Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics,
Speaker 1: where we discussed the top political headlines with some of
Speaker 1: today's best minds and Senator Tommy Tuberville still won't lift
Speaker 1: his military blockade even as the death toll rises in
Speaker 1: the Middle East. We have a star studded show today
Speaker 1: live from the Texas Tribune Fest. We have a super
Speaker 1: fun forum I was part of, featuring MSNBC's Katie Fang
Speaker 1: and Ali Batally, former New York City mayoral candidate and
Speaker 1: the mayor of My Heart, Maya Wiley, and Sisters in
Speaker 1: Law's host Joyce fans. But first we have the host
Speaker 1: of the Enemy's List fan favorite and my friend the
Speaker 1: Lincoln Projects, Rick Wilson. Welcome back to Fast Politics. Rick Wilson.
Speaker 2: Hey, MOLLI joung Fast. How are you this afternoon?
Speaker 1: Well, so I've been up since three am Mountain time.
Speaker 1: I think it's mountain time, so that's ten thousand hours.
Speaker 2: Yes, and I rarely, I rarely sleep late, but I
Speaker 2: was in bent till nine am this morning. It's a
Speaker 2: beautiful fall Sunday day here in Florida. It got cool
Speaker 2: and breezy, and I think the technical term for what
Speaker 2: we've done all day today is a fuck all.
Speaker 1: Nothing well. Our own lives may be okay, the state
Speaker 1: of the world seems just absolutely beyond the pale. Everything
Speaker 1: is just so incredibly fucked up.
Speaker 2: In the last two days, Yeah, and look, I mean,
Speaker 2: the Hamas terrorist attacks on Israel have really emphasized two
Speaker 2: things in my mind, my usual snark in joking aside.
Speaker 2: For a second, we had a rules based international order
Speaker 2: for seventy years that worked, and when Trump took office,
Speaker 2: he abandoned that. And while Joe Biden is president now,
Speaker 2: the Republicans that are in the Trump Party have continued
Speaker 2: to behave as if Trump is still president, and they've
Speaker 2: abandoned it again. As much as they pay lip service
Speaker 2: to Israel. The first thing they're doing at a moment
Speaker 2: where there are American dead murder by Hamas and hostages
Speaker 2: taken by Hamas, what are the Republicans doing. They're trying
Speaker 2: to blame Joe Biden for some imaginary like, oh, we
Speaker 2: paid for it tax dollars, American tax dollars.
Speaker 1: It paints it's a travesing dollars.
Speaker 2: And just to emphasize once again for the audience who
Speaker 2: already know this, that is a lie told by the
Speaker 2: August and right, it's.
Speaker 1: From the Iran Deal nuclear deal, it was, it's money
Speaker 1: that's in a South Korean bank account.
Speaker 2: Money that's South Korea, right, owed Iran is it is
Speaker 2: in a bank account in Qatar, and it is administered
Speaker 2: for humanitarian and food aid only by the US Treasury.
Speaker 2: None of it has actually been released yet. And the
Speaker 2: idea that this attack somehow happened like three weeks ago
Speaker 2: and they go, yeah, we got six billion dollars, let's
Speaker 2: attack Israel. Oh bullshit. This attack wasn't planning for a
Speaker 2: very life.
Speaker 1: And I think what's important here is that what it did.
Speaker 1: And I want to get to the Republican Congress right
Speaker 1: now because that I think is the net of it
Speaker 1: is a lot of Republicans were like, this is the
Speaker 1: worst thing that's ever happened. Also, it's it's Joe Biden's fault.
Speaker 1: And you had Sarah Ronda Rona, McDaniel, ray Romney on
Speaker 1: television saying this carnage is a great opportunity for Republicans.
Speaker 1: It was like there wasn't even a second of like,
Speaker 1: oh my god. It went straight to like how can
Speaker 1: we politicize this? So I want you to talk about
Speaker 1: there is right now no Speaker of the House. There
Speaker 1: is a pro templar speaker who is very adorable and
Speaker 1: stands on a crate. His politics suck, but he is
Speaker 1: very short.
Speaker 2: He isn't a magical tree.
Speaker 1: He's very cute. Patrick McHenry, he's teeny teeny, stands on
Speaker 1: a little crate. We're not making fun of him because
Speaker 1: he's short. We're making fun of him because he's inevitably
Speaker 1: a horrendous human being. But he could be the speaker
Speaker 1: if he had the votes, but he doesn't. So it
Speaker 1: looks like Keem Jeff was briefed. So now you have
Speaker 1: two people, neither of whom are the speaker, neither of
Speaker 1: whom are running the House of Representatives.
Speaker 2: Discuss This is an example of the fundamental unseriousness of
Speaker 2: today's maga Republican Party to go through a couple of
Speaker 2: you and I talked about the separately the other day.
Speaker 2: The fact that Republicans are trying to blame the Democrats
Speaker 2: for Matt Gates and his hoarde Austin Kevin McCarthy is amazing,
Speaker 2: first off, ludicrous to the extreme. The second part you're
Speaker 2: seeing here is these are the same people who have
Speaker 2: been all buddied up to Vladimir Putin for the last
Speaker 2: year and a half since the initial invasion of Ukraine,
Speaker 2: you know, calling Ukrainians Nazis and every other way to
Speaker 2: please Putin in the book, and suddenly you know they
Speaker 2: see something. Well, you know, Putin's terrorist attacks are fine,
Speaker 2: but the Hamas terrorist attacks, those draw they're so hypocritical
Speaker 2: and so disconnected from again going back to what I
Speaker 2: talked about in the beginning, a rules based world order
Speaker 2: where American could be counted on to support its allies
Speaker 2: and to stand up against its enemies, and to stand
Speaker 2: up against nations and leaders and countries that behave like
Speaker 2: either Russia or Hamas is doing right now. We're not
Speaker 2: going to settle the Israeli Palestinian crisis on this podcast.
Speaker 2: But what you have here is a moment where the
Speaker 2: alliance between Hamas and Iran and between Hamas and Russia,
Speaker 2: which they visited Russia, the leadership, the Hamas leadership visited
Speaker 2: Russia in the spring of this year, and you ended
Speaker 2: up with what clearly looks like a lot of Russian
Speaker 2: drones being used. This thing was planned well in advance.
Speaker 2: It did not come from.
Speaker 1: But I don't want to get too stuck on foreign
Speaker 1: policy just because I don't want to get over our
Speaker 1: skis here and I don't think the people as much
Speaker 1: as people love us for our foreign policy bona fides,
Speaker 1: I would like to more move back to the republic
Speaker 1: House because this week is going to be what they say,
Speaker 1: what they say, what they call in French, a tremendous
Speaker 1: shit show of the most epic precortions and only made
Speaker 1: worse by what's not going.
Speaker 2: To get just rusty, but I believe it's Imma de Monte,
Speaker 2: which is like throwing shit around. Yeah, so let's.
Speaker 1: Talk about that, because so there's going to be first,
Speaker 1: there was going to be a televised debate on Fox News,
Speaker 1: which I have to say, like they clearly were just like,
Speaker 1: how can we get the most attention for this? Oh,
Speaker 1: I know Brent Behar will host a televised debate. And
Speaker 1: then they were like, oh, that seems like too much. Okay,
Speaker 1: we're not going to do that. I mean even that,
Speaker 1: when I said that, I was like, has that ever
Speaker 1: happened before? No, completely unprecedented.
Speaker 2: Look, the idea, the idea that the Republican Caucus is
Speaker 2: going to do anything except support Trump's Trump's weird trained monkey.
Speaker 2: Jim Jordan is utterly ridiculous. Yes, they would prefer Scalise. Yes,
Speaker 2: they'll go in the in the caucus room and they'll say, Steve,
Speaker 2: you're the greatest guy ever, and I love you. And
Speaker 2: when it comes down to it, they recognize that the
Speaker 2: bass looks at Scalise, who is by no means a moderate,
Speaker 2: a little centrist. He's out there on the god damn
Speaker 2: ragged edge. David without the baggage. Yeah, he's out there
Speaker 2: on the ragged edge. He's not crazy enough.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Jim Jordan, though, man, that is the pure shit. That
Speaker 2: is the uncut coke coming up from Bogata in the
Speaker 2: fast boats. That is the real dude. That is the stuff.
Speaker 1: So let's talk about the uncut pure Jim Jordan. Jacket
Speaker 1: list Jim the sort of rumpel Stiltskin of our current healthscape.
Speaker 2: Another we fell up.
Speaker 1: Either way, it's a secret ballad the voting, So theoretically it's.
Speaker 2: A secret ballot in the caucus. They're gonna know, believe
Speaker 2: me that, But where they're gonna go to the floor,
Speaker 2: they have to go to the floor. So it's gonna
Speaker 2: be a ballot on the floor. They're gonna vote for
Speaker 2: the guy on the floor.
Speaker 1: So you think they really will make Jim Jordan the
Speaker 1: speaker because and I mean, if that happens, see, I
Speaker 1: feel like it's too much of a democratic fever dream,
Speaker 1: Like come on, elect the craziest person you've ever fucking
Speaker 1: thought of. Like it seems too crazy, but you think
Speaker 1: they're gonna do it.
Speaker 2: Let me tell you what's gonna happen, every fucking one,
Speaker 2: Because here's the theory that everybody should internalize in their heads.
Speaker 2: And it took me a long time to get there
Speaker 2: as a former Republican. Okay, there are no good guys
Speaker 2: left in the party, none of them, even the ones
Speaker 2: in Joe Biden districts. Oh, Don Bacon's a good guy. No,
Speaker 2: he's not a piece of shit. Okay, Don Bacon is
Speaker 2: going to be just like the rest of them. They're
Speaker 2: all gonna vote for this guy. They're all gonna unify together.
Speaker 2: Their Republicans will always pull together. If they really meant
Speaker 2: their shit, if they really really really wanted to talk
Speaker 2: the talk, and they were real problem which they are
Speaker 2: supposed to bullshit, they would go out and go you
Speaker 2: know what a team. Here's the deal. We need three
Speaker 2: committee chairmanships, right, and you put us on three committees.
Speaker 2: They don't have to be the big ones. You give
Speaker 2: us three committees, okay, to show that it's going to
Speaker 2: be bipartisan. You put us in leadership and some we
Speaker 2: work some kind of symbolic blah blah blah. But you
Speaker 2: know what they won't do. They won't do that. And
Speaker 2: right now, I don't think Jeffies could have pulled this
Speaker 2: off in the initial run up, in the first round
Speaker 2: of voting for Kevin, right, But I almost think you
Speaker 2: could get it now because now they really know who's
Speaker 2: in charge. It's not our buddy Coove. It's Matt Gates
Speaker 2: and Paul Gosar and all these other whack a dudies.
