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

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

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Speaker 1: today's best minds, and a new Gallup poll shows that

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Speaker 1: Donald Trump's approval ratings have fallen ten points since his

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Speaker 1: second term began six months ago. We have such a

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Speaker 1: great show for you today. MSNBC's own Ali Batali stops

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Speaker 1: by to talk about how Trump is trying to maneuver

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Speaker 1: his way out of the Epstein mess. Spoiler, it's not working.

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Speaker 1: Then we'll talk to director Ari Astor about his new

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Speaker 1: movie Eddington and the politics surrounding it. But first the news.

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Speaker 2: Bally yesterday we got one of those demonstrations of just

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Speaker 2: how pathetic most of the GOP is as we watched

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Speaker 2: Jerome Powell not have any of Donald Trump's bullshit. What

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Speaker 2: did you see there?

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Speaker 1: This is such an incredibly stupid moment because it shows

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Speaker 1: why it's stupid? Is this? It's because it shows how

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Speaker 1: everyone else in the Republican party and leadership has just

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Speaker 1: given up trying to be real people around our hand autocrat.

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Speaker 1: So here's what happened. Trump is trying to blame Powell

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Speaker 1: for the renovation of the FED, which Trump was the

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Speaker 1: person who initiated his first administration. And the reason he's

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Speaker 1: doing this is because he wants to fire Powell this way,

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Speaker 1: and in this stupid, stupid, stupid plan, he's trying to

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Speaker 1: make it sound worse, to make it so that Powell

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Speaker 1: will resign in disgrace or whatever he can do. So

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Speaker 1: he is up there with Powell and he says, we're

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Speaker 1: taking a look. It looks like about three point one billion.

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Speaker 1: Trump says, and then Powell and like, by the way,

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Speaker 1: this is how you should do it when you're interviewing Trump.

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Speaker 1: This is like a masterclass on how not to get

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Speaker 1: run over by the guy. Instead of saying, oh okay,

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Speaker 1: he says, Pal shakes his head. He goes, it went

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Speaker 1: up a little bit or a lot, so the two

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Speaker 1: point seven is now three point one. Trump continues, and

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Speaker 1: Pale shakes his head, and then he says this is

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Speaker 1: not true. And he says, you just added a third building,

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Speaker 1: Pal says, and Trump says, it's a building that's being

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Speaker 1: built and Pali says, no, that was built five years ago,

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Speaker 1: and it's just like this is. And then Trump said

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Speaker 1: it's part of the overall work, right, So it's like

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Speaker 1: you can be on Earth one, or you can be

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Speaker 1: on Earth too. But if you stay on Earth one,

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Speaker 1: when Trump says Earth too stuff, you just say, that's

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Speaker 1: not true. This is what actually happened. And I know

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Speaker 1: it's not polite, but he's the only way that American

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Speaker 1: democracy is going to survive. So when Trump says we

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Speaker 1: didn't cut food stamps, you say, well, why are all

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Speaker 1: these kids in May not able to get you know,

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Speaker 1: snap benefits anymore. That's how this has to go, is

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Speaker 1: you have to just say what really happened. And a

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Speaker 1: good example is that the other day I was on

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Speaker 1: a panel and somebody said that it made a false equivalency.

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Speaker 1: They put two people together who were definitely not the same,

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Speaker 1: and it was a little bit the equivalency really made

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Speaker 1: the woman in the combination seem much less accomplished than

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Speaker 1: she was. It was ultimately a bit sexist, and I said,

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Speaker 1: you know, these two people are not the same. And we,

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Speaker 1: unfortunately were in a moment in American life where we

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Speaker 1: just constantly have to say that, and even though it's

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Speaker 1: not polite, and even though we were raised to not

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Speaker 1: be like that, because you know, especially women of my generation,

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Speaker 1: we really weren't supposed to push back like that, but

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Speaker 1: unfortunately it's the only choice because we are just down

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Speaker 1: a fucking rabbit hole that there's no way out of here.

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Speaker 2: Agreed. I don't know about your family, but my family

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Speaker 2: took a lot of pictures were young, and yet somehow

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Speaker 2: there seems to be more pictures of Donald Trump with

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Speaker 2: Jeffrey Epstein that I have of most people in my

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Speaker 2: family and I together. And then we also find out

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Speaker 2: there's lots of pictures of RFK with Jeffrey Epstein, there's

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Speaker 2: signed birthday books. It really just feels like, at breakneck speed.

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Speaker 2: Now we are finding out that when Jeffrey Epstein described

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Speaker 2: Donald Trump as his best friend for a decade, there's

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Speaker 2: a lot of photographic and other proof.

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Speaker 1: I mean, this is why this was so stupid for

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Speaker 1: Trump to play into at the beginning, right because he

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Speaker 1: knew he had been friends with him for a long time.

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Speaker 1: He knew, I mean, we just we knew this to

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Speaker 1: be true. So the fact that they're just keep coming

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Speaker 1: up more and more photos of Trump and jeff app

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Speaker 1: I mean, he clearly was worried about that. That's why

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Speaker 1: he keeps bringing her off art.

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Speaker 2: So Donald's been doing a really great thing where he

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Speaker 2: compares his different behaviors on subjects, and the behavior on

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Speaker 2: this subject is so clearly different than other subjects.

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Speaker 1: Right, It's a really good example. I just don't get

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Speaker 1: why he would. I mean, I guess, you know, the

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Speaker 1: guy's very visceral and just does stuff just as the

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Speaker 1: next thing in front of him. But it is a

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Speaker 1: little bit chocking to me that this is the way

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Speaker 1: he is doing it and that this is just going

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Speaker 1: to keep going like this. But clearly something's going on.

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Speaker 2: You know. The TURNI phrase I said yet the other

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Speaker 2: day was you know, you don't usually suspect that the

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Speaker 2: Achilles heel is going to be whichever thing it is

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Speaker 2: on the body when it gets to somebody. But we've

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Speaker 2: clearly found it. So this is an interesting turning of

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Speaker 2: events from Talking Points to Momo that La Grand jury's

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Speaker 2: are refusing to indict Ice protesters.

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Speaker 1: Because the mainstream media is so small now and because

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Speaker 1: there's so little reporting out there. I don't think people

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Speaker 1: understand how mad just normal people are. This is not

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Speaker 1: an endorsement in any way, shape or form, because I

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Speaker 1: actually think it's really we're heading down really slippery slope.

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Speaker 1: But clearly Ice is behaving in an illegal way. And

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Speaker 1: then the eye idea is that somehow you're supposed to

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Speaker 1: prosecute people who are behaving illegally towards ICE. And I

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Speaker 1: just think you can see where this is going, right.

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Speaker 1: People don't want to work in a legal framework if

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Speaker 1: the other party isn't. That sort of part of the

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Speaker 1: problem with trump Ism, too, right, is that these ICE

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Speaker 1: people being illegally in this country was a civil violation

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Speaker 1: until like six months ago. So the idea that now

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Speaker 1: these people are being shipped to like death camps, I

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Speaker 1: mean Sea cott is, you know, or Alligator Alcatraz disappearing

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Speaker 1: in the middle of the night. This is not legal.

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Speaker 1: So then the idea is that you have to somehow

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Speaker 1: punish the people who have cooked this all up. You

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Speaker 1: have to punish the people who are protesting them. It

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Speaker 1: doesn't seem in my mind that this is going to

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Speaker 1: work for them. Agreed, You're not going to be able

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Speaker 1: to get this to keep going like this.

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Speaker 2: So the White House put out this really ridiculous order

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Speaker 2: the other day called ending Crime and Disorder on America's Streets,

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Speaker 2: and it basically says that the cities and states need

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Speaker 2: to remove homeless people from the streets.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean this is this push and there's actually

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Speaker 1: I mean, this is all of this stuff where Trump

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Speaker 1: isn't pushes everyone to the right. So they say, we

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Speaker 1: see it with Newsome also signed something. You know, you

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Speaker 1: have a Supreme Court that clearly is so in the

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Speaker 1: tank for Trump and Republicans. They don't care about civil

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Speaker 1: liberties for people who are poor right homeless, as clearly

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Speaker 1: that's where this is going. I do think it's interesting

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Speaker 1: that Trump is clearly trying to distract and trying to

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Speaker 1: ratchet things up. He wants to now send these people,

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Speaker 1: to send them to substance abuse programs. Sure. I mean,

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Speaker 1: as someone who's sober and who really does very much

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Speaker 1: believe that you have to get people sober, and I

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Speaker 1: don't believe in harm reduction. I actually think harm reduction

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Speaker 1: can be really bad. It just seems to me that

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Speaker 1: this is like not really what he wants to do,

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Speaker 1: like that he doesn't really want to get people in

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Speaker 1: rehab that he doesn't want to. You know, it's hard

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Speaker 1: enough to do these things when you actually want to

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Speaker 1: do them. It's harder when you don't really want to

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Speaker 1: do them. Ali Vittally is the host of MSNBC is

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Speaker 1: way too early. Welcome back to Fast Politics, Ali Vitale.

