WEBVTT - Mehdi Hasan & Vanessa Williamson 0:00:00.640 --> 0:00:04.160 Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics, 0:00:04.360 --> 0:00:07.120 where we discussed the top political headlines with some of 0:00:07.160 --> 0:00:10.760 today's best minds, and seniors will be hit with a 0:00:10.840 --> 0:00:14.680 ten percent cost increase with Medicare Part B in twenty 0:00:14.760 --> 0:00:17.280 twenty six. We have such a great show for you today, 0:00:17.560 --> 0:00:22.440 Ziteo's own Mehdi Hassan stops by to talk about Trump's 0:00:22.440 --> 0:00:25.840 maneuvers to get around the release of the Epstein files. 0:00:25.840 --> 0:00:29.319 And we'll talk to Vanessa Williamson about her new book, 0:00:29.440 --> 0:00:34.159 The Price of Democracy, The Revolutionary Power of Taxation in 0:00:34.200 --> 0:00:37.680 American History. But first the news, Smali. 0:00:37.760 --> 0:00:39.680 We are hot on the heels of the vote to 0:00:39.760 --> 0:00:42.960 release the Epstein files in the House. One person voted 0:00:43.000 --> 0:00:46.600 to not release it. One principled demand Clay Higgins. 0:00:46.720 --> 0:00:50.920 Clay Higgins, you may remember him from you won't remember him, 0:00:50.960 --> 0:00:52.040 but he does exist. 0:00:52.320 --> 0:00:53.800 He's got a very memorable accent. 0:00:53.920 --> 0:00:57.680 Molly, who's just in Congress. There are so many members 0:00:57.680 --> 0:01:00.680 of Congress, you eat is too many memors of Congress 0:01:00.680 --> 0:01:03.480 four hundred and thirty five, But only one voted no 0:01:04.160 --> 0:01:08.959 to release on the Epstein transparency list, which is I think, 0:01:09.160 --> 0:01:11.679 I mean, I think it's certainly worth thinking about this 0:01:11.760 --> 0:01:16.440 because it is kind of nuts. Right, here's an opportunity 0:01:16.760 --> 0:01:20.480 to do something that is wildly popular. Everyone wants the 0:01:20.480 --> 0:01:23.840 Ebstein files released. I don't know. Clay Higgins voted no. 0:01:24.280 --> 0:01:27.440 I was at the press conference. I heard Marjorie Taylor Green. 0:01:27.520 --> 0:01:30.160 Tell us about your new best friend. Woke Marjorie Tailer Green. 0:01:30.319 --> 0:01:34.440 Woke Marjorie Taylor Green. Okay, So again, I am very 0:01:34.520 --> 0:01:39.560 much of the belief that politicians do what is expedient 0:01:39.600 --> 0:01:42.160 for them. I think that Marjorie Taylor Green is doing 0:01:42.160 --> 0:01:45.560 the right thing, and I am glad that she is 0:01:45.640 --> 0:01:48.920 doing the right thing. I also think that it's important 0:01:48.920 --> 0:01:53.040 to remember these people are in fact politicians and not philanthropists, 0:01:53.320 --> 0:01:58.000 or they are in fact political actors serving political political 0:01:58.200 --> 0:02:00.600 passions and political ambitions. 0:02:00.840 --> 0:02:04.200 I can't believe you just cast aspersions on her asparagus 0:02:04.280 --> 0:02:04.560 like this. 0:02:05.000 --> 0:02:09.160 Right, So, during the press conference, you had first Rocanna, 0:02:09.400 --> 0:02:13.320 then Thomas Massey, then Marjorie Taylor Green, and these survivors 0:02:13.320 --> 0:02:15.639 got up and talked, and you could see that these 0:02:15.680 --> 0:02:19.560 survivors really did feel And again, I'm not saying Marjorie 0:02:19.560 --> 0:02:21.800 Taylor Green is not responsible for doing a lot of 0:02:21.840 --> 0:02:24.840 bad stuff. I'm just saying you could tell that they 0:02:25.000 --> 0:02:28.280 felt that she was fighting for them. They felt that 0:02:28.360 --> 0:02:30.520 she cared about them, because you could tell because they 0:02:30.919 --> 0:02:33.880 looked at her and they were crying. And so again, 0:02:34.200 --> 0:02:36.360 I am in no way vouching for the character of 0:02:36.400 --> 0:02:40.120 Marjorie Taylor Green, but I am telling you that these 0:02:40.160 --> 0:02:44.960 women clearly felt that she was fighting