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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 seniors will be hit with a

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Speaker 1: ten percent cost increase with Medicare Part B in twenty

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Speaker 1: twenty six. We have such a great show for you today,

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Speaker 1: Ziteo's own Mehdi Hassan stops by to talk about Trump's

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Speaker 1: maneuvers to get around the release of the Epstein files.

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Speaker 1: And we'll talk to Vanessa Williamson about her new book,

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Speaker 1: The Price of Democracy, The Revolutionary Power of Taxation in

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Speaker 1: American History. But first the news, Smali.

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Speaker 2: We are hot on the heels of the vote to

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Speaker 2: release the Epstein files in the House. One person voted

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Speaker 2: to not release it. One principled demand Clay Higgins.

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Speaker 1: Clay Higgins, you may remember him from you won't remember him,

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Speaker 1: but he does exist.

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Speaker 3: He's got a very memorable accent.

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Speaker 1: Molly, who's just in Congress. There are so many members

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Speaker 1: of Congress, you eat is too many memors of Congress

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Speaker 1: four hundred and thirty five, But only one voted no

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Speaker 1: to release on the Epstein transparency list, which is I think,

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Speaker 1: I mean, I think it's certainly worth thinking about this

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Speaker 1: because it is kind of nuts. Right, here's an opportunity

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Speaker 1: to do something that is wildly popular. Everyone wants the

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Speaker 1: Ebstein files released. I don't know. Clay Higgins voted no.

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Speaker 1: I was at the press conference. I heard Marjorie Taylor Green.

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Speaker 3: Tell us about your new best friend. Woke Marjorie Tailer Green.

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Speaker 1: Woke Marjorie Taylor Green. Okay, So again, I am very

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Speaker 1: much of the belief that politicians do what is expedient

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Speaker 1: for them. I think that Marjorie Taylor Green is doing

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Speaker 1: the right thing, and I am glad that she is

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Speaker 1: doing the right thing. I also think that it's important

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Speaker 1: to remember these people are in fact politicians and not philanthropists,

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Speaker 1: or they are in fact political actors serving political political

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Speaker 1: passions and political ambitions.

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Speaker 2: I can't believe you just cast aspersions on her asparagus

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Speaker 2: like this.

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Speaker 1: Right, So, during the press conference, you had first Rocanna,

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Speaker 1: then Thomas Massey, then Marjorie Taylor Green, and these survivors

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Speaker 1: got up and talked, and you could see that these

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Speaker 1: survivors really did feel And again, I'm not saying Marjorie

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Speaker 1: Taylor Green is not responsible for doing a lot of

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Speaker 1: bad stuff. I'm just saying you could tell that they

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Speaker 1: felt that she was fighting for them. They felt that

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Speaker 1: she cared about them, because you could tell because they

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Speaker 1: looked at her and they were crying. And so again,

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Speaker 1: I am in no way vouching for the character of

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Speaker 1: Marjorie Taylor Green, but I am telling you that these

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Speaker 1: women clearly felt that she was fighting for them. What

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Speaker 1: else I thought was very interesting was that there was

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Speaker 1: a sense in which Marjorie Taylor Green, like you could

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Speaker 1: tell she was very upset that Donald Trump had called

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Speaker 1: her a trader, like she was truly emotional in a way,

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Speaker 1: AOC said, And AOC is probably right that Marjorie Taylor

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Speaker 1: Green is doing this because Trump didn't back her senate run.

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Speaker 1: She wanted to run for senate, and certainly that is

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Speaker 1: absolutely possible. But I did get the sense that Marjorie

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Speaker 1: Taylor Green felt being called a trader was somehow next level,

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Speaker 1: was some kind of demarcation, had crossed some kind of

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Speaker 1: demarcation line, and she's pretty upset. I want to say

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Speaker 1: two things about this. One is that these are politicians,

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Speaker 1: and you do yourself no favors when you ascribed to

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Speaker 1: them anything other than political motives. That said, these political

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Speaker 1: motives dovetail to enact the same thing, which is the

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Speaker 1: release of the Epstein files, which all of us want.

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Speaker 1: So now these files they passed the House, now there's

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Speaker 1: a lot of pressure on the Senate to pass them.

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Speaker 1: Rocanna and Massy both said that they want to avoid

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Speaker 1: Foon adding something that would make it harder to get

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Speaker 1: the information goes through the Senate, it will then go

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Speaker 1: to Donald Trump's desk, where I think you will sign this.

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Speaker 1: I don't think he will reject it. I think he'll

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Speaker 1: sign it. And then I think what will happen next.

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Speaker 1: I think this DOJ will try to obfuscate and fight,

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Speaker 1: but I think eventually some some of this will get out.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, they'll just be about Bill Clinton and Larry Summers

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Speaker 3: and that is it.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, Okay, So while this vote was happening, we did

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Speaker 2: have a pretty disturbing press conference where Donald Trump was

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Speaker 2: in the White House with MBS. And sometimes Trump says

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Speaker 2: dumb things. Sometimes Trump's haysn't distracted. Sometimes Trump is reckless

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Speaker 2: with his words. But I would say what happened with

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Speaker 2: him at ABC was really not good. That he did

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Speaker 2: not like a wne of questioning and he really lost

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Speaker 2: his shit.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, So the reporter asked Mary Bruce asked a question,

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Speaker 1: and he said it was fake news. And then he said,

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Speaker 1: it's not your question, I mind, it's your attitude. I

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Speaker 1: think you're a terrible reporter. You're a terrible person in

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Speaker 1: a terror reporter. And then he's theorized that the leaders

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Speaker 1: at ABC News were psyching boosts up to ask Trump

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Speaker 1: a leading question about Epstein. You know, Epstein is the

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Speaker 1: only case going on right now, so I mean it's

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Speaker 1: basically the only story. I mean, it's the biggest story

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Speaker 1: right now. And if you had a White House reporter

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Speaker 1: who gets a question, why would you not ask that question?

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Speaker 1: Like it would be malpractice. You know, she doesn't work

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Speaker 1: for MAGA News one two three. She works for a

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Speaker 1: real newspaper, and when you work for a real newspaper,

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Speaker 1: you have to ask real questions. I think Trump has

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Speaker 1: gotten a little too comfortable with his sycophantic group of

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Speaker 1: fake reporters, and so he doesn't like real reporting.

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Speaker 2: I mean, the fact that he's been asked so infrequently

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Speaker 2: about his relationship with the MBS and what MBS did

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Speaker 2: to Jamal Kashogi really is a bad indictment of the

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Speaker 2: media and seeing this today was a great sign of

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Speaker 2: great work. But getting their broadcast twice and is threatened

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Speaker 2: not good.

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Speaker 1: Not good. And I think it's worth remembering that this

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Speaker 1: is the first time MBS has been back since Koshogi

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Speaker 1: has been murdered in twenty eighteen, so like, this is

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Speaker 1: actually quite relevant and important, and so asking questions about

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Speaker 1: that is not so unreasonable. In fact, it's really, you know,

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Speaker 1: the only thing in town. So yes, it just is

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Speaker 1: mind boggling. Is stupid, this whole fucking thing.

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Speaker 3: So my, we saw a funny thing.

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Speaker 2: And if this was the way everything got left to

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Speaker 2: stand that a judge's blocked the new Texas congressional maps

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Speaker 2: favoring the GOP at the jerrymandering that they're trying to

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Speaker 2: use to get ahead of the midterms.

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Speaker 3: If for some reason this.

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Speaker 1: Stood, it would be amazing.

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Speaker 3: It really would be basic.

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Speaker 1: Remember Texas gave Trump five seats because Trump said he

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Speaker 1: wanted five seats and Abbott was like, you got it.

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Speaker 1: So now we have this bipartist. So now we have

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Speaker 1: and that kicked off California doing this vote to give

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Speaker 1: five seats to Democrats, So here we are. This was

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Speaker 1: a three judge panel, and one of the judges was

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Speaker 1: a Trump appoint and they have thrown it back. Now again,

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Speaker 1: you'll remember that the highest court in the land works

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Speaker 1: for Donald Trump, right, So we don't know ultimately how

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Speaker 1: this ends, but I do think it's worth noting this

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Speaker 1: will be very ironic if this is what happens, very

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Speaker 1: very ironic.

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Speaker 2: So in the opposite way, I don't think this is

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Speaker 2: the best precedent, but Metas won a landmark antitrust case

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Speaker 2: over Instagram and WhatsApps acquisitions that a lot of people

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Speaker 2: say leaves a lot of room for the bigger tech

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Speaker 2: companies to trample smaller ones with acquisitions and really really

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Speaker 2: fucked up market manipulations. Because I'll shock you here, no

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Speaker 2: one is at the head of the FTC that cares

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Speaker 2: if you're a friend of mister Trump's.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, well, we have a special coming up with Lena

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Speaker 1: Khan and the Biden administration really tried to push back

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Speaker 1: against this kind of antitrust stuff because it's bad for

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Speaker 1: everyone involved. You know, these companies Meta, they were donors

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Speaker 1: to Trump in the inauguration. You had Mark Zuckerberg sitting

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Speaker 1: there with Trump while they were swearing him in. They've

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Speaker 1: donated to the Trump Ballroom. This is how this administration works.

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Speaker 1: You make donations, you do the things that they want,

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Speaker 1: and then you get regulatory approval. That's not how any

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Speaker 1: of this is supposed to work, right, not how any

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Speaker 1: of this is supposed to be working. So this is

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Speaker 1: just not business as usual, and it's really bad and

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Speaker 1: it's really just Meddi Hassan is the founder of zteo

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Speaker 1: and the host of Meddi Unfiltered. Welcome to Fast Politics, Maddie.

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Speaker 4: Great to be back, Mommy.

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Speaker 5: How are you?

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Speaker 1: Oh, I'm good. It's just amazing. I think this is

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Speaker 1: the end of MAGA. What comes next could be worse.