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Speaker 3: World to be back here in Alijelfast.

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Speaker 1: It's so fun to have you on my podcast because

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Speaker 1: I feel like world's collide, you know.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, when MJ becomes the podcast, it's great.

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Speaker 1: It's all it's all one mushy banana Republic. Can you

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Speaker 1: explain to us what where we are? The House has

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Speaker 1: gone home like about a week early, because why wouldn't they?

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Speaker 1: And I mean really, it's because Mike Johnson has no

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Speaker 1: idea how his members are going to vote.

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Speaker 3: Right, It's because the Epstein bus that they drove and

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Speaker 3: created is about to now run them over. And it

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Speaker 3: manifested in Congress I think in a really fascinating way

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Speaker 3: because it ground the entire house to a halt. Now,

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Speaker 3: the dirty little secret here is that as much as

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Speaker 3: they got out of town early, it's not like they

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Speaker 3: had this massive list of two dues that they didn't

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Speaker 3: get done. But really what happened is more of a

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Speaker 3: commentary on the balancing act that the Speaker has to

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Speaker 3: do here between his members who know that they've talked

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Speaker 3: to their constituents for years about Epstein and the White House,

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Speaker 3: who also talked to their constituents about Epstein for years

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Speaker 3: now do not want to get held to release these documents,

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Speaker 3: and that was the balancing act on display for the

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Speaker 3: speaker and ultimately why he had to send his versus

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Speaker 3: home early.

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Speaker 1: That's right, and I would love to get into something

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Speaker 1: a little bit nerdy as opposed to what we do,

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Speaker 1: which is get into stuff which is very nerdy. So

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Speaker 1: there's we are sort of barreling towards a government shutdown,

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Speaker 1: which is the kind of backdrop of all of this.

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Speaker 1: Republicans have passed this BBB, then they passed a recision

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Speaker 1: package where they took they did funding for pep far

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Speaker 1: but also took money away from PBS because it's important

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Speaker 1: if you're going to do one good thing to do

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Speaker 1: lots of other bad stuff while you're in there. And

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Speaker 1: a lot of the PBS that's being punished, which I

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Speaker 1: feel like is such a Trump thing, is like the

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Speaker 1: PBS that's being punished is not the big PBS, right,

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Speaker 1: I mean, they're going to lose little funding, but they'll survive.

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Speaker 1: It's more going to be the tribal radio stations in Oklahoma.

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Speaker 1: So talk to us about how I just want because

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Speaker 1: I'm setting it up for what I want to talk

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Speaker 1: about next. Can you explain to us why this recision

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Speaker 1: package was asked and a little bit about how unusual

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Speaker 1: it is. Yeah.

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Speaker 3: So I actually did an explainer video of this on

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Speaker 3: Instagram of like what it means to do recisions because

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Speaker 3: it's one of those Washington words that's a buzzword that

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Speaker 3: I think people's eyes glaze over, and it's like meant

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Speaker 3: to exclude people from understanding the process. And so basically

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Speaker 3: what they did here through a recisions package is, yes,

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Speaker 3: they have done these before. It usually happens at the

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Speaker 3: end of a fiscal year when you're about to redo

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Speaker 3: the budget or do a continuing resolution that just kind

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Speaker 3: of keeps funding levels the same. Typically people look and

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Speaker 3: they say, oh, well, there's eighty million dollars left over

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Speaker 3: that this one agency didn't use, so we'll claw that back.

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Speaker 3: That'll go back into the pot. What was weird about

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Speaker 3: this recisions package and why it matters so much going

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Speaker 3: forward is because recisions is a partisan mechanism. You can

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Speaker 3: do it with just one party, as Republicans did to

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Speaker 3: take back funds that both parties agreed to fund and

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Speaker 3: appropriate in the first place. And so the reason that

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Speaker 3: Recisions at this juncture is so important is because they

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Speaker 3: did it in parts and fashion. Republicans for the first

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Speaker 3: time ever midstream of a fiscal year clawed back funds

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Speaker 3: that Congress had already appropriated. But they did it during

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Speaker 3: budget season, mere weeks before both parties are supposed to

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Speaker 3: come back together and bipartisanly negotiate another fiscal year package.

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Speaker 3: So Democrats are now left in the position of saying,

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Speaker 3: all right, we negotiated in bipartisan fashion, as we always do,

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Speaker 3: in good faith, to keep the government open, to fund

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Speaker 3: various government programs, and then y'all did an end run

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Speaker 3: that took out everything that we wanted and negotiated for

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Speaker 3: in that process to begin with. So what is the

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Speaker 3: incentive then for Democrats to come back to the table

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Speaker 3: in September and say, okay, we're going to negotiate in

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Speaker 3: good faith, like everything's fine. And oh, by the way,

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Speaker 3: the omb chief for US Vote, who was one of

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Speaker 3: the key people pushing that first recisions package in the

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Speaker 3: interim period, has said, I actually think that Congress's bipartisan

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Speaker 3: funding processes should be way less by partisan and so

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Speaker 3: that just gives Democrats even more of a reason to,

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Speaker 3: if not question, then outright completely doubt that they should

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Speaker 3: be at the negotiating table for this, which just meant

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Speaker 3: that the odds of a government shutdown went way up.

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Speaker 1: And Russvought, architect of Project twenty twenty five, wrote a

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Speaker 1: bunch of it, and also is this sort of in

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Speaker 1: Trump one point zero experimented with impoundment. Impoundment is the

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Speaker 1: thing that the Nixon White House did. It's very sketchy.

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Speaker 1: It's basically Congress puts money towards something and the president says, no,

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Speaker 1: we're not going to do it.

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Speaker 3: So the way that I explained this too, again like

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Speaker 3: in my little Instagram explainer, is like, imagine you, me,

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Speaker 3: and ten of our friends go on vacation. We all

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Speaker 3: put money, We decide to put money in the pot

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Speaker 3: to go to dinner every night, and then one person

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Speaker 3: of us convinces all of us that that money that

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Speaker 3: we said should go to dinner every night actually is

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Speaker 3: just going to get clawed right on back. And some

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Speaker 3: of us are mad and some of us are happy,

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Speaker 3: but it's getting clawed back regardless. And so you're in

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Speaker 3: this position then where everyone is still on the vacation,

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Speaker 3: but that money back in the pot is now living

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Speaker 3: somewhere else that doesn't go to dinner, but all of

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Speaker 3: us still have to eat. So where does that then

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Speaker 3: leave you? And the mechanism is based in law. This

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Speaker 3: is not something that the administration is just doing, but

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Speaker 3: it's a law that is not often used and not

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Speaker 3: in this way. And that's what turns this on its head.

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Speaker 1: And I think we see a lot of times in

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Speaker 1: the Trump administration them using zombie laws to do crazy stuff.

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Speaker 1: Like I've written about this a lot, like the commstock

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Speaker 1: at had wasn't meant for methapristone, or it was in

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Speaker 1: the eighteen hundreds, right, the Passikoma taitus was that alien

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Speaker 1: enemies wasn't meant for that. Like just a lot of

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Speaker 1: times these laws that were never repealed because no one

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Speaker 1: ever thought they'd use them. Now you had this sort

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Speaker 1: of the better Society crew put together a new way

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Speaker 1: of using these laws.

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Speaker 3: But this also strikes me. I remember when states like

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Speaker 3: Arizona or Michigan in the aftermath of Dobbs repealed laws

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Speaker 3: from their books that are from the eighteen hundreds that

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Speaker 3: limited abortion. And I remember some casual political viewers saying

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Speaker 3: to me, well, what's the point. We're not there anymore.

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Speaker 3: It's not like they're going to use them. Here we

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Speaker 3: are now, and you realize why Democratic groups did the

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Speaker 3: work of making sure that they were closing loopholes that

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Speaker 3: could otherwise be exploited, because I think you're right. And

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Speaker 3: you know, when you start talking about procedures for doing

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Speaker 3: things that are literally Latin, you know they're old, but

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Speaker 3: then that must become a tatis act about like how

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Speaker 3: federal troops can be moved into states. I mean, lawmakers

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Speaker 3: were then immediately coming on my show and saying, but

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Speaker 3: this is even more reason for us to have to

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Speaker 3: reform the process. And so what we've seen with Trump

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Speaker 3: time and again, and I think about the Electoral count Act,

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Speaker 3: the reform Act that they did about three years ago

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Speaker 3: between the Senate and the House in bipartisan fashions they.

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Speaker 1: Had to do because yeah, because it was a loophole.

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Speaker 3: Yes, exploit the process of what a vice president can

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Speaker 3: and can't do, as well as some other things at

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Speaker 3: the state level, like we've seen Trump continuously try to

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Speaker 3: press through these loopholes and force the other institutions of

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Speaker 3: government to legislate around them to patch them up. And

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Speaker 3: this is the problem with a Congress that has been

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Speaker 3: completely remade in Trump's image and is held as a

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Speaker 3: majority just by one party, is that there is no

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Speaker 3: impetus then or motivation to close the loopholes.

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Speaker 1: Right, if anything, they want to open loopholes. I want

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Speaker 1: to pull this to something else, which is that after

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Speaker 1: nine to eleven, we put in place all of these

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Speaker 1: emergency powers the Bush administration, and look, everyone was very

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Speaker 1: freaked out, and there was a feeling it was very

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Speaker 1: These emergency powers were actually quite popular. That's how he

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Speaker 1: was able to put them in place. And they and

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Speaker 1: as someone who lived in New York during nine to eleven,

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Speaker 1: I know why because people are really scared and they

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Speaker 1: were willing to give up their civil liberties because they

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Speaker 1: were scared and they wanted to be safe, and they

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Speaker 1: felt that was the only way to make the government safe.

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Speaker 1: But what happened is a lot of those emergency powers

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Speaker 1: are still in the box. So it's twenty years later

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Speaker 1: and the government has way more power than it did

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Speaker 1: in two thousand and one August of two thousand and one,

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Speaker 1: So it does strike me that there really is if

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Speaker 1: American democracy continues, on which we hope it will, and

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Speaker 1: we have midterms that there will really be a kind

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Speaker 1: of there's going to have to eventually be some kind

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Speaker 1: of reckoning here or were completely screwed.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, but those are the stakes, right right. I think

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Speaker 3: about Congress and the ways that this building was I think,

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Speaker 3: in many ways just built on the etiquette of governing

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Speaker 3: in small d democratic fashion, which meant bipartisan compromise and

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Speaker 3: the common idea that if everyone was walking away from

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Speaker 3: the table unhappy, but with something that was normal. And

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Speaker 3: Trump's Washington and other Washington's have exploited this too. That's

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Speaker 3: not to say that Republicans are the first people to

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Speaker 3: take advantage of having both houses of power in Congress

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Speaker 3: and the White House. Certainly that's how we got the

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Speaker 3: Affordable Care Act and other mass pieces of legislation. It's

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Speaker 3: just the motivation points are different, and Trump's is the

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Speaker 3: first administration willing to not just exploit the loopholes, go

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Speaker 3: full force on having majorities in the places that you

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Speaker 3: need them, but then also bowl over all of the

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Speaker 3: cultural and etiquette norms that typically govern Washington. And that's

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Speaker 3: why it feels like it's so out of control. And

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Speaker 3: without checks because that's no longer part of the permission

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Speaker 3: structure here. If anything, no, it's knocked down. And if

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Speaker 3: you were to embrace by partisanship, you know someone like

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Speaker 3: Tom Tillis, for example, who's like, hey, I just got

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Speaker 3: some questions, whether it's about the accept nomination or about

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Speaker 3: the recisions package or whatever. Like you're ostracized from the

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Speaker 3: party and ultimately have to make the choice not to

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Speaker 3: run for reelection. Right, So like, yeah, it's a full

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Speaker 3: party apparatus that now just supports administration. That is a feature,

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Speaker 3: not a bug of it is to test all of

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Speaker 3: the limits in culture, in media in Washington, and policymaking

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Speaker 3: and funding in all of these different arenas.

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Speaker 1: It does feel like all the guardrails that we had

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Speaker 1: in the first Trump administration have been systematically just focused

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Speaker 1: on and attacked and decimated. So, for example, while we

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Speaker 1: have the CBS stuff, which I think is really important,

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Speaker 1: So people listen to this podcasts on Saturday morning, thank

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Speaker 1: you for listening, Love, And on Thursday we saw that

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Speaker 1: the Trump FCC approved this guy dance murder that is

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Speaker 1: conveniently right after the cancelation of Colbert.

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Speaker 3: It was an interesting week of timing. I mean, that's

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Speaker 3: fnal approval on that big merger. Right that has long

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Speaker 3: been talked about as the motivation for CBS settling a

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Speaker 3: lawsuit with Trump that hadn't gone to trial. I mean,

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Speaker 3: the First Amendment right to edit an interview where the

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Speaker 3: meaning wasn't fundamentally changed anyway, is so central, and every

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Speaker 3: news organization does this in print or on television, and

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Speaker 3: so again, like the dubious nature of that lawsuit to

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Speaker 3: begin with is central here. But the fact that this

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Speaker 3: merger went through a week after Colbert, I do think

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Speaker 3: the part of this sort of runs counter is the

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Speaker 3: way that we've seen Colbert, but also The Daily Show

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Speaker 3: and now south Park be unflinching in their criticism not

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Speaker 3: just of the President but of this deal that their

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Speaker 3: parent company has done. Is a bright spot, I think.

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Speaker 3: And as someone who sort of came into a love

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Speaker 3: of news through a love of satirical news, I so

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Speaker 3: appreciate what this little bastion of our industry is doing

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Speaker 3: here because it's reminding people that there is a moral code.

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Speaker 3: And for someone like South Park, for Matt Start and

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Speaker 3: Trey Parker, who just got a one point five billion

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Speaker 3: dollar deal for more episodes and to come in with

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Speaker 3: the season premiere that they came in with, My jaw

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Speaker 3: was on the floor the entire time. The way that

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Speaker 3: as a longtime tilth Park watcher, they are now depicting

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Speaker 3: the president of the United States in the way that

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Speaker 3: they depicted the former president of the Rok Saddam Hussein

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Speaker 3: laying in bed with is the jarring and so flooring

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Speaker 3: and such a commentary on the times. But they are

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Speaker 3: equal opportunity critics.

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Speaker 1: Oh yeah, there are.

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Speaker 3: He's special because they're going after him, is not. They're

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Speaker 3: missing the point.

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Speaker 1: No, yeah, no, they hated Bush too. I mean what's

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Speaker 1: so interesting, though, is you have so much of trump Ism.

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Speaker 1: Is this very kind of one dimensional protect the leader.

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Speaker 1: He doesn't like to be made fun of. He really

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Speaker 1: doesn't like it, right he remember there was I think

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Speaker 1: when they start off with the with the portrait in

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Speaker 1: the Capitol of Colorado. He hated a portrait and he

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Speaker 1: made them change it because he didn't like it, because

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Speaker 1: he didn't like the way he was depicted. So there's

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Speaker 1: so many of these like very kind of kitchy, almost

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Speaker 1: Mussolini esque kind of tropes that are from other times.

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Speaker 1: And to watch this be exploited. I mean, I was

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Speaker 1: watching it and I was like, oh my god, Trump's

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Speaker 1: going to send them to Seacott.

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Speaker 3: I don't think I went quite that far, but I

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Speaker 3: knew but it was going to be some kind of

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Speaker 3: a conniption. And I'm frankly surprised you haven't seen more

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Speaker 3: of a reaction. But if they've got fifty forty nine

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Speaker 3: more of those public service announcements like they aired at

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Speaker 3: the end of that program, I'm like, yeah, I don't.

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Speaker 3: I mean, I don't even know what we could be

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Speaker 3: in for.

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Speaker 1: It's interesting to me because so much of what happened

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Speaker 1: in this twenty four election and even in the twenty

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Speaker 1: sixteen election that worked for Trump was he got in

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Speaker 1: the culture, and the culture was downstream into politics, right,

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Speaker 1: So we got in that. You got the Milk Boys

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Speaker 1: and the you know, Joe Rogan and people who were

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Speaker 1: leading the culture. And his obsession with cable news was

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Speaker 1: always his obsession with like, you get in the culture,

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Speaker 1: you can get the zepstream, you can win office. Yeah.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, it's been so central. And so I actually to

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Speaker 3: bring this conversation into straight connection with the story that

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Speaker 3: we have only been talking about here in Washington, which

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Speaker 3: is Jeffrey Epstein. Like I would put the Epstein story

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Speaker 3: if I were to put it in a column under

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Speaker 3: like the entertainment culture aspect. Right, it's a legal story,

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Speaker 3: but like it's not a politics story. It has political tangents,

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Speaker 3: but like it is a culture story. It is a

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Speaker 3: story about a country that mistrusts institutions. And my first

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Speaker 3: assignment in politics was covering the first Trump campaign. Right,

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Speaker 3: his central grievance was as an outsider who wanted to

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Speaker 3: bring transparency and wipe out the swamp. And he was

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Speaker 3: that crusader for the everyman. And I think that the

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Speaker 3: awareness that the Epstein saga has brought to the larger

434
00:24:43,720 --> 00:24:48,320
Speaker 3: political population is like the guy who was masquerading as

435
00:24:48,359 --> 00:24:53,080
Speaker 3: an everyman is not. And also he's protecting all of

436
00:24:53,160 --> 00:24:57,719
Speaker 3: the other non everyman who are part of this Epstein episode.