for them. What 0:02:45.080 --> 0:02:48.000 else I thought was very interesting was that there was 0:02:48.400 --> 0:02:53.720 a sense in which Marjorie Taylor Green, like you could 0:02:53.800 --> 0:02:57.240 tell she was very upset that Donald Trump had called 0:02:57.280 --> 0:03:01.280 her a trader, like she was truly emotional in a way, 0:03:01.680 --> 0:03:05.280 AOC said, And AOC is probably right that Marjorie Taylor 0:03:05.320 --> 0:03:08.880 Green is doing this because Trump didn't back her senate run. 0:03:08.960 --> 0:03:11.120 She wanted to run for senate, and certainly that is 0:03:11.520 --> 0:03:15.760 absolutely possible. But I did get the sense that Marjorie 0:03:15.800 --> 0:03:19.280 Taylor Green felt being called a trader was somehow next level, 0:03:19.680 --> 0:03:22.200 was some kind of demarcation, had crossed some kind of 0:03:22.200 --> 0:03:25.639 demarcation line, and she's pretty upset. I want to say 0:03:26.040 --> 0:03:30.480 two things about this. One is that these are politicians, 0:03:30.680 --> 0:03:34.240 and you do yourself no favors when you ascribed to 0:03:34.280 --> 0:03:38.560 them anything other than political motives. That said, these political 0:03:38.600 --> 0:03:42.360 motives dovetail to enact the same thing, which is the 0:03:42.400 --> 0:03:44.400 release of the Epstein files, which all of us want. 0:03:44.520 --> 0:03:47.680 So now these files they passed the House, now there's 0:03:47.720 --> 0:03:49.760 a lot of pressure on the Senate to pass them. 0:03:50.000 --> 0:03:54.600 Rocanna and Massy both said that they want to avoid 0:03:54.760 --> 0:03:58.320 Foon adding something that would make it harder to get 0:03:58.360 --> 0:04:01.480 the information goes through the Senate, it will then go 0:04:01.520 --> 0:04:04.600 to Donald Trump's desk, where I think you will sign this. 0:04:04.720 --> 0:04:08.360 I don't think he will reject it. I think he'll 0:04:08.400 --> 0:04:11.440 sign it. And then I think what will happen next. 0:04:11.520 --> 0:04:14.400 I think this DOJ will try to obfuscate and fight, 0:04:14.560 --> 0:04:18.640 but I think eventually some some of this will get out. 0:04:18.960 --> 0:04:21.679 Yeah, they'll just be about Bill Clinton and Larry Summers 0:04:21.680 --> 0:04:22.240 and that is it. 0:04:22.920 --> 0:04:26.400 Yeah, Okay, So while this vote was happening, we did 0:04:26.720 --> 0:04:30.320 have a pretty disturbing press conference where Donald Trump was 0:04:30.480 --> 0:04:34.000 in the White House with MBS. And sometimes Trump says 0:04:34.040 --> 0:04:37.960 dumb things. Sometimes Trump's haysn't distracted. Sometimes Trump is reckless 0:04:37.960 --> 0:04:40.560 with his words. But I would say what happened with 0:04:40.640 --> 0:04:44.040 him at ABC was really not good. That he did 0:04:44.080 --> 0:04:46.839 not like a wne of questioning and he really lost 0:04:46.880 --> 0:04:47.279 his shit. 0:04:47.560 --> 0:04:50.840 Yeah, So the reporter asked Mary Bruce asked a question, 0:04:51.320 --> 0:04:53.400 and he said it was fake news. And then he said, 0:04:53.520 --> 0:04:56.880 it's not your question, I mind, it's your attitude. I 0:04:56.920 --> 0:04:59.640 think you're a terrible reporter. You're a terrible person in 0:04:59.640 --> 0:05:03.760 a terror reporter. And then he's theorized that the leaders 0:05:03.800 --> 0:05:06.479 at ABC News were psyching boosts up to ask Trump 0:05:06.520 --> 0:05:10.200 a leading question about Epstein. You know, Epstein is the 0:05:10.240 --> 0:05:13.159 only case going on right now, so I mean it's 0:05:13.200 --> 0:05:16.279 basically the only story. I mean, it's the biggest story 0:05:16.360 --> 0:05:19.799 right now. And if you had a White House reporter 0:05:20.279 --> 0:05:23.640 who gets a question, why would you not ask that question? 