the most this week

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Speaker 3: are Republican candidates and Republican elected officials who are all

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Speaker 3: suddenly out there like scrubbing Donald Trump off their websites.

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Speaker 3: When Anna Paulina Luna and Byron Donalds, two of the

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Speaker 3: biggest Trump taint sniffers in history, take Trump off of

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Speaker 3: their socials and their websites, you're like, something is happening here.

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Speaker 1: Byron Donalds really only exists because of his support for Trump.

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Speaker 3: Absolutely. And he calls Trump daddy.

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Speaker 1: But not on his website anymore.

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Speaker 4: Not anymore.

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Speaker 3: Not anymore. Suddenly he's like, I'm an independent voice for Florida. Oh,

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Speaker 3: who are you? And Anna Paulina Luna. From the great

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Speaker 3: state of Florida. And Mike Rogers suddenly like, this war

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Speaker 3: must end. When a fucking month ago, Mike Rogers was like,

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Speaker 3: the president is a brilliant strategist who is going to

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Speaker 3: defeat the Iranian terrorists. Oh, okay. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Mike Rogers also does have an actual history of supporting war.

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Speaker 1: He comes from the house where he was on armed services.

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Speaker 3: Yes, he does.

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Speaker 4: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: So this is like this about face. It has absolutely

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Speaker 1: no basis in reality.

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Speaker 3: No cred whatsoever. It is part of the constellation of

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Speaker 3: signs in the heavens that these guys are in a panic.

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Speaker 3: And now they're even to the point where, you know,

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Speaker 3: for a few weeks now, there have been like mutterings

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Speaker 3: of like, Sources allowed to speak off the record. So

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Speaker 3: they're concerned that the president's numbers are hurting. Now it's

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Speaker 3: like people by name are out there saying we're fucked. Yeah.

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Speaker 3: It's a shit show. We're doomed.

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Speaker 1: Yeah.

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Speaker 3: It's bad. Yeah. You know, run for the hills, Ma.

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Speaker 1: In the great state of Iowa, this is as true

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Speaker 1: as it's ever been. Let's talk through that. Got a

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Speaker 1: governorship and a Senate race.

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Speaker 3: You got Josh Turek and Ashley Henson running for Senate.

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Speaker 3: And Henson is suddenly born again like, oh, we've got

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Speaker 3: to bring the price of diesel down. When a few

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Speaker 3: weeks ago she was saying, oh, it's not that bad. Right.

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Speaker 3: Donald Trump knows what he's doing. Right.

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Speaker 1: Right.

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Speaker 3: And, you know, Iowa is becoming this year's sweep state

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Speaker 3: that I think people are going to be absolutely freaking

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Speaker 3: shocked about. They're going to lose three congressional races to

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Speaker 3: the Democrats. They're going to lose the governor's race for

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Speaker 3: sure at this point.

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Speaker 1: For sure, yeah.

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Speaker 3: And everybody, we've all said it before, Molly and I

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Speaker 3: both said it, keep an eye on Rob Sand. He

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Speaker 3: is a really, he is a great communicator. Rising star,

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Speaker 3: very talented. And Josh Turek, who a lot of people

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Speaker 3: wrote off, I interviewed him a couple months ago, and

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Speaker 3: I thought, man, this guy just needs a couple of

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Speaker 3: breaks and he's going to make it.

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Speaker 1: And vote vets provided those breaks. I have two things

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Speaker 1: to say about Iowa, which is historically, for those who

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Speaker 1: are thinking that Rick is being too optimistic, in 2018,

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Speaker 1: which was a year that Donald Trump was in much,

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Speaker 1: better shape. Right. He was at least.

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Speaker 3: Not 20 points more popular.

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Speaker 1: Right. Democrats still flipped three congressional seats in Iowa. So

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Speaker 1: this is not without historical precedent.

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Speaker 3: But we're seeing this erosion suddenly. There was a quote

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Speaker 3: this weekend from a Republican, or this week from a

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Speaker 3: Republican legislative leader in Iowa. Steve Deese, the right-wing radio guy.

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Speaker 1: He's in Iowa.

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Speaker 3: Had a complete meltdown. And he relayed that a legislative

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Speaker 3: leader there said, if you're in a R plus 15 seat,

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Speaker 3: you're now competitive. If you're in an R plus 10 seat,

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Speaker 3: you're underwater. And And therefore, by extension, if you're an

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Speaker 3: R plus five seat, you're getting blown the fuck out. Yeah.

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Speaker 3: We had a shocker this week in Missouri. Our old

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Speaker 3: friend Fred Wellman, LP alumni, suddenly in a tie race

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Speaker 3: with Ann Wagner, who was in an R plus 11 district,

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Speaker 3: suddenly she's up and running away from Trump, but it's

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Speaker 3: not working anymore. These guys are everywhere. They're sensing panic.

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Speaker 3: NRSC is out this weekend. I heard from a former

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Speaker 3: Republican fundraiser this weekend who told me NRSC is like

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Speaker 3: running around now saying we need another $ 50 million ASAP.

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Speaker 1: Two things I want to follow up with. This is

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Speaker 1: this good money after bad scenario.

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Speaker 3: Sure.

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Speaker 1: And there's a lot of money to be had in

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Speaker 1: the Republican Party. But the problem is once you start

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Speaker 1: and you can, I'm sure, speak to this from your

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Speaker 1: campaign life. Once you start, once the sort of the.

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Speaker 1: the scent of loserness starts to follow you. People don't

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Speaker 1: want to give you money. And even if they ideologically

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Speaker 1: align with you, and that's like what we're seeing with

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Speaker 1: the millionaire who's refusing to give money. That's what we're

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Speaker 1: seeing with Elon, who has not given the kind of money,

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Speaker 1: though he does have a super PAC and I do

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Speaker 1: think he will. But that's what we're seeing with some

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Speaker 1: of the money situation, right?

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Speaker 3: That is exactly right, Molly. I wrote about this earlier

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Speaker 3: in the week that political money are like, they're like

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Speaker 3: herd animals, right? Right. And the minute they sniff danger,

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Speaker 3: they're out. The minute they, it takes a lot to

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Speaker 3: turn around a damaged financial operation.

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Speaker 4: Okay.

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Speaker 3: Um, those people who, who, as you pointed out, Tim Mellon,

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Speaker 3: the Mellon heir, he has cut off the NRSC and

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Speaker 3: he's been good in the past for like $ 50 million

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Speaker 3: for these people.

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Speaker 4: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: He was the biggest donor in the 24 cycle.

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Speaker 3: Biggest donor after Musk in 24, if I'm not mistaken.

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Speaker 1: Yeah.

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Speaker 3: And so the sense, I mean, psychologists call it a

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Speaker 3: preference cascade, where suddenly people are like, well, that guy's

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Speaker 3: in trouble. We're not going to give to him. And

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Speaker 3: then their friends are like, oh, well, so-and-so is not

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Speaker 3: going to give, so I'm not going to give. And

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Speaker 3: it runs both directions, right? The classic one was Obama,

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Speaker 3: who nobody thought was going to go anywhere. And the

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Speaker 3: minute he started to excel, God helps those who help

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Speaker 3: themselves in politics. And so these guys are right now,

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Speaker 3: over and over again, sending this message like, we're desperate,

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Speaker 3: we're in trouble, help, help, help.

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Speaker 1: And that doesn't necessarily do anything for you. Right.

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Speaker 3: And by the way, even though, and I heard from

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Speaker 3: somebody in the money world, like I said, I talked

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Speaker 3: to somebody from the Republican money universe who said, You'll

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Speaker 3: notice Trump splashed out some money and put out some budgets,

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Speaker 3: but they haven't put in the media buys. And why

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Speaker 3: do you think that is? They haven't gone out and

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Speaker 3: bought the media. And it's getting late to buy media.

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Speaker 3: In these campaigns, they were saying they were going to target,

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Speaker 3: which means it's going to be some digital. It'll be

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Speaker 3: less accountable. And Trump's still going to keep the damn money.

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Speaker 3: The more it looks like Republicans are losing, the more

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Speaker 3: that Trump is going to keep the money. And I

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Speaker 3: think you're right about Elon, too, Molly. He says he's

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Speaker 3: going to go out and spend $ 500 million or whatever.

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Speaker 3: It's getting pretty late to do that. And I'm not

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Speaker 3: sure money's doing what people think it does anymore.

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Speaker 1: Well, that's another question. But I want to go back

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Speaker 1: to what we were talking about with Republicans in the farmlands.

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Speaker 1: Because Iowa has unique problems with the groundwater and the

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Speaker 1: cancer clusters. But it also has a problem that is

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Speaker 1: not unique and that for Republicans is a real problem,

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Speaker 1: which is the diesel.

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Speaker 3: Diesel prices.

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Speaker 1: Right. Diesel prices. Talk us through that.

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Speaker 4: That's seven bucks.

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Speaker 5: Yeah.

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Speaker 4: Okay. Okay.

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Speaker 3: Look, right now, diesel costs $ 7 a gallon. The bushels

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Speaker 3: to gallon ratio of various crop harvest figures, right? Right.

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Speaker 3: It is now so expensive that there are very few

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Speaker 3: profitable crops to harvest given the price of diesel. It

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Speaker 3: takes more than you'll get for a bushel of corn

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Speaker 3: right now in Iowa, which we are in harvest, more

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Speaker 3: than a bushel. You'll pay more in gas than you'll

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Speaker 3: get for that bushel. per acre. It is not working

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Speaker 3: very well. And at $ 7 a gallon, it has reached

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Speaker 3: this tip over point where you can't squeeze more out

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Speaker 3: of other economics on the farm. You can't trick your

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Speaker 3: way past it. And today, this morning, Trump said, nope,

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Speaker 3: I'm not making a deal with Iran. They said, we'll

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Speaker 3: open Hormuz tomorrow if you'll just start talking to us.

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Speaker 3: Trump said, no. Really? Let me tell you, just before

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Speaker 3: we came on the air, and I got to tell you,

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Speaker 3: if that is Trump's argument right now, Of we're strong

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Speaker 3: and we're winning is what he said, which no American believes. No.

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Speaker 3: Not even his own staff believes they're really winning. Right.

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Speaker 3: Only people that think we're winning are people named Trump.

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Speaker 2: Right.

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Speaker 3: That's going to continue to drive fuel prices up. It's

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Speaker 3: going to continue. I mean, if you, I haven't looked

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Speaker 3: at the spot markets yet, but I'm, I'm pretty confident

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Speaker 3: that when the president says, no, I'm not making a deal.

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Speaker 3: That does not help reduce the cost of fuel. No.

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Speaker 3: And so this diesel thing has really impacted Iowa. It's

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Speaker 3: also hitting Kansas. Right.

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Speaker 1: I want to talk to you about Kansas.

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Speaker 3: Roger Marshall is now in trouble. Yeah, go ahead.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, that was where I wanted to go. Roger Marshall

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Speaker 1: in trouble running against a mega pastor of a slightly

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Speaker 1: more left-leaning church. I would love you to talk about

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Speaker 1: what you think. I mean, that seems it has just

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Speaker 1: moved from a— you know, whatever a.

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Speaker 3: Pure Republican to a toss up.

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Speaker 1: Right. Or I think it's some places it's still like, uh,

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Speaker 1: you know.

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Speaker 3: Some places still lean are, and look, Kansas is a

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Speaker 3: Republican state y'all.

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Speaker 1: Right. I mean, Trump won by 15, 16. Oh yeah.

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Speaker 3: Yeah. I mean, and, and I've done some work out

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Speaker 3: there in the past and the distant past.

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Speaker 1: Um, and we didn't have, not for the left, not

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Speaker 1: for the left. No, no, no, no.

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Speaker 3: For someone truly insane.

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Speaker 1: Yeah.

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Speaker 3: Yeah. Um, um, but, Kansas is a very conservative state,

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Speaker 3: but I think what's happening right now is that Roger

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Speaker 3: Marshall is getting the drag on the economic stuff, the

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Speaker 3: drag on the diesel issues. And in an angle that

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Speaker 3: no one saw coming, he's getting beat up right now

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Speaker 3: because his medical practice that he had out there used

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Speaker 3: this collection system where they would go, if somebody owed

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Speaker 3: them 50 bucks and they didn't pay, they would literally

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Speaker 3: send police to arrest them. Which under Kansas law, you could, oh, this,

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Speaker 3: you know. And there's an ad out there by his

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Speaker 3: opponent right now that's a straight to camera from one

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Speaker 3: of the women. She tells the story of like, I

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Speaker 3: was pregnant. The police came to my door because I

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Speaker 3: couldn't pay Roger Marshall $ 50 that month in my bill.

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Speaker 3: And she says, I had to beg them not to

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Speaker 3: handcuff me in front of my other daughter.

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Speaker 4: Whoa.

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Speaker 1: And she went to jail.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, she went to jail. The ad is a knockout.

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Speaker 3: And that is because rural health care in this country,

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Speaker 3: in part because of the big bad bill, but in

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Speaker 3: part because of other Trump administration policies, is getting wiped out.

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Speaker 3: And these are programs that MAGA voters depend on. MAGA

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Speaker 3: voters are using ACA in Kansas at the same level

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Speaker 3: everybody else is using ACA in Kansas. Maybe more. They're

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Speaker 3: getting rid of them.

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Speaker 1: If you're a non-college educated white, You might be using

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Speaker 1: it more.

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Speaker 3: Chances are you're using ACA if you live in Kansas

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Speaker 3: or a bunch of other states, including Florida. Marshall, his

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Speaker 3: response was basically like, I was following the law. Oh,

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Speaker 3: that's working well for you right now. But this is

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Speaker 3: a proxy issue for this bigger sense of we're getting screwed.

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Speaker 3: Regular people are getting absolutely hammered by this economy. Donald

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Speaker 3: Trump is building a ballroom.

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Speaker 1: Hello pad.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, he's holding, you know, he's building the hello pad

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Speaker 3: in the ballroom.

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Speaker 1: Reflecting pool.

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Speaker 3: Putting his name on buildings and building an arch and

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Speaker 3: all the other crap, right?

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Speaker 1: So for national security.

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Speaker 3: It really is not a great moment for him.

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Speaker 1: It's interesting to me that you have a situation here

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Speaker 1: where you have Republicans are in a really tight spot.

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Speaker 1: Donald Trump has a ton of money, which he may

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Speaker 1: or may not spend. It seems as if less and

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Speaker 1: less likely he's going to spend it. And you like

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Speaker 1: there would be things that Trump could do right now

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Speaker 1: to help Republicans.

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Speaker 3: Number one, shut the fuck up.

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Speaker 1: And this was exactly what I was going to say.

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Speaker 1: They are sending him to these very red states to

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Speaker 1: rally MAGA voters. Might actually be a mistake. Discuss.

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Speaker 3: He's in the key swing states of Oklahoma and Alabama.

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Speaker 1: But I mean, does that maybe even hurt MAGA? I mean,

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Speaker 1: even hurt Republican candidates?

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Speaker 3: I think it does. I think it does because the

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Speaker 3: number of the hyper faithful in those states has declined

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Speaker 3: at the same rate as it's declined nationally. Right. The

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Speaker 3: true believers are a smaller and smaller fraction everywhere, but

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Speaker 3: it's gone down to that 13% to 18% of the

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Speaker 3: national voters who are fanatic Trump supporters. where we used

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Speaker 3: to think that number was 40, then it was 30,

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Speaker 3: and now it's in the teens. So I don't think

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Speaker 3: he does much for them in those states. In Oklahoma,

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Speaker 3: you are, again, in a very heavily agricultural state where

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Speaker 3: diesel is hitting farmers and ranchers heavily. In Alabama- You

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Speaker 3: are in an agricultural and a mining state where, again,

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Speaker 3: diesel prices are affecting them. And the other thing that's

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Speaker 3: going to happen in Alabama that hurts MAGA is African-American

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Speaker 3: voters have been so disenfranchised in Alabama by the state legislature,

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Speaker 3: they're pissed. Bring Donald Trump down there. That's going to

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Speaker 3: be great for you guys. It's going to be great.

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Speaker 3: Remind everybody what a son of a bitch he is.

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Speaker 3: Phenomenal work. Heck of a job, Donnie.

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Speaker 1: So last night, the president of China came to the

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Speaker 1: White House. Donald Trump had a state dinner. He was

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Speaker 1: telling us that he was not going to have state

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Speaker 1: dinners anymore, but now he will. Right. Remember that 2015

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Speaker 1: clip where he says, oh, yeah, Obama brought, you know,

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Speaker 1: the president of China to the White House.

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Speaker 3: You don't feed people. You don't give a state dinner

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Speaker 3: to people who are ripping you off.

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Speaker 2: Right.

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Speaker 1: Well, it turns out. You do.

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Speaker 3: It turns out not only do you do that, but

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Speaker 3: unlike any president since 1962, you go to the airport

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Speaker 3: to meet the new boss.

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Speaker 1: Right.

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Speaker 3: The most amazing conceit here, and the thing that actually

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Speaker 3: is truly disturbing, is Donald Trump believes that Xi is

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Speaker 3: his friend. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Yeah.

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Speaker 3: He thinks Xi likes him, and his friend would never

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Speaker 3: invade Taiwan because that would upset Trump. His friend would

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Speaker 3: never help Iran target American troops because that would help

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Speaker 3: upset Trump. Which means, once again, the great negotiator Donald

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Speaker 3: Trump is getting rolled like a cheap rug by another

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Speaker 3: foreign autocratic leader. That's right. And if you're Xi, and

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Speaker 3: I was just over in Hong Kong for a conference

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Speaker 3: and a speech, I got to tell you, the sense

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Speaker 3: in China, they can't fucking believe how Trump has handed

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Speaker 3: China the world on a plate. They can't believe it. Right.

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Speaker 3: They're like, why would he, is there some trick here?

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Speaker 3: Is there some, but- They see what's happened and they

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Speaker 3: can't imagine that any American leader would screw over their

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Speaker 3: allies so badly. In the Pacific, Taiwan, South Korea, and

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Speaker 3: Japan are all like, the fuck is this?

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Speaker 4: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: And it's scary because, go on.

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Speaker 3: Trump, he can be so easily tricked by these people,

439
00:22:14,980 --> 00:22:17,100
Speaker 3: by the Putins and the Zs of the world and

440
00:22:17,119 --> 00:22:18,389
Speaker 3: the Netanyahus of the world.

441
00:22:18,609 --> 00:22:18,909
Speaker 1: Yeah.

442
00:22:18,990 --> 00:22:24,660
Speaker 3: See what I did there? it's just madness at this point. So, yeah,

443
00:22:24,740 --> 00:22:27,389
Speaker 3: I'm not surprised that Trump has been very deferential to Xi,

444
00:22:28,490 --> 00:22:30,850
Speaker 3: thinking he's going to get something out of it. Just

445
00:22:30,950 --> 00:22:33,330
Speaker 3: spoiler alert, he will not get anything out of it.

446
00:22:34,130 --> 00:22:37,489
Speaker 1: Yeah, Trump versus Xi, I think we all know how

447
00:22:37,510 --> 00:22:39,030
Speaker 1: this is going to end, and it's not going to

448
00:22:39,070 --> 00:22:40,510
Speaker 1: be good for Trump. No.

449
00:22:40,850 --> 00:22:41,530
Speaker 3: No. Yeah.

450
00:22:41,890 --> 00:22:44,010
Speaker 1: Yes. Rick Wilson.

451
00:22:44,369 --> 00:22:45,230
Speaker 3: Bye, John Fast.

452
00:22:45,410 --> 00:22:46,010
Speaker 1: Will you come back?

453
00:22:46,030 --> 00:22:46,870
Speaker 3: I will see you next time.

454
00:22:48,560 --> 00:22:53,020
Speaker 1: Anand Giriradas is a journalist and the author of Man

455
00:22:53,060 --> 00:22:58,609
Speaker 1: in the Mirror, Hope, Struggle, and Belonging in an American City. Welcome, welcome, Anand.

456
00:22:58,990 --> 00:22:59,930
Speaker 4: I'm so happy to be here.

457
00:23:00,150 --> 00:23:04,129
Speaker 1: So let's talk about this book. So explain to us

458
00:23:04,410 --> 00:23:08,190
Speaker 1: why you decided to write this story about... I don't

459
00:23:08,230 --> 00:23:10,670
Speaker 1: even want to... I want you to explain what the

460
00:23:10,930 --> 00:23:13,730
Speaker 1: crime is because I don't even want to quantify what

461
00:23:13,750 --> 00:23:14,080
Speaker 1: it is.

462
00:23:14,170 --> 00:23:16,740
Speaker 5: So the case of Jordan Neely and Daniel Penny on

463
00:23:16,780 --> 00:23:20,340
Speaker 5: this subway car... in Manhattan in 2023 was sort of

464
00:23:20,400 --> 00:23:24,920
Speaker 5: one of these cases that everybody watching this probably briefly remembers, right?

465
00:23:24,940 --> 00:23:27,080
Speaker 5: It's one of these cases that for a moment in

466
00:23:27,119 --> 00:23:29,800
Speaker 5: American history, everybody is talking about, and then.

467
00:23:29,760 --> 00:23:32,060
Speaker 4: It gets kind of chewed up, processed.

468
00:23:31,580 --> 00:23:33,320
Speaker 5: By the social media machinery.

469
00:23:33,619 --> 00:23:34,679
Speaker 4: Everyone takes their sides.

470
00:23:34,760 --> 00:23:37,200
Speaker 5: Everyone knows what they think in advance without knowing anything.

471
00:23:37,480 --> 00:23:39,890
Speaker 5: And then it's sort of spit out and it's over, right?

472
00:23:39,910 --> 00:23:41,470
Speaker 5: And then there was a trial a year and a

473
00:23:41,470 --> 00:23:45,630
Speaker 5: half later, same thing happens, over. And I was really

474
00:23:45,790 --> 00:23:50,070
Speaker 5: fascinated by this story that was rendered as clickbait by

475
00:23:50,130 --> 00:23:53,790
Speaker 5: our modern machinery. And I wanted to take this story

476
00:23:54,090 --> 00:23:57,010
Speaker 5: and render it as something very different. I wanted to

477
00:23:57,090 --> 00:24:00,710
Speaker 5: understand what had actually happened on that train because it

478
00:24:00,780 --> 00:24:04,180
Speaker 5: seemed to me that subway car that day contained a

479
00:24:04,359 --> 00:24:05,639
Speaker 5: lot of America in it.

480
00:24:05,900 --> 00:24:06,540
Speaker 4: A lot of our.

481
00:24:06,540 --> 00:24:09,480
Speaker 5: Problems, a lot of our crises, a lot of our

482
00:24:09,800 --> 00:24:12,040
Speaker 5: issues with each other, a lot of our fears, a

483
00:24:12,240 --> 00:24:16,420
Speaker 5: lot of our paranoia, a lot of our hostilities, a

484
00:24:16,460 --> 00:24:17,900
Speaker 5: lot of our system failures.

485
00:24:18,260 --> 00:24:20,840
Speaker 4: A lot of our what I would call political emotions.

486
00:24:21,020 --> 00:24:23,540
Speaker 5: Above all, this kind of sense of abandonment that I

487
00:24:23,580 --> 00:24:26,399
Speaker 5: think is a defining political emotion of this age. And

488
00:24:26,500 --> 00:24:28,780
Speaker 5: all of that was on that subway car, along with

489
00:24:28,840 --> 00:24:32,010
Speaker 5: a mentally ill homeless man named Jordan Neely and a

490
00:24:32,369 --> 00:24:34,369
Speaker 5: white former Marine who put him in a chokehold when

491
00:24:34,410 --> 00:24:37,970
Speaker 5: Jordan Neely started kind of yelling at people and acting

492
00:24:38,010 --> 00:24:40,690
Speaker 5: out on the subway. And I spent the last three

493
00:24:40,730 --> 00:24:44,090
Speaker 5: years discussing doing a deep investigation of this case, what

494
00:24:44,150 --> 00:24:47,310
Speaker 5: actually happened. I covered the trial, went deep into records

495
00:24:47,350 --> 00:24:49,550
Speaker 5: and all these things. But really, this is a work

496
00:24:49,590 --> 00:24:52,909
Speaker 5: of immersive journalism where I lived in the world of

497
00:24:53,010 --> 00:24:55,790
Speaker 5: several people connected to this case. And more than that,

498
00:24:55,850 --> 00:24:59,510
Speaker 5: connected to the issue of mentally ill homeless folks in

499
00:24:59,570 --> 00:25:02,810
Speaker 5: our cities, which I'm sure most people watching this have

500
00:25:03,150 --> 00:25:06,119
Speaker 5: noticed that there is a crisis in many of our cities.

501
00:25:06,200 --> 00:25:08,300
Speaker 5: It is worse in some than others, but some of

502
00:25:08,420 --> 00:25:12,860
Speaker 5: our most hard-up, desperate neighbors are in real trouble. And

503
00:25:12,880 --> 00:25:15,780
Speaker 5: this trouble that they are in is a health crisis.

504
00:25:16,060 --> 00:25:19,369
Speaker 5: It's a moral crisis. It's a justice crisis. It also,

505
00:25:19,450 --> 00:25:23,630
Speaker 5: as you know very well, becomes very frequently a political crisis.

506
00:25:23,950 --> 00:25:28,430
Speaker 5: And part of what has given strength to authoritarian movements

507
00:25:28,650 --> 00:25:32,540
Speaker 5: throughout history, and certainly this Trumpy one, is the ability

508
00:25:32,580 --> 00:25:35,500
Speaker 5: to play on people's, in some cases, overblown and in

509
00:25:35,540 --> 00:25:39,520
Speaker 5: some cases, legitimate sense that there's no order. That there's

510
00:25:39,580 --> 00:25:42,419
Speaker 5: too much suffering in public space. So I wanted to

511
00:25:42,520 --> 00:25:45,359
Speaker 5: understand all of those things. And I spent a long

512
00:25:45,400 --> 00:25:48,350
Speaker 5: time in this world and I tried to produce a

513
00:25:48,400 --> 00:25:50,469
Speaker 5: story that is, you know, on one level, a kind

514
00:25:50,510 --> 00:25:53,790
Speaker 5: of propulsive true crime story, but also a kind of

515
00:25:53,830 --> 00:25:56,109
Speaker 5: journey to the heart of America in this moment.

516
00:25:56,390 --> 00:26:01,369
Speaker 1: So Daniel Penny now works at a venture fund, right?

517
00:26:01,510 --> 00:26:04,320
Speaker 1: Talk me through what happened to Daniel Penny, because I

518
00:26:04,340 --> 00:26:09,159
Speaker 1: feel like it's so conservative, Trumpers circa 2023.

519
00:26:09,160 --> 00:26:12,820
Speaker 5: So, you know, the incident takes place in May 2023.

520
00:26:12,820 --> 00:26:17,820
Speaker 4: Word kind of wafts out of the subway that happens, right?

521
00:26:17,840 --> 00:26:20,760
Speaker 5: Daniel Penny is either, in some people's eyes, a hero

522
00:26:21,180 --> 00:26:24,460
Speaker 5: for standing up to urban entropy and decay and anarchy,

523
00:26:24,600 --> 00:26:27,220
Speaker 5: or he's a, you know, white supremacist vigilante in other

524
00:26:27,240 --> 00:26:27,770
Speaker 5: people's talent.

525
00:26:27,920 --> 00:26:29,860
Speaker 4: Jordan Neely is either a lifelong.

526
00:26:30,170 --> 00:26:34,190
Speaker 5: You know, criminal hoodlum hobo or a victim of systemic

527
00:26:34,250 --> 00:26:35,810
Speaker 5: racism and, you know.

528
00:26:35,830 --> 00:26:38,949
Speaker 1: And George Neely ends up dead. It's not as if

529
00:26:39,190 --> 00:26:41,389
Speaker 1: there's like a happy ending for George. He doesn't end

530
00:26:41,430 --> 00:26:44,950
Speaker 1: up in rehab. Like, he's dead. He is killed by

531
00:26:45,290 --> 00:26:46,110
Speaker 1: Daniel Penny.

532
00:26:46,210 --> 00:26:46,410
Speaker 3: Yes.

533
00:26:47,010 --> 00:26:50,360
Speaker 5: Via this chokehold that lasts six minutes, which is, you know,

534
00:26:50,700 --> 00:26:53,980
Speaker 5: approximately 60 times longer than you are allowed.

535
00:26:53,760 --> 00:26:55,980
Speaker 4: To do a chokehold in the Marine Corps, in which

536
00:26:56,080 --> 00:26:56,859
Speaker 4: Daniel Penny serves.

537
00:26:57,040 --> 00:26:59,720
Speaker 1: And six minutes in a situation like that, that's a

538
00:26:59,780 --> 00:27:00,680
Speaker 1: long fucking time.

539
00:27:00,820 --> 00:27:03,179
Speaker 5: And so as I began to follow the case, it

540
00:27:03,240 --> 00:27:06,030
Speaker 5: started to wind its way towards a trial. And the

541
00:27:06,070 --> 00:27:09,970
Speaker 5: district attorney's office in Manhattan decided to bring a case again.

542
00:27:10,150 --> 00:27:11,470
Speaker 4: People weren't sure what it was going to do.

543
00:27:11,770 --> 00:27:13,850
Speaker 5: They decided in the end to bring a case that

544
00:27:13,869 --> 00:27:16,500
Speaker 5: was a complicated case to bring for a whole lot

545
00:27:16,520 --> 00:27:19,000
Speaker 5: of reasons, right? There are certain cases that a DA's

546
00:27:19,060 --> 00:27:20,380
Speaker 5: office is like.

547
00:27:20,320 --> 00:27:24,280
Speaker 4: Raring to go. This was a harder case, not least

548
00:27:24,359 --> 00:27:25,280
Speaker 4: because a lot of the.

549
00:27:25,300 --> 00:27:29,170
Speaker 5: Public was on Daniel Penny's side. And it was a

550
00:27:29,190 --> 00:27:31,190
Speaker 5: kind of lightning rod. And they don't generally want to

551
00:27:31,210 --> 00:27:32,830
Speaker 5: bring cases that they're not sure they're going to win.

552
00:27:33,790 --> 00:27:35,470
Speaker 5: So they bring this case and a year and a

553
00:27:35,470 --> 00:27:38,639
Speaker 5: half later goes to trial. And in the trial, the

554
00:27:38,700 --> 00:27:43,540
Speaker 5: government decides to bring a case centered on the following idea.

555
00:27:43,820 --> 00:27:45,400
Speaker 5: which I think relates to so many of the things

556
00:27:45,420 --> 00:27:47,679
Speaker 5: you and I are often talking about on television or

557
00:27:47,720 --> 00:27:50,050
Speaker 5: on Morning Joe or wherever else together, which is the

558
00:27:50,109 --> 00:27:53,629
Speaker 5: government says Daniel Penny did the right thing. It concedes

559
00:27:53,670 --> 00:27:56,190
Speaker 5: he did the right thing when he tried to do something,

560
00:27:56,450 --> 00:27:59,610
Speaker 5: when he stepped up and maybe, you know, put Jordan

561
00:27:59,630 --> 00:28:02,290
Speaker 5: Ely in a chokehold initially because people were afraid and

562
00:28:02,330 --> 00:28:04,470
Speaker 5: dropped him to the ground. But then the train got

563
00:28:04,520 --> 00:28:08,100
Speaker 5: to the station, Broadway Lafayette, from Second Avenue within seconds.

564
00:28:08,119 --> 00:28:10,679
Speaker 5: Pretty much everyone got out of the car, as you'd imagine,

565
00:28:10,960 --> 00:28:13,350
Speaker 5: except people who wanted to stay in and observe or help.

566
00:28:13,730 --> 00:28:16,869
Speaker 5: And the chokehold went on for another five-plus minutes. And

567
00:28:16,890 --> 00:28:19,600
Speaker 5: so the government said, started doing the right thing, but

568
00:28:19,640 --> 00:28:21,639
Speaker 5: he went too far. And then the government said he

569
00:28:21,760 --> 00:28:24,600
Speaker 5: went too far. How do you explain why he held

570
00:28:24,700 --> 00:28:27,100
Speaker 5: on so much longer than made reasonable sense? And the

571
00:28:27,180 --> 00:28:30,020
Speaker 5: explanation they gave is he went too far because he

572
00:28:30,060 --> 00:28:32,900
Speaker 5: didn't register that other person as a full-fledged human being.

573
00:28:33,070 --> 00:28:34,949
Speaker 4: He dehumanized that other person.

574
00:28:35,050 --> 00:28:37,510
Speaker 5: That in other words, you couldn't imagine him having done

575
00:28:37,550 --> 00:28:39,570
Speaker 5: the exact same thing for that long if it had

576
00:28:39,610 --> 00:28:42,510
Speaker 5: been a Marine Corps brother in arms, or if it

577
00:28:42,550 --> 00:28:45,050
Speaker 5: had been a friend, or if it had been maybe

578
00:28:45,250 --> 00:28:47,790
Speaker 5: even just a stranger who was a different type of stranger.

579
00:28:48,310 --> 00:28:51,210
Speaker 5: And they supplied evidence for this. It's kind of an

580
00:28:51,280 --> 00:28:53,600
Speaker 5: ethereal thing to hang a case on. But then they

581
00:28:53,700 --> 00:28:57,580
Speaker 5: brought the receipts of two videos that are quite striking, which,

582
00:28:57,780 --> 00:28:59,720
Speaker 5: you know, one of which is on the scene where

583
00:28:59,740 --> 00:29:03,920
Speaker 5: Daniel Penny is seen standing over Jordan Neely's body. And

584
00:29:03,960 --> 00:29:06,540
Speaker 5: you see all these NYPD guys who are panicked about

585
00:29:06,560 --> 00:29:09,960
Speaker 5: the potential loss of this life. And the only person

586
00:29:10,280 --> 00:29:13,380
Speaker 5: who seems not panicked by this is Daniel Penny. This

587
00:29:13,540 --> 00:29:16,870
Speaker 5: contrast of these cops behaving as though this life, if

588
00:29:16,900 --> 00:29:19,550
Speaker 5: this life would be lost, it would be the end

589
00:29:19,570 --> 00:29:21,330
Speaker 5: of the world. And Daniel Penny is striking. And then

590
00:29:21,350 --> 00:29:24,130
Speaker 5: in the interrogation that happens a couple hours later, again,

591
00:29:24,450 --> 00:29:27,150
Speaker 5: Daniel Penny keeps referring to Jordan Neely, who he didn't know,

592
00:29:27,410 --> 00:29:30,670
Speaker 5: as a crackhead repeatedly. He keeps saying he was squirming.

593
00:29:31,260 --> 00:29:34,210
Speaker 5: So we've talked a lot about dehumanizing language in the

594
00:29:34,270 --> 00:29:36,440
Speaker 5: age of Trump. Well, they sort of picked that up,

595
00:29:36,610 --> 00:29:38,310
Speaker 5: and he keeps looking for the cops to kind of

596
00:29:38,430 --> 00:29:39,970
Speaker 5: affirm the way he's talking.

597
00:29:40,060 --> 00:29:43,800
Speaker 4: About this guy. And the cops actually don't. He loses

598
00:29:43,860 --> 00:29:47,010
Speaker 4: these two NYPD detectives. Like there's a sort of like,

599
00:29:47,090 --> 00:29:48,670
Speaker 4: am I right? You know what I mean? He keeps saying,

600
00:29:48,710 --> 00:29:49,570
Speaker 4: am I right? You know what I mean?

601
00:29:49,590 --> 00:29:51,850
Speaker 5: You know, these kind of bids for connection, the more

602
00:29:51,890 --> 00:29:54,370
Speaker 5: he dehumanizes him in this language. And the cops are

603
00:29:54,410 --> 00:29:56,860
Speaker 5: kind of like, I don't know what you mean. We

604
00:29:56,920 --> 00:29:59,150
Speaker 5: actually don't talk about people like that. So the government

605
00:29:59,210 --> 00:30:02,580
Speaker 5: made that case, not because the prosecutor explained to me,

606
00:30:02,840 --> 00:30:05,660
Speaker 5: not because they thought Daniel Penny was an ongoing risk

607
00:30:05,680 --> 00:30:07,740
Speaker 5: or would commit more crimes. but because they wanted to

608
00:30:07,860 --> 00:30:11,580
Speaker 5: police the line of dehumanization in an era in which

609
00:30:11,940 --> 00:30:13,420
Speaker 5: dehumanization is everywhere in our culture.

610
00:30:13,840 --> 00:30:14,700
Speaker 4: And that was.

611
00:30:14,620 --> 00:30:17,200
Speaker 5: Probably a stretch of a case in some ways, an

612
00:30:17,280 --> 00:30:18,090
Speaker 5: ambitious case.

613
00:30:18,270 --> 00:30:20,830
Speaker 4: They lost. Daniel Penny was acquitted. And you are right.

614
00:30:21,110 --> 00:30:25,270
Speaker 5: Right after that, he was invited to the Army-Navy game

615
00:30:25,590 --> 00:30:27,330
Speaker 5: by the vice president.

616
00:30:27,610 --> 00:30:27,850
Speaker 3: J.D.

617
00:30:27,890 --> 00:30:31,370
Speaker 4: Vance, and then, and Trump was there too, of course.

618
00:30:31,630 --> 00:30:34,340
Speaker 5: And then, you know, he was sort of talking about,

619
00:30:34,380 --> 00:30:36,500
Speaker 5: maybe I'll go back to architecture school and, you know,

620
00:30:36,680 --> 00:30:39,000
Speaker 5: study and become an architect or an engineer or something

621
00:30:39,020 --> 00:30:41,120
Speaker 5: like that. And lo and behold, he sort of gets

622
00:30:41,140 --> 00:30:44,110
Speaker 5: an offer from Andreessen Horowitz, his venture capital advisor.

623
00:30:44,290 --> 00:30:44,550
Speaker 4: Fund.

624
00:30:44,690 --> 00:30:47,930
Speaker 1: And a major Republican donor. Major, major.

625
00:30:48,050 --> 00:30:52,910
Speaker 5: Well, yes, but also a perfect encapsulation of this phenomenon.

626
00:30:53,010 --> 00:30:55,410
Speaker 5: As you know, both of these founders were kind of

627
00:30:55,430 --> 00:30:59,570
Speaker 5: Democrats in recent history. And the kind of migration of

628
00:30:59,610 --> 00:31:02,970
Speaker 5: Silicon Valley from being these kind of Democratic Party stalwarts

629
00:31:03,110 --> 00:31:06,480
Speaker 5: to stalwarts of the right, not least because of some

630
00:31:06,500 --> 00:31:07,800
Speaker 5: of the issues at the heart of this case, this

631
00:31:07,880 --> 00:31:10,160
Speaker 5: sense of disorder, this sense of You know, and of course,

632
00:31:10,640 --> 00:31:12,880
Speaker 5: the issue that Silicon Valley felt very, you know, put

633
00:31:12,940 --> 00:31:15,720
Speaker 5: upon under Biden and didn't like didn't felt very scared

634
00:31:15,740 --> 00:31:18,300
Speaker 5: by Lena, Lena Khan and and all that stuff. And

635
00:31:18,340 --> 00:31:22,240
Speaker 5: so he finds this kind of home in Andreessen Horowitz.

636
00:31:22,280 --> 00:31:24,460
Speaker 5: And so you have this, you know, when that happened,

637
00:31:24,500 --> 00:31:26,320
Speaker 5: people who knew I was working on the book were like,

638
00:31:26,380 --> 00:31:30,300
Speaker 5: this is the most American storybook ending to this story

639
00:31:30,580 --> 00:31:33,380
Speaker 5: because one of these people ended up dead and the

640
00:31:33,420 --> 00:31:35,000
Speaker 5: other ended up in a venture capital fund.

641
00:31:35,380 --> 00:31:37,680
Speaker 1: What was the crime they tried to charge him with?

642
00:31:37,700 --> 00:31:39,460
Speaker 4: They charged him with two crimes.

643
00:31:39,840 --> 00:31:42,480
Speaker 5: The first was manslaughter in the second degree, which is

644
00:31:42,510 --> 00:31:44,330
Speaker 5: the more serious. And it was kind of I think,

645
00:31:44,470 --> 00:31:47,310
Speaker 5: you know, people were talking about 15 years that that

646
00:31:47,350 --> 00:31:50,770
Speaker 5: kind of order of magnitude was possible. And then criminally

647
00:31:50,830 --> 00:31:52,989
Speaker 5: negligent homicide was the lower charge, which was, you know,

648
00:31:53,190 --> 00:31:55,030
Speaker 5: probably like a few years would have been more likely.

649
00:31:55,330 --> 00:31:59,060
Speaker 5: And the layman's summary was, knew better and did it anyway.

650
00:31:59,360 --> 00:32:02,000
Speaker 5: And the lesser one was, should have known better and

651
00:32:02,020 --> 00:32:03,020
Speaker 5: did it anyway, right?

652
00:32:03,280 --> 00:32:06,660
Speaker 1: It seems like the lesser charge would be an easy one.

653
00:32:06,880 --> 00:32:08,950
Speaker 4: So here's what's interesting that happened.

654
00:32:08,990 --> 00:32:11,490
Speaker 5: And it's still, this is a mystery that I unfortunately

655
00:32:11,510 --> 00:32:13,990
Speaker 5: did not solve and others have not either. So the

656
00:32:14,030 --> 00:32:17,730
Speaker 5: jury actually, as in the Lindsay Clancy case recently, they

657
00:32:17,910 --> 00:32:21,300
Speaker 5: deadlocked on this top charge. It was a hung jury

658
00:32:21,320 --> 00:32:23,840
Speaker 5: on the top charge. They could not agree one way

659
00:32:23,860 --> 00:32:26,160
Speaker 5: or another on the more severe charge. Then there was

660
00:32:26,200 --> 00:32:27,920
Speaker 5: a kind of maneuver where the government came in and

661
00:32:27,980 --> 00:32:30,740
Speaker 5: withdrew their own top charge to avoid the whole case

662
00:32:30,760 --> 00:32:32,880
Speaker 5: getting thrown out. And so the jury was forced to

663
00:32:32,920 --> 00:32:35,180
Speaker 5: then move on to the lesser charge. And on the

664
00:32:35,320 --> 00:32:38,820
Speaker 5: lesser charge, they acquitted him very quickly. It makes no

665
00:32:38,940 --> 00:32:41,680
Speaker 5: sense from a legal point of view. So, you know,

666
00:32:41,740 --> 00:32:44,640
Speaker 5: but these are human beings. So it suggests more human

667
00:32:44,700 --> 00:32:46,340
Speaker 5: possibilities like they were done.

668
00:32:46,360 --> 00:32:48,270
Speaker 4: They don't want to do this anymore. They didn't want

669
00:32:48,510 --> 00:32:50,170
Speaker 4: to go through another weekend.

670
00:32:50,410 --> 00:32:53,750
Speaker 5: What is like feels likelier is that it just had

671
00:32:53,790 --> 00:32:56,000
Speaker 5: to do with like not wanting to be in that

672
00:32:56,200 --> 00:33:00,140
Speaker 5: space anymore. And so he was, he was freed and it,

673
00:33:00,340 --> 00:33:04,000
Speaker 5: you know, on a very striking moment to me is,

674
00:33:04,300 --> 00:33:06,720
Speaker 5: you know, I had spent these three years immersed in

675
00:33:06,840 --> 00:33:09,770
Speaker 5: all of this. And then in that final week, when

676
00:33:09,810 --> 00:33:13,090
Speaker 5: the jury was deliberating, um, while we were in court

677
00:33:13,210 --> 00:33:17,450
Speaker 5: waiting the Mangione case, well, Brian Thompson was shot in Midtown.

678
00:33:17,630 --> 00:33:19,590
Speaker 5: And I remember sitting in the courtroom and the penny

679
00:33:19,630 --> 00:33:21,890
Speaker 5: trial and all these reporters were kind of a buzz

680
00:33:21,930 --> 00:33:23,970
Speaker 5: because these are all court reporters in New York. Like

681
00:33:24,170 --> 00:33:26,990
Speaker 5: They knew, like whenever one door closes and another opens,

682
00:33:27,010 --> 00:33:29,930
Speaker 5: like they knew this was their next case. They were

683
00:33:29,950 --> 00:33:32,130
Speaker 5: going to be, and some of the same security guards

684
00:33:32,170 --> 00:33:34,600
Speaker 5: I've seen with the Mangione case in that building. And

685
00:33:34,920 --> 00:33:38,160
Speaker 5: what was really striking is when the Mangione thing kind

686
00:33:38,180 --> 00:33:40,600
Speaker 5: of became clear who had done what and how it happened,

687
00:33:40,880 --> 00:33:44,160
Speaker 5: a lot of the same kind of language could be

688
00:33:44,180 --> 00:33:47,340
Speaker 5: heard on parts of the far left standing up for

689
00:33:47,360 --> 00:33:49,520
Speaker 5: Mangione in the way that people on the far right

690
00:33:49,560 --> 00:33:51,440
Speaker 5: stood up for Penny, which is there is a void

691
00:33:51,480 --> 00:33:51,940
Speaker 5: of order.

692
00:33:52,000 --> 00:33:55,150
Speaker 4: There's a void of... Like we're left to ourselves.

693
00:33:55,570 --> 00:33:57,890
Speaker 5: Don't judge people who step into the void and act

694
00:33:58,230 --> 00:34:01,400
Speaker 5: when this is the abandoned condition in which you've left them.

695
00:34:01,680 --> 00:34:04,340
Speaker 5: And then when the acquittal happened, I go to the

696
00:34:04,360 --> 00:34:07,960
Speaker 5: press conference outside and Neely's family and some activists and

697
00:34:07,980 --> 00:34:10,469
Speaker 5: other supporters had a press conference and I'm listening to

698
00:34:10,489 --> 00:34:11,310
Speaker 5: their press conference.

699
00:34:11,450 --> 00:34:12,730
Speaker 4: And it was so striking.

700
00:34:12,770 --> 00:34:15,630
Speaker 5: They started talking about different people had different messages, but

701
00:34:15,770 --> 00:34:17,630
Speaker 5: there was a kind of theme around we can no

702
00:34:17,670 --> 00:34:20,440
Speaker 5: longer trust this system to save us. We have to

703
00:34:20,460 --> 00:34:22,339
Speaker 5: take matters into our own hands. One of them said

704
00:34:22,440 --> 00:34:24,980
Speaker 5: they have vigilantes. We need some black vigilantes in this country.

705
00:34:25,200 --> 00:34:27,140
Speaker 5: But he also said we need to build our own schools.

706
00:34:27,160 --> 00:34:28,879
Speaker 5: We need to build our own parallel health care system.

707
00:34:28,900 --> 00:34:30,279
Speaker 5: We need to build our own media outlets.

708
00:34:30,610 --> 00:34:31,060
Speaker 4: And I was.

709
00:34:31,090 --> 00:34:34,419
Speaker 5: Standing there, Molly, thinking this has become the last thread

710
00:34:34,440 --> 00:34:37,100
Speaker 5: of American common culture. People on the far left saying

711
00:34:37,140 --> 00:34:40,219
Speaker 5: Mangione was right to step into the void and DIY.

712
00:34:40,480 --> 00:34:42,420
Speaker 5: People on the right saying Daniel Penny was right to

713
00:34:42,540 --> 00:34:45,500
Speaker 5: step into the void and DIY. And then nearly supporters

714
00:34:45,820 --> 00:34:49,250
Speaker 5: saying they said the time for kind of marching has passed.

715
00:34:49,530 --> 00:34:49,690
Speaker 3: Right.

716
00:34:49,870 --> 00:34:52,890
Speaker 5: Kind of dismissing the civil rights era altogether. And saying

717
00:34:52,910 --> 00:34:54,730
Speaker 5: the time for stepping is now. This is a time

718
00:34:54,930 --> 00:34:57,730
Speaker 5: to step up and protect your own and not worry

719
00:34:57,770 --> 00:35:00,549
Speaker 5: about the kind of niceties of the past. So it

720
00:35:00,610 --> 00:35:03,549
Speaker 5: just struck me in that moment that I was staring

721
00:35:04,010 --> 00:35:07,069
Speaker 5: at what we have allowed to become our common culture now.

722
00:35:07,110 --> 00:35:10,339
Speaker 5: The idea that nobody's coming to save us and take

723
00:35:10,390 --> 00:35:12,560
Speaker 5: matters into your own hands feels like a kind of

724
00:35:12,640 --> 00:35:13,820
Speaker 5: final American glue.

725
00:35:14,080 --> 00:35:17,720
Speaker 1: Just wild. I want you to talk about Jordan Neely

726
00:35:17,860 --> 00:35:20,940
Speaker 1: because we just haven't talked about him. So tell me,

727
00:35:21,160 --> 00:35:25,410
Speaker 1: and this is the person who gets murdered, legally not,

728
00:35:25,530 --> 00:35:29,810
Speaker 1: but technically his life is taken. So talk us through

729
00:35:30,150 --> 00:35:32,029
Speaker 1: how he got to that subway car.

730
00:35:32,390 --> 00:35:34,489
Speaker 5: So, you know, Jordan Neely, sadly, is one of these

731
00:35:34,550 --> 00:35:37,129
Speaker 5: people who's known mainly because of his death. And for

732
00:35:37,150 --> 00:35:40,089
Speaker 5: the book, I wanted to recover something about his life.

733
00:35:40,390 --> 00:35:44,470
Speaker 5: Before he was in that extreme state of psychiatric trouble

734
00:35:44,719 --> 00:35:48,440
Speaker 5: and all of that, he was a kind of slightly

735
00:35:48,500 --> 00:35:52,320
Speaker 5: well-known and beloved Michael Jackson impersonator. on the streets of

736
00:35:52,340 --> 00:35:55,279
Speaker 5: New York City. You know, New York, as you know,

737
00:35:55,300 --> 00:35:58,320
Speaker 5: has all of these like, you know, the street performers.

738
00:35:58,350 --> 00:36:00,910
Speaker 5: I mean, some are world famous, like the Naked Cowboy.

739
00:36:01,150 --> 00:36:04,210
Speaker 5: But Jordan Neely, you know, although not a household name

740
00:36:04,230 --> 00:36:05,969
Speaker 5: by any means, you know, there are these videos like

741
00:36:06,190 --> 00:36:08,990
Speaker 5: these European tourists would sort of come to New York

742
00:36:09,430 --> 00:36:11,710
Speaker 5: and know to look for the Michael Jackson guy near

743
00:36:11,750 --> 00:36:15,270
Speaker 5: Times Square. He was for a time in his, you know,

744
00:36:15,310 --> 00:36:19,130
Speaker 5: late teens and 20s, a known act. and was kind

745
00:36:19,170 --> 00:36:21,450
Speaker 5: of going deep into this Michael Jackson craft. And he

746
00:36:21,489 --> 00:36:23,700
Speaker 5: had costumes. And, you know, one of my characters I

747
00:36:23,719 --> 00:36:26,020
Speaker 5: follow in the book is Moses Harper, who's a Michael

748
00:36:26,040 --> 00:36:28,739
Speaker 5: Jackson impersonator, kind of leader in that community. And she

749
00:36:28,780 --> 00:36:31,200
Speaker 5: was a mentor to him and teacher of moves. And

750
00:36:31,219 --> 00:36:32,780
Speaker 5: I spent a lot of time with Moses. She showed

751
00:36:32,820 --> 00:36:35,480
Speaker 5: me how she taught him these moves. And this is

752
00:36:35,520 --> 00:36:39,910
Speaker 5: a really small world where, you know, the way you

753
00:36:39,950 --> 00:36:42,629
Speaker 5: do the crotch grab is something that they might think

754
00:36:42,670 --> 00:36:46,469
Speaker 5: about for months and perfect and refine things. It's, you know,

755
00:36:46,489 --> 00:36:50,170
Speaker 5: Michael Jackson was in the church for many folks in

756
00:36:50,210 --> 00:36:53,160
Speaker 5: this little world that Jordan Neely was in. And, you know,

757
00:36:53,239 --> 00:36:55,960
Speaker 5: he had grown up a very kind of difficult childhood.

758
00:36:56,020 --> 00:36:57,480
Speaker 4: He very close to his mother.

759
00:36:57,800 --> 00:37:00,529
Speaker 5: When he was an early adolescent, his mother was murdered

760
00:37:00,690 --> 00:37:03,640
Speaker 5: by her partner at the time. And Molly, you will

761
00:37:03,660 --> 00:37:05,219
Speaker 5: not believe one of the things I found in the

762
00:37:05,260 --> 00:37:09,700
Speaker 5: reporting is his mother's cause of death was also listed

763
00:37:09,760 --> 00:37:13,120
Speaker 5: as compression of the neck chokehold, right? She was choked

764
00:37:13,140 --> 00:37:15,390
Speaker 5: to death by her partner, whom she had a very

765
00:37:15,450 --> 00:37:18,390
Speaker 5: tempestuous relationship with. She was stuffed in a duffel bag

766
00:37:18,430 --> 00:37:20,129
Speaker 5: and left on the side of a highway in the Bronx.

767
00:37:20,989 --> 00:37:23,210
Speaker 5: And so, you know, his mother was his best friend,

768
00:37:23,910 --> 00:37:27,310
Speaker 5: by all accounts, hugely traumatic incident. He nonetheless kind of

769
00:37:27,390 --> 00:37:30,529
Speaker 5: found this Michael Jackson world after that. And, you know,

770
00:37:30,950 --> 00:37:33,669
Speaker 5: Moses Harper, his friend, told me the Michael Jackson world

771
00:37:33,710 --> 00:37:35,720
Speaker 5: was sort of a way for him to become active

772
00:37:35,760 --> 00:37:38,040
Speaker 5: in his healing and trauma around what had happened to

773
00:37:38,080 --> 00:37:41,000
Speaker 5: his mother. And, you know, as he got a little older,

774
00:37:41,080 --> 00:37:44,239
Speaker 5: got into his 20s, you know, diagnosed with schizophrenia, life

775
00:37:44,320 --> 00:37:47,140
Speaker 5: becomes much more precarious. He's in and out of the

776
00:37:47,180 --> 00:37:50,779
Speaker 5: so-called revolving door of, care for homeless and mentally ill

777
00:37:50,840 --> 00:37:53,250
Speaker 5: folks that exists in New York and other cities where

778
00:37:53,270 --> 00:37:56,130
Speaker 5: you go into a shelter, you leave, you go to hospitalized,

779
00:37:56,150 --> 00:37:57,609
Speaker 5: but the hospital doesn't want to keep you because you're

780
00:37:57,630 --> 00:38:02,950
Speaker 5: not a, you know, lucratively insured customer. You are, you know,

781
00:38:03,340 --> 00:38:05,740
Speaker 5: maybe on the street and then YPD makes you move.

782
00:38:05,760 --> 00:38:08,080
Speaker 5: You're in the subway station and they make you move.

783
00:38:08,620 --> 00:38:11,419
Speaker 5: So he was in this cycle. And I would bet

784
00:38:11,620 --> 00:38:14,910
Speaker 5: a lot of folks watching your show who live in

785
00:38:14,950 --> 00:38:17,870
Speaker 5: cities or visit cities, walk down the street sometimes and think,

786
00:38:18,190 --> 00:38:20,690
Speaker 5: look at all these people, why is no one doing anything?

787
00:38:21,010 --> 00:38:23,569
Speaker 5: And I understand why people might think and feel that,

788
00:38:23,750 --> 00:38:25,210
Speaker 5: but it is really not the case.

789
00:38:25,310 --> 00:38:27,049
Speaker 4: I learned in this book, it is not the case

790
00:38:27,469 --> 00:38:28,760
Speaker 4: that no one is doing anything.

791
00:38:29,020 --> 00:38:32,640
Speaker 5: This is actually one of the hardest problems I've ever

792
00:38:32,719 --> 00:38:33,320
Speaker 5: reported on.

793
00:38:33,660 --> 00:38:36,480
Speaker 4: Because it is not simply a problem of money, right?

794
00:38:36,540 --> 00:38:38,820
Speaker 5: How many problems do you and I talk about where

795
00:38:39,000 --> 00:38:42,259
Speaker 5: it is simply like Mitch McConnell won't allow funding for

796
00:38:42,300 --> 00:38:45,900
Speaker 5: this or like, right? It's just like a very specific blockage.

797
00:38:46,219 --> 00:38:49,029
Speaker 5: And if only that, this is not one of those problems.

798
00:38:49,110 --> 00:38:51,490
Speaker 5: This is a problem where New York spends a lot

799
00:38:51,530 --> 00:38:53,910
Speaker 5: of money, right? New York has a guaranteed constitutional right

800
00:38:53,930 --> 00:38:55,689
Speaker 5: to shelter at the state constitutional level.

801
00:38:56,210 --> 00:38:56,830
Speaker 4: There are beds.

802
00:38:57,110 --> 00:39:02,140
Speaker 5: This is a complicated moral and philosophical challenge. where people

803
00:39:02,260 --> 00:39:05,319
Speaker 5: who say no to help, can we force them? Under

804
00:39:05,340 --> 00:39:09,580
Speaker 5: what conditions can you force people? And even families don't

805
00:39:09,620 --> 00:39:13,000
Speaker 5: really have much say over their own family members once

806
00:39:13,050 --> 00:39:15,770
Speaker 5: they reach 18 years old in this country. And so

807
00:39:16,110 --> 00:39:19,589
Speaker 5: when Jordan Neely died, his family came forward and said

808
00:39:19,790 --> 00:39:21,390
Speaker 5: he should have been kept in hospitals longer.

809
00:39:21,570 --> 00:39:23,469
Speaker 4: He should have been institutionalized.

810
00:39:24,030 --> 00:39:26,690
Speaker 5: And some of the activists who were on their side

811
00:39:26,969 --> 00:39:27,589
Speaker 5: didn't like that.

812
00:39:27,770 --> 00:39:29,830
Speaker 4: So there's an interesting thing here where there's.

813
00:39:29,690 --> 00:39:33,279
Speaker 5: A 10 between even in that case what Jordan Neely's

814
00:39:33,320 --> 00:39:36,760
Speaker 5: family wanted and what Jordan Neely's kind of activist supporters

815
00:39:36,820 --> 00:39:39,160
Speaker 5: wanted because they have a notion of just like everybody's

816
00:39:39,200 --> 00:39:41,960
Speaker 5: an autonomous individual yeah you know right who's to say

817
00:39:42,000 --> 00:39:43,500
Speaker 5: you're crazy and I'm not right.

818
00:39:43,680 --> 00:39:45,819
Speaker 1: You know, I'm sober since I was 19. So I

819
00:39:45,880 --> 00:39:48,400
Speaker 1: know a lot about addiction and how hard it is

820
00:39:48,500 --> 00:39:52,430
Speaker 1: to get people sober. And basically you can't. So, I mean,

821
00:39:52,570 --> 00:39:55,509
Speaker 1: I'm sure he had mental health issues, but also, you know,

822
00:39:55,710 --> 00:39:58,130
Speaker 1: once you get on crack, you know, you just have

823
00:39:58,150 --> 00:40:00,370
Speaker 1: to get struck by lightning in order to get sober.

824
00:40:00,510 --> 00:40:04,630
Speaker 1: And so especially if you have all of these underlying issues.

825
00:40:04,730 --> 00:40:08,250
Speaker 1: So it's very tough. And so it's not a money problem. Yeah.

826
00:40:08,270 --> 00:40:10,490
Speaker 4: And he had he had issues with the drug K2,

827
00:40:10,630 --> 00:40:11,509
Speaker 4: synthetic marijuana.

828
00:40:11,550 --> 00:40:11,780
Speaker 1: Right.

829
00:40:12,160 --> 00:40:15,040
Speaker 5: And he, you know, there are these notes from psych

830
00:40:15,080 --> 00:40:18,400
Speaker 5: discharge papers saying he has this problem with drugs. We

831
00:40:18,460 --> 00:40:21,620
Speaker 5: recommend he reflects on some of his, you know, social

832
00:40:21,700 --> 00:40:24,620
Speaker 5: stressors and comes back and checks on us. I mean,

833
00:40:24,700 --> 00:40:26,440
Speaker 5: this was not the kind of person in the kind

834
00:40:26,460 --> 00:40:29,080
Speaker 5: of state to go home and do his social stressor homework.

835
00:40:29,239 --> 00:40:32,859
Speaker 1: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. This was really, I mean,

836
00:40:32,930 --> 00:40:34,160
Speaker 1: such an important story.

837
00:40:34,340 --> 00:40:35,410
Speaker 4: Thank you so much for having me.

838
00:40:37,030 --> 00:40:39,590
Speaker 3: And now your moment of suffering.

839
00:40:41,110 --> 00:40:45,570
Speaker 6: Jesse cannon so molly susan collins usually she's very concerned

840
00:40:45,610 --> 00:40:49,420
Speaker 6: about things but now she's been accused of corruption and

841
00:40:49,440 --> 00:40:52,400
Speaker 6: i'm gonna shock you here she had no real defense

842
00:40:52,440 --> 00:40:55,170
Speaker 6: of it and now the university of maine is debunking

843
00:40:55,190 --> 00:40:57,350
Speaker 6: a huge lie in her defense.

844
00:40:57,050 --> 00:41:00,410
Speaker 1: So this is a really interesting story this This is

845
00:41:00,510 --> 00:41:06,020
Speaker 1: ProPublica reporting on a pay for play scheme that basically

846
00:41:06,239 --> 00:41:10,830
Speaker 1: you give to the Susan Collins Super PAC. Susan Collins, then,

847
00:41:10,850 --> 00:41:16,250
Speaker 1: you know, make sure that your defense contracting firm get

848
00:41:16,410 --> 00:41:20,700
Speaker 1: the deals that you want. And Collins and her chief

849
00:41:20,739 --> 00:41:24,180
Speaker 1: of staff, Annie Clark, both came out like with guns

850
00:41:24,239 --> 00:41:26,279
Speaker 1: blazing and were like, this is not true. This is

851
00:41:26,340 --> 00:41:30,040
Speaker 1: not true. But it turns out and I actually think

852
00:41:30,060 --> 00:41:33,040
Speaker 1: this was smart of ProPublica. And I wondered when I

853
00:41:33,120 --> 00:41:34,859
Speaker 1: saw it, if this would be the beginning of this.

854
00:41:35,140 --> 00:41:40,069
Speaker 1: ProPublica like went through each one of their defenses and

855
00:41:40,130 --> 00:41:43,690
Speaker 1: debunked them. And I wondered if like places like The Times,

856
00:41:43,770 --> 00:41:45,750
Speaker 1: Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post are going to

857
00:41:45,810 --> 00:41:47,650
Speaker 1: end up having to do that, too. Like, you know,

858
00:41:47,670 --> 00:41:49,950
Speaker 1: the whole idea that you don't need to defend yourself,

859
00:41:49,969 --> 00:41:53,319
Speaker 1: you obviously need to defend yourself. And no place is

860
00:41:53,360 --> 00:41:57,460
Speaker 1: this more clear, I think, than here. So I do

861
00:41:57,520 --> 00:42:01,710
Speaker 1: think there's a real chance that we will see more of.

862
00:42:02,450 --> 00:42:05,650
Speaker 1: of this kind of way of of like following up

863
00:42:05,710 --> 00:42:09,149
Speaker 1: on a story. But also the University of Maine did

864
00:42:09,210 --> 00:42:13,490
Speaker 1: in fact debunk Susan Collins. So Susan Collins had said

865
00:42:13,630 --> 00:42:17,950
Speaker 1: that Steve Abbott, who was managing her reelection campaign, claimed

866
00:42:17,989 --> 00:42:22,009
Speaker 1: in a press conference Wednesday that this research in 2019

867
00:42:22,010 --> 00:42:26,000
Speaker 1: benefited the University of Maine. But it actually didn't. And

868
00:42:26,300 --> 00:42:30,320
Speaker 1: Maine debunked the claim. So just at every point, it

869
00:42:30,340 --> 00:42:32,560
Speaker 1: has not looked so good for Susan Collins. Now, she

870
00:42:32,580 --> 00:42:36,450
Speaker 1: still may win. And remember, she's the head of appropriation.

871
00:42:36,590 --> 00:42:39,350
Speaker 1: So it's like part of I mean, what's so interesting

872
00:42:39,370 --> 00:42:43,710
Speaker 1: about this Susan Collins story is that she's running on appropriations.

873
00:42:43,770 --> 00:42:47,370
Speaker 1: The pay for play is about appropriation. She's telling voters

874
00:42:47,410 --> 00:42:50,800
Speaker 1: like I get for me and here she's getting for herself.

875
00:42:51,239 --> 00:42:53,680
Speaker 1: But it's sort of two sides of the same coin. Now,

876
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Speaker 1: what she's done, if it's true, though she's denied it,

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Speaker 1: is technically illegal. And what she's doing for Maine is

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Speaker 1: technically not. It's two sides of this. It's the same behavior,

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Speaker 1: which I think is interesting.

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Speaker 2: Molly, the word you're looking for is it's concerning.

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Speaker 1: Yes. Yes. That's it for this episode of Fast Politics.

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Speaker 1: Tune in every Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Saturday to hear

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Speaker 1: the best minds in politics make sense of all this chaos.

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Speaker 1: If you enjoy this podcast, please send it to a

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Speaker 1: friend and keep the conversation going. Thanks for listening.