437
00:24:58,160 --> 00:25:00,920
Speaker 3: And so I think that's why this has stuck around

438
00:25:00,920 --> 00:25:03,240
Speaker 3: for so long, because it was like the central current

439
00:25:03,600 --> 00:25:08,040
Speaker 3: that Trump ran on from the very beginning was grievance

440
00:25:08,119 --> 00:25:13,080
Speaker 3: against the machine, the establishment, the institutions. And now it's

441
00:25:13,920 --> 00:25:16,480
Speaker 3: always been clear, but like it's extra clear. I think

442
00:25:16,520 --> 00:25:19,520
Speaker 3: even to Maga that you cannot be an outsider still

443
00:25:19,520 --> 00:25:22,240
Speaker 3: and be president of the United States. You probably weren't

444
00:25:22,240 --> 00:25:24,680
Speaker 3: even an outsider when you were just a very wealthy

445
00:25:25,200 --> 00:25:29,120
Speaker 3: reality TV real estate guy, but like now it's much

446
00:25:29,200 --> 00:25:30,080
Speaker 3: more out in the open.

447
00:25:30,760 --> 00:25:35,359
Speaker 1: And I wonder if the cardinal sin of Epstein is

448
00:25:36,200 --> 00:25:39,240
Speaker 1: obviously the many many victims. And I thought Lawrence did

449
00:25:39,240 --> 00:25:42,600
Speaker 1: a really great episode on where they read about that,

450
00:25:42,680 --> 00:25:45,240
Speaker 1: where you just heard it and you're like, oh my god,

451
00:25:45,359 --> 00:25:50,920
Speaker 1: because this sort of fundamentals of these fourteen year old

452
00:25:50,960 --> 00:25:54,800
Speaker 1: girls aging out at eighteen like that is just horrific.

453
00:25:55,000 --> 00:26:00,119
Speaker 1: But I wondered if the thing that his basis so

454
00:26:00,240 --> 00:26:05,760
Speaker 1: stuck on is the idea that this really shows without

455
00:26:05,840 --> 00:26:11,000
Speaker 1: a doubt that he was in a world with Bill Clinton,

456
00:26:11,560 --> 00:26:14,600
Speaker 1: with Jeffrey you know, with all of these academics, with

457
00:26:14,720 --> 00:26:18,320
Speaker 1: all these people who he said he was not in

458
00:26:18,359 --> 00:26:21,200
Speaker 1: the world with, you know, like it's not just the

459
00:26:21,240 --> 00:26:26,719
Speaker 1: exposure of possible stuff with children, which is horrendous, but

460
00:26:26,760 --> 00:26:30,200
Speaker 1: it's really this idea. There's so many pictures of them

461
00:26:30,240 --> 00:26:33,280
Speaker 1: at parties at clubs that you know, it's like here

462
00:26:33,280 --> 00:26:35,720
Speaker 1: I am, I'm going to bring it down, and also

463
00:26:35,800 --> 00:26:36,800
Speaker 1: here I am in a photo.

464
00:26:37,320 --> 00:26:41,320
Speaker 3: Yeah, and proximity is not criminal right, right, no question,

465
00:26:41,560 --> 00:26:44,000
Speaker 3: and Bill Clinton has put out a statement about it.

466
00:26:44,280 --> 00:26:47,320
Speaker 3: I mean we've seen multiple iterations, right, and that's true

467
00:26:47,359 --> 00:26:51,199
Speaker 3: for Trump too, writ right, it is embarrassing and it

468
00:26:51,240 --> 00:26:55,120
Speaker 3: does come at a societal and cost of respect. And

469
00:26:55,160 --> 00:26:59,000
Speaker 3: for Trump that respect is such a central currency. It

470
00:26:59,119 --> 00:27:01,639
Speaker 3: was a large the motivation that he had for running

471
00:27:01,680 --> 00:27:05,080
Speaker 3: for office and then bringing the Republican Party to heal

472
00:27:05,520 --> 00:27:07,760
Speaker 3: and then trying to bend culture to his will.

473
00:27:07,880 --> 00:27:08,040
Speaker 4: Right.

474
00:27:08,119 --> 00:27:11,680
Speaker 3: So like it's always been a very central thought process

475
00:27:11,720 --> 00:27:17,439
Speaker 3: and lends. But I think you're right that we're not

476
00:27:17,560 --> 00:27:20,399
Speaker 3: talking about the embarrassment cost. And it ties back to

477
00:27:20,400 --> 00:27:22,200
Speaker 3: what you were talking about when we were discussing that

478
00:27:22,359 --> 00:27:26,400
Speaker 3: South Park, Right. If he doesn't like the portrayal, portrait

479
00:27:26,760 --> 00:27:32,439
Speaker 3: or figurative otherwise, that's a problem for him. And so

480
00:27:32,520 --> 00:27:34,640
Speaker 3: I think that's the bow that ties all of these

481
00:27:34,680 --> 00:27:40,040
Speaker 3: seemingly disparate threads together, and it connects back to the

482
00:27:40,080 --> 00:27:42,480
Speaker 3: Maga base that you know, we were talking this morning

483
00:27:42,480 --> 00:27:44,320
Speaker 3: on Morning Joe about the idea that this is a

484
00:27:44,359 --> 00:27:47,679
Speaker 3: base that has stayed together under the banner of Trump.

485
00:27:47,920 --> 00:27:51,040
Speaker 3: It has really been a cult of personality for nine years,

486
00:27:51,359 --> 00:27:54,840
Speaker 3: and he himself has been the unifier, but it's about

487
00:27:54,840 --> 00:27:58,880
Speaker 3: to splinter because it's no longer going to be on ballots,

488
00:27:59,040 --> 00:28:00,600
Speaker 3: and MAGA is going to have to find a new

489
00:28:00,600 --> 00:28:04,439
Speaker 3: standard bearer. And already there's a dozen people who are

490
00:28:04,520 --> 00:28:07,320
Speaker 3: vying for that, quietly, privately and out of the line light.

491
00:28:08,040 --> 00:28:15,280
Speaker 1: Yeah, Ali, vitally so smart. I feel smarter after this conversation.

492
00:28:15,520 --> 00:28:20,399
Speaker 1: I know you're always talking to you. Ari Astor is

493
00:28:20,440 --> 00:28:25,000
Speaker 1: the director of bo Is Afraid, Midsummer and the new

494
00:28:25,040 --> 00:28:27,560
Speaker 1: movie Eddington. Welcome to Fast Politics.

495
00:28:27,560 --> 00:28:28,679
Speaker 4: All right, thanks for having me.

496
00:28:28,800 --> 00:28:31,640
Speaker 1: You have like kind of the dream career. I think

497
00:28:31,720 --> 00:28:35,960
Speaker 1: so much about how culture influences politics, how much movies matter,

498
00:28:36,240 --> 00:28:38,680
Speaker 1: and why the rights has been for so long so

499
00:28:38,760 --> 00:28:42,160
Speaker 1: obsessed with movies and the culture and getting a handle

500
00:28:42,200 --> 00:28:46,040
Speaker 1: on them. You have this incredible career, and I want

501
00:28:46,040 --> 00:28:47,840
Speaker 1: you to explain how you got it.

502
00:28:47,960 --> 00:28:51,640
Speaker 4: I would say I tend to follow my impulses and

503
00:28:52,160 --> 00:28:56,760
Speaker 4: do what I feel is interesting to me. And I've

504
00:28:56,800 --> 00:29:01,920
Speaker 4: sort of made a point of not being strategic, which

505
00:29:02,600 --> 00:29:06,680
Speaker 4: I might need to be that's quite soon. But I

506
00:29:06,720 --> 00:29:11,600
Speaker 4: have found that when I do think strategically right, like, well,

507
00:29:11,680 --> 00:29:13,880
Speaker 4: you know, when I start thinking about, you know, whatever,

508
00:29:13,920 --> 00:29:17,000
Speaker 4: what the market wants what people want, I just lose

509
00:29:17,440 --> 00:29:21,320
Speaker 4: all energy. I can't summon the energy to even get going.

510
00:29:21,560 --> 00:29:24,320
Speaker 4: So ultimately, I just need to be kind of possessed

511
00:29:24,320 --> 00:29:26,800
Speaker 4: by something and I need to have like a problem

512
00:29:26,840 --> 00:29:30,080
Speaker 4: I need to kind of solve for myself. And sometimes

513
00:29:30,120 --> 00:29:32,640
Speaker 4: that's just like an image that I can't banish from

514
00:29:32,640 --> 00:29:35,360
Speaker 4: my mind or and sometimes it's an idea that I

515
00:29:35,400 --> 00:29:38,440
Speaker 4: need to kind of work through, find my way, you know,

516
00:29:39,320 --> 00:29:41,760
Speaker 4: kind of move through the guts of something and come

517
00:29:41,760 --> 00:29:42,200
Speaker 4: out of it.

518
00:29:42,440 --> 00:29:50,600
Speaker 1: Eddington is this movie that is political and artistic and

519
00:29:51,080 --> 00:29:54,640
Speaker 1: all of the things. How did you get involved in this?

520
00:29:54,840 --> 00:29:57,920
Speaker 1: Like was it COVID just sort of get us to

521
00:29:58,320 --> 00:30:01,760
Speaker 1: how you got involved in this? You had this idea, Well.

522
00:30:01,640 --> 00:30:06,360
Speaker 4: It came out of living in the world and feeling

523
00:30:06,400 --> 00:30:09,480
Speaker 4: that I was in hell and wanting to try to

524
00:30:09,520 --> 00:30:12,960
Speaker 4: get my hand around it. And so you know, it's

525
00:30:13,080 --> 00:30:17,240
Speaker 4: it's a movie about what this moment feels like to me,

526
00:30:17,400 --> 00:30:20,640
Speaker 4: what America feels like. I'm trying to pull back as

527
00:30:20,680 --> 00:30:24,040
Speaker 4: far as I can and describe the structure of reality

528
00:30:24,080 --> 00:30:26,640
Speaker 4: at the moment, which seems to be that you know,

529
00:30:26,720 --> 00:30:30,400
Speaker 4: nobody can agree on anything or on what is happening,

530
00:30:31,080 --> 00:30:34,120
Speaker 4: and where you know, everybody is more or less kind

531
00:30:34,120 --> 00:30:36,680
Speaker 4: of unreachable to each other, even if you share the

532
00:30:36,720 --> 00:30:40,640
Speaker 4: same like politics, we're all kind of fortressed off. And

533
00:30:41,360 --> 00:30:43,760
Speaker 4: I wrote the movie in a state of fear and

534
00:30:43,760 --> 00:30:49,160
Speaker 4: anxiety and dread, and that dread has only increased since

535
00:30:49,200 --> 00:30:52,120
Speaker 4: writing it and since making it. And then at the

536
00:30:52,120 --> 00:30:54,680
Speaker 4: same time, I, you know, I'm a genre filmmaker, and

537
00:30:55,040 --> 00:30:58,200
Speaker 4: I wanted to make something fun and exciting and surprising.

538
00:30:58,280 --> 00:31:01,640
Speaker 1: And so, you know, which I feel like is a

539
00:31:01,720 --> 00:31:05,200
Speaker 1: the media was, and it's a theme I deal with

540
00:31:05,600 --> 00:31:07,720
Speaker 1: not so much in my art but in my life.

541
00:31:08,160 --> 00:31:12,480
Speaker 1: Feeling Dad is a particularly dark moment in American life.

542
00:31:12,720 --> 00:31:15,200
Speaker 1: COVID was also a dark moment in American life. It

543
00:31:15,280 --> 00:31:17,280
Speaker 1: was dark, but it was I don't know for me.

544
00:31:17,480 --> 00:31:19,800
Speaker 1: I'd had a grandfather who had lived through the nineteen

545
00:31:19,840 --> 00:31:23,239
Speaker 1: eighteen flu pandemic. I sort of felt that there was

546
00:31:24,000 --> 00:31:27,560
Speaker 1: even if it was something I had not ever lived through.

547
00:31:27,680 --> 00:31:30,360
Speaker 1: You know, I find a lot of comfort to history

548
00:31:30,600 --> 00:31:33,480
Speaker 1: through the fact that, like, none of this is unprecedented,

549
00:31:33,800 --> 00:31:36,720
Speaker 1: but this is harder, this moment now.

550
00:31:36,640 --> 00:31:40,560
Speaker 4: Well, because this is in many ways unprecedented. We've never

551
00:31:40,600 --> 00:31:42,959
Speaker 4: been here in this country. A lot of things are

552
00:31:43,000 --> 00:31:47,280
Speaker 4: coalescing right now that are new, and it feels like

553
00:31:47,320 --> 00:31:50,600
Speaker 4: we are living through the collapse of something and I'm

554
00:31:50,600 --> 00:31:54,120
Speaker 4: not seeing any real countervailing force against that. So it's

555
00:31:54,320 --> 00:31:57,560
Speaker 4: just kind of happening at the moment, and I feel

556
00:31:57,600 --> 00:32:01,040
Speaker 4: that something else is coming, and you know, big tech

557
00:32:01,120 --> 00:32:05,000
Speaker 4: and finance are ushering these things in, and they also

558
00:32:05,080 --> 00:32:07,440
Speaker 4: seem to be the ones who are warning us, and

559
00:32:07,480 --> 00:32:09,880
Speaker 4: I think they think that that abdicates them from like,

560
00:32:09,960 --> 00:32:12,960
Speaker 4: you know, responsibility, where they're saying like, look, we're telling

561
00:32:13,040 --> 00:32:15,440
Speaker 4: you this could be disastrous, like you know, so just

562
00:32:15,560 --> 00:32:18,080
Speaker 4: sty and it's like, well, so we should do it.

563
00:32:18,200 --> 00:32:21,440
Speaker 1: But we're gonna do it anyway. It could be disastrous,

564
00:32:21,600 --> 00:32:25,200
Speaker 1: but you understand we're gonna do whatever corrupt thing it

565
00:32:25,280 --> 00:32:27,120
Speaker 1: is anyway because vibes.

566
00:32:27,080 --> 00:32:29,280
Speaker 4: Which is human nature, you know, which is like, you know,

567
00:32:29,440 --> 00:32:32,040
Speaker 4: if we can, we will, And we've been telling stories

568
00:32:32,080 --> 00:32:35,719
Speaker 4: about this for I was gonna say decades, but really centuries,

569
00:32:35,760 --> 00:32:37,840
Speaker 4: you know, I mean the Genie model. If we can,

570
00:32:37,920 --> 00:32:39,920
Speaker 4: we will, and here we are and we are.

571
00:32:40,320 --> 00:32:44,520
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's amazing and so dark. Do you think because

572
00:32:44,560 --> 00:32:47,959
Speaker 1: I think this, that COVID got us to this moment?

573
00:32:48,320 --> 00:32:50,600
Speaker 4: No, I think COVID was an inflection point. I think

574
00:32:50,600 --> 00:32:52,800
Speaker 4: we were already on this path because we were already

575
00:32:52,880 --> 00:32:55,480
Speaker 4: living in the Internet, we were living on our phones,

576
00:32:55,560 --> 00:32:58,600
Speaker 4: we were all kind of like in our algorithms. You know,

577
00:32:58,600 --> 00:33:01,280
Speaker 4: we're already siloed off. It feels like the moment at

578
00:33:01,280 --> 00:33:03,560
Speaker 4: which we became kind of stranded there, you know, because

579
00:33:03,600 --> 00:33:06,560
Speaker 4: our public lives became on hold, and suddenly feels like

580
00:33:06,600 --> 00:33:09,400
Speaker 4: whatever link we were like holding on to that, you know,

581
00:33:09,520 --> 00:33:13,520
Speaker 4: kind of tethered us to that old world before all

582
00:33:13,560 --> 00:33:16,680
Speaker 4: of this, it feels like that was severed during COVID,

583
00:33:17,080 --> 00:33:19,600
Speaker 4: Like lockdown is over, but we're still living in the

584
00:33:19,640 --> 00:33:22,800
Speaker 4: process of whatever began there. And I think that's why

585
00:33:22,960 --> 00:33:24,920
Speaker 4: it's hard to talk about it is because we haven't

586
00:33:24,960 --> 00:33:25,800
Speaker 4: metabolized it.

587
00:33:26,040 --> 00:33:29,880
Speaker 1: Yeah, So in this movie you explore a lot of

588
00:33:29,880 --> 00:33:34,320
Speaker 1: the ideas of what like politics look like during COVID, right,

589
00:33:34,440 --> 00:33:38,600
Speaker 1: the politics of lockdowns, the politics of all of that.

590
00:33:39,160 --> 00:33:43,320
Speaker 1: Did it give you more clarity about sort of COVID?

591
00:33:43,400 --> 00:33:45,520
Speaker 1: Did you feel you got like, I just wrote this

592
00:33:45,560 --> 00:33:49,640
Speaker 1: book about my childhood and my parents and all sorts

593
00:33:49,640 --> 00:33:52,560
Speaker 1: of shit like that, and in it, for whatever reason,

594
00:33:52,720 --> 00:33:55,880
Speaker 1: I did actually feel I sort of understood things better

595
00:33:56,120 --> 00:33:58,720
Speaker 1: when I was finished with it, which I kind of

596
00:33:58,760 --> 00:34:01,360
Speaker 1: bristle it because I always feel like if it's art,

597
00:34:01,560 --> 00:34:04,560
Speaker 1: it shouldn't work for you emotionally, like things shouldn't be

598
00:34:04,600 --> 00:34:07,360
Speaker 1: two things, they should only be one thing, and that

599
00:34:07,440 --> 00:34:10,359
Speaker 1: you shouldn't But for whatever reason, for me, it gave

600
00:34:10,400 --> 00:34:12,680
Speaker 1: me a lot of clarity. Did you find you got

601
00:34:12,680 --> 00:34:16,560
Speaker 1: clarity from writing this making this movie and also did

602
00:34:16,600 --> 00:34:19,360
Speaker 1: it change the way you think of that period?

603
00:34:19,680 --> 00:34:22,320
Speaker 4: Well? I think part of why I began the project

604
00:34:22,360 --> 00:34:23,759
Speaker 4: was because I did want to grapple with it, and

605
00:34:23,760 --> 00:34:25,600
Speaker 4: I did want to understand it, and I think, you know,

606
00:34:25,719 --> 00:34:28,400
Speaker 4: and because I was really afraid. I am really afraid

607
00:34:28,400 --> 00:34:32,120
Speaker 4: of what is happening, and I think best way to

608
00:34:32,160 --> 00:34:34,200
Speaker 4: deal with that fear is to try to understand it.

609
00:34:34,280 --> 00:34:36,319
Speaker 4: But no, if you know, I mean, but also the

610
00:34:36,360 --> 00:34:39,080
Speaker 4: movie is also just trying to describe what that at

611
00:34:39,160 --> 00:34:42,319
Speaker 4: the sphere is and what it feels like, and so

612
00:34:42,719 --> 00:34:45,880
Speaker 4: in some ways, you know, the film is there's something

613
00:34:46,000 --> 00:34:49,960
Speaker 4: maybe like bordering on the diagnostic, but there's no like,

614
00:34:50,080 --> 00:34:53,320
Speaker 4: I don't know what the remedy is, right. If anything,

615
00:34:53,360 --> 00:34:57,400
Speaker 4: I wanted to dramatize this cacophony that we're in and

616
00:34:57,440 --> 00:35:00,680
Speaker 4: we're all yelling over each other at each other, and

617
00:35:01,040 --> 00:35:04,000
Speaker 4: we're trying to make we have points to make, but

618
00:35:04,040 --> 00:35:06,800
Speaker 4: at the same time we're being kind of pummeled twenty

619
00:35:06,800 --> 00:35:10,080
Speaker 4: four to seven by messaging, and we're being filled with stuff.

620
00:35:10,360 --> 00:35:13,520
Speaker 4: It sometimes becomes hard to see anything that's become ambient.

621
00:35:14,080 --> 00:35:16,440
Speaker 4: And if anything, I wanted to, you know, kind of

622
00:35:16,719 --> 00:35:20,719
Speaker 4: dramatize that kind of incoherent miasma and then give a

623
00:35:20,760 --> 00:35:24,360
Speaker 4: sense of something that is maybe you know, hovering above it,

624
00:35:24,560 --> 00:35:28,840
Speaker 4: that is operating independently of all these stories, and that

625
00:35:29,000 --> 00:35:33,600
Speaker 4: is ultimately changing all of these people without them quite

626
00:35:33,800 --> 00:35:37,279
Speaker 4: being able to gauge the magnitude of that change that's

627
00:35:37,320 --> 00:35:38,760
Speaker 4: happening right now.

628
00:35:38,960 --> 00:35:43,640
Speaker 1: Everyone is very scared to talk about politics, like there

629
00:35:43,680 --> 00:35:46,239
Speaker 1: are very few people who are brave right now for

630
00:35:46,360 --> 00:35:49,520
Speaker 1: whatever reason. Why are you one of them? And why

631
00:35:49,560 --> 00:35:50,439
Speaker 1: am I one of them?

632
00:35:51,000 --> 00:35:53,160
Speaker 4: Look, I don't know if I'm brave. I just know

633
00:35:53,760 --> 00:35:57,279
Speaker 4: that huge things are happening right now. It's a very

634
00:35:57,320 --> 00:36:00,560
Speaker 4: scary time. I don't understand where we are. I don't

635
00:36:00,920 --> 00:36:03,080
Speaker 4: know where we're going, but I have a feeling about

636
00:36:03,120 --> 00:36:06,680
Speaker 4: where we're headed. And I didn't know how I could

637
00:36:06,680 --> 00:36:09,640
Speaker 4: make any other movie at this moment, and look, it

638
00:36:09,719 --> 00:36:12,080
Speaker 4: is a period piece, it's looking back. But I started

639
00:36:12,080 --> 00:36:15,680
Speaker 4: writing it in twenty twenty. When I first started writing it,

640
00:36:15,680 --> 00:36:19,040
Speaker 4: it was right up to the minute, and then I realized, like,

641
00:36:19,080 --> 00:36:22,680
Speaker 4: we're living in a time where everything moves way too fast,

642
00:36:23,200 --> 00:36:27,879
Speaker 4: nothing lasts, everything is replaced immediately by something new. And

643
00:36:28,080 --> 00:36:30,239
Speaker 4: I knew that if I tried to like get my

644
00:36:30,400 --> 00:36:33,600
Speaker 4: hands around anything contemporary, I would kind of need to

645
00:36:33,640 --> 00:36:36,279
Speaker 4: just like lock in, especially if I'm trying to something

646
00:36:36,280 --> 00:36:38,000
Speaker 4: that it's not like invented, and a lot of this

647
00:36:38,080 --> 00:36:41,120
Speaker 4: movie invented. The stories are, but I knew that I

648
00:36:41,160 --> 00:36:43,200
Speaker 4: was just gonna have to choose like a week, and

649
00:36:43,280 --> 00:36:45,879
Speaker 4: it felt like it felt like that particular week where

650
00:36:45,880 --> 00:36:48,239
Speaker 4: I started writing, something was in the air that I

651
00:36:48,440 --> 00:36:50,719
Speaker 4: that was very distinct. I hadn't felt it before. It

652
00:36:50,760 --> 00:36:54,640
Speaker 4: was familiar, but everything was fraught in a new way.

653
00:36:54,680 --> 00:36:57,040
Speaker 4: It felt like things had reached like a boiling point

654
00:36:57,280 --> 00:37:01,200
Speaker 4: and the only thing that could happen next if things

655
00:37:01,200 --> 00:37:04,120
Speaker 4: were allowed to kind of stay at this like fever pitch,

656
00:37:04,560 --> 00:37:07,480
Speaker 4: and if people were going to continue to be agitated

657
00:37:07,520 --> 00:37:11,360
Speaker 4: in this way, was things were going to lead to violence.

658
00:37:11,600 --> 00:37:13,200
Speaker 4: And I didn't know if it was going to happen tomorrow.

659
00:37:13,239 --> 00:37:14,920
Speaker 4: I didn't know if it was going to happen, you know,

660
00:37:15,000 --> 00:37:17,279
Speaker 4: within years. But it just felt like, okay, this is

661
00:37:17,600 --> 00:37:21,839
Speaker 4: if nobody like decelerates this like we're in real danger here.

662
00:37:22,200 --> 00:37:24,440
Speaker 4: And so that's when I started writing it. And it

663
00:37:24,480 --> 00:37:26,720
Speaker 4: was helpful to be able to say, Okay, it's this week,

664
00:37:26,920 --> 00:37:31,480
Speaker 4: it's it's late May early June twenty twenty. And for

665
00:37:31,600 --> 00:37:35,880
Speaker 4: that week, I started a bunch of burner accounts on Twitter,

666
00:37:35,960 --> 00:37:39,160
Speaker 4: and I got myself into a bunch of different algorithms,

667
00:37:39,440 --> 00:37:41,160
Speaker 4: and I found that I could not get myself out

668
00:37:41,160 --> 00:37:42,760
Speaker 4: of any of them, which was scary.

669
00:37:43,040 --> 00:37:46,360
Speaker 1: What does that mean? Exactly? Like, once you started getting

670
00:37:46,360 --> 00:37:48,879
Speaker 1: a certain kind of information, you couldn't try to get

671
00:37:48,920 --> 00:37:49,680
Speaker 1: different information.

672
00:37:50,480 --> 00:37:53,439
Speaker 4: I could maybe get some different information, I couldn't stop

673
00:37:53,440 --> 00:37:57,600
Speaker 4: perceiving a certain kind of information, you know. And I

674
00:37:57,640 --> 00:38:01,799
Speaker 4: would get myself into several different you know, one that

675
00:38:01,840 --> 00:38:04,520
Speaker 4: would be you know, very kind of very left. Then

676
00:38:04,640 --> 00:38:06,759
Speaker 4: I would go down like a more kind of traditional

677
00:38:06,800 --> 00:38:10,640
Speaker 4: conservative rabbit hole. Then I'd go down like a Nazi

678
00:38:10,719 --> 00:38:12,960
Speaker 4: rabbit hole, and I couldn't get myself out of any

679
00:38:12,960 --> 00:38:16,400
Speaker 4: of them. And another really important part of making this was,

680
00:38:16,840 --> 00:38:19,240
Speaker 4: I guess writing it was going out to New Mexico,

681
00:38:19,239 --> 00:38:20,680
Speaker 4: which is where I'm from, which is where the film

682
00:38:20,760 --> 00:38:23,480
Speaker 4: film is set, driving around the state and meeting a

683
00:38:23,520 --> 00:38:27,000
Speaker 4: lot of people, going to different counties, talking to sheriffs,

684
00:38:27,360 --> 00:38:31,160
Speaker 4: going to different small towns and talking to mayors, police chiefs,

685
00:38:31,239 --> 00:38:35,120
Speaker 4: public officials, going to pueblos, and just getting a really

686
00:38:35,360 --> 00:38:40,360
Speaker 4: broad but also human picture of the state, which the

687
00:38:40,400 --> 00:38:43,120
Speaker 4: state is an interesting microcosm for America because it's a

688
00:38:43,120 --> 00:38:44,839
Speaker 4: blue state, but all of it, but most of its

689
00:38:44,880 --> 00:38:48,200
Speaker 4: small towns, are red. And it was just important to

690
00:38:48,239 --> 00:38:50,440
Speaker 4: get away from myself in that sense. I wasn't just

691
00:38:50,520 --> 00:38:53,400
Speaker 4: playing with army men, and so I wasn't just dealing

692
00:38:53,440 --> 00:38:55,839
Speaker 4: with the algorithms, but I was also dealing with the

693
00:38:55,840 --> 00:38:58,279
Speaker 4: effects that those algorithms were having on all these people,

694
00:38:58,280 --> 00:39:00,600
Speaker 4: because all these people are really living on the internet,

695
00:39:00,680 --> 00:39:02,080
Speaker 4: especially in the small towns.

696
00:39:02,320 --> 00:39:04,520
Speaker 1: I was going to ask you about New Mexico because

697
00:39:04,560 --> 00:39:08,439
Speaker 1: I also have a real relationship with the state, and

698
00:39:09,000 --> 00:39:12,719
Speaker 1: we had we actually had someone on from the government

699
00:39:12,960 --> 00:39:17,920
Speaker 1: the New Mexican elected there who right before the election,

700
00:39:18,560 --> 00:39:20,920
Speaker 1: and he said he thought, for shir Harris was going

701
00:39:21,000 --> 00:39:24,839
Speaker 1: to lose that he saw a lot of New Mexicans

702
00:39:24,960 --> 00:39:28,640
Speaker 1: who just were going for Trump, and Jesse and I

703
00:39:28,719 --> 00:39:35,319
Speaker 1: both were like old shit. Really, I wondered if you

704
00:39:35,320 --> 00:39:38,880
Speaker 1: could talk about, like, New Mexico is such an interesting

705
00:39:38,880 --> 00:39:41,759
Speaker 1: state because it's a blue state. It has a lot

706
00:39:41,800 --> 00:39:45,040
Speaker 1: of guns, right, a lot of guns, like a lot

707
00:39:45,040 --> 00:39:48,080
Speaker 1: of guns, a lot of murder. It has a lot

708
00:39:48,120 --> 00:39:51,640
Speaker 1: of red stuff. It has also a lot of weirdness,

709
00:39:51,680 --> 00:39:55,120
Speaker 1: Like it's just a genuinely weird, you know, I think

710
00:39:55,160 --> 00:39:58,920
Speaker 1: in a wonderful, spiritual, strange way. You know, it's got

711
00:39:58,920 --> 00:40:01,439
Speaker 1: the lightning, it's got the aliens, it's got it all.

712
00:40:01,600 --> 00:40:04,200
Speaker 1: But it's also very small. And the fact that you're

713
00:40:04,239 --> 00:40:08,160
Speaker 1: saying people are so online in these small towns is

714
00:40:08,280 --> 00:40:11,120
Speaker 1: kind of I mean, I guess it makes sense, but

715
00:40:11,520 --> 00:40:14,200
Speaker 1: it just is surprising to me because there's just not

716
00:40:14,320 --> 00:40:16,480
Speaker 1: a ton of infrastructure to get online.

717
00:40:16,840 --> 00:40:20,480
Speaker 4: Well, we're all very online. It's very difficult to extricate

718
00:40:20,520 --> 00:40:23,480
Speaker 4: yourself from the system. I also found that it was

719
00:40:23,560 --> 00:40:26,160
Speaker 4: very useful to meet a lot of these people because

720
00:40:26,440 --> 00:40:29,359
Speaker 4: at the time of writing the film and directing it

721
00:40:29,640 --> 00:40:32,480
Speaker 4: and shooting it, you know, Biden was president. The governor

722
00:40:32,520 --> 00:40:34,920
Speaker 4: of New Mexico is a Democrat and is a figure

723
00:40:34,920 --> 00:40:38,240
Speaker 4: of controversy. Yeah, And I found that I was talking

724
00:40:38,320 --> 00:40:41,239
Speaker 4: to a lot of people on the right who you know,

725
00:40:41,320 --> 00:40:44,920
Speaker 4: did not hold the same convictions as me, but they

726
00:40:44,960 --> 00:40:47,600
Speaker 4: were passionate, and they were really upset, and they felt

727
00:40:47,600 --> 00:40:51,479
Speaker 4: ignored and they felt condescended to and I found them

728
00:40:51,520 --> 00:40:54,239
Speaker 4: just on a human level. I found them, you know,

729
00:40:54,480 --> 00:40:57,319
Speaker 4: quite compelling and interesting, and I liked a lot of them.

730
00:40:57,440 --> 00:40:59,480
Speaker 4: And then a lot of the people I was meeting

731
00:40:59,480 --> 00:41:03,040
Speaker 4: who were on the left were very satisfied with the

732
00:41:03,040 --> 00:41:07,320
Speaker 4: status quo, were very dismissive sometimes like kind of smugly

733
00:41:07,360 --> 00:41:12,400
Speaker 4: dismissive of any concerns that contradicted their talking points. And

734
00:41:12,480 --> 00:41:14,359
Speaker 4: I found that they were giving me a lot of

735
00:41:14,400 --> 00:41:17,400
Speaker 4: talking points as opposed talking to me as a person.

736
00:41:17,640 --> 00:41:20,560
Speaker 4: And that was really useful too, to see, like, you know,

737
00:41:20,640 --> 00:41:23,160
Speaker 4: what if I make a film that is like that

738
00:41:23,640 --> 00:41:27,120
Speaker 4: does not reflect this experience as well, Like I'm failing

739
00:41:27,440 --> 00:41:30,960
Speaker 4: in a very serious way, because there is a reason

740
00:41:31,040 --> 00:41:33,440
Speaker 4: that things are moving in this direction. And I felt

741
00:41:33,440 --> 00:41:36,040
Speaker 4: the same you did. At the end of twenty twenty four.

742
00:41:36,080 --> 00:41:38,520
Speaker 4: I was like, I see where this is going, and

743
00:41:38,960 --> 00:41:40,839
Speaker 4: I think there are a lot of reasons for that.

744
00:41:41,080 --> 00:41:43,319
Speaker 4: One of The biggest was Biden taking so long to

745
00:41:43,320 --> 00:41:46,480
Speaker 4: step down. But we've been stuck in the same system,

746
00:41:46,560 --> 00:41:50,759
Speaker 4: with the same basic people for a long time, and

747
00:41:51,200 --> 00:41:54,440
Speaker 4: Trump was always a response to that system, and to

748
00:41:54,560 --> 00:41:58,359
Speaker 4: not respond to Trump with something new was always going

749
00:41:58,400 --> 00:42:00,719
Speaker 4: to be a very big mistake. There's going to be

750
00:42:00,960 --> 00:42:04,000
Speaker 4: a long post mortem on this one, but I.

751
00:42:03,920 --> 00:42:06,800
Speaker 1: Think you're right, and I mean again, it's the left's

752
00:42:07,120 --> 00:42:11,520
Speaker 1: rejection of economic populism, right, I mean, left hand opportunity

753
00:42:11,520 --> 00:42:16,239
Speaker 1: with Sanders in twenty sixteen to go along with with populism,

754
00:42:16,320 --> 00:42:20,120
Speaker 1: and it decided it was too scary, and so that's

755
00:42:20,120 --> 00:42:23,560
Speaker 1: how we got here. And Biden was a candidate that

756
00:42:23,560 --> 00:42:27,200
Speaker 1: people thought people wouldn't vote against. That that was the

757
00:42:27,280 --> 00:42:30,840
Speaker 1: thinking I think. I mean, to watch a party struggle

758
00:42:30,920 --> 00:42:33,719
Speaker 1: with wanting to have it both ways, to wanting to

759
00:42:34,040 --> 00:42:39,400
Speaker 1: be for working people but also protect very wealthy people.

760
00:42:39,840 --> 00:42:42,160
Speaker 1: I don't know that you can thread that needle. And

761
00:42:42,200 --> 00:42:44,400
Speaker 1: in fact, what we see with trump Ism is Trump

762
00:42:44,520 --> 00:42:48,279
Speaker 1: pretends to be for working people, but ultimately, I mean,

763
00:42:48,360 --> 00:42:51,200
Speaker 1: the two fractions want totally different things.

764
00:42:51,400 --> 00:42:55,600
Speaker 4: Yeah, and so there's a futility there that I wanted

765
00:42:55,800 --> 00:42:57,799
Speaker 4: to be in the movie, to be felt in the.

766
00:42:57,719 --> 00:42:59,560
Speaker 1: Movie What are you going to do next?

767
00:43:00,200 --> 00:43:02,640
Speaker 4: I'm trying to figure that out. But there are a

768
00:43:02,680 --> 00:43:04,959
Speaker 4: lot of old projects that I've had in my back

769
00:43:04,960 --> 00:43:09,360
Speaker 4: pocket that just feel less pertinent right now. It just

770
00:43:09,400 --> 00:43:13,760
Speaker 4: feels like I feel like there's a tendency to retreat

771
00:43:13,760 --> 00:43:16,799
Speaker 4: into the past when the present is like really unpleasant

772
00:43:16,960 --> 00:43:18,799
Speaker 4: and when the future is something that's hard to even

773
00:43:18,800 --> 00:43:22,280
Speaker 4: look at or fathom. That manifests in like two big ways,

774
00:43:22,320 --> 00:43:25,600
Speaker 4: which is either nostalgia for the past or an obsession

775
00:43:25,640 --> 00:43:29,000
Speaker 4: with trauma to explain the present like, well, this happens,

776
00:43:29,080 --> 00:43:31,920
Speaker 4: That's why I'm here, and then getting stuck in that loop.

777
00:43:32,200 --> 00:43:34,000
Speaker 4: And I want to see if there's a way to

778
00:43:34,120 --> 00:43:36,439
Speaker 4: not do that in my own work. And I think

779
00:43:36,520 --> 00:43:39,680
Speaker 4: this was an attempt at that, and that's what I

780
00:43:39,760 --> 00:43:43,439
Speaker 4: want to do, because I think the moment is I've

781
00:43:43,520 --> 00:43:47,120
Speaker 4: never lived through anything like this. I've never had this

782
00:43:47,280 --> 00:43:49,960
Speaker 4: relationship to the future that I have now, which is

783
00:43:49,960 --> 00:43:51,080
Speaker 4: that I don't really believe in it.

784
00:43:51,160 --> 00:43:52,879
Speaker 1: You don't believe it's going to happen, or you don't

785
00:43:52,880 --> 00:43:54,000
Speaker 1: believe it's going to be good.

786
00:43:54,200 --> 00:43:55,600
Speaker 4: I don't believe it's going to be good.

787
00:43:55,920 --> 00:43:59,200
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that too, And a big part of it.

788
00:43:59,120 --> 00:44:03,279
Speaker 4: Is because there are no countervailing ideas, Like there are

789
00:44:03,360 --> 00:44:08,640
Speaker 4: no ideas for the future that feel like possibilities in

790
00:44:09,239 --> 00:44:12,120
Speaker 4: contrast to the track we're on, the trajectory that we're on.

791
00:44:12,160 --> 00:44:14,759
Speaker 4: And I think it's also because we're so like the

792
00:44:14,800 --> 00:44:18,200
Speaker 4: system is so fixed, even as in some ways it's

793
00:44:18,200 --> 00:44:22,480
Speaker 4: being you know, dismantled. Where there is power, it's too big.

794
00:44:22,600 --> 00:44:25,800
Speaker 4: It's like it's just we're completely dwarfed and we're stuck

795
00:44:25,840 --> 00:44:28,399
Speaker 4: in a system that that you know, was given to

796
00:44:28,480 --> 00:44:31,759
Speaker 4: us by that big power. I mean, even this right now,

797
00:44:31,800 --> 00:44:34,440
Speaker 4: this conversation we're having, it's going to be on Spotify

798
00:44:34,480 --> 00:44:35,799
Speaker 4: and it's going to be on It's going to be

799
00:44:35,840 --> 00:44:37,840
Speaker 4: on a rhythm. And I think a big part of

800
00:44:37,880 --> 00:44:40,680
Speaker 4: this is that the idea of collective action is like

801
00:44:40,760 --> 00:44:45,360
Speaker 4: beyond reaching. It's not even a possibility. But how, you know,

802
00:44:45,400 --> 00:44:47,000
Speaker 4: how could that change? I don't know.

803
00:44:47,400 --> 00:44:50,799
Speaker 1: Well, I'm sorry to get into asking you questions that

804
00:44:50,880 --> 00:44:54,080
Speaker 1: were not answerable, but I'm really glad you tried to

805
00:44:54,120 --> 00:44:54,719
Speaker 1: answer them.

806
00:44:55,120 --> 00:44:56,839
Speaker 4: Thanks thanks for having me and.

807
00:44:58,920 --> 00:45:03,560
Speaker 1: No full Jesse Cannon, my.

808
00:45:03,680 --> 00:45:07,680
Speaker 2: Junk fast, Tulsa Gabbert, a person who I can't believe

809
00:45:07,760 --> 00:45:10,759
Speaker 2: anyone ever had faith in doing the right thing. Is

810
00:45:10,800 --> 00:45:16,280
Speaker 2: pushing the debunked Russian propaganda that Obama came after. Glorious,

811
00:45:16,320 --> 00:45:18,960
Speaker 2: mister Trump, I'm going to shock you here. It's really

812
00:45:19,000 --> 00:45:23,000
Speaker 2: easy to show that what she's citing is objectively false.

813
00:45:23,520 --> 00:45:29,319
Speaker 1: Yeah, so this has been debunked already. I actually think

814
00:45:29,360 --> 00:45:32,880
Speaker 1: it's like a weird democratic conspiracy theory to make the

815
00:45:33,000 --> 00:45:38,720
Speaker 1: lamest case possible so that it's clearly not anything. Tulsea

816
00:45:38,800 --> 00:45:44,200
Speaker 1: Gabbert says that Hillary Clinton was taking a daily regime

817
00:45:44,239 --> 00:45:47,640
Speaker 1: of heavy tranquilizers while she was Secretary of State. I

818
00:45:47,719 --> 00:45:51,640
Speaker 1: keep having conversations with people about whether or not the

819
00:45:52,280 --> 00:45:57,600
Speaker 1: stupidness of this will unravel it before they end American democracy,

820
00:45:57,800 --> 00:46:00,279
Speaker 1: and it's like fifty to fifty right now. But there

821
00:46:00,320 --> 00:46:02,680
Speaker 1: really is a lot of stupid crap going on here,

822
00:46:02,719 --> 00:46:05,440
Speaker 1: and this is really a good example of it. My

823
00:46:05,560 --> 00:46:09,480
Speaker 1: favorite part is that Gabber keeps quoting from different sources.

824
00:46:09,719 --> 00:46:13,279
Speaker 1: She's not that organized. She has a lot of conspiracies

825
00:46:13,280 --> 00:46:18,000
Speaker 1: about Clinton and tranquoisers also, and then Barack Obama doing treason.

826
00:46:18,200 --> 00:46:21,480
Speaker 1: I want to say one last thing about Hillary Clinton.

827
00:46:21,840 --> 00:46:25,080
Speaker 1: She is not president. She is not running for president

828
00:46:25,200 --> 00:46:27,080
Speaker 1: at this point. I think it's really fair to say

829
00:46:27,120 --> 00:46:30,200
Speaker 1: she will never be president, and I don't think Obama

830
00:46:30,239 --> 00:46:33,720
Speaker 1: is going to be president again either, So talk about

831
00:46:33,760 --> 00:46:37,080
Speaker 1: fighting the last battle. That's it. That's all I have

832
00:46:37,160 --> 00:46:40,520
Speaker 1: to say. And now let me bang my head on

833
00:46:40,560 --> 00:46:41,040
Speaker 1: my desk.

834
00:46:42,280 --> 00:46:44,640
Speaker 2: You don't believe in harm reduction? Huh.

835
00:46:44,719 --> 00:46:49,240
Speaker 1: That's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in

836
00:46:49,360 --> 00:46:54,800
Speaker 1: every Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday to hear the best

837
00:46:54,880 --> 00:46:59,200
Speaker 1: minds and politics make sense of all this chaos. If

838
00:46:59,200 --> 00:47:02,280
Speaker 1: you enjoy this post, please send it to a friend

839
00:47:02,719 --> 00:47:05,920
Speaker 1: and keep the conversation going. Thanks for listening.