0:05:23.760 --> 0:05:27.080 Like it would be malpractice. You know, she doesn't work 0:05:27.120 --> 0:05:29.479 for MAGA News one two three. She works for a 0:05:29.520 --> 0:05:32.760 real newspaper, and when you work for a real newspaper, 0:05:32.839 --> 0:05:36.040 you have to ask real questions. I think Trump has 0:05:36.040 --> 0:05:42.160 gotten a little too comfortable with his sycophantic group of 0:05:42.760 --> 0:05:46.120 fake reporters, and so he doesn't like real reporting. 0:05:46.720 --> 0:05:49.440 I mean, the fact that he's been asked so infrequently 0:05:49.680 --> 0:05:52.880 about his relationship with the MBS and what MBS did 0:05:52.920 --> 0:05:55.800 to Jamal Kashogi really is a bad indictment of the 0:05:55.839 --> 0:05:58.960 media and seeing this today was a great sign of 0:05:59.040 --> 0:06:02.159 great work. But getting their broadcast twice and is threatened 0:06:02.440 --> 0:06:02.880 not good. 0:06:03.040 --> 0:06:06.480 Not good. And I think it's worth remembering that this 0:06:06.560 --> 0:06:09.880 is the first time MBS has been back since Koshogi 0:06:09.920 --> 0:06:13.240 has been murdered in twenty eighteen, so like, this is 0:06:13.520 --> 0:06:18.799 actually quite relevant and important, and so asking questions about 0:06:18.800 --> 0:06:23.560 that is not so unreasonable. In fact, it's really, you know, 0:06:23.640 --> 0:06:27.360 the only thing in town. So yes, it just is 0:06:27.600 --> 0:06:30.320 mind boggling. Is stupid, this whole fucking thing. 0:06:30.560 --> 0:06:32.680 So my, we saw a funny thing. 0:06:32.760 --> 0:06:35.080 And if this was the way everything got left to 0:06:35.160 --> 0:06:39.240 stand that a judge's blocked the new Texas congressional maps 0:06:39.240 --> 0:06:42.440 favoring the GOP at the jerrymandering that they're trying to 0:06:42.520 --> 0:06:43.800 use to get ahead of the midterms. 0:06:43.920 --> 0:06:45.240 If for some reason this. 0:06:45.120 --> 0:06:47.000 Stood, it would be amazing. 0:06:47.480 --> 0:06:48.800 It really would be basic. 0:06:49.040 --> 0:06:52.520 Remember Texas gave Trump five seats because Trump said he 0:06:52.560 --> 0:06:55.719 wanted five seats and Abbott was like, you got it. 0:06:55.839 --> 0:06:59.800 So now we have this bipartist. So now we have 0:07:00.040 --> 0:07:03.680 and that kicked off California doing this vote to give 0:07:03.720 --> 0:07:07.200 five seats to Democrats, So here we are. This was 0:07:07.240 --> 0:07:11.360 a three judge panel, and one of the judges was 0:07:11.360 --> 0:07:16.160 a Trump appoint and they have thrown it back. Now again, 0:07:16.800 --> 0:07:19.800 you'll remember that the highest court in the land works 0:07:19.840 --> 0:07:24.440 for Donald Trump, right, So we don't know ultimately how 0:07:24.480 --> 0:07:28.200 this ends, but I do think it's worth noting this 0:07:28.240 --> 0:07:32.200 will be very ironic if this is what happens, very 0:07:32.560 --> 0:07:33.440 very ironic. 0:07:33.960 --> 0:07:36.600 So in the opposite way, I don't think this is 0:07:36.640 --> 0:07:39.960 the best precedent, but Metas won a landmark antitrust case 0:07:40.040 --> 0:07:43.280 over Instagram and WhatsApps acquisitions that a lot of people 0:07:43.320 --> 0:07:45.960 say leaves a lot of room for the bigger tech 0:07:46.000 --> 0:07:51.120 companies to trample smaller ones with acquisitions and really really 0:07:51.360 --> 0:07:54.280 fucked up market manipulations. Because I'll shock you here, no 0:07:54.360 --> 0:07:56.600 one is at the head of the FTC that cares 0:07:56.640 --> 0:07:58.240 if you're a friend of mister Trump's. 0:07:58.560 --> 0:08:00.880 Yeah, well, we have a special coming up with Lena 0:08:00.920 --> 0:08:05.960 Khan and the Biden administration really tried to push back 0:08:06.080 --> 0:08:08.960 against this kind of antitrust stuff because it's bad for 0:08:09.000 --> 0:08:13.680 everyone involved. You know, these companies Meta, they were donors 0:08:13.680 --> 0:08:18.000 to Trump in the inauguration. You had Mark Zuckerberg sitting 0:08:18.040 --> 0:08:22.480 there with Trump while they were swearing him in. They've 0:08:22.560 --> 0:08:26.920 donated to the Trump Ballroom. This is how this administration works. 