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Speaker 1: What could be next could be worse. It could be

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Speaker 1: MAGA but with real hardcore anti Semitism, which is what

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Speaker 1: I think is percolating. But the mega coalition that we

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Speaker 1: once knew, the Marjorie Taylor Greens and the Lauren Boberts

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Speaker 1: discuss discuss.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, I think it's very First of all, all these

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Speaker 4: people are slightly deranged, so it's always hard to impose

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Speaker 4: rational thinking on all of them. You know, when it

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Speaker 4: comes to Marjorie Taylor Green, is it being driven by principle?

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Speaker 4: Is it being driven by self interest and self aggrandizement.

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Speaker 1: Do we think anything that any of these people do

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Speaker 1: is being driven by principle?

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Speaker 4: No, but I'm just getting the options of what it

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Speaker 4: could because she would say it's because I'm I want

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Speaker 4: transparents in Epstein and that's why I've gone against Trump

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Speaker 4: on this. Yes, Others like Alexandria Cossi Corteza suggested is

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Speaker 4: because Donald Trump spiked to Senate run by her. And

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Speaker 4: this is her, you know, this is a scorned woman

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Speaker 4: pissed off. Now she might run for president against JD. Vance.

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Speaker 4: So who knows what's driving these people? Clearly something's going on,

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Speaker 4: And what's so fascinating always is Trump always makes things

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Speaker 4: worse for himself, right, and he could easily win these

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Speaker 4: people back, they're part of her cult. Instead what does

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Speaker 4: he do. He goes and calls her a traitor. He

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Speaker 4: basically incites violence against her. We had a whole month

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Speaker 4: of Republican handringing after Charlie court Wisher. We need to

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Speaker 4: tone down the rhetoric. Meanwhile, Donald Trump is getting members

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Speaker 4: of his own party, not just MTG, but I believe

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Speaker 4: a state lawmaker in Indiana swatted at their homes after

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Speaker 4: he attacks him online. So I think if Maga is

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Speaker 4: breaking down, it's Trump doing the breaking of it. But

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Speaker 4: I would say, Molly, it is too soon to tell.

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Speaker 4: I've heard too many forecasts about the death of Maga,

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Speaker 4: and it is a cult. So at the end of

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Speaker 4: the day, the vast Marya people still do blindly stick

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Speaker 4: with Trump through right and wrong. And I don't think

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Speaker 4: Donald Trump's going anywhere anytime soon. I think it's too

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Speaker 4: early to say stuff like, oh, he's now a lane

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Speaker 4: duck president. He's got violent armed rogue police raiding churches

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Speaker 4: in Charlotte, like he is not weep.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, that is he does have a He's the first

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Speaker 1: president of modern American political life to have his own militia. Yes,

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Speaker 1: so it's important not to underestimate that. And and I

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Speaker 1: do think like the one lesson that any of us

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Speaker 1: may have learned and I'm not. And again you'll notice

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Speaker 1: how I've coached, couched the language and may have Remember

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Speaker 1: the anonymous senator who said, no one expects Donald Trump

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Speaker 1: to overthrow the government. Yep, He's going to go play

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Speaker 1: some golf. I think about that guy.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, there's many of them. He symbolic of many of them.

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Speaker 4: But that's the problem.

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Speaker 5: Right.

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Speaker 4: There's always been this, basically on the Republican right, Molly,

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Speaker 4: there's been a complacency about guys calm down, take him seriously,

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Speaker 4: not literally or literally, ill serious or whatever the.

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Speaker 1: Day of the week is, basically not mentally.

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Speaker 4: Yeah. And then on the kind of liberal I want

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Speaker 4: to call it MSNBC wing, the Hashtage resistance side, it's

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Speaker 4: always the walls are closing in. Trump is nearly done for.

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Speaker 4: And I think both extremes are a mistake. I think

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Speaker 4: Donald Trump is a great survivor. He's definitely done things

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Speaker 4: that many of us thought he wouldn't do. I didn't

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Speaker 4: think he would be back for you know, a second

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Speaker 4: term on January the seventh, twenty twenty one, like many others,

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Speaker 4: but he did come back. I didn't think he would

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Speaker 4: win the first time in twenty sixteen, and he did.

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Speaker 4: So I am loath to write him off as he's

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Speaker 4: done for. Maga's gone. It's lame duck presidency. I think

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Speaker 4: they've got their plans. Obviously they're having some problems with

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Speaker 4: members of their party. But let's see how many other

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Speaker 4: people do an MTG. Yes, but don't you think some

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Speaker 4: of this is like a cloak. For like Donald Trump

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Speaker 4: said he was going to make things cheaper, he got

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Speaker 4: in office and immediately made everything more expensive. Yes, you know,

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Speaker 4: he told Latino voters he was going to do you know,

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Speaker 4: he was going to crack down on the worst of

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Speaker 4: the worst.

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Speaker 1: What he meant was anyone who looked Latino. You know,

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Speaker 1: he made a lot of promises to a lot of

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Speaker 1: different people, was unable to keep any of them. And

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Speaker 1: now we're ten months in and people are starting to

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Speaker 1: get mad at him, as they do when you make

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Speaker 1: out to promises you can't keep. So like, is Epstein

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Speaker 1: just a smoke screen for the underlying fractures that have

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Speaker 1: nothing to do with it one hundred percent?

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Speaker 4: And you saw that with Marjorie Taylor Green. In fact,

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Speaker 4: she didn't just turn on him over Epstein. She turned

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Speaker 4: him over Gaza, which is another festering wound, but also

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Speaker 4: turned them over affordability. She went on CNN of all places,

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Speaker 4: and talked about how Mike Johnson was wrong about the

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Speaker 4: shutdown and how Donald Trump was wrong about prices going

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Speaker 4: down when they're going up now again, are there others

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Speaker 4: who have the gut to do what MTG did? She

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Speaker 4: has an independent platform. She's very popular, she raises small donors. Yeah,

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Speaker 4: she's wealthy and independently. Like, she's able to kind of

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Speaker 4: stave off, at least in the short term attacks from Trump.

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Speaker 4: The average Republican backbench House member can't and won't, So

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Speaker 4: I'm not sure that we'll follow. You're right, the underlying

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Speaker 4: issues are the big thing here. Donald Trump made everything

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Speaker 4: worse at home and abroad, even though he goes around

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Speaker 4: claiming he solved eight wars, which he didn't obviously, and

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Speaker 4: on the inflation side, Molly, if you've seen all these

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Speaker 4: mega influences praising Trump for taking tariffs off of things,

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Speaker 4: now he's like, he put them on there. You told

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Speaker 4: us they were fine, they wouldn't raise priss, and now

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Speaker 4: you want us to praise him for taking things off.

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Speaker 4: Donald Trump is this classic thing where he often you

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Speaker 4: often find yourself and a Trump defender defending Trump after

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Speaker 4: Trump has thrown you under the bus. So yeah, a

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Speaker 4: classic example is Troy Nil's the congress menage spent all

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Speaker 4: weekend saying we're not going to release the Epstein files

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Speaker 4: for no reason to and then Trump on Sunday said,

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Speaker 4: release the Epstein files. And you're like, oh, the memo

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Speaker 4: didn't go out in time. And he does that often.

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Speaker 4: People go out and defend Trump and then he would

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Speaker 4: do the exact opposite of what they just said. So

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Speaker 4: that's going to be a running saw for them as well.

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Speaker 4: The problem we have, Molly is I was talking to

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Speaker 4: a friend the other day and I see, no, we've

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Speaker 4: had I think it was last month, and I said,

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Speaker 4: we've had nine ten months of Trump. They went, what

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Speaker 4: what do you mean? I thought, it's been more than

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Speaker 4: a year, and no, it's only none or ten months.

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Speaker 4: And there is his sense, and I think people quite

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Speaker 4: get that this guy is not even a year in.

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Speaker 4: We're all the chaos and harm and incompetence and authoritarianism

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Speaker 4: and wars are broad when now maybe going to war

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Speaker 4: with Venezuela. All of that's happened in his first ten months.

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Speaker 4: We still have more than three years left min minimum

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Speaker 4: of this guy.

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Speaker 3: Minimum.

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Speaker 1: Don't say that it's not nice. I'm already so stressed out. No,

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Speaker 1: I'm just kidding, But I do think that's right. And

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Speaker 1: I'm thinking about when Donald Trump said that he had

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Speaker 1: an MRI.

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Speaker 4: Oh but no, he's not sure what four right.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, this is his he was second yearly doctor's visit

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Speaker 1: had advanced imaging, and everyone was like, oh, advanced imaging,

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Speaker 1: Well that's odd. Also a doctor's visit once a year,

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Speaker 1: except twice this year because it's And then he said, yeah,

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Speaker 1: I had an MRI and they said, dude, was it

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Speaker 1: your brain? And he said, I don't know.

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Speaker 5: Right.

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Speaker 4: They're like they're like, they're like pushing him into that

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Speaker 4: circular what is it a little tube they put you? Yeah,

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Speaker 4: and he's like, what's just for? I don't know, don't

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Speaker 4: worry about it that again. I know we played this horrific

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Speaker 4: game far too much, but can you imagine if Joe

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Speaker 4: Biden was asked about an MRI that he had hidden

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Speaker 4: from the public and then he said about the MRI,

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Speaker 4: I had the best MRI ever?

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Speaker 3: What was it for?

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Speaker 4: I don't know? Yeah, I mean some insane insane that

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Speaker 4: this guy can have two medical tests, two annual checks

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Speaker 4: as a president. He can have weird bruising on his

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Speaker 4: hands that he doesn't need to tell us about. He

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Speaker 4: can the ankles, he can disappear from public view or

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Speaker 4: not do any interviews for about five six days, or

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Speaker 4: allow him say why he can have an MRI and

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Speaker 4: we're not told why he gets shot in the ear,

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Speaker 4: and we've never actually had any official medical records about it,

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Speaker 4: nor been able to speak to the doctors who treated him.

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Speaker 4: And miraculously is ear heeled faster than my shaving cuts.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, no, no, now it is. It would make a

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Speaker 1: person a conspiracy theorist.

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Speaker 4: I wrote. I write a Monday morning newsletter for Zeteo

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Speaker 4: called first Draft, and this morning, Monday Morning's email newsletter

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Speaker 4: is about how we're all Epstein conspiracy theorists. Now, how

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Speaker 4: I spent my life resisting conspiracy theories on the left,

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Speaker 4: in Muslim communities, anti Semitic, nine to eleven, all of those.

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Speaker 4: I've spent years fighting back against those, and yet now

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Speaker 4: in twenty twenty five, Donald Trump has made me into

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Speaker 4: a conspiracy theorist.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, because there is no way to process this information.

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Speaker 1: It just doesn't make sense, right, Like all of this stuff,

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Speaker 1: it's just huh.

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Speaker 4: Oh, there's just too many smoking guns. Jeffrey Epstein sends

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Speaker 4: an email to an unknown person in December twenty eighteen,

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Speaker 4: saying I'm the only one who can bring him down.

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Speaker 4: Seven months later, he's arrested and detained by Trump's doj

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Speaker 4: A month after that, he dies in prison where the

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Speaker 4: cameras aren't working. Well, sorry, what a Netflix writer's room

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Speaker 4: would throw that out as being unrealistic and a little

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Speaker 4: bit too on the nose.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, it's not good. It's not good.

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Speaker 4: It's nothing about our current predicament is good.

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Speaker 1: I want to talk for a minute about this pivot.

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Speaker 1: So Trump World, he knew the discharged petition, Mike Johnson

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Speaker 1: shuts down the entire House of Representatives, sends everyone up

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Speaker 1: there if he uses a seat an elected Democrat from Arizona. Right,

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Speaker 1: do you remember what the numbers are it was? I

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Speaker 1: think it was a third forty day shutdown. The House

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Speaker 1: was in session for four days.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, something in saying not double digits.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, he sent them home because he did not want

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Speaker 1: them to sign the discharge petition or do any business

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Speaker 1: or get together and talk about Epstein. So now they

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Speaker 1: know they're going to lose this discharge vote. And we

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Speaker 1: heard that it may be as many we had heard

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Speaker 1: that it might have been as many as one hundred Republicans.

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Speaker 1: We're going to vote on them vote against him. So

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Speaker 1: he decides on Sunday night. You reference this, but I

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Speaker 1: think we have to talk about a little more, decides

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Speaker 1: on Sunday night that he is going to just have

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Speaker 1: them release the files, yeah, or have a vote. I'm

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Speaker 1: releasing the file yes.

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Speaker 4: So to be clear, it's interesting how you phrased that,

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Speaker 4: because let's be clear, the files are with the Department

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Speaker 4: of Justice. Pam Bundy famously went on Fox in February

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Speaker 4: and said they're on my desk ready to go, right,

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Speaker 4: So when we talk about releasing the files, it doesn't

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Speaker 4: require a vote in Congress. Now Donald Trump wants to

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Speaker 4: rease the files, he can rease the files tomorrow money.

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Speaker 4: It's not as if his DOJ is some independent entity.

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Speaker 4: We know that Pam Bundy is basically just to kind of,

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Speaker 4: you know, like a restaurant server at this point for

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Speaker 4: Donald Trump. She moves as soon as he tells her

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Speaker 4: to move. So if he wants, he can just put

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Speaker 4: out a truth social post. Think Pam put out all

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Speaker 4: the files tonight on a website. This whole vote for

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Speaker 4: it is just him trying to cover himself from an

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Speaker 4: embarrassing loss, as you said, or a defection of many

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Speaker 4: members of his party. Thomas Massey, who's gone to war

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Speaker 4: with aside from MTG, the Republican congressman who's been leading

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Speaker 4: the charge with Rocannor on the Epstein discharge. He's said

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Speaker 4: very eloquently that you know, Donald Trump will be gone.

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Speaker 4: I'm not sure he will be gone. It may be

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Speaker 4: gone in four years, but you'll still be around and

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Speaker 4: people remember you as defenders of pedophiles. He said to

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Speaker 4: his colleagues, that's obviously had some traction that reminds Yeah.

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Speaker 1: And then he went after Massey for getting remarried too quickly.

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Speaker 4: With Mary Massey, a widows wife died raight, he went

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Speaker 4: after him for getting married again. And Laura Luma, his

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Speaker 4: media ally questioned how Massey's wife died. I mean, there

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Speaker 4: is no bottom for this Republican party.

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Speaker 1: And it is also important to remember this is like

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Speaker 1: Donald Trump, who's three wives in and has numerous allegations

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Speaker 1: of infidelity.

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Speaker 4: Allegedly she did on his third wife just after she

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Speaker 4: gave birth.

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Speaker 1: Was a porn star.

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Speaker 5: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Anyway, so there, so there will be a vote. Now,

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Speaker 1: let's talk about this protocol for a minute. There'll be

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Speaker 1: a vote now, and then it we'll go to the Senate.

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Speaker 4: And do they even have the votes in the Senate

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Speaker 4: because Republican Senators there in a very different vote. They

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Speaker 4: were never on the whole Epstein train, right. It was

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Speaker 4: very much an MTG. Bobert, you know, a massy kind

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Speaker 4: of unhinged folks in the House.

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Speaker 5: I mean.

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Speaker 4: The great irony, as I point out in my newsletter

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Speaker 4: this morning, is these guys spent four years banging the

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Speaker 4: druma about Epstein, jumping on QAnon bandwagons about it being

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Speaker 4: a secret crazy the politicians covering up a child sex

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Speaker 4: trafficking ring. Turns out they may have been right, but

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Speaker 4: the ring and the cover up was on their side

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Speaker 4: of the aisle, right, correct. That's that's the problem they

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Speaker 4: have now is all of these people, not just the

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Speaker 4: members of Congress, but the Bune and the Cashpatel, the FBI,

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Speaker 4: Derek to Devis, they all pushed this Epstein stuff and

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Speaker 4: now they're in a position to really make sure that

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Speaker 4: they're unable to go through with it. And we know

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Speaker 4: the timeline Molly on the reporting. It's when they went

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Speaker 4: through the files. They devoted hundreds of members of the government,

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Speaker 4: hundreds of members of the bureaucracy were diverted onto the

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Speaker 4: task of going through the files and just doing control.

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Speaker 4: F Trump control f. Trump all the way through and

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Speaker 4: when you saw how many times his name appears, and

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Speaker 4: Detail has put a searchable archive of all of the

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Speaker 4: twenty thousand documents that were released by the House Oversight Committee.

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Speaker 4: You can look at zataio dot com. You can search

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Speaker 4: them for yourselves. You will see Donald Trump's name appears

434
00:21:33,880 --> 00:21:36,640
Speaker 4: more than anybody else is apart from Jeffrey Epstein. That's

435
00:21:36,640 --> 00:21:38,960
Speaker 4: when they decided we can't release this stuff. We have

436
00:21:39,040 --> 00:21:40,919
Speaker 4: to pretend all is fine, there's nothing to see here,

437
00:21:40,960 --> 00:21:41,879
Speaker 4: Move along, move along.

438
00:21:42,359 --> 00:21:45,840
Speaker 1: Yes, I just wonder where it goes, right, because so

439
00:21:45,920 --> 00:21:49,840
Speaker 1: we know that Pambondi supposedly had in our desk. Again,

440
00:21:50,080 --> 00:21:54,000
Speaker 1: we don't really know because everybody's lying. I think it's

441
00:21:54,040 --> 00:21:57,399
Speaker 1: fair was to agree that pretty much everybody's lying here.

442
00:21:57,640 --> 00:21:59,879
Speaker 4: My position on this administration is you assume it's alioned.

443
00:22:00,080 --> 00:22:01,160
Speaker 4: Let's proved to be the true too.

444
00:22:01,400 --> 00:22:03,840
Speaker 1: But either way, we know there's a ton of information

445
00:22:03,960 --> 00:22:06,879
Speaker 1: that did go to the DJ and it was videos

446
00:22:06,920 --> 00:22:10,520
Speaker 1: and emails and depositions. I mean, that's the other thing

447
00:22:10,520 --> 00:22:13,360
Speaker 1: that's worth's remembering is right now, all we've seen are

448
00:22:13,440 --> 00:22:16,920
Speaker 1: the emails that they flooded us with from the Republicans

449
00:22:16,960 --> 00:22:20,679
Speaker 1: the Oversight Committee emails, and then we've seen the emails

450
00:22:20,720 --> 00:22:24,280
Speaker 1: from Bloomberg from Jason Leopold that he got from Floyd's.

451
00:22:24,880 --> 00:22:28,840
Speaker 1: That is it. We haven't seen like I mean, I

452
00:22:28,880 --> 00:22:32,480
Speaker 1: guess that the House released some stuff like the Michael

453
00:22:32,480 --> 00:22:36,240
Speaker 1: Wolf that long Michael Wolf article. Can we talk? Can

454
00:22:36,280 --> 00:22:39,879
Speaker 1: we do two seconds on Michael Wolf here? Because so

455
00:22:40,040 --> 00:22:45,399
Speaker 1: this is a guy who was like advising, writing, doing

456
00:22:45,480 --> 00:22:47,399
Speaker 1: pr for Friendly.

457
00:22:47,160 --> 00:22:50,320
Speaker 4: Jeffrey Epstein one of the most famous journalists of our time.

458
00:22:51,040 --> 00:22:52,800
Speaker 4: He's super famous. A lot of people in this you

459
00:22:52,880 --> 00:22:55,040
Speaker 4: don't like it for good reason. I think these emails

460
00:22:55,080 --> 00:22:57,760
Speaker 4: show everything that's wrong with journalism in this country, the

461
00:22:57,800 --> 00:23:01,159
Speaker 4: worst parts of our kind of established journalism. And his

462
00:23:01,320 --> 00:23:04,199
Speaker 4: argument just to play devil's advocate. He's arguing that I

463
00:23:04,280 --> 00:23:06,240
Speaker 4: have to suck up to these people to get access.

464
00:23:06,280 --> 00:23:08,119
Speaker 4: That's how I got an interview with Donald Trump. And

465
00:23:08,119 --> 00:23:09,440
Speaker 4: we know that's how it works with Trump. You suck

466
00:23:09,520 --> 00:23:11,000
Speaker 4: up to Trump. He invites you in, he gives you

467
00:23:11,040 --> 00:23:12,480
Speaker 4: an interview, then he doesn't like what you've written and

468
00:23:12,520 --> 00:23:14,320
Speaker 4: he attacks you. We know that that's what happened to Wolf.

469
00:23:14,400 --> 00:23:16,600
Speaker 4: He wrote these best selling books Fire and Fury, and

470
00:23:16,760 --> 00:23:18,760
Speaker 4: I think hold three or four books, I've lost track,

471
00:23:18,880 --> 00:23:20,840
Speaker 4: and he did that by sucking up clearly with Epstein.

472
00:23:20,840 --> 00:23:22,200
Speaker 4: I think it's harder for him to make that case

473
00:23:22,240 --> 00:23:24,120
Speaker 4: because it's very clear from the emails that we've seen

474
00:23:24,280 --> 00:23:26,600
Speaker 4: that they were friends, that he was advising him, that

475
00:23:26,680 --> 00:23:29,440
Speaker 4: he was trying to spin on his behalf and giving

476
00:23:29,480 --> 00:23:32,280
Speaker 4: him pr and media advice. It's kind of disgusting because

477
00:23:32,560 --> 00:23:35,159
Speaker 4: let's not forget Molly important point for the context for

478
00:23:35,240 --> 00:23:38,040
Speaker 4: all these emails. Whether it's Larry Summers, who's also in

479
00:23:38,080 --> 00:23:43,600
Speaker 4: the emails on how to how to move on a

480
00:23:43,600 --> 00:23:46,600
Speaker 4: allegedly on a Chinese academic whose father was a Communist

481
00:23:46,640 --> 00:23:49,240
Speaker 4: Party official, whether it's Summers, whether it's Wolf, whether it's

482
00:23:49,440 --> 00:23:53,040
Speaker 4: God Helpers, Non Chomsky, whoever's in those emails. They all

483
00:23:53,160 --> 00:23:56,199
Speaker 4: knew at that point that this guy was convicted in

484
00:23:56,200 --> 00:23:59,760
Speaker 4: two thousand and eight for child sex crimes or so listening.

485
00:23:59,760 --> 00:24:01,520
Speaker 4: At that point that the plea Dearly got was for

486
00:24:01,680 --> 00:24:04,439
Speaker 4: listening an under eighteen. But the point is they all

487
00:24:04,520 --> 00:24:06,119
Speaker 4: knew who he was, they all knew what was guilty.

488
00:24:06,160 --> 00:24:09,080
Speaker 1: It was set he was a registered sexis predator.

489
00:24:09,119 --> 00:24:10,840
Speaker 4: At that point, he had been in prison, even if

490
00:24:10,840 --> 00:24:12,359
Speaker 4: it was a kind of soft prison that he got

491
00:24:12,359 --> 00:24:15,239
Speaker 4: to you every day, and so there's no excuse for

492
00:24:15,320 --> 00:24:17,360
Speaker 4: any of these people to have been friendly with him,

493
00:24:17,480 --> 00:24:20,920
Speaker 4: hanging out with him, giving him advice. It's truly disgusting

494
00:24:21,000 --> 00:24:23,480
Speaker 4: and de prayed. There's a real reflection of what goes

495
00:24:23,520 --> 00:24:25,840
Speaker 4: on on fortune, and some of it really confirms for

496
00:24:25,880 --> 00:24:27,840
Speaker 4: a lot of people go back to conspiracy theory stuff

497
00:24:28,040 --> 00:24:31,440
Speaker 4: about just how intertwined kind of the most deprayed elements

498
00:24:31,440 --> 00:24:33,080
Speaker 4: of our media and political establishments are.

499
00:24:33,280 --> 00:24:39,520
Speaker 1: I also think that it speaks to a kind of world.

500
00:24:39,600 --> 00:24:43,200
Speaker 1: I mean, this is a world that doesn't necessarily exist anymore, right,

501
00:24:43,480 --> 00:24:46,840
Speaker 1: some of it? And thank God for that ready, Like

502
00:24:47,040 --> 00:24:47,800
Speaker 1: I mean, would you?

503
00:24:47,840 --> 00:24:50,160
Speaker 4: But unfortunately some of these emails are from like twenty

504
00:24:50,160 --> 00:24:53,080
Speaker 4: eighteen and twenty nineteen, like this time right now, it's stuff,

505
00:24:53,119 --> 00:24:55,960
Speaker 4: and these connections are still happening, pretty dark, and people

506
00:24:55,960 --> 00:24:58,360
Speaker 4: give it, oh well, Bill Clinton, I'm like, yeah, nobody

507
00:24:58,400 --> 00:25:03,479
Speaker 4: cares right about freaking about.

508
00:25:02,160 --> 00:25:06,240
Speaker 1: A nonpartisan exercise. You know, if and I know he's not,

509
00:25:06,440 --> 00:25:09,320
Speaker 1: but if Barack Obama, who is like as close to

510
00:25:09,400 --> 00:25:13,240
Speaker 1: sort of a democratic deity as one could have if

511
00:25:13,240 --> 00:25:15,920
Speaker 1: he were in there, we want him out too. I mean,

512
00:25:15,920 --> 00:25:17,480
Speaker 1: this is not a partisan activity.

513
00:25:17,520 --> 00:25:19,960
Speaker 4: I mean, his name is mentioned at different times in

514
00:25:20,000 --> 00:25:22,080
Speaker 4: the emails. But yeah, there's no evidence that Obama of

515
00:25:22,080 --> 00:25:24,879
Speaker 4: a partied with Epstein or went on his jet in

516
00:25:24,880 --> 00:25:27,600
Speaker 4: the way that Clinton and Trump did. Right, and again

517
00:25:27,760 --> 00:25:29,639
Speaker 4: no accusations of wrongdo we have to add in this

518
00:25:29,800 --> 00:25:33,240
Speaker 4: very ligitious climate, but it looks bad. And the fact

519
00:25:33,280 --> 00:25:35,199
Speaker 4: that he's tried to cover it up until Sunday night

520
00:25:35,200 --> 00:25:36,520
Speaker 4: when he said release it all. The fact that he

521
00:25:36,560 --> 00:25:38,200
Speaker 4: was willing to go to what would Marjorie Taylor Green,

522
00:25:38,359 --> 00:25:41,520
Speaker 4: The fact that he announced that criminal investigation into only

523
00:25:41,600 --> 00:25:46,280
Speaker 4: democrats mentioned in the documents, how was I amazing? The fact,

524
00:25:46,400 --> 00:25:48,760
Speaker 4: I mean again with Trump, each and every one of

525
00:25:48,800 --> 00:25:50,720
Speaker 4: these things that we're talking about, for any other president

526
00:25:50,800 --> 00:25:54,240
Speaker 4: would be a multi week, multi month scandal. The fact

527
00:25:54,240 --> 00:25:56,720
Speaker 4: that dog Drum just casually on Sunday told his Aney general,

528
00:25:56,760 --> 00:25:59,439
Speaker 4: I want you to investigate these democrats who are in

529
00:25:59,480 --> 00:26:02,200
Speaker 4: the far and she said sure, I'm an appointed attorney

530
00:26:02,280 --> 00:26:04,520
Speaker 4: right now, that in itself, Molly, you and I were

531
00:26:04,520 --> 00:26:06,000
Speaker 4: saying this last year. If we said this last thing,

532
00:26:06,040 --> 00:26:08,199
Speaker 4: we were told it was Trump drangement syndrome, suggests that

533
00:26:08,200 --> 00:26:10,200
Speaker 4: Trump would do stuff as brazenly as he's doing.

534
00:26:10,359 --> 00:26:12,919
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, it's so true. Thank you for making the

535
00:26:12,960 --> 00:26:15,840
Speaker 1: time for me. I always really enjoyed talking to you,

536
00:26:16,280 --> 00:26:17,360
Speaker 1: despite the shit.

537
00:26:17,480 --> 00:26:19,119
Speaker 4: I feel like when I told you and I told Earlie,

538
00:26:19,119 --> 00:26:21,639
Speaker 4: whether it's on my podcast, it's like a therapy session.

539
00:26:23,400 --> 00:26:28,280
Speaker 1: Vanessa Williamson is a Senior Fellow in Governance Studies at

540
00:26:28,320 --> 00:26:31,879
Speaker 1: the Brookings Institute and the author of the Price of Democracy,

541
00:26:32,080 --> 00:26:37,000
Speaker 1: The Revolutionary Power of Taxation in American History. Welcome to

542
00:26:37,080 --> 00:26:38,760
Speaker 1: Fast Politics, Vanessa.

543
00:26:38,680 --> 00:26:39,800
Speaker 5: Oh, thanks for having me.

544
00:26:40,080 --> 00:26:42,880
Speaker 1: You are a scholar. You have written this book. It's

545
00:26:42,920 --> 00:26:45,639
Speaker 1: a little counterintuitive, so talk us through this idea.

546
00:26:45,720 --> 00:26:48,240
Speaker 5: So I think for far too long. You know, it's

547
00:26:48,240 --> 00:26:51,240
Speaker 5: a real conservative trope frankly that, oh, taxation is tyranny,

548
00:26:51,280 --> 00:26:54,960
Speaker 5: But the reality is almost literally diametrically the opposite. That

549
00:26:55,040 --> 00:26:58,480
Speaker 5: is to say that taxes are things that free countries

550
00:26:58,520 --> 00:27:01,119
Speaker 5: do really well. Elected official are really good at raising

551
00:27:01,119 --> 00:27:04,280
Speaker 5: tax money, and tyrants hate taxes. They always have. So

552
00:27:04,359 --> 00:27:07,879
Speaker 5: the story in my book is the story of American democracy,

553
00:27:07,960 --> 00:27:11,560
Speaker 5: focusing on how fights over taxation are actually the fights

554
00:27:11,560 --> 00:27:14,720
Speaker 5: ober democracy. That's true now, and it's always been true.

555
00:27:15,160 --> 00:27:18,080
Speaker 1: Explain how it was true then, because this is like

556
00:27:18,119 --> 00:27:19,520
Speaker 1: a pretty bold statement.

557
00:27:20,640 --> 00:27:22,840
Speaker 5: Well, let me start with just a story. You've probably

558
00:27:22,840 --> 00:27:25,520
Speaker 5: heard of the Boston Tea Party. You may recall this event, right,

559
00:27:25,600 --> 00:27:29,120
Speaker 5: So these mechanics and artisans in Boston seventeen seventy three,

560
00:27:29,240 --> 00:27:31,240
Speaker 5: it's the middle of winter and they go down to

561
00:27:31,280 --> 00:27:33,320
Speaker 5: Boston Harbor and they throw all this tea in the harbor.

562
00:27:33,359 --> 00:27:34,040
Speaker 4: What was that about?

563
00:27:34,080 --> 00:27:36,959
Speaker 5: Almost anyone would tell you about taxes. People hate taxes.

564
00:27:36,960 --> 00:27:39,159
Speaker 5: They were high taxes. They were complaining about taxes. Well,

565
00:27:39,160 --> 00:27:41,399
Speaker 5: they were complaining about taxes. They were complaining about a

566
00:27:41,440 --> 00:27:45,000
Speaker 5: tax cut. The British government had decided to give an

567
00:27:45,160 --> 00:27:48,560
Speaker 5: enormous tax break to the East India Company, a corporation

568
00:27:48,600 --> 00:27:51,080
Speaker 5: that was deemed too big to fail. And this was

569
00:27:51,119 --> 00:27:54,600
Speaker 5: going to be, as Sam Adams put it, introductive of monopolies. Right.

570
00:27:54,640 --> 00:27:56,840
Speaker 5: It was too big of a tax break for a corporation,

571
00:27:57,280 --> 00:28:00,040
Speaker 5: and that is what motivated the Sons of Liberty to

572
00:28:00,080 --> 00:28:02,040
Speaker 5: throw that tea in the harbor. Now, if the basic

573
00:28:02,040 --> 00:28:04,960
Speaker 5: American understanding of the Boston Tea Party is wrong, it

574
00:28:05,040 --> 00:28:07,680
Speaker 5: might be worth reconsidering more generally the role taxes have

575
00:28:07,760 --> 00:28:09,600
Speaker 5: played in our history. And it's important to remember that

576
00:28:09,640 --> 00:28:12,359
Speaker 5: taxes are two things. Right, They're the portion of our

577
00:28:12,400 --> 00:28:14,520
Speaker 5: labor that we contribute to the public good. That is

578
00:28:14,560 --> 00:28:16,920
Speaker 5: why people are so proud to be taxpayers. Right, We'll

579
00:28:16,960 --> 00:28:19,720
Speaker 5: always say that, oh, I'm a taxpayer, and why because

580
00:28:19,720 --> 00:28:21,920
Speaker 5: they're proud to have contributed. And if you think about

581
00:28:21,960 --> 00:28:24,679
Speaker 5: what the taxes go to, they are the revenue that

582
00:28:24,760 --> 00:28:28,239
Speaker 5: empowers our democratic government. So if you're asking yourself, you know,

583
00:28:28,440 --> 00:28:32,720
Speaker 5: if taxation is tyranny, why is Donald Trump destroying the irs?

584
00:28:33,040 --> 00:28:36,240
Speaker 5: The reason is because he wants private donations to pay

585
00:28:36,240 --> 00:28:38,840
Speaker 5: for things. He wants to extort things from particular companies.

586
00:28:39,280 --> 00:28:42,560
Speaker 5: He doesn't want a real tax system because taxation is

587
00:28:42,560 --> 00:28:45,680
Speaker 5: something that comes in democratic societies. The freest countries on

588
00:28:45,720 --> 00:28:48,880
Speaker 5: Earth are high tax countries. How do tariffs sort of

589
00:28:49,000 --> 00:28:52,280
Speaker 5: feature into this? Yeah, so it's important to know tariffs.

590
00:28:52,400 --> 00:28:54,760
Speaker 5: When you relied on tariffs for decades and decades and

591
00:28:54,800 --> 00:28:57,640
Speaker 5: decades most of American history, tariffs are what funded the

592
00:28:57,680 --> 00:28:59,680
Speaker 5: federal government. But the tariffs that we have today are

593
00:28:59,680 --> 00:29:02,720
Speaker 5: not like those tariffs because they are not legislated. Right,

594
00:29:02,880 --> 00:29:04,920
Speaker 5: the Congress is not choosing the tariff rates. You know,

595
00:29:04,960 --> 00:29:06,800
Speaker 5: you might think tariffs are bad policy. In fact, you

596
00:29:06,800 --> 00:29:09,280
Speaker 5: should think tariffs are bad policy. It's bad for the economy.

597
00:29:09,320 --> 00:29:11,520
Speaker 5: But it would only be bad policy, It would not

598
00:29:11,520 --> 00:29:14,520
Speaker 5: be anti democratic, except that, actually our tariffrates are decided

599
00:29:14,520 --> 00:29:17,840
Speaker 5: by one guy, apparently through tweets, right, And that is

600
00:29:18,080 --> 00:29:21,280
Speaker 5: fundamentally anti democratic. And it has the effect of sort

601
00:29:21,320 --> 00:29:23,560
Speaker 5: of bringing corporations into line, right, And the point of

602
00:29:23,560 --> 00:29:25,920
Speaker 5: the tariffs and countries into line. The point is not

603
00:29:26,000 --> 00:29:29,640
Speaker 5: to raise revenue. It is to consolidate power. And that's

604
00:29:29,680 --> 00:29:32,000
Speaker 5: how you should be thinking about the terriff frights right now,

605
00:29:32,080 --> 00:29:34,280
Speaker 5: because on the one hand, we have the capacity of

606
00:29:34,320 --> 00:29:37,400
Speaker 5: our own legislature right to raise revenue. That is what

607
00:29:37,440 --> 00:29:41,040
Speaker 5: the founders fought for, right, the idea that the only

608
00:29:41,080 --> 00:29:44,840
Speaker 5: people who can tax are elected legislators. They want state

609
00:29:44,880 --> 00:29:48,040
Speaker 5: governments to or colonial governments at the time. But what

610
00:29:48,080 --> 00:29:50,000
Speaker 5: became our state governments to be the ones in charge

611
00:29:50,000 --> 00:29:51,800
Speaker 5: of raising money? And they didn't think a king could

612
00:29:51,840 --> 00:29:54,560
Speaker 5: do that. And now we're asking that question again. So

613
00:29:54,800 --> 00:29:57,280
Speaker 5: the important thing about tariffs is not whether they're good

614
00:29:57,280 --> 00:29:59,200
Speaker 5: policy or bad policies. When it comes to democracy, you

615
00:29:59,200 --> 00:30:02,040
Speaker 5: know they're bad policy. Sure, lots of popular things are

616
00:30:02,040 --> 00:30:04,640
Speaker 5: bad policy. Loads of unpopular things are bad policy. But

617
00:30:04,680 --> 00:30:07,040
Speaker 5: the thing that's dangerous for our democracy is putting the

618
00:30:07,080 --> 00:30:09,320
Speaker 5: power of taxation in the hands of a single person,

619
00:30:09,480 --> 00:30:10,880
Speaker 5: and we thought a revolution against that.

620
00:30:11,120 --> 00:30:13,240
Speaker 1: This all makes a lot of sense, but I wonder

621
00:30:13,320 --> 00:30:16,720
Speaker 1: if you could give us, like your fantasy of what

622
00:30:16,920 --> 00:30:20,360
Speaker 1: progressive taxation would look like America. I feel like it's

623
00:30:20,400 --> 00:30:22,640
Speaker 1: been at war withood itself about like, what are the

624
00:30:22,680 --> 00:30:27,000
Speaker 1: tax structure that would look like, you know, more of

625
00:30:27,040 --> 00:30:28,920
Speaker 1: a sort of fair country.

626
00:30:29,160 --> 00:30:31,280
Speaker 5: That's a great question. I have part of an answer

627
00:30:31,360 --> 00:30:33,320
Speaker 5: that I think most of your viewers will probably be

628
00:30:33,360 --> 00:30:34,880
Speaker 5: nodding right along with, and part of an answer that

629
00:30:34,920 --> 00:30:35,760
Speaker 5: might come as a surprise.

630
00:30:35,960 --> 00:30:39,840
Speaker 1: Good, especially with things like this when it can be counterintuitive.

631
00:30:40,040 --> 00:30:41,560
Speaker 1: I'm always happy to be surprised.

632
00:30:41,880 --> 00:30:44,400
Speaker 5: So the first part you might expect, a high progressive

633
00:30:44,400 --> 00:30:48,680
Speaker 5: taxation of wealth is really important for democracy at this point, Right,

634
00:30:48,680 --> 00:30:51,080
Speaker 5: we can't have some people have this amount of money

635
00:30:51,080 --> 00:30:53,560
Speaker 5: because money is power and it leads into our politics.

636
00:30:53,560 --> 00:30:55,800
Speaker 5: It has for many decades, and it is now just

637
00:30:55,880 --> 00:30:59,200
Speaker 5: beyond anything that can be managed within the democratic society. Right.

638
00:30:59,280 --> 00:31:01,320
Speaker 5: You might not know Thomas Pain, the guy who wrote

639
00:31:01,360 --> 00:31:02,920
Speaker 5: Common Sense. Right, this is the guy who wrote the

640
00:31:02,960 --> 00:31:05,680
Speaker 5: pamphlet that convinced Americans not just to fight for independence,

641
00:31:05,720 --> 00:31:08,080
Speaker 5: but to fight to not have a monarchy. Thomas Pain

642
00:31:08,240 --> 00:31:10,280
Speaker 5: common sense. He also a few years later, in the

643
00:31:10,320 --> 00:31:13,880
Speaker 5: Rights of Man, proposed a progressive income tax, a very

644
00:31:14,200 --> 00:31:16,560
Speaker 5: very novel idea at the time. It was a tax

645
00:31:16,600 --> 00:31:19,479
Speaker 5: on the income from wealth. Progressivity was basically he had

646
00:31:19,520 --> 00:31:21,240
Speaker 5: to like do the math and a table in the

647
00:31:21,280 --> 00:31:22,840
Speaker 5: Rights of Man to explain this to people because it

648
00:31:22,880 --> 00:31:25,400
Speaker 5: was new. The top rate was one hundred percent. Now

649
00:31:25,400 --> 00:31:27,080
Speaker 5: it was really high brackets.

650
00:31:26,760 --> 00:31:29,640
Speaker 1: All right, seems like too high.

651
00:31:29,720 --> 00:31:32,320
Speaker 5: Well, so it's a marginal rate, remember, So it means

652
00:31:32,320 --> 00:31:35,000
Speaker 5: that it applies to all your money over a particular point,

653
00:31:35,120 --> 00:31:37,520
Speaker 5: you know. And he wrote his pounds and in seven

654
00:31:37,640 --> 00:31:40,920
Speaker 5: you know, in seventeen ninety. So the amount he chose

655
00:31:40,960 --> 00:31:43,760
Speaker 5: is not what's important. If you update that to modern statistics,

656
00:31:43,760 --> 00:31:46,600
Speaker 5: it's about a billion dollars. So what Thomas Pain was

657
00:31:46,600 --> 00:31:50,080
Speaker 5: saying was that beyond a certain level of wealth, all

658
00:31:50,160 --> 00:31:52,640
Speaker 5: the additional income you're receiving, you shouldn't be allowed to

659
00:31:52,720 --> 00:31:55,400
Speaker 5: keep it, because what he said was it caused corruption

660
00:31:55,520 --> 00:31:56,760
Speaker 5: to elections.

661
00:31:56,440 --> 00:31:59,719
Speaker 1: Right, which turns out to be he is a genius.

662
00:31:59,400 --> 00:32:01,640
Speaker 5: Right, Yeah, he knew it was up there, guy, So

663
00:32:01,800 --> 00:32:04,280
Speaker 5: I think on the one side, there's what Thomas Pain said,

664
00:32:04,360 --> 00:32:06,560
Speaker 5: which is that there's a certain level of concentration of

665
00:32:06,560 --> 00:32:09,680
Speaker 5: wealth that's dangerous to a republic, and taxation is one

666
00:32:09,720 --> 00:32:11,760
Speaker 5: of the mechanisms. There are many mechanisms that you need.

667
00:32:11,840 --> 00:32:14,640
Speaker 5: One of the mechanisms help restrain that. Right, it should

668
00:32:14,680 --> 00:32:16,440
Speaker 5: not be the only tool in the toolkit. Right. There

669
00:32:16,440 --> 00:32:18,640
Speaker 5: are all kinds of things about monopolies and all other

670
00:32:18,680 --> 00:32:20,440
Speaker 5: things you need to be doing, But one of the

671
00:32:20,480 --> 00:32:24,240
Speaker 5: mechanisms that's really important is limiting the consolidation of wealth.

672
00:32:24,320 --> 00:32:25,440
Speaker 5: The other half of what I'm going to say is

673
00:32:25,440 --> 00:32:27,360
Speaker 5: maybe a little more surprising. I think it's really important

674
00:32:27,400 --> 00:32:30,240
Speaker 5: to have broad based taxation because it's broad based taxation

675
00:32:30,280 --> 00:32:32,200
Speaker 5: that in the long term, can fund a social safety

676
00:32:32,240 --> 00:32:35,240
Speaker 5: net that allows people to act as citizens. Right, you

677
00:32:35,320 --> 00:32:38,960
Speaker 5: have to not be afraid that you're going to lose

678
00:32:39,040 --> 00:32:40,800
Speaker 5: your apartment at the end of the month. If you

679
00:32:40,840 --> 00:32:42,880
Speaker 5: want to be able to take the time to read

680
00:32:42,920 --> 00:32:45,200
Speaker 5: the paper and go to the meetings and do all

681
00:32:45,240 --> 00:32:47,400
Speaker 5: the things that citizens are supposed to do, you can't

682
00:32:47,400 --> 00:32:49,280
Speaker 5: be worrying about where your next paycheck is coming from.

683
00:32:49,400 --> 00:32:51,120
Speaker 5: You know, it's not just important that we limit the top.

684
00:32:51,160 --> 00:32:53,080
Speaker 5: We have to keep the bottom up too, and the

685
00:32:53,120 --> 00:32:54,280
Speaker 5: only way you're going to be able to do that

686
00:32:54,360 --> 00:32:56,200
Speaker 5: is with broad based taxation. I'll give you an example,

687
00:32:56,320 --> 00:32:59,160
Speaker 5: Social Security. That's not a particularly progressive tax. It's actually

688
00:32:59,160 --> 00:33:01,880
Speaker 5: a regressive tax. Fund social Security because it falls on

689
00:33:02,120 --> 00:33:04,160
Speaker 5: the money you earned by working, not the wealth you

690
00:33:04,280 --> 00:33:07,360
Speaker 5: learned by having it sit around and garner interest. Medicare too,

691
00:33:07,480 --> 00:33:10,520
Speaker 5: funded by the same payroll taxes. These are regressive taxes.

692
00:33:10,520 --> 00:33:12,960
Speaker 5: Americans love them. They are the favorite tax of the

693
00:33:13,000 --> 00:33:16,760
Speaker 5: American people, right there with sales tax tax. People don't

694
00:33:16,760 --> 00:33:19,280
Speaker 5: mind paying their share if they think it's worthwhile. So

695
00:33:19,320 --> 00:33:21,720
Speaker 5: to me, you need both of these things. You need

696
00:33:21,800 --> 00:33:24,840
Speaker 5: both high progressive taxation. But you also need to recognize

697
00:33:24,840 --> 00:33:26,360
Speaker 5: that that's not where all the money is going to come from.

698
00:33:26,360 --> 00:33:29,240
Speaker 5: Because even when people are extremely rich like they are now,

699
00:33:29,320 --> 00:33:31,040
Speaker 5: there are very few of them. You can't be balancing

700
00:33:31,080 --> 00:33:32,800
Speaker 5: your whole tax system on that. You've got to have

701
00:33:32,840 --> 00:33:35,480
Speaker 5: everyone chipping in. And that's part of a democracy too, right.

702
00:33:35,680 --> 00:33:38,960
Speaker 5: It's part of a democracy to have people paying their

703
00:33:39,000 --> 00:33:40,760
Speaker 5: share and having their say yes.

704
00:33:41,400 --> 00:33:45,440
Speaker 1: Tariffs are obviously a tax, and there's a lot of

705
00:33:46,520 --> 00:33:52,240
Speaker 1: authoritarian stuff mixed in with trump ism mostly authoritarianism. So

706
00:33:52,840 --> 00:33:56,480
Speaker 1: like that you're not seeing any of the sort of

707
00:33:56,640 --> 00:34:00,520
Speaker 1: good that one might get from tariffs. Now, Ueen Trump

708
00:34:00,560 --> 00:34:02,720
Speaker 1: one point zero and Trump two point zero. Biden world

709
00:34:02,720 --> 00:34:05,160
Speaker 1: did keep some of those tariffs on Biden World the

710
00:34:05,280 --> 00:34:10,400
Speaker 1: complicated legacy, but some of the tariffing I think was smart.

711
00:34:10,840 --> 00:34:13,360
Speaker 1: This is like a question that's like goes to a

712
00:34:13,360 --> 00:34:17,440
Speaker 1: particular hobbyhorse of mind, which is, for whatever reason, Republicans

713
00:34:17,480 --> 00:34:21,560
Speaker 1: hate corporate taxes and loove tariffs. Corporate taxes and tariffs

714
00:34:21,640 --> 00:34:23,880
Speaker 1: are the same thing. So I mean they're played by

715
00:34:23,880 --> 00:34:26,560
Speaker 1: the consumer, but ultimately they're paid by the corporation. So

716
00:34:26,880 --> 00:34:30,000
Speaker 1: is there a sort of way in here to tax

717
00:34:30,040 --> 00:34:35,359
Speaker 1: corporations through tariffs to confuse Republicans into raising the corporate tax? Right?

718
00:34:37,480 --> 00:34:40,040
Speaker 5: I love this sort of like indimentional chess aspect of it.

719
00:34:40,080 --> 00:34:42,080
Speaker 5: I may tell you a little bit about tariffs. Right, So,

720
00:34:42,160 --> 00:34:43,719
Speaker 5: first of all, the kind of tariff that we're dealing

721
00:34:43,719 --> 00:34:45,799
Speaker 5: with now, which is where one random I guess not

722
00:34:45,880 --> 00:34:47,840
Speaker 5: very random, but one guy decides them. That is a

723
00:34:47,880 --> 00:34:50,319
Speaker 5: non starter for democracy. You cannot have it work that

724
00:34:50,360 --> 00:34:52,480
Speaker 5: way because it just consolidates power too much. But if

725
00:34:52,480 --> 00:34:55,200
Speaker 5: you're going to talk about a legislated system of tariffs,

726
00:34:55,440 --> 00:34:58,000
Speaker 5: then okay. Economists will have a lot to say about

727
00:34:58,000 --> 00:35:00,279
Speaker 5: whether it's good for the economy as a whole, right,

728
00:35:00,280 --> 00:35:02,520
Speaker 5: whether it produces growthably, It depends very much on what

729
00:35:02,560 --> 00:35:05,399
Speaker 5: the tariffs are. When we had very high teriff rates

730
00:35:05,440 --> 00:35:08,319
Speaker 5: in the United States in the late nineteenth century, those

731
00:35:08,480 --> 00:35:13,080
Speaker 5: tariffs were set upon intentionally to support monopolistic corporations. Right.

732
00:35:13,280 --> 00:35:16,600
Speaker 5: They were preventing consumers and farmers in particular in the

733
00:35:16,680 --> 00:35:19,680
Speaker 5: United States from being able to afford raw materials and

734
00:35:19,719 --> 00:35:22,160
Speaker 5: machinery and things like this that were produced overseas. It

735
00:35:22,200 --> 00:35:24,480
Speaker 5: was a huge gift for US steel. So tariffs can

736
00:35:24,520 --> 00:35:26,839
Speaker 5: be set up in a way that are extremely monopolistic.

737
00:35:26,840 --> 00:35:29,520
Speaker 5: But what's interesting, I think about that story is not

738
00:35:29,560 --> 00:35:31,560
Speaker 5: that we're having those kinds of teriff systems. Now we

739
00:35:31,600 --> 00:35:34,799
Speaker 5: have these very arbitrary, very limited revenue tariffs that are

740
00:35:34,880 --> 00:35:37,560
Speaker 5: dangerous for totally different reasons. But what's interesting to me

741
00:35:37,680 --> 00:35:40,520
Speaker 5: about the old tariff system is that consumers knew they

742
00:35:40,560 --> 00:35:43,879
Speaker 5: were paying, and they rallied for an income tax in

743
00:35:43,920 --> 00:35:46,400
Speaker 5: part because they believed in the income tax. It's very popular, right.

744
00:35:46,440 --> 00:35:48,719
Speaker 5: Remember the Supreme Court bans the income tax. They say

745
00:35:48,760 --> 00:35:50,839
Speaker 5: that income tax is unconstitutional, even though we'd had one

746
00:35:50,880 --> 00:35:52,640
Speaker 5: during the Civil War. In eighteen ninety four, eight to

747
00:35:52,760 --> 00:35:57,040
Speaker 5: ninety five, the Supreme Court declares the income tax unconstitutional.

748
00:35:57,200 --> 00:35:59,520
Speaker 5: So then we have to have a twenty year state

749
00:35:59,560 --> 00:36:02,279
Speaker 5: by state campaign to get our income tax back, and

750
00:36:02,320 --> 00:36:05,160
Speaker 5: they get it done. And part of the reason for

751
00:36:05,200 --> 00:36:07,280
Speaker 5: that is because people thought that wealthy people should be paying.

752
00:36:08,040 --> 00:36:10,279
Speaker 5: But part of the reason is because they knew that

753
00:36:10,320 --> 00:36:12,960
Speaker 5: the tariffs that we had then were really raising prices

754
00:36:13,000 --> 00:36:15,759
Speaker 5: for consumers. And so I think that one of the

755
00:36:16,320 --> 00:36:19,000
Speaker 5: really interesting things to me is whether the costs of

756
00:36:19,040 --> 00:36:21,640
Speaker 5: the tariffs we have now are going to be something

757
00:36:21,680 --> 00:36:24,200
Speaker 5: that people come to recognize as expensive as a part

758
00:36:24,200 --> 00:36:27,240
Speaker 5: of the larger story about inflation and the other ways

759
00:36:27,239 --> 00:36:30,239
Speaker 5: that the cost of living is just going up. Hm.

760
00:36:30,880 --> 00:36:34,440
Speaker 1: So interesting. So you wrote a book with a friend

761
00:36:34,560 --> 00:36:37,640
Speaker 1: of the show. You know, you're on a nerdy podcast

762
00:36:37,800 --> 00:36:41,000
Speaker 1: when the friend of the show is Theedra Scotch Paul,

763
00:36:41,080 --> 00:36:44,040
Speaker 1: who I love so much and think is the genius.

764
00:36:44,239 --> 00:36:47,279
Speaker 1: But she is like the person who saw all of

765
00:36:47,320 --> 00:36:49,440
Speaker 1: this coming from a mile away, and so did you.

766
00:36:50,080 --> 00:36:54,120
Speaker 1: So cannot talk about this moment in American politics without

767
00:36:54,160 --> 00:36:57,160
Speaker 1: talking about the Tea Party and that we are like

768
00:36:57,320 --> 00:37:01,719
Speaker 1: living there fever dream anything you can glean from that

769
00:37:02,120 --> 00:37:05,680
Speaker 1: that you think is useful for now. A good example

770
00:37:05,800 --> 00:37:09,200
Speaker 1: is I was on a panel yesterday with some very

771
00:37:09,719 --> 00:37:14,600
Speaker 1: crazy right wingers and they were asking the normal people

772
00:37:14,840 --> 00:37:17,640
Speaker 1: what the cutoff for abortion should be, right, which is

773
00:37:17,719 --> 00:37:20,279
Speaker 1: like a bullshit question you ask when you want to

774
00:37:20,320 --> 00:37:23,399
Speaker 1: get people going, when you want to have afa on them.

775
00:37:23,719 --> 00:37:27,040
Speaker 1: And so I said, well, let's ask the conservatives when

776
00:37:27,080 --> 00:37:31,120
Speaker 1: they believe life begins. And you know what they all said, right, conception,

777
00:37:31,520 --> 00:37:34,759
Speaker 1: what sort of lessons do you see from the Tea

778
00:37:34,800 --> 00:37:39,799
Speaker 1: Party or what kind of progress negative progress probably have

779
00:37:39,920 --> 00:37:43,680
Speaker 1: you seen, and like what is surprising or whatever else

780
00:37:43,719 --> 00:37:44,479
Speaker 1: you want to talk about.

781
00:37:44,719 --> 00:37:47,120
Speaker 5: Sure, so yeah, theta is one of my very very

782
00:37:47,120 --> 00:37:49,759
Speaker 5: favorite people and it was great fun to write a

783
00:37:49,800 --> 00:37:52,480
Speaker 5: book with her, and we traveled around and visited Tea

784
00:37:52,560 --> 00:37:55,359
Speaker 5: Party groups around the country and there were a couple

785
00:37:55,400 --> 00:37:58,440
Speaker 5: of things that were informative at the time. One of

786
00:37:58,480 --> 00:38:00,719
Speaker 5: them is that the primary issue motive bating Tea Party

787
00:38:00,719 --> 00:38:03,560
Speaker 5: activists was not taxes and spending, which is what sort

788
00:38:03,560 --> 00:38:06,399
Speaker 5: of elite conservative and Republican groups were saying. They were

789
00:38:06,400 --> 00:38:08,920
Speaker 5: motivated about immigration. And I will say it was at

790
00:38:08,960 --> 00:38:11,160
Speaker 5: a Tea Party event that I first heard this will

791
00:38:11,200 --> 00:38:12,799
Speaker 5: have a two thousand and nine or twenty ten that

792
00:38:12,880 --> 00:38:15,800
Speaker 5: I first heard Donald Trump floated as a potential presidential candidate.

793
00:38:15,840 --> 00:38:17,239
Speaker 5: And you know, it was quite a surprise at the

794
00:38:17,239 --> 00:38:18,960
Speaker 5: time because this is a man who had a reality

795
00:38:19,000 --> 00:38:21,800
Speaker 5: TV show. But yeah, it was in many ways getting

796
00:38:21,800 --> 00:38:23,920
Speaker 5: to see into the future of the Republican Party. I

797
00:38:23,920 --> 00:38:26,279
Speaker 5: think there are some valuable lessons. I mean, first of all,

798
00:38:26,280 --> 00:38:29,759
Speaker 5: it's important to understand what was motivating the conservative base

799
00:38:29,800 --> 00:38:32,680
Speaker 5: in the Obama era, because it is critical to understanding

800
00:38:32,680 --> 00:38:36,360
Speaker 5: why Donald Trump was successful. But I think the lessons now,

801
00:38:36,560 --> 00:38:37,920
Speaker 5: right now that I think we've all had time to

802
00:38:37,960 --> 00:38:41,239
Speaker 5: digest what exactly was happening within the Republican Party. The

803
00:38:41,280 --> 00:38:44,640
Speaker 5: really important lesson I think looking forward is the way

804
00:38:44,680 --> 00:38:47,759
Speaker 5: that the Tea Party in opposition. Right we're going about

805
00:38:47,760 --> 00:38:49,920
Speaker 5: the first years of the Obama administration. Obama comes in

806
00:38:49,960 --> 00:38:53,799
Speaker 5: with this huge approval and hope and change. He had

807
00:38:54,080 --> 00:38:56,759
Speaker 5: control of Congress for a moment, you know, not very

808
00:38:56,760 --> 00:38:58,719
Speaker 5: long and not very big margin, but he did and

809
00:38:58,760 --> 00:39:01,760
Speaker 5: people thought, you know, I remember him being on the cover.

810
00:39:01,960 --> 00:39:05,120
Speaker 5: I think it was Time magazine a picture looking like

811
00:39:05,320 --> 00:39:08,440
Speaker 5: FDR right, like this was going to be a monumental

812
00:39:08,520 --> 00:39:10,680
Speaker 5: change in our politics of the style of the new Deal,

813
00:39:10,760 --> 00:39:12,400
Speaker 5: and clearly it was not. But the thing that the

814
00:39:12,440 --> 00:39:16,520
Speaker 5: Tea Party did in opposition to the Obama administration was

815
00:39:16,640 --> 00:39:21,480
Speaker 5: unite three important forces in active grassroots. Now, Tea Party

816
00:39:21,480 --> 00:39:23,719
Speaker 5: activists were mostly older people, right, It was not just

817
00:39:23,760 --> 00:39:26,080
Speaker 5: a random swath of Americans by any stretch of the imagination,

818
00:39:26,200 --> 00:39:29,279
Speaker 5: older middle class, upper middle class people, so they had

819
00:39:29,320 --> 00:39:32,400
Speaker 5: time to protest and to go to their local meetings

820
00:39:32,400 --> 00:39:35,040
Speaker 5: and so forth. But it brought together those grassroots activists

821
00:39:35,080 --> 00:39:39,080
Speaker 5: and allowed them to channel their cultural and racial concerns

822
00:39:39,520 --> 00:39:42,960
Speaker 5: into a very effective opposition to a popular president with

823
00:39:43,080 --> 00:39:47,680
Speaker 5: control of Congress because they were united with a active,

824
00:39:48,080 --> 00:39:52,359
Speaker 5: powerful right wing media infrastructure, and elites followed their lead.

825
00:39:52,920 --> 00:39:57,160
Speaker 5: M Right. It was base driven, yes, sang well, the

826
00:39:57,440 --> 00:40:02,919
Speaker 5: elites drove the base enthusiasm straight into their own priorities, right,

827
00:40:02,960 --> 00:40:05,759
Speaker 5: They drove them that they drove that energy into sort

828
00:40:05,760 --> 00:40:07,600
Speaker 5: of traditional right wing stuff.

829
00:40:07,880 --> 00:40:11,520
Speaker 1: So they were able to capture the enthusiasm of the

830
00:40:11,520 --> 00:40:14,360
Speaker 1: base and then channel it into stuff they wanted.

831
00:40:14,640 --> 00:40:18,120
Speaker 5: Yeah, but what they did not do was distance themselves.

832
00:40:18,480 --> 00:40:20,880
Speaker 5: You know, rank and file Republican legislators certainly did not

833
00:40:20,920 --> 00:40:23,319
Speaker 5: distance themselves from the Tea Party, even when you know,

834
00:40:23,360 --> 00:40:25,600
Speaker 5: I mean the Tea Party activists were often wearing you know,

835
00:40:25,680 --> 00:40:27,439
Speaker 5: kind of wild costumes and some of them were saying

836
00:40:27,440 --> 00:40:31,280
Speaker 5: pretty explicitly racist stuff. Oh yeah, But the Republican Party

837
00:40:31,280 --> 00:40:33,840
Speaker 5: did not walk away from that energy and channeled that energy,

838
00:40:34,040 --> 00:40:35,839
Speaker 5: right And I think that that's a lesson that could

839
00:40:35,880 --> 00:40:38,720
Speaker 5: be really valuable for the Democratic Party today to figure

840
00:40:38,719 --> 00:40:42,920
Speaker 5: out how to take an extremely enthused base, enthused in

841
00:40:42,960 --> 00:40:45,759
Speaker 5: opposition to the presidency, and channel that into wins. Now.

842
00:40:45,800 --> 00:40:48,600
Speaker 5: I think, you know, November the elections looked like a

843
00:40:48,640 --> 00:40:51,640
Speaker 5: little bit of that being underway. But what you'd want

844
00:40:51,680 --> 00:40:54,759
Speaker 5: to see, I think, is something that drives it into policy,

845
00:40:54,840 --> 00:40:57,800
Speaker 5: into an agenda. And also you'd want to see elected

846
00:40:57,840 --> 00:41:01,480
Speaker 5: officials celebrating the activity of their base and not trying

847
00:41:01,480 --> 00:41:02,239
Speaker 5: to walk away from it.

848
00:41:03,320 --> 00:41:07,920
Speaker 1: I feel like that's pointed in humor now I'm just gidding,

849
00:41:08,400 --> 00:41:11,440
Speaker 1: but yeah, so important. What you're saying, if you have

850
00:41:11,640 --> 00:41:17,560
Speaker 1: the space energy, the only possible way to win with

851
00:41:17,680 --> 00:41:20,960
Speaker 1: it is to channel it into the things you want, right.

852
00:41:21,440 --> 00:41:25,200
Speaker 5: Yeah, And I think that it's really important to find

853
00:41:25,200 --> 00:41:28,040
Speaker 5: a way to mobilize people, not just to show up

854
00:41:28,040 --> 00:41:29,880
Speaker 5: for a particular rally, because the Tea Party, you know,

855
00:41:29,920 --> 00:41:32,000
Speaker 5: they had huge rallies, but there were at least reasonably

856
00:41:32,080 --> 00:41:36,640
Speaker 5: large rallies. But they had regular meetings, They attended local

857
00:41:36,680 --> 00:41:39,920
Speaker 5: city council meetings, they ran for local office, right And

858
00:41:40,000 --> 00:41:42,400
Speaker 5: it was the combination of those things that built a

859
00:41:42,440 --> 00:41:46,919
Speaker 5: moment that created a wave election the following the following year.

860
00:41:47,280 --> 00:41:49,279
Speaker 5: So those are the aspects of the Tea Party. I

861
00:41:49,320 --> 00:41:51,480
Speaker 5: think that are forward looking if we're thinking about what

862
00:41:51,520 --> 00:41:54,160
Speaker 5: opposition to a presidency looks like. And I think also,

863
00:41:54,239 --> 00:41:57,640
Speaker 5: you know, just recognizing the seeds of the moment that

864
00:41:57,680 --> 00:42:00,560
Speaker 5: we're in today, the sort of ice and the anti

865
00:42:00,560 --> 00:42:05,200
Speaker 5: immigration you know how recently that was added to the

866
00:42:05,239 --> 00:42:09,480
Speaker 5: Republican Party. There's always been conservative opposition to immigration, sure,

867
00:42:09,680 --> 00:42:12,800
Speaker 5: but the Republican Party had before Donald Trump, you know

868
00:42:13,480 --> 00:42:15,720
Speaker 5: a few people who would sign on to some version

869
00:42:15,800 --> 00:42:18,600
Speaker 5: of some sort of immigration reform. And that ended with Trump,

870
00:42:18,640 --> 00:42:21,120
Speaker 5: and that really marks, I think the moment where the

871
00:42:21,160 --> 00:42:24,439
Speaker 5: sort of Tea Party ethos, that anti immigration ethos came

872
00:42:24,480 --> 00:42:27,640
Speaker 5: to dominate in a way that has had atrocious horrifying

873
00:42:27,640 --> 00:42:28,800
Speaker 5: consequences for the country.

874
00:42:29,040 --> 00:42:33,080
Speaker 1: So interesting. Thank you is thank you for joining us, Vanessa.

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00:42:32,960 --> 00:42:34,040
Speaker 5: Oh, thank you for having me.

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00:42:34,080 --> 00:42:34,800
Speaker 4: This was fun.

877
00:42:36,600 --> 00:42:37,840
Speaker 3: A moment.

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00:42:39,560 --> 00:42:44,400
Speaker 2: Jesse Cannon MARII Project twenty twenty five. It foretold many things.

879
00:42:44,520 --> 00:42:46,360
Speaker 2: I looked at one of my favorite websites today, the

880
00:42:46,400 --> 00:42:49,520
Speaker 2: Project twenty twenty five tracker, and it seems we are

881
00:42:49,560 --> 00:42:52,279
Speaker 2: forty eight percent through the plans now. And here's a

882
00:42:52,280 --> 00:42:55,040
Speaker 2: big one. They've figured out how they're going to take

883
00:42:55,080 --> 00:42:57,560
Speaker 2: apart the Department of Education and split it into a

884
00:42:57,600 --> 00:42:59,040
Speaker 2: whole bunch of other departments.

885
00:42:59,120 --> 00:43:02,440
Speaker 1: Yeah. I didn't see that coming, just kidding. We totally

886
00:43:02,480 --> 00:43:04,680
Speaker 1: saw that coming. And Trump even said he was going

887
00:43:04,719 --> 00:43:07,480
Speaker 1: to do it. I mean that's the best part I mean,

888
00:43:07,560 --> 00:43:09,560
Speaker 1: and by best part, I mean worst part of this

889
00:43:09,600 --> 00:43:12,359
Speaker 1: whole story is that Trump even said he was going

890
00:43:12,440 --> 00:43:16,879
Speaker 1: to do it. Like none of this should be a surprise,

891
00:43:17,160 --> 00:43:21,560
Speaker 1: Like this is what Trump wanted to do. This is

892
00:43:21,640 --> 00:43:23,600
Speaker 1: what he said he was going to do with these

893
00:43:23,640 --> 00:43:28,040
Speaker 1: guys had like dismantle the Department of Education sweatshirts. I mean,

894
00:43:28,080 --> 00:43:31,480
Speaker 1: this is like this was always the plan. So when

895
00:43:31,520 --> 00:43:34,319
Speaker 1: you see stuff like this happening, when you see like

896
00:43:34,400 --> 00:43:38,160
Speaker 1: Trump World doing things like this. This is what it is.

897
00:43:38,320 --> 00:43:40,520
Speaker 1: This was always the plan. Will they be able to

898
00:43:40,520 --> 00:43:44,680
Speaker 1: sue in court? Will Trump maybe lose? Maybe? But no

899
00:43:44,719 --> 00:43:46,560
Speaker 1: one should be blindsided by any of this.

900
00:43:46,760 --> 00:43:48,560
Speaker 2: Can I take us back to a time when I'm

901
00:43:48,680 --> 00:43:52,000
Speaker 2: on the debate stage? Rick Perry was asked which departments

902
00:43:52,000 --> 00:43:54,600
Speaker 2: he dismantled. He couldn't remember all of the ones he

903
00:43:54,640 --> 00:43:57,000
Speaker 2: wanted to dismantle. Well, now some of those departments are

904
00:43:57,040 --> 00:43:58,520
Speaker 2: getting the Department of Education.

905
00:43:59,000 --> 00:44:03,600
Speaker 1: Yeah, Rick Perry.

906
00:44:04,120 --> 00:44:05,799
Speaker 2: Everyone really thought that was going to be a thing

907
00:44:05,840 --> 00:44:07,440
Speaker 2: that happened, but it was just fetch.

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Speaker 1: That's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in

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00:44:12,880 --> 00:44:18,320
Speaker 1: every Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday to hear the best

910
00:44:18,400 --> 00:44:22,719
Speaker 1: minds and politics make sense of all this chaos. If

911
00:44:22,760 --> 00:44:25,800
Speaker 1: you enjoy this podcast, please send it to a friend

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00:44:26,239 --> 00:44:29,440
Speaker 1: and keep the conversation going. Thanks for listening.