Speaker 1: The real Nazis, as opposed to the practical, as opposed
Speaker 1: to this sort of partial Nazis.
Speaker 2: It's the Halloween favorite practical Nazis starry.
Speaker 1: But I mean, let's just go through here for a second. See,
Speaker 1: I mean, you think there's a world in which they're like, Okay,
Speaker 1: this is our guy, Jim Jordan.
Speaker 2: Really, no one ever wakes up and says, hey, Jim
Speaker 2: Jordan's my guy. He's just a creature of the of
Speaker 2: the bizarro world, Republican Demi Mond, of kooks and freaks
Speaker 2: and weirdos. And look, if you want to hire a
Speaker 2: guy who's really good at ignoring screams coming from a
Speaker 2: locker room, that's your choice. Okay. If you want to
Speaker 2: hire a guy who's going to actually be a leader
Speaker 2: in the House or in the Republican Party, you're out
Speaker 2: of your mind.
Speaker 1: But they don't need a they don't want a leader.
Speaker 1: I mean, this is not what they want. A side show.
Speaker 1: So and I want to talk about Nancy Mace.
Speaker 2: Now, Oh, Nancy Mace. You know what, let me tell
Speaker 2: you Nancy may story for you. A few months ago,
Speaker 2: I am talking to a former Republican donor who said
Speaker 2: to me, because you know that we were talking about
Speaker 2: like all the good wines are gone, like Adam's gone,
Speaker 2: Liz is gone, No one's going to stand up to
Speaker 2: one six stuff anymore. And he's, well, I'm really hopeful
Speaker 2: Nancy Mace is going to be become the new leadership,
Speaker 2: the new leader and congressman never Trump. And I'm like,
Speaker 2: are you kidding me? Come on? And as always as
Speaker 2: the Cassandra of the Republican Party. I told him, I said,
Speaker 2: she is going to do something so outrageous and break
Speaker 2: your heart. This is also a guy who was like
Speaker 2: a fan of Nikki Haley, who today said, oh yeah,
Speaker 2: I could live with the idea of Millie being assassinated
Speaker 2: or executed.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that was really really I mean, what was the
Speaker 1: need for it?
Speaker 2: You know?
Speaker 1: Here she is. They ask her, would it be okay?
Speaker 1: What do you think of putting your the biggest general,
Speaker 1: the most you know, the most important general of the
Speaker 1: death And she's like, I don't think it's disqualifying, threatening
Speaker 1: his life.
Speaker 2: And now what do you say to a person like that,
Speaker 2: who honestly is is right now having her moment as
Speaker 2: the donor bait of October twenty three where they're where
Speaker 2: these Republican donors that are just desperate, they're small desperate. Well,
Speaker 2: Ron didn't work out, so maybe maybe Tim Scott will
Speaker 2: be the one. You No, he's too busy with his
Speaker 2: Canadian girlfriend and she's very shy, but she's a supermodel.
Speaker 2: But they thought for a minute it was going to
Speaker 2: be Nikki Haley. And what has Nicki Haley done since
Speaker 2: she had a decent debate two.
Speaker 1: Weeks ago, destroyed herself.
Speaker 2: She's gone off the damn cliff. Yeah, I mean, call
Speaker 2: me crazy, But if you're making a principal argument that
Speaker 2: there should be a conservative president who doesn't act like
Speaker 2: a maniac, don't endorse his positions of the former president
Speaker 2: who acts like a maniac.
Speaker 1: I think that's a good call. We have almost no
Speaker 1: one in this Republican party now right who, especially in
Speaker 1: the House, like there are no grown ups. If they,
Speaker 1: if I want you to like sort of game this
Speaker 1: out with me, they If Jim Jordan does get to
Speaker 1: two seventeen, which again would mean that eighteen Biden Republicans
Speaker 1: had to vote for him, right, which would mean that
Speaker 1: by voting for him, that is like the kind of
Speaker 1: disqualifying vote that Nancy Pelosi used to that she used
Speaker 1: to be horrified by the idea of making horror swing
Speaker 1: candidate her swingy Congress. People vote for these kind of
Speaker 1: disqualifying votes. So if eighteen Republicans have to vote for him,
Speaker 1: he hurts the Republicans more than he helps them. Right, Oh,
Speaker 1: by far, Because you just run against Jim Jordan jumping
Speaker 1: up and down looking.
Speaker 2: Like listen to right, and you run against Jim Jordan,
Speaker 2: whose number one priority is not inflation, jazz prices, the economy,
Speaker 2: foreign policy education. You run against Jim Jordan, whose number
Speaker 2: one priority is I want to see more dick picks
Speaker 2: from Hunter Biden's right. I mean, it's just a if
Speaker 2: they elect Jim Jordan, which they will now because Trump
Speaker 2: has told them to, you.
Speaker 1: Think that they will though you think he has the vote.
Speaker 2: Here's the thing they know. They are now facing Donald
Speaker 2: Trump at his most weird and depressively shitty vindicta's moment. Yeah,
Speaker 2: here's the grotesque reality of the Republican Party for them.
Speaker 2: If right, the extra got more grotesque ish. They know
Speaker 2: that if Donald Trump either somehow lost the primary, or
Speaker 2: if Donald Trump somehow he won't but he just hypothetically
Speaker 2: went to jail, or if somehow Donald Trump said, oh God,
Speaker 2: I've got dick cancer and I'm going to get off
Speaker 2: the ballotive, percent of Republican voters will simply not vote
Speaker 2: at all. My son, who is a very brilliant polster,
Speaker 2: has just come out of the field with a gigantic
Speaker 2: survey anstrument on this and depending on the states, between
Speaker 2: twenty and twenty six percent of Republican voters who literally
Speaker 2: won't vote at all if Trump's not on the ballot.
Speaker 2: And so if Trump doesn't get his way with Jim Jordan,
Speaker 2: He's going to throw a ship. Maybe maybe we'd be
Speaker 2: best and not vote for the House, and then I
Speaker 2: will just make King Jeffries do what I want. He win,
Speaker 2: I know it, and so you end up with a
Speaker 2: lose lose if it's Jim Jordan. Look, I will tell
Speaker 2: you this. Kevin McCarthy, for all of his many, many,
Speaker 2: many personal faults and by that I mean all of
Speaker 2: his personal faults in every moral and personal dimension and political,
Speaker 2: Jim Jordan cannot do one thing that Kevin McCarthy could do.
Speaker 2: Kevin could put on normy draft yeah yeah, and go
Speaker 2: out and sit in a conference room or on a
Speaker 2: golf course, right.
Speaker 1: And seemed like lunatic. I mean, it's the difference between,
Speaker 1: you know, a more functional looking Republican and Jim Jordan.
Speaker 1: And it's funny because I was arguing with someone about
Speaker 1: this last week and he was saying, well, now Democrats
Speaker 1: have done it right. They've Kevin was their shot. But
Speaker 1: Kevin did all the same things Jim Jordan will do right.
Speaker 1: Impeach Biden. I mean, there's no daylight between the two
Speaker 1: of them. It's just that Jim Jordan seems like a
Speaker 1: complete lunatug.
Speaker 2: Okay, Kevin McCarthy brought impeachment right without a vote on it.
Speaker 1: Right and trying to cut the federal baidity that cut
Speaker 1: the federal government.
Speaker 2: Kevin's bullshit, Okay. Kevin's bullshit was that he could fake normal.
Speaker 2: He could go in and look. Last year, he's at
Speaker 2: a fundraiser in Texas and a friend of ours calls
Speaker 2: us from it. Literally while Kevin's talking, he goes, this
Speaker 2: fucking guy just stood up here and he said, in
Speaker 2: this group of very wealthy moderate Republicans, he goes, you know,
Speaker 2: I need you guys to help me, because if I
Speaker 2: can get twenty or thirty more anti MAGA, non crazy
Speaker 2: Republicans in the House, we can turn it all around.
Speaker 2: The guy is a lying liar and lies. He is
Speaker 2: a he is. The mendacity of Kevin is amazing, but
Speaker 2: he was good at faking it right. And now with
Speaker 2: Jim Jordan, like politically it sucks for them and financially
Speaker 2: it sucks for them because here's the thing you've got.
Speaker 2: You think, Jim Jordan is going to go sit in
Speaker 2: a room at some private equity firm in New York
Speaker 2: and say to everybody around the board, at the table
Speaker 2: of the board, I need your maximum contribution because now
Speaker 2: they're not given to their old buddy keV right, the
Speaker 2: young gun Ryan School. Now they're giving their money to
Speaker 2: the guy who's in He might have rabies.
Speaker 1: It is true, I mean, it's but you know that
Speaker 1: is another thing about trump Ism, which I think is
Speaker 1: pretty interesting, is that you have this very favorable Senate
Speaker 1: map for Republicans. You have Mitch McConnell almost completely signed,
Speaker 1: maybe not completely sidelined, but certainly sidelined, right, I mean,
Speaker 1: that guy is not healthy enough to go out and
Speaker 1: fundraise the way he used.
Speaker 2: To do well. And there's been a big dispute inside
Speaker 2: McConnell world, Like all the teams inside McConnell world are
Speaker 2: now fragmenting and splitting, and there are some that are
Speaker 2: going like, we're going to bring Thune up now, and
Speaker 2: we're the succession battle has started has started. And you know, so.
Speaker 1: You have that is the problem in the Senate, where
Speaker 1: there are seats that would theoretically be winnable if Republicans
Speaker 1: had their shit together. But they don't, right. I mean,
Speaker 1: is there even anyone announced who's running against Jared Brown?
Speaker 2: Not yet. I think you're gonna go high out, Yeah,
Speaker 2: I think you're gonna get There's a there's a maga
Speaker 2: guy out there who's been making some noise. I can't
Speaker 2: remember his name off the top of my head. But
Speaker 2: he's not He's not going to beat Shared Brown. You've
Speaker 2: got You've got Carrie Lake.
Speaker 1: And she's already governor, so it could be a problem.
Speaker 1: Jesse reminds me via text message that Josh Mandell may
Speaker 1: in fact run again.
Speaker 2: Hello, if I may quote the philosopher Willow from the
Speaker 2: Great Tentacle of Buffy Board now.
Speaker 3: Well, Hello, Welcome to women and twenty twenty four. At
Speaker 3: the Texas Tribune Festival twenty twenty three, we got some
Speaker 3: dieharts hare getting to Saturday afternoon.
Speaker 4: I do want to thank the Texas Tribune and all
Speaker 4: of the.
Speaker 3: Amazing sponsors for this incredible weekend and especially for our
Speaker 3: panel today.
Speaker 4: Our panel grew, which I was very proud to do.
Speaker 3: I mean, there really cannot be a more incredible group
Speaker 3: of I was going to say a word, I'm not
Speaker 3: allowed to say here amazing women and really is my
Speaker 3: honor to spend this time with them. I'm also going
Speaker 3: to let you guys know this panel is going to
Speaker 3: last about forty five minutes and then we'll have about
Speaker 3: fifteen minutes for Q and A. As you see, there
Speaker 3: is a microphone here, so I'll let you guys know
Speaker 3: when to que up in line to be able to
Speaker 3: ask the questions towards the end, Please silence your cell phones.
Speaker 3: And for those of you that are social media Maven's
Speaker 3: the hashtag is hashtag trip Fest twenty three. But without
Speaker 3: further ado, I am Katie Fang from MSNBC. This is
Speaker 3: not the Katie Fang Show, but we are live from
Speaker 3: Austin in Texas. There's lots of news to cover and
Speaker 3: lots of questions to answer, so let's get started. I
Speaker 3: want to introduce very briefly our panelists for today.
Speaker 4: Joyce Vance right there in the beautiful.
Speaker 3: Red MSNBC Legal Analysts, law professor at the Nursity of Alabama,
Speaker 3: co host of the hashtag Sisters of Law podcast.
Speaker 4: She's also the author of the popular.
Speaker 3: Substact Civil Discourse, which takes on the intersection of law
Speaker 3: and politics. And she is the keeper of the chickens.
Speaker 3: And then to her left is Mollie.
Speaker 4: Jong Fast.
Speaker 3: Special correspondent at Vanity Fair, host of the Fast Politices podcast,
Speaker 3: and the keeper of the hair. In the middle, we
Speaker 3: have Maya Wiley, MSNBC Legal Analysts, President.
Speaker 4: And CEO of.
Speaker 3: The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights and keeper
Speaker 3: of the grace is what I am saying today, the
Speaker 3: grace and the elegance always, and certainly not least as
Speaker 3: Ali Vitally.
Speaker 4: And they see Capitol Hill correspondent.
Speaker 3: And the author of Electable Why America hasn't put a
Speaker 3: woman in the White House yet?
Speaker 4: She's keeper of the glam ladies and gentlemen. That's Ali Vittally.
Speaker 3: So I want to dive straight into two of the
Speaker 3: biggest hot button topics I think that are going into
Speaker 3: twenty twenty four. Abortion and guns. I call it, well
Speaker 3: abortions and gun violence. I call it guy knows and guns.
Speaker 3: But we also want to talk about good government too,
Speaker 3: So that's kind of what we're going to talk about today.
Speaker 3: I'm going to start actually with Joyce because we had
Speaker 3: a conversation about this earlier today and I thought it
Speaker 3: was important to share with our audience. So we're living
Speaker 3: in a post Dobbs world. We are in the state
Speaker 3: of Texas. I am in the state of Florida, which
Speaker 3: is always a hold the beer moment with.
Speaker 4: The state of Texas.
Speaker 3: But we here in Texas right now as we sit here,
Speaker 3: it's a fetal heartbeat state.
Speaker 4: There's a lot of ridiculous that's going on.
Speaker 3: But the scary thing is it's not just going to
Speaker 3: stop with Postdobbs. We're now looking at the potential from
Speaker 3: your state, Joyce, your Alabama Attorney General announcing it a
Speaker 3: court filing that prosecution of people that provide transportation for
Speaker 3: women in Alabama to leave the state to get an
Speaker 3: abortion is the same as a criminal conspiracy. So, Joyce,
Speaker 3: how much should we be looking at the prospect of
Speaker 3: when we get to those ballots in twenty twenty four,
Speaker 3: looking at what the candidates are standing for when it
Speaker 3: comes to getting further down the road from Roe v.
Speaker 5: Wade.
Speaker 6: You know, I can remember my mother in law telling
Speaker 6: me when I was first getting to know her, this
Speaker 6: is a long time ago, in the late nineteen eighties,
Speaker 6: and she said, I'm a single issue voter. I remember
Speaker 6: when abortion was illegal, and I am a single issue voter,
Speaker 6: and I remember thinking that it was both remarkable for
Speaker 6: a night lady in Mountain Brook, Alabama and a member
Speaker 6: of polite society to be very upfront about saying that,
Speaker 6: and also it struck me as being surprising that that
Speaker 6: was still her single issue, because of course abortion was
Speaker 6: well established as something that women had access to. I
Speaker 6: have increasingly come to understand the fierceness of her views
Speaker 6: because Dobbs and the end of Roe Versus weighed that
Speaker 6: was not enough, right, that long term Republican goal was
Speaker 6: not enough. And now as they begin to realize that
Speaker 6: a national ban is maybe politically unfeasible, the question is
Speaker 6: what more can the states do? States like Idaho, where
Speaker 6: there's ongoing litigation with DOJ and the attorney general has
Speaker 6: walked it back a little bit, but like Alabama, where
Speaker 6: the attorney general, who wants to be the governor is
Speaker 6: aggressively positioning himself like officials in other states, Texas is
Speaker 6: one of them to prosecute women if they choose to
Speaker 6: leave the confines of Alabama to access medical care which
Speaker 6: they are entitled to access in other states. Right, the
Speaker 6: rhetoric of Dobs is the rhetoric of states' rights and
Speaker 6: states choices and let each state make up its own mind.
Speaker 6: So this action by Alabama and other states would appear
Speaker 6: to be clearly unconstitutional. You have the right to go
Speaker 6: to Colorado and smoke weed if you want to, You
Speaker 6: just can't take it back to Alabama.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 6: Lots of things in this country work like that. A
Speaker 6: normal Supreme court there should be no question. But this
Speaker 6: Supreme Court, with its special jurisprudence for Alabama, I am
Speaker 6: deeply worried. I think this issue should be on all
Speaker 6: of our radar screens, and we probably live in a
Speaker 6: moment when we all need to be, like my mother
Speaker 6: in law, single issue voters.
Speaker 7: I want to ask you, Oh, there you go.
Speaker 3: But Molly, I want to follow up and ask you,
Speaker 3: because you also have your finger on the pulse of
Speaker 3: all things politics, do you think that the single issue
Speaker 3: voter is going to come out enough to be able
Speaker 3: to carry us across the finish line in twenty twenty
Speaker 3: four when it comes to the issue singularly of abortion access.
Speaker 1: You know, it's funny because we're here in Texas, the
Speaker 1: state where Roe was functionally overturned by SB eight a
Speaker 1: year before the Dobbs decision came down, and I actually
Speaker 1: when it happened, you saw a lot of people, smart
Speaker 1: people said, oh, they're never going to let it stand.
Speaker 1: The Supreme Court is never going to let it stand.
Speaker 1: And in fact they did, and they saw it on
Speaker 1: the shadow dock. At September first, the law came into effect.
Speaker 1: It was a heartbeat bill. There is no fetal heartbeat
Speaker 1: in six weeks, right, like we you know, by calling
Speaker 1: it a heartbeat bill, we are selling their line that
Speaker 1: it's not true. Six week you know, it's not even
Speaker 1: a blastula or whatever it is, doesn't have a hard
Speaker 1: it doesn't even have you know, it's a number of
Speaker 1: cells at that point. So I think that it's a
Speaker 1: very scary time, I think for reproductive health. And the
Speaker 1: thing that I have been so struck by with the
Speaker 1: people I have talked to who are doctors and women
Speaker 1: and you know, people who's you know, a hospital, people
Speaker 1: who who report on hospitals and things like that, is
Speaker 1: that you're seeing pregnant women unable to get medical care.
Speaker 1: So it is really we are really seeing firsthand that
Speaker 1: abortion is healthcare. And you have women in parking lots
Speaker 1: being told to bleed out before the doctors will touch them.
Speaker 1: So you have doctors who are afraid to treat, doctors
Speaker 1: who are afraid to go to jail and are afraid
Speaker 1: to lose their licenses. And what's funny is when you
Speaker 1: think back to nineteen seventy three and my mom uh
Speaker 1: was for a second wave familyst Erika Johngan. In nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy three, she published Fear Flying, And so I always
Speaker 1: think about, like, nineteen seventy three was the year that
Speaker 1: Roe was decided, and it was a very conservative core
Speaker 1: and they did this because besides women dying, doctors were
Speaker 1: being put in these terrible positions. And so I really
Speaker 1: think we're seeing that again. And in a country where
Speaker 1: you know, we have these rural hospital closures, we have
Speaker 1: women of color being you know, subjected to much worse
Speaker 1: medical treatment, higher maternal fetal health rates. I mean, we
Speaker 1: really are seeing a sort of healthcare emergency around doms.
Speaker 3: And you know, Maya, it's statistically proven that the disproportionate
Speaker 3: burden when it comes to maternal healthcare when it comes
Speaker 3: to communities of color, it's remarkably just terrifying when you
Speaker 3: look at the numbers.
Speaker 4: How does the messaging work, though, How does the message.
Speaker 3: Work to be able to tell people that they have
Speaker 3: to prioritize certain things right now when you want fundamental
Speaker 3: rights like access to healthcare, but you also still.
Speaker 4: Need to be able to put food on the table.
Speaker 3: You still need to be able to explain to people
Speaker 3: that it makes a difference for them to get to
Speaker 3: the ballots. But especially when you're trying to get the
Speaker 3: messaging to be uniformly across, so it resonates with all
Speaker 3: different communities, not just a certain one.
Speaker 7: So and look, I'm trying to actually thread this needle
Speaker 7: because so many important things have been said and they're
Speaker 7: all connected. One is, I think we've already seen what
Speaker 7: happens when you piss a lot of women off, right,
Speaker 7: Because what happened in the midterms, what happened in the midterms,
Speaker 7: Wisconsin was denied a trifecta, Michigan got a trifecta. We
Speaker 7: saw ballot initiatives up and down the line, some of
Speaker 7: them in very red states where the ballot initiative was
Speaker 7: to prevent protection from abortion in a constitution like Kentucky
Speaker 7: get shot down in a red state, not the only one,
Speaker 7: and it was because it was absolutely motivating, mobilizing, and
Speaker 7: we also saw young people, especially gen Z, who under
Speaker 7: participate in terms of their numbers in power, get really
Speaker 7: engaged in those states where the battle lines were clearly drawn.
Speaker 7: So I just want to say we should not ignore that.
Speaker 7: But I also want to go back to this notion
Speaker 7: of should we be single issue and let me because
Speaker 7: I actually agree with all these points, so this isn't
Speaker 7: a point of disagreement. But I want to remind us
Speaker 7: of something. Now, my mother is from Abling, Texas. Yeah,
Speaker 7: the Abilene like that. Okay, Ableinge, Texas. Grew up in
Speaker 7: the Southern Baptist Church in Abling. Okay, many of you
Speaker 7: should know that means she's a white woman by definition.
Speaker 7: Because the Southern Baptists actively, formally and as a matter
Speaker 7: of dectrinal position, was opposed to integracial integration, was supportive
Speaker 7: of essentially racist policies. In nineteen seventy three, they were
Speaker 7: pro abortion. Six years later they become anti abortion. What happened?
Speaker 7: What happened in those six years? The Justice Department came
Speaker 7: for them for their segregated schools, and then they saw
Speaker 7: the wedge. Then they found the edge. Alis Hoague, who
Speaker 7: used to be the president of NAYRAL has actually written
Speaker 7: about this. It was very important reproductive freedom community. I'm
Speaker 7: elevating this issue before we got here. And then let's
Speaker 7: go to the other part of the point that you
Speaker 7: so rightly ask about, Katie, which is so black women
Speaker 7: in New York City, which is a blue state. Okay,
Speaker 7: all right, ignore the midterm that has abortion right is Blueish,
Speaker 7: Bluish has abortion rights, standing up for abortion rights, trying
Speaker 7: to figure out how to be a sanctuary state for
Speaker 7: women looking for abortion right. Well, if you are black
Speaker 7: in New York City, you have you are eleven, not four,
Speaker 7: three or four times more likely to die in childbirth
Speaker 7: or from pregnancy related causes. Eleven times has nothing to
Speaker 7: do with Republicans, not a damn thing. It has everything
Speaker 7: to do with whether or not you get true access
Speaker 7: to health care, reproductive and whether you're allowed to be
Speaker 7: a mother, whether you are allowed to be a mother.
Speaker 7: At the same time, we see what abortion does. And
Speaker 7: by the way, the states, the states that rushed to
Speaker 7: do this spanning of abortion and fetal heartbeat laws and criminalization,
Speaker 7: they actually guess what were some of the same states
Speaker 7: that refuse to expand medicaid refuse to expand it called Obamacare,
Speaker 7: refused to expand it. It was before we lost row. So
Speaker 7: the reason I'm saying this is because all these issues
Speaker 7: are so deeply connected and on our powers recognizing the
Speaker 7: connection voting rights. So when I said to a group
Speaker 7: of our allies, seriously wonderful act people have said, like
Speaker 7: every fight that we have for abortion rights or to
Speaker 7: stop the criminalization of health care. And by the way,
Speaker 7: thanks to black people, we had to have a constitution
Speaker 7: that said you can cross state lines was because of
Speaker 7: black chattel slavery. We should remember this right, We should
Speaker 7: remember the very legal underpinnings of our constitutional order that
Speaker 7: we're now fighting about in the abortion fight, on the
Speaker 7: criminalization of crossing state lines, we have because we had
Speaker 7: black chattel slavery and had to try to undo it.
Speaker 7: So the truth is all our issues are so deeply linked.
Speaker 7: They're so deeply and that's our power. Because when we
Speaker 7: still start talking about voting rights, and I said to
Speaker 7: my voting rights on my reproductive justice allies, I said,
Speaker 7: all these states are the same states that are talking
Speaker 7: about voter fraud and claiming that we have to make
Speaker 7: it hard for people to vote, and that's the only
Speaker 7: way they can hold onto power. It's the only way
Speaker 7: is by cheating. And so we've got to recognize that
Speaker 7: no matter our race. And frankly, and thank you to
Speaker 7: the men in the audience that came to hear about
Speaker 7: the war on women, it's bad for men. It is
Speaker 7: bad for men. And so I actually think that the
Speaker 7: incredible importance of the messaging, the messaging point is it's
Speaker 7: not only about abortion. It's about our very democratic rights
Speaker 7: and whether or not we are allowed to make decisions
Speaker 7: for ourselves, our families, our communities. And it doesn't matter
Speaker 7: what your personal views are about abortion. But it does
Speaker 7: matter if you want to see a doctor when you're sick.
Speaker 7: It does matter if you want to be able to
Speaker 7: choose to have a healthy baby. It does matter if
Speaker 7: you think you should get to have easy access to
Speaker 7: a ballot in order to decide who's going to make
Speaker 7: decision over your lives and over your communities. And that
Speaker 7: is all of us.
Speaker 1: Ali vitally.
Speaker 4: You are a Capitol Hill correspondent.
Speaker 7: You are in the seat of power.
Speaker 3: You are around the people that are making these important
Speaker 3: decisions that are affecting all of us across the United States.
Speaker 3: But you are also in embed in the Elizabeth Warren campaign.
Speaker 3: And the reason why I being that up though, is
Speaker 3: because you've been on the road, You've been to the rallies,
Speaker 3: You've been to all of these different important stops on
Speaker 3: these tours for these campaign tours. And what is the disconnect?
Speaker 3: Because Maya talks about the connection, but there seems to
Speaker 3: be a disconnect from the people to Washington, DC. And
Speaker 3: it transcends just the inability to get the people into
Speaker 3: the office that we want to be in the offices,
Speaker 3: But what's happening with the people that are on the ground,
Speaker 3: that are the grassroots voters that are out there trying
Speaker 3: to make sure that what Maya talks about and what
Speaker 3: Molly talks about, what Joyce talks about, that all of
Speaker 3: that is making sense.
Speaker 8: So I think, look, there's so many amazing points that
Speaker 8: have been made up here. And I would never presume
Speaker 8: to speak for Maya, but what I felt so deeply
Speaker 8: when you were talking about what reproductive care is to me,
Speaker 8: it boils down to an economics issue. And so when
Speaker 8: you want to be a voter who says, Okay, I'm
Speaker 8: a single issue voter who cares about what it costs
Speaker 8: when I go to the grocery store, and also how
Speaker 8: I put my life together.
Speaker 5: Because I can.
Speaker 8: Choose how and when to control my reproductive health. That's
Speaker 8: a dollars and cents issue. And so that's maybe a
Speaker 8: matter of disconnect when we talk about this as if
Speaker 8: it's a niche thing, as if it's a women's issue.
Speaker 8: This is something that touches everyone, and I think that
Speaker 8: in my ten years covering reproductive health as sort of
Speaker 8: a chosen side beat in addition to campaigns and Congress
Speaker 8: and whatever else, this idea of being post row, up
Speaker 8: until two years ago, had always been something that people
Speaker 8: could just theorize about, but it was always a theory,
Speaker 8: and Republicans never thought we'd get there, and Democrats never
Speaker 8: thought we'd get there, and everyone was sort of secure
Speaker 8: in their echo chambers of what those talking points meant.
Speaker 8: And I think that's what we saw in twenty twenty
Speaker 8: when I was following the Elizabeth Warren campaign, is yes,
Speaker 8: there was a push to expand reproductive freedom on the
Speaker 8: Warren campaign and other campaigns, but it was all pretty theoretical.
Speaker 8: And then I with Dobbs, what's been fascinating to watch
Speaker 8: as someone who really does see themselves. As a student
Speaker 8: of politics and demographic trends is watching the ways that
Speaker 8: in each of the seven or eight crucial moments that
Speaker 8: repro has been on the ballot, in some way, it
Speaker 8: has overwhelmingly shown that people want to be able to
Speaker 8: access this care and they want to be able to
Speaker 8: access it freely. And look, that shouldn't be shocking. The
Speaker 8: polling around this has been consistent in that roughly six
Speaker 8: and ten Americans always over time have wanted abortion to
Speaker 8: be safe.
Speaker 5: And legal in most cases.
Speaker 8: I think most instructive is a few weeks ago when
Speaker 8: I was in Ohio, you talked about red states where
Speaker 8: this is happening. Yes, you mentioned Kentucky rightly, Kansas as well.
Speaker 8: That was really the first kind of canary in the
Speaker 8: coal mine for Republicans who I increasingly get the sense
Speaker 8: or the dogs that caught the car and now.
Speaker 5: May get run over by it.
Speaker 8: But three million people do not turn out in August
Speaker 8: special elections for one ballot measure that does not reference
Speaker 8: the word abortion, but is very much about that, And
Speaker 8: I think that's instructive for everyone trying to chart the
Speaker 8: still actively being charted post row environment, and it's why
Speaker 8: when I'm on the road with my twenty twenty four
Speaker 8: Republican candidates, they get very squeamish. Unless you're Mike Pence,
Speaker 8: who has clearly staked out this place. They get pretty
Speaker 8: squeamish talking about where the weak markers should be and
Speaker 8: because they have to in that primary. But in general
Speaker 8: it becomes much tougher because of the environment that we've
Speaker 8: seen in the few plot points that we have of
Speaker 8: what it actually means to be post Row.
Speaker 4: We're going to move on from.
Speaker 3: This topic because a we're running out of time, but
Speaker 3: I want to get to some other stuff. But I
Speaker 3: am because I always have an opinion, just ask my husband.
Speaker 3: I want to emphasize vigilance because, to Ali's point, this
Speaker 3: was this was not some surprise event that happened with
Speaker 3: the overturning of Row.
Speaker 7: Let's be very clear.
Speaker 3: This was a This was a train that was coming
Speaker 3: and we all saw it coming, and we were asleep
Speaker 3: at the switch some of us when it came to it.
Speaker 3: So I want to make sure this is part of
Speaker 3: why we're all here today, the vigilance on making sure
Speaker 3: that we pay attention to these issues, because this was
Speaker 3: something that we definitely saw the red flags for I
Speaker 3: want to go now because I want to turn to
Speaker 3: gun violence. We're in the state of Texas, and Joyce
Speaker 3: and I were walking down the street and we kept
Speaker 3: un noticing the signs of the warnings about don't bring
Speaker 3: your gun into this place. But Florida now has permitless carry,
Speaker 3: and you know a lot of the states are dealing
Speaker 3: with that right now. And obviously your state has had
Speaker 3: more than its share of tragedy, a disproportionate share of
Speaker 3: tragedy when it comes to gun violence.
Speaker 4: I'm going to read a couple of statistics that I
Speaker 4: were stunning to me.
Speaker 3: Four point five million women in the United States have
Speaker 3: been threatened with a gun.
Speaker 4: Okay, nearly one.
Speaker 3: Million women have been shot or shot at by an
Speaker 3: intimate partner, and over fifty percent of all intimate partner
Speaker 3: homicides are.
Speaker 5: Committed with guns.
Speaker 3: So, Joyce, we got that's in front of a Supreme
Speaker 3: Court post bruin now a post bruin America. We have
Speaker 3: a challenge to whether or not, if you have a
Speaker 3: domestic violence injunction, whether you should be allowed to be
Speaker 3: able to possess a firearm. Putting aside all of the
Speaker 3: other conditions and terms inclusive of the Hunter Biden issues
Speaker 3: that deal with drugs and substance abuse. What's the prospect
Speaker 3: for twenty twenty four? And again the focus this is women,
Speaker 3: the war on women. What is the prospect with Rahemi
Speaker 3: in front of the Supreme Court when it comes to
Speaker 3: these because these are startling numbers.
Speaker 6: So Raheemi is one of the cases the Supreme Court
Speaker 6: will hear oral argument in this term. I'm a former
Speaker 6: federal prosecutor in Alabama. One of our bread and butter
Speaker 6: statues is eighteen US Code nine two G, which is
Speaker 6: a laundry list of people who are prohibited from using firearms.
Speaker 6: The most frequently used part of the statute is the
Speaker 6: part that prohibits people who have of prior felony convictions
Speaker 6: from possessing a firearm. As Hunter Biden has learned, a
Speaker 6: portion of that statute also prohibits people he used drugs
Speaker 6: from possessing firearms. But Raheemi is a very interesting case
Speaker 6: because often these.
Speaker 9: Are people who are told they.
Speaker 6: Can't possess guns, and there are attractive reasons for letting
Speaker 6: them have them. Someone with a ten year old felony
Speaker 6: conviction or someone who used to be addicted or maybe
Speaker 6: is currently addicted to pills but has a hunting weapon.
Speaker 6: Mister Raheemi is not in that category. He is a
Speaker 6: repeated abuser of women. He is someone who engages in
Speaker 6: domestic violence. He is trying to challenge the constitutionality of
Speaker 6: a law that says he cannot possess a firearm. And
Speaker 6: we know what the statistics tell us. They tell us,
Speaker 6: and Katie relays some of this that domestic abusers who
Speaker 6: have access to firearms are far more likely to kill
Speaker 6: their partners. It should be a no brainer, right. Bruin
Speaker 6: is the Supreme Court case from two terms ago where
Speaker 6: the Supreme Court applied new rules for evaluating gun laws,
Speaker 6: and it comes down to this. They said, unless a
Speaker 6: restriction on Second Amendment rights was something that was in
Speaker 6: existence at the time the founders wrote the Constitution, we
Speaker 6: will not enforce it. There was no prohibition at the
Speaker 6: time the founding fathers wrote the Constitution and domestic violence
Speaker 6: abusers being able to possess firearms. In fact, the laws
Speaker 6: and the Constitution explicitly contemplated that women were second class
Speaker 6: citizens at that point in time. So look, I don't
Speaker 6: have high hopes for Rahimi. I would like to think
Speaker 6: that this Supreme Court would have some common sense left.
Speaker 6: So far, they've shown no designs that they possess it.
Speaker 1: I think the.
Speaker 6: Interesting point, Katie and you sort of flag it is
Speaker 6: what happens if Hunter Biden is convicted on gun charges
Speaker 6: in that case goes up on appeal, and what will
Speaker 6: sam Alito do when he has to decide between the
Speaker 6: Second Amendment and Hunter Biden. Boy, is that going to
Speaker 6: be tough for sam Alita.
Speaker 3: But Molly, this is again a single issue voter driver,
Speaker 3: isn't it. I mean putting aside, putting aside these numbers,
Speaker 3: putting aside the true reality and the grim reality of
Speaker 3: what we have to suffer in America from gun violence.
Speaker 3: A lot of people are still looking at gun control
Speaker 3: as being a single issue vote going into twenty twenty four.
Speaker 1: I mean, I would say this is a Supreme Court problem, right,
Speaker 1: And if we look at that term two years ago,
Speaker 1: there was and I mean they have really done a
Speaker 1: lot of stuff that's really unbelievable. I mean, they overturned
Speaker 1: brow bruin epa versus West Virginia. I mean, limiting the
Speaker 1: scope of the federal government when it comes to pollution.
Speaker 1: I mean, they have just you know, they are remaking
Speaker 1: this country. So I'm not sure that. And again, what
Speaker 1: you can do with this, what we've seen with Bruin
Speaker 1: is what you can do at the state level can
Speaker 1: be overturned by this rogue court, right you have you know,
Speaker 1: governors don't have the final say here. And so I
Speaker 1: think the question is I think is it you know,
Speaker 1: if you're going to vote for Biden again, which I
Speaker 1: would assume that would be good because we otherwise we're
Speaker 1: going to have bad whatever we're going to I mean,
Speaker 1: otherwise a Trump I don't know how long a Trump
Speaker 1: presidency would last, perhaps forever. If you're going to there
Speaker 1: really needs to be pressure put on Biden to either
Speaker 1: expand the court or to have term limits for the court,
Speaker 1: or because this court is going to go the they
Speaker 1: you know, these three Trump justices are young, right, they
Speaker 1: are young, and they are ready, and they do not
Speaker 1: have any interest in the status quo. And we saw
Speaker 1: them again and again lie about starry decisives. So and
Speaker 1: they will go and and so I do think Biden
Speaker 1: is very uncomfortable trying to you know, we I talked
Speaker 1: to people who are on his Supreme Court Committee. You know,
Speaker 1: they they really does not want to touch this, but
Speaker 1: term limits are very popular, and he that is something
Speaker 1: he really could do in a second term. And so
Speaker 1: I think the more that people can pressure him. You know,
Speaker 1: this is an administration that really does respond to pressure,
Speaker 1: as we saw with you know, some of the things
Speaker 1: they've done recently with the Office of Gun Violence. And
Speaker 1: so I do think that voters really do have power here.
Speaker 3: So Maya, this is the perfect segue into my kind
Speaker 3: of next topic. And I wanted to speak to you
Speaker 3: because number one, your position at the leadership conference.
Speaker 4: But number two, why is it that? And I'm proud
Speaker 4: to say that I'm a woman of color, Why is it.
Speaker 3: That it is women of color that have become the
Speaker 3: stalwart defenders of democracy these days?
Speaker 1: Why is it?
Speaker 3: I mean, and I appreciate all of our male allies,
Speaker 3: don't get me wrong, right, well, why is it that
Speaker 3: that is the case? Because we see it it runs
Speaker 3: the gamut from the Tis James's to the FAWNI Willis's
Speaker 3: to the Tanya Chuckkins. I mean, we're seeing this be
Speaker 3: the case. But I wanted to kind of expand it
Speaker 3: a little bit out though, and talk about getting to
Speaker 3: the ballot box.
Speaker 4: Right, I want to talk about voter access.
Speaker 3: I want to talk about voter disenfranchisement, voter suppression. We're
Speaker 3: seeing it happen. We're seeing the Jerry manderin. These are
Speaker 3: all important. Is she's going in twenty twenty four And
Speaker 3: if anybody needs super reminded, if you elect a president
Speaker 3: who puts Supreme Court justices on the bench like we
Speaker 3: saw with Donald Trump, you're going to get dobbs, You're
Speaker 3: going to get bruined, You're going to get these decisions. So,
Speaker 3: especially in your role at the leadership conference, what's going
Speaker 3: on to be able to combat voter suppression? And then again,
Speaker 3: why is it taking the women of color to make
Speaker 3: sure that we still got democracy going on?
Speaker 7: Okay, I feel like every question, I feel like whoop, okay.
Speaker 7: So well, one, I just want to remind us the
Speaker 7: reason we have the Supreme Court we have is despite
Speaker 7: the fact that we had a president who would have
Speaker 7: appointed a justice who would have protected Roe, we don't
Speaker 7: because the rules were rigged by Mitch McConnell to deny
Speaker 7: Barack Obama even a hearing on his nominee, even a
Speaker 7: hearing because it was a year before elections, so important
Speaker 7: to remember these things. They just changed the rules and
Speaker 7: act like it's you know, normal, and then they revert
Speaker 7: them back right with an explicit not implicit, because Donald
Speaker 7: Trump ran on a platform of reversing Row to get
Speaker 7: anti Row justices on the bench. And that also relates
Speaker 7: to citizens United. Dark money in politics because Leonard Leo
Speaker 7: one point six billion dollars because somebody handed him a corporation.
Speaker 7: If you give me a corporation, I swear I'll do
Speaker 7: good things with it. So I just want to remind us.
Speaker 7: That's just a reminder. But on the question of women
Speaker 7: of color, it's always been women of color. And nothing
Speaker 7: new about this, y'all. You know, it's new that we're
Speaker 7: one out of every five people. That's what's new. It's
Speaker 7: the change in our visibility because of our numbers, because
Speaker 7: this country has been diversifying. And by the way, white
Speaker 7: women too, Like I don't want to make this. It's
Speaker 7: like women have for a very long time, right, for
Speaker 7: a very long time been kind of the center of
Speaker 7: pushing for change in America, even when we haven't gotten
Speaker 7: the credit. And women of color, as I said, yes always,
Speaker 7: and I'm going to go back to it. You all,
Speaker 7: don't yell at me because I'm going to vote Bill Maher,
Speaker 7: don't yell at me. Hear me out, hear me out,
Speaker 7: hear me out. This is just a story. Remember when
Speaker 7: you may remember this, back when Barack Obama was a
Speaker 7: primary candidate and like number five, right, nobody thought he
Speaker 7: was even going to arise to the top three, and
Speaker 7: Moe's death and Cornell West were on Bill Maher, and
Speaker 7: Bill Maher says to Cornell West and Mo's deaf, but
Speaker 7: I'm folks. On Mo's death, he says, well, is it
Speaker 7: really is America really ready for a black president? I mean,
Speaker 7: are Americans really going to vote for a black man?
Speaker 7: And Most Death said, can I curse? Okay, I'm just
Speaker 7: it's a quote. I'm okay. So Mo's Death says, oh yeah,
Speaker 7: because they're gonna say shit's fucked up. Let the nigga
Speaker 7: run it. I didn't say it. Most quotes for the
Speaker 7: records quotes that is. And I've a reason I remember
Speaker 7: it is like he's said that. But I'm just gonna
Speaker 7: say a black person was like that. That could be true.
Speaker 7: But I do feel a little bit like the country
Speaker 7: is in such a bad place that I'm seeing women
Speaker 7: of color being given leadership positions we were never given before.
Speaker 7: And I want to say that Lafonza Butler at Emma's List,
Speaker 7: at Emily's List, Mimi timraju At now no longer nay Raw,
Speaker 7: but Reproductive Freedom for All. It just rebranded all member
Speaker 7: organizations of the Leadership Conference. So I'm just saying that
Speaker 7: even in spaces and places where we have not traditionally
Speaker 7: been running the show, we're seeing a change. And some
Speaker 7: of that is because I think based on sheer, frankly, like,
Speaker 7: no matter how bad it gets and how exhausted and
Speaker 7: how angry, we just keep it moving because we have
Speaker 7: no choice we have as women, we have no choice
Speaker 7: across rate. We don't have no choice. You know why,
Speaker 7: because they are babies. They are our babies, and we
Speaker 7: know they're all our babies, like whether we gave birth
Speaker 7: to them or not. And so, you know, I think
Speaker 7: we're at a time when things are so bad that
Speaker 7: they're saying, let her run it. Notice the word I left,
Speaker 7: I know.
Speaker 3: And then this is the perfect segue to Ali Vittally,
Speaker 3: Ali Vittally, you're.
Speaker 4: Not gonna curse Honny and it's gonna be okay.
Speaker 8: No, I'm a lapse Catholic, but I'm still a Catholic.
Speaker 3: If y'all haven't read Electable, y'all are missing out. It's
Speaker 3: an exceptional book written by Ali Vittally, but the message
Speaker 3: is just so profound, and it's disturbing that we're still
Speaker 3: having this conversation. We had this conversation a year ago
Speaker 3: when the book came out. We're gonna have another conversation
Speaker 3: about it now. Gender double standards placed on women presidential candidates,
Speaker 3: we understand twenty twenty four is a different beast. We're
Speaker 3: all Biden Harris, yes, but but I'm troubled too.
Speaker 4: Prong question to you.
Speaker 3: First one is why is the Vice president Kamala Harris
Speaker 3: getting such a short thrift?
Speaker 1: One?
Speaker 3: And then two kind of dovetailing what Maya said, why
Speaker 3: don't we have a female president of the United States?
Speaker 4: Woo. It's very easy with me, and these are friends.
Speaker 4: You can imagine if these weren't friends, what these questions
Speaker 4: would be like.
Speaker 7: I am It's all good.
Speaker 8: I mean so, first of all, I do think it's
Speaker 8: really important to punctuate from a reporter perspective something that
Speaker 8: maya was saying, which is the idea that women of
Speaker 8: color not the end We're no.
Speaker 2: No.
Speaker 8: I do think it's important, though, to punctuate the way
Speaker 8: that I think media have done well in finally giving
Speaker 8: women of color their flowers when they have put the
Speaker 8: work in.
Speaker 5: I mean, you could not talk about.
Speaker 8: The games that Democrats made in Georgia without talking about
Speaker 8: the work that Stacy Abrams did in eighteen and twenty two.
Speaker 8: And I think that those of us who covered those
Speaker 8: races knew that that was work, and those were seeds
Speaker 8: that were being planted, maybe not for them, but certainly
Speaker 8: for later. And I think that women in researching my
Speaker 8: book as well, every woman candidate who runs for anything
Speaker 8: knows that she's laying brickwork in the ground for someone.
Speaker 5: Else to walk over it with more ease than she did.
Speaker 8: And I think that that's true of both Republicans and Democrats.
Speaker 8: But Democrats have done it. Their road is much longer right,
Speaker 8: They've invested, They found that upside earlier than Republican women did.
Speaker 8: The good news across the board, and eventually it becomes
Speaker 8: a numbers game. To answer the question of why haven't
Speaker 8: we had a female president yet? Is because the pipeline
Speaker 8: just hasn't been full. Thankfully, the last few decades, we
Speaker 8: have seen the number of women in Congress steadily rising.
Speaker 8: The more women that are elected to federal and exacsative
Speaker 8: office at the state wide level means that they have
Speaker 8: a better resume that can then usher them onto.
Speaker 5: Those presidential tickets.
Speaker 8: We have then seen in twenty sixteen, in twenty twenty,
Speaker 8: when you had more women running for the Democratic nomination
Speaker 8: than at any point in any other primary that took
Speaker 8: until twenty twenty. The good news is that I don't
Speaker 8: think that we will see another primary on either side
Speaker 8: where at least one woman isn't in the mix. And
Speaker 8: what that means is that the imagination barrier for voters
Speaker 8: is less. They don't have to wonder, well, what would
Speaker 8: it feel like to vote for this woman, to entertain
Speaker 8: what she looks like in that office. That means that
Speaker 8: there's muscle memory of voting for women, and that is
Speaker 8: so critically important because there was a really long gap
Speaker 8: in the two thousands on where women, if they ran
Speaker 8: Elizabeth Dole, for example, they dropped out before votes were cast,
Speaker 8: so people didn't even have to think about what would
Speaker 8: it look like to have a woman in this office,
Speaker 8: Kamala Harris presents both an opportunity and a difficulty. And
Speaker 8: I think Democrats and Republicans alike have made these points,
Speaker 8: but Democrats certainly are the ones that I most here
Speaker 8: who are grappling with this. I spent a whole chapter
Speaker 8: on it because it was so complex. She is someone
Speaker 8: who doesn't look like anyone who has held that office before.
Speaker 8: That is both an amazing opportunity and it also means
Speaker 8: that people look at her and expect her to redefine
Speaker 8: the job of vice president.
Speaker 5: And if she were doing that, she's not being a
Speaker 5: very good vice president.
Speaker 8: And therein is the paradox, because you've got people looking
Speaker 8: at her saying, gosh, I just wish she would do more,
Speaker 8: And no one asked that of Mike pen.
Speaker 4: Like Dan Quayle.
Speaker 8: Did quail No one asked that of Pence. When Biden
Speaker 8: stepped out of line and did more, it was a moment,
Speaker 8: because that's not the job of being vice president. Do I,
Speaker 8: as the reporter here, take into account that the interviews
Speaker 8: sometimes lack she's write words. Sure, yes, that's a problem.
Speaker 8: That was a problem when Kamala Harris ran for president.
Speaker 5: But if you take her in the totality.
Speaker 8: What I often see in the criticism of her is
Speaker 8: that people's expectations were just so high because she's history
Speaker 8: making that it's almost unfair to set her to those
Speaker 8: expectations because no vice president will ever meet them.
Speaker 5: That's not their job.
Speaker 10: Yes, Maya, what she said, Okay, as a as a
Speaker 10: person who ran for office in a city that has.
Speaker 7: Never had a woman, Molly's gonna cry.
Speaker 1: Now, Yes, I just want to say that I've voted
Speaker 1: for you. I would vote for you again. We have
Speaker 1: as a New York resident who has who knows very
Speaker 1: well of the New York mayor curse. I just can't
Speaker 1: every day. I am just she's my mayor. She's the
Speaker 1: mayor of my heart. I'm sorry.
Speaker 7: So, okay, thank you. That is I'm not gonna cry.
Speaker 7: But the reason I raised my hand is because everything
Speaker 7: Ali you said is so true and really needs to
Speaker 7: be underscored. And then there's one thing we have to
Speaker 7: say explicitly, she and a woman of color we cannot
Speaker 7: shy away. So the double standards there. Remember Hillary Clinton
Speaker 7: got a spanking because she was trying to run policy
Speaker 7: as the first lady, right, Remember that remember the cookie monster, right,
Speaker 7: So there's no question that the gender thing is real,
Speaker 7: no matter the race of the woman. But we cannot
Speaker 7: because I'm going to tell you what the problem the
Speaker 7: Democrats have. Why did Joe Biden promise he was going
Speaker 7: to pay black women back? And he said it explicitly
Speaker 7: and it was the first time we got recognition, and
Speaker 7: it is the Stacy Abrams factor for sure. But what
Speaker 7: Stacy Abrams did is she showed America what black women
Speaker 7: had been doing since including suffragettes. Need I remind anybody,
Speaker 7: I don't think I have to mind name by this room,
Speaker 7: black women were so for jets, so it's like always
Speaker 7: been the case. But but but he explicitly said I
Speaker 7: owe my seat to black women, uh, which is part
Speaker 7: of Kamala Harris becoming is running mate. It was also
Speaker 7: why Katanji Brown Jackson is now one of the most
Speaker 7: fabulous Supreme Court justice we've saved.
Speaker 1: But I I want to piggyback on you for a
Speaker 1: minute because this is something that I've talked about and
Speaker 1: I've interviewed the Vice President twice and that I actually
Speaker 1: believe that there is an innate sexism and racism that
Speaker 1: she bases that is impossible for us to put our
Speaker 1: fingers on. And I think that it really affects the
Speaker 1: way people see her, the way they treat her, the
Speaker 1: questions they ask her. I mean, I really see this,
Speaker 1: and I've talked to you know, I've actually even talked
Speaker 1: to you know that she has this there, and you know,
Speaker 1: I've talked to people who are like, I just don't
Speaker 1: know why I don't like her, and I'm like, I
Speaker 1: know why. There's just something about her and I so
Speaker 1: that I think that I just wanted.
Speaker 6: To add that, you know, Can I just add one Morrison,
Speaker 6: because I think this is the important data point about
Speaker 6: Kamala Harris. He's a lovely human being who faces challenges
Speaker 6: that are unfair.
Speaker 4: She is a knitter, I mean.
Speaker 6: And a cook she that too, But I mean she
Speaker 6: is not She is not, you know, a pedestrian knitter.
Speaker 6: She is an accomplished knitter. And the thing that I
Speaker 6: know about knitters being one of them and seeing a
Speaker 6: number of y'all out in the audience, knitters get shit
Speaker 6: done right.
Speaker 3: I mean, I now know why, I now know why
Speaker 3: I lost the mayor's race.
Speaker 6: But Maya, to your point, we live in we live
Speaker 6: in difficult times. We live in troubling times. I want
Speaker 6: to see Kamala Harris, not next term, but the term
Speaker 6: after in the White House because we need and it
Speaker 6: comes found to out.
Speaker 3: So I want to invite if you guys have questions. No,
Speaker 3: no stampeding, but there isn't open mic here, so please
Speaker 3: feel free.
Speaker 4: To come up and queue in line. Please, And why
Speaker 4: are not a question?
Speaker 7: Why are open mike? Because I want it just a
Speaker 7: little insider perspective on Allie's point about pipeline for women.
Speaker 7: And first of all is if you try to put
Speaker 7: yourself in a pipeline, I tell you don't deserve to
Speaker 7: be there. Okay, I just want to say that as
Speaker 7: someone who ran and was told wait, you don't you
Speaker 7: didn't get in line, You're you weren't up. I was like, Smorry,
Speaker 7: it's not and they don't give you money. You do
Speaker 7: need money to win. You need money to win, and
Speaker 7: women have a very hard time of any race raising
Speaker 7: the dollars. None of that is about the quality of
Speaker 7: the candidate.
Speaker 3: So if this is a knitting question, Joyce, we'll take
Speaker 3: that separately at the end of the panel.
Speaker 7: No, I need to know how to knit.
Speaker 4: Do you need to learn how to honey.
Speaker 1: I tried.
Speaker 8: We can start a little circle, because I want to
Speaker 8: do if we can tell you.
Speaker 4: Some stories about them.
Speaker 3: It was me Mary Trump, Joyce Vance, Aging Carroll and
Speaker 3: Gentile praying for me to learn how to knit. There
Speaker 3: may have been some boosoma anyway, please go ahead.
Speaker 11: Well, I just wanted to say, first of all, thank you.
Speaker 11: It's been such an empowering panel but also just really joyful,
Speaker 11: which is awesome.
Speaker 8: Thank you.
Speaker 11: And my question was going back to the idea of
Speaker 11: there's just something about Kamalade that you just can't put
Speaker 11: my finger on it, Like I've definitely also felt that,
Speaker 11: and it was hard for me to articulate, especially as
Speaker 11: I'm continuing to try and do the work to break
Speaker 11: down internalize misogyny, internalized racism. And so I'm curious if
Speaker 11: you think that there's a space going into twenty twenty
Speaker 11: four to address the internalized issues like as a you know,
Speaker 11: four of the people who are consistently voting blue, Like,
Speaker 11: where does that conversation come in where it's not just
Speaker 11: I'm showing up as a Democrat, but I'm actually like
Speaker 11: the doing the personal work so that in the future
Speaker 11: we can get her, you know a president president question.
Speaker 7: So well one, I really appreciate you raising up point.
Speaker 7: It takes a lot of bravery. And you know, the
Speaker 7: truth is we all have internalized stuff. Can't grow up
Speaker 7: in America not so just thank you for that. But
Speaker 7: I think that's a big part of it, is just
Speaker 7: calling it out, like if you don't if you can't
Speaker 7: find a reason, then you have a reason that you're
Speaker 7: just not confronting. And the other thing i'd say, and
Speaker 7: it's very hard. You can do it running for a
Speaker 7: mayoral office, it's really hard doing it when you're running
Speaker 7: a national race. Is if y'all met Kamala, it's like
Speaker 7: she is the most lovely person. She really is. She
Speaker 7: will hook you want to talk about joyful. That woman
Speaker 7: is joyful. She's brilliant, she's joyful, she's loving. So is
Speaker 7: Hillary Clinton? Like you know, everybody asks like she's some monster,
Speaker 7: say like if you met her, to be like, I
Speaker 7: like her. I want to have dinner with her. But
Speaker 7: we in national racism in particular, you know, we don't
Speaker 7: get that. And women have a harder time being seen
Speaker 7: as relatable, right, especially in women of color, and so
Speaker 7: that relatable is that nonverbal? I just don't know. And
Speaker 7: what people looking for is I want to feel I
Speaker 7: want to feel something, but you know when it's harder
Speaker 7: to feel it with women, that's what That's what really
Speaker 7: And then it's like just posing that question was like, well,
Speaker 7: if you can't find a reason, is there one?
Speaker 8: I will add, just as the reporter here who believes
Speaker 8: that it's the politician's job to get themselves across the
Speaker 8: way that they want to be perceived. Yes, I think
Speaker 8: it's on voters and all of us to ask these
Speaker 8: questions of our implicit bias, of why don't we accept
Speaker 8: a certain level of authenticity from people like Hillary Clinton,
Speaker 8: from people like Kamala Harris. I think all of those
Speaker 8: are very valid questions, and we don't allow women to
Speaker 8: showcase all of themselves because by b too likable, they're
Speaker 8: not strong enough. If they're too strong, then they're too shrill.
Speaker 8: All of those things are real. And also, you'll run
Speaker 8: within the environment that you run. It's not a secret
Speaker 8: that Harris has these problems. Her team is well aware.
Speaker 5: She is well aware. She ran a presidential that ended.
Speaker 8: Quite badly for a whole myriad number of reasons, but
Speaker 8: among them was the fact that she just at certain points,
Speaker 8: as the reporter asking the questions, didn't necessarily know her stuff.
Speaker 8: So it's on us to deal with our implicit biases
Speaker 8: and the way that we look at these candidates, and
Speaker 8: it is very much on them to get it together
Speaker 8: and get them points across the way that they need
Speaker 8: to be seen.
Speaker 7: But I will say again, inside of you, if you
Speaker 7: don't have money, you because how do you get that?
Speaker 7: How do you get how do you get the team
Speaker 7: that can give you and feed you. So I'm just
Speaker 7: saying that I'm just going to.
Speaker 6: Yes, literally part of that equation that we have to
Speaker 6: acknowledge to the point of your question, and it's this, Yes,
Speaker 6: their societal obligations. Yes, the candidate has obligations. This country
Speaker 6: has enemies that do not want to see democracy prevail,
Speaker 6: and social media disinformation misinformation from those enemies plays an
Speaker 6: enormous role in negative characterizations of women like Hillary Clinton and.
Speaker 7: Kamala Harris Good.
Speaker 4: Please, thank you tough for all of us.
Speaker 6: And it means we need to push back and stay aware.
Speaker 9: So thank you all so much for being here.
Speaker 12: So while I'm closer to retirement now, I started off
Speaker 12: my career. I spent seven years running two abortion clinics
Speaker 12: in Dallas and in Fort Worth.
Speaker 7: And thank you.
Speaker 9: I remember the day that Bill Clinton was inaugurated. It
Speaker 9: was an off.
Speaker 12: We didn't have any patients that day, and I'm in
Speaker 12: the clinic by myself. My Angelou is doing her poem
Speaker 12: and I'm crying because I'm thinking, finally, it's okay, right,
Speaker 12: We're done, and here we be. So in the light
Speaker 12: of not being surprised, you know, we a couple of
Speaker 12: years ago and continuing, we have had national organizations that
Speaker 12: have propagated anti abortion legislation like the actual wording, so
Speaker 12: that it makes it very easy for state.
Speaker 9: Legislators to pass this.
Speaker 12: This past year we had anti trans youth issues, same
Speaker 12: wording across the multiple states. There's been some talk that
Speaker 12: the next step is contraception and the possibility of us
Speaker 12: living in a I guess of post Griswold world.
Speaker 9: What do you think about that?
Speaker 12: Or is the fact that ballot measures have been that
Speaker 12: Republicans have lost in ballot measures going to make that
Speaker 12: less likely?
Speaker 9: Or what do you think?
Speaker 6: So I'll just say one short thing, which is this,
Speaker 6: I'm from Alabama. Chris Kobak is the individual that you're
Speaker 6: referring to that put the groups together that wrote this legislation,
Speaker 6: anti immigration legislation, voter suppression legislation. It continues to be
Speaker 6: a serious threat. We need to be aware of it
Speaker 6: if we don't want to end up in a post Griswold,
Speaker 6: post vote right Zach world, which I am very frightened.
Speaker 7: Of, also posts marriage equality. I mean, so I just
Speaker 7: it's all the things right, and I'll just say the one,
Speaker 7: the really most important pushback to all of this, because
Speaker 7: I don't want us to leave thinking that there we
Speaker 7: don't have power, is we are the majority. We are
Speaker 7: the majority, and the we looks like the country in
Speaker 7: all of its gorgeous beauty. And that is what we
Speaker 7: have to mobilize to. And it goes back to that hope,
Speaker 7: right is And the hope isn't inevitability. The hope is possibility.
Speaker 7: But that hope comes from being able to come together
Speaker 7: and seeing the organizing that's happening both here in Texas,
Speaker 7: in Alabama, in other states Alabama Forward and all these
Speaker 7: other like it's happening. So we just have to figure
Speaker 7: out how to wrap our arms around that and support that.
Speaker 5: Thank you go ahead these right, Thank you.
Speaker 13: My name is Jana Silms. I'm an organizer, and so
Speaker 13: in organizing, defining the narrative is very important and you
Speaker 13: never want to let the opposition define the narrative. But
Speaker 13: my question is, have we done a good job of
Speaker 13: defining the narrative? Is pro choice the right narrative when
Speaker 13: you're trying to compete with you know, killing babies? I mean,
Speaker 13: And so I'm curious what y'all think about how we're
Speaker 13: doing undefining the narrative.
Speaker 1: I'll take this one. So I would say I have
Speaker 1: really a problem with this the late term abortion discussion,
Speaker 1: because right, people are not having a people are not
Speaker 1: carrying children, and then being like at thirty weeks, you know, oh,
Speaker 1: I change my mind, right, like the people who are
Speaker 1: having abortions at that time. And I know because with
Speaker 1: my oldest son, he had a genetic disease and we
Speaker 1: we might have to have a second trimester abortion because
Speaker 1: he was going to die, and it turned out he
Speaker 1: didn't have it. But my doctor was like, I don't
Speaker 1: do second trimester, and then she started telling me the
Speaker 1: horror stories of patients she had had who had, you know,
Speaker 1: a dead fetus and had to go to California because
Speaker 1: there was no doctor who did abortions that late. And
Speaker 1: so I think that it's really, really really important that
Speaker 1: we do not do enough defining like these these bands
Speaker 1: are not. They they end up preventing people who you know,
Speaker 1: they end up causing people who have dead babies to
Speaker 1: be walking coffins, right, I mean that's what this is.
Speaker 1: This is not you know, nobody is getting a kind
Speaker 1: of an abortion that late unless there is some you know,
Speaker 1: either they're gonna die or the baby's gonna die. And
Speaker 1: so we definitely don't do enough messaging on that. I
Speaker 1: would say with some of the other things, like we
Speaker 1: you know, it's popular, like voters are out there voting
Speaker 1: for choice, right they and you know, with birth control,
Speaker 1: like you start saying Republicans are coming for your birth control,
Speaker 1: that's very effective messaging. I mean, just like with pornography,
Speaker 1: like Americans don't want Republicans coming for their pornography or
Speaker 1: their birth control, and so you know, I will I
Speaker 1: think that's a fight that Democrats should definitely have and
Speaker 1: that they can win.
Speaker 7: Can I just say the one thing I agree totally
Speaker 7: women of color, though I have a much more complicated
Speaker 7: relationship to it. So this is where I think values
Speaker 7: messaging is so important, and it's one of the things
Speaker 7: we have not been good enough at. You know, we
Speaker 7: become so issue focused and I see self reflection. So
Speaker 7: I mean, I think we and what the right has
Speaker 7: done so well is not right. That's why they can
Speaker 7: say war on woke and like attack banking regulations, like
Speaker 7: what the heck does that have to do with woke?
Speaker 7: But you know, so, but they can use that right
Speaker 7: for everything, and you know in this fight, because I
Speaker 7: do think and going back to this point is you
Speaker 7: know what people are upset about is wait, you trying
Speaker 7: to get between me and making some really personal decisions.
Speaker 7: Like that's why we have a lot of religious women
Speaker 7: who are deeply religious and actually have very strong feelings
Speaker 7: about abortion being a sin, saying but that's not okay.
Speaker 7: So I do think like finding the value that really
Speaker 7: is redefining freedom because one of the things that the
Speaker 7: right has done really effectively is redefined freedom as a
Speaker 7: weapon for what is truly freedom right, And so we
Speaker 7: have to take back that value of what freedom really is,
Speaker 7: and freedom is the right to make decisions about your
Speaker 7: own body. Freedom is about the right to get the
Speaker 7: care you want, make the decisions you want. Freedom is
Speaker 7: about the marry whoever the hell you love. You know,
Speaker 7: it's all these things, and it's our kind of underpinning.
Speaker 7: But it's a shared value across politics, and we have
Speaker 7: to animate that more and then that enables us to
Speaker 7: also talk to our particular communities where it's not pro
Speaker 7: choice for a lot of black women, but it is
Speaker 7: pro freedom. It is pro freedom to make your own
Speaker 7: decisions about your family, including to have healthy babies. If
Speaker 7: you choose, please go ahead.
Speaker 14: Kay.
Speaker 15: I think the question we're asking about Kamala Harris is wrong.
Speaker 15: It's not what she is doing wrong that's blaming her.
Speaker 15: I'm tired of that, tired of blameing women. The question
Speaker 15: is what is Biden doing wrong. A good leader in
Speaker 15: any setting uses the people that he has chosen and
Speaker 15: has put around him. He's not giving her the opportunity
Speaker 15: to shine. And I think if he gave her the opportunity,
Speaker 15: and if every president before him had given their vice
Speaker 15: president the opportunity to shine, maybe it'd be a different place.
Speaker 15: But he's just doing what every president before has done,
Speaker 15: which is not letting your vice president do anything so
Speaker 15: I just was wondering what your thoughts are.
Speaker 7: So I, well, this is a complicated question because there's
Speaker 7: a whole bunch of inside baseball that I won't pretend
Speaker 7: I know all of and what I do know is
Speaker 7: it's complicated. What I will say, though, is I think
Speaker 7: we are seeing her both being utilized and being much
Speaker 7: more of a presence than she was a year ago
Speaker 7: on these unreally critical from from Roe from abortion to
Speaker 7: voting rights. And actually she's taking a very active role
Speaker 7: now I'm missing disinformation and what to do about artificial intelligence,
Speaker 7: and she's taking leaderships. So I hear that, and I
Speaker 7: think there's a legitimate conversation to have around what is
Speaker 7: the empowerment, what is how is the president you know,
Speaker 7: organizing his cabinet. I mean, that's really it's that's a
Speaker 7: that's a broader question as well. And there's a lot of,
Speaker 7: for instance, consternation about whether it's cabinet secretaries are being
Speaker 7: given enough independence to do the things they want to
Speaker 7: do because there's so much fear sometimes about the politics.
Speaker 7: So it's a legitimate thing to raise. I just want
Speaker 7: to say we it's important for us to recognize she's
Speaker 7: doing a lot more of it, and she's doing it
Speaker 7: a lot better. And it's this is an a static situation.
Speaker 8: Hi, what one baby ad is It's still politics. You know,
Speaker 8: you're not going to tee up the next coming or
Speaker 8: whoever's next. Even though Biden says that he's going to
Speaker 8: pass the torch kind of leader. This is a guy
Speaker 8: that's wanted to be president for three decades. He tried
Speaker 8: three times, He's finally there. This explains a lot of
Speaker 8: the current moment. And as much as I think he
Speaker 8: wants to be a torch bearer within the party.
Speaker 5: It's still politics. At the end of the day.
Speaker 8: You're not going to tee up your best competition and
Speaker 8: overshadow yourself.
Speaker 6: But can I add one last thing about that. I
Speaker 6: think it's a very interesting question because it goes to
Speaker 6: the issue of management style and leadership style, and the
Speaker 6: point that presidents for time immemorial have not pushed forward
Speaker 6: their vice presidents for the reasons that Ali identified. I
Speaker 6: think that's absolutely accurate. So I am intrigued by this
Speaker 6: news we got this week that Kamala Harris is running
Speaker 6: point on this new gun control office. You know, it
Speaker 6: seemed like she got sidelined sidelined, and whether it was
Speaker 6: the fault of her staff or just something dysfunctional going
Speaker 6: on on tough issues like the border that no Democratic
Speaker 6: can ever win on, right. I mean that was just
Speaker 6: don't please, don't send her to the border, this gun
Speaker 6: control issue.
Speaker 7: I am fascinated to see.
Speaker 6: What she makes of it, because I think she's a
Speaker 6: strong and a forceful leader, and I think Joe Biden
Speaker 6: actually appreciates her. The relationship seems to be genuine. So
Speaker 6: I would just put that asterisk to the question and say,
Speaker 6: let's see what happens.
Speaker 3: So I think we're technically out of time, but I
Speaker 3: did want to let you ask a question.
Speaker 14: Yeah, I'm sharing from Ohio, and I appreciate Allie's shout out.
Speaker 14: We worked really hard to defeat that little slide in
Speaker 14: special election in August. So since most elections, you know,
Speaker 14: you have your left and your right, and people are
Speaker 14: dug in, so most of it is in the middle.
Speaker 14: I know a lot of anti abortion people are just
Speaker 14: anti choice to begin with. There are some that are
Speaker 14: truly religiously anti abortion. David French, I'm sure all you know, evangelical,
Speaker 14: very pro life, brought up some really interesting points when
Speaker 14: I was talking to him this morning, if that I
Speaker 14: think might be convincing to pro life people to vote
Speaker 14: for a Democrat. His points were, he posed the questions,
Speaker 14: who do you think had the most reduced rate of
Speaker 14: abortions of any administration? It was the Obama administration, he said,
Speaker 14: by like three hundred thousand a year less abortions because
Speaker 14: of the infrastructure of trying to support families. He said,
Speaker 14: what administration do you think had the most abortions for
Speaker 14: the last twenty year? The Trumpump exactly exactly. So if
Speaker 14: you're concern really is so he talked about like just
Speaker 14: trying to legislate is not going to work. So if
Speaker 14: your concern really is to prevent abortion and you are
Speaker 14: pro life, then maybe you should consider expanding support for
Speaker 14: people to be able to choose that. So I just
Speaker 14: thought maybe that could change people that aren't dug in,
Speaker 14: you know, either way, that they could say, yes, I'm
Speaker 14: pro life, I'm supporting this candidate. They're pro choice, but
Speaker 14: in the end, what they support is going to cause
Speaker 14: fewer abortions. So what are your thoughts on that?
Speaker 4: Quickly does somebody want to answer?
Speaker 1: I mean, I think the supposition here is that these
Speaker 1: people are not hypocrites, right, I mean there's not you know,
Speaker 1: look the child tax credit right lifted all these children
Speaker 1: out of poverty. Now they're all support it. This is
Speaker 1: not about this is about power and control. This is
Speaker 1: not about you know, these people and a lot of
Speaker 1: these people, you know, payper If their daughters need an abortion,
Speaker 1: they'll pay for it in a minute. So I just think,
Speaker 1: like what, I love David and I think he's very
Speaker 1: smart and a good writer. But you know, he truly
Speaker 1: believes this, whereas I think a lot of these people don't.
Speaker 4: So I just want to thank all of you for
Speaker 4: being here.
Speaker 3: I want to thank Molly, John Fast, Joyce, Fan Smyle Wiley,
Speaker 3: Hallie VI's Hallie.
Speaker 4: Thank you guys all for being here. Thank you.
Speaker 1: No moment, Rick Wilson, Yes, do you have a moment
Speaker 1: of fuckery for us?
Speaker 2: I always have a moment of fuckery for you, Molly.
Speaker 1: Let's hear the moment.
Speaker 2: Here's the moment of fuckery. Matt Gates is the Dobbs
Speaker 2: decision of Republican inter party politics. On the one hand,
Speaker 2: he got everything he wanted. He got the chaos, he
Speaker 2: got the monkey show, he got the insanity and he
Speaker 2: got the guy he hated the most killed off. But now,
Speaker 2: just like with Dobbs, when Republicans caught when the dog
Speaker 2: caught the car, the consequences of it are going to
Speaker 2: be catastrophic because, let me tell you, Matt Gates doesn't
Speaker 2: want to be in the minority. Matt Gates doesn't want
Speaker 2: to be the guy who who will go down most
Speaker 2: likely as the guy that costs Republicans their majority in
Speaker 2: the House. That's a rarity, that's something that you just
Speaker 2: don't get that frequently. Nobody fucks up that badly. But
Speaker 2: it looks like Matthew has.
Speaker 1: That is a really good point. That is I hadn't
Speaker 1: even thought of that, but it is. He is the
Speaker 1: Dobbs decision of the Republican Party, which is a little
Speaker 1: bit ironic. What I might say one might I'm going
Speaker 1: to say that my moment of fuckery is JD Vance
Speaker 1: because Jdvans lied about that. I mean, it was like
Speaker 1: there was so little time between the like horrendous, horrendous
Speaker 1: kidnapping videos we saw and the horrible violence we saw
Speaker 1: and these like children and women and old ladies being
Speaker 1: kidnapped to Jdvance being like this is all Joe Biden's
Speaker 1: fault because of the nuclear deal, and Jadvance is like
Speaker 1: has multiple Ivy League degrees, Like the man is just
Speaker 1: a fucking liar.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I can't really debate that part. His mendacity is stratospheric.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for coming on. I hope you'll
Speaker 1: come here.
Speaker 2: You are very welcome as always.
Speaker 15: My friend.
Speaker 1: That's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in
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Speaker 1: in politics makes sense of all this chaos. If you
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