0:08:26.960 --> 0:08:30.800 You make donations, you do the things that they want, 0:08:31.000 --> 0:08:34.120 and then you get regulatory approval. That's not how any 0:08:34.200 --> 0:08:37.160 of this is supposed to work, right, not how any 0:08:37.200 --> 0:08:39.360 of this is supposed to be working. So this is 0:08:39.480 --> 0:08:42.160 just not business as usual, and it's really bad and 0:08:42.160 --> 0:08:49.520 it's really just Meddi Hassan is the founder of zteo 0:08:49.760 --> 0:08:54.680 and the host of Meddi Unfiltered. Welcome to Fast Politics, Maddie. 0:08:55.160 --> 0:08:56.080 Great to be back, Mommy. 0:08:56.120 --> 0:08:56.520 How are you? 0:08:57.040 --> 0:09:00.840 Oh, I'm good. It's just amazing. I think this is 0:09:00.880 --> 0:09:03.959 the end of MAGA. What comes next could be worse. 0:09:04.880 --> 0:09:06.800 What could be next could be worse. It could be 0:09:06.880 --> 0:09:11.040 MAGA but with real hardcore anti Semitism, which is what 0:09:11.120 --> 0:09:15.520 I think is percolating. But the mega coalition that we 0:09:15.600 --> 0:09:20.439 once knew, the Marjorie Taylor Greens and the Lauren Boberts 0:09:21.080 --> 0:09:22.720 discuss discuss. 0:09:22.880 --> 0:09:24.679 Yeah, I think it's very First of all, all these 0:09:24.679 --> 0:09:27.280 people are slightly deranged, so it's always hard to impose 0:09:27.400 --> 0:09:29.880 rational thinking on all of them. You know, when it 0:09:29.880 --> 0:09:32.840 comes to Marjorie Taylor Green, is it being driven by principle? 0:09:33.000 --> 0:09:36.719 Is it being driven by self interest and self aggrandizement. 0:09:37.160 --> 0:09:39.719 Do we think anything that any of these people do 0:09:39.840 --> 0:09:41.079 is being driven by principle? 0:09:41.640 --> 0:09:43.559 No, but I'm just getting the options of what it 0:09:43.679 --> 0:09:46.320 could because she would say it's because I'm I want 0:09:46.320 --> 0:09:48.560 transparents in Epstein and that's why I've gone against Trump 0:09:48.640 --> 0:09:51.680 on this. Yes, Others like Alexandria Cossi Corteza suggested is 0:09:51.679 --> 0:09:54.360 because Donald Trump spiked to Senate run by her. And 0:09:54.440 --> 0:09:57.040 this is her, you know, this is a scorned woman 0:09:57.520 --> 0:10:01.120 pissed off. Now she might run for president against JD. Vance. 0:10:01.320 --> 0:10:04.480 So who knows what's driving these people? Clearly something's going on, 0:10:04.640 --> 0:10:07.120 And what's so fascinating always is Trump always makes things 0:10:07.160 --> 0:10:09.679 worse for himself, right, and he could easily win these 0:10:09.720 --> 0:10:12.080 people back, they're part of her cult. Instead what does 0:10:12.120 --> 0:10:14.680 he do. He goes and calls her a traitor. He 0:10:14.720 --> 0:10:17.520 basically incites violence against her. We had a whole month 0:10:17.559 --> 0:10:20.240 of Republican handringing after Charlie court Wisher. We need to 0:10:20.240 --> 0:10:23.200 tone down the rhetoric. Meanwhile, Donald Trump is getting members 0:10:23.200 --> 0:10:25.280 of his own party, not just MTG, but I believe 0:10:25.280 --> 0:10:28.520 a state lawmaker in Indiana swatted at their homes after 0:10:28.520 --> 0:10:31.320 he attacks him online. So I think if Maga is 0:10:31.400 --> 0:10:34.440 breaking down, it's Trump doing the breaking of it. But 0:10:34.760 --> 0:10:36.880 I would say, Molly, it is too soon to tell. 0:10:36.960 --> 0:10:40.359 I've heard too many forecasts about the death of Maga, 0:10:40.520 --> 0:10:42.199 and it is a cult. So at the end of 0:10:42.240 --> 0:10:44.760 the day, the vast Marya people still do blindly stick 0:10:44.800 --> 0:10:47.480 with Trump through right and wrong. And I don't think 0:10:47.480 --> 0:10:49.960 Donald Trump's going anywhere anytime soon. I think it's too 0:10:50.000 --> 0:10:52.320 early to say stuff like, oh, he's now a lane 0:10:52.360 --> 0:10:57.840 duck president. He's got violent armed rogue police raiding churches 0:10:57.920 --> 0:11:00.160 in Charlotte, like he is not weep. 0:11:00.679 --> 0:11:04.160 Yeah, that is he does have a He's the first 0:11:04.200 --> 0:11:08.160 president of modern American political life to have his own militia. Yes, 0:11:08.840 --> 0:11:12.000 so it's important not to underestimate that. And and I 0:11:12.080 --> 0:11:15.120 do think like the one lesson that any of us 0:11:15.160 --> 0:11:18.000 may have learned and I'm not. And again you'll notice 0:11:18.000 --> 0:11:21.400 how I've coached, couched the language and may have Remember 0:11:21.440 --> 0:11:26.200 the anonymous senator who said, no one expects Donald Trump 0:11:26.280 --> 0:11:29.040 to overthrow the government. Yep, He's going to go play 0:11:29.040 --> 0:11:31.680 some golf. I think about that guy. 0:11:32.240 --> 0:11:36.400 Yeah, there's many of them. He symbolic of many of them. 0:11:36.520 --> 0:11:37.160 But that's the problem. 0:11:37.240 --> 0:11:37.320 Right. 0:11:37.320 --> 0:11:40.040 There's always been this, basically on the Republican right, Molly, 0:11:40.080 --> 0:11:44.000 there's been a complacency about guys calm down, take him seriously, 0:11:44.040 --> 0:11:45.960 not literally or literally, ill serious or whatever the. 0:11:45.960 --> 0:11:47.560 Day of the week is, basically not mentally. 0:11:47.760 --> 0:11:50.400 Yeah. And then on the kind of liberal I want 0:11:50.400 --> 0:11:53.760 to call it MSNBC wing, the Hashtage resistance side, it's 0:11:53.800 --> 0:11:56.720 always the walls are closing in. Trump is nearly done for. 0:11:57.040 --> 0:12:00.480 And I think both extremes are a mistake. I think 0:12:00.559 --> 0:12:03.640 Donald Trump is a great survivor. He's definitely done things 0:12:03.679 --> 0:12:05.560 that many of us thought he wouldn't do. I didn't 0:12:05.559 --> 0:12:07.600 think he would be back for you know, a second 0:12:07.640 --> 0:12:09.960 term on January the seventh, twenty twenty one, like many others, 0:12:09.960 --> 0:12:11.600 but he did come back. I didn't think he would 0:12:11.600 --> 0:12:13.400 win the first time in twenty sixteen, and he did. 0:12:13.440 --> 0:12:16.600 So I am loath to write him off as he's 0:12:16.640 --> 0:12:20.000 done for. Maga's gone. It's lame duck presidency. I think 0:12:20.000 --> 0:12:22.600 they've got their plans. Obviously they're having some problems with 0:12:22.640 --> 0:12:24.600 members of their party. But let's see how many other 0:12:24.600 --> 0:12:29.440 people do an MTG. Yes, but don't you think some 0:12:29.520 --> 0:12:33.000 of this is like a cloak. For like Donald Trump 0:12:33.120 --> 0:12:35.000 said he was going to make things cheaper, he got 0:12:35.000 --> 0:12:38.800 in office and immediately made everything more expensive. Yes, you know, 0:12:39.160 --> 0:12:43.920 he told Latino voters he was going to do you know, 0:12:44.000 --> 0:12:45.839 he was going to crack down on the worst of 0:12:45.880 --> 0:12:46.400 the worst. 0:12:46.760 --> 0:12:49.960 What he meant was anyone who looked Latino. You know, 0:12:50.040 --> 0:12:51.920 he made a lot of promises to a lot of 0:12:51.920 --> 0:12:55.439 different people, was unable to keep any of them. And 0:12:55.520 --> 0:12:58.400 now we're ten months in and people are starting to 0:12:58.440 --> 0:13:01.559 get mad at him, as they do when you make 0:13:01.600 --> 0:13:04.880 out to promises you can't keep. So like, is Epstein 0:13:05.000 --> 0:13:08.600 just a smoke screen for the underlying fractures that have 0:13:08.720 --> 0:13:10.559 nothing to do with it one hundred percent? 0:13:10.559 --> 0:13:12.440 And you saw that with Marjorie Taylor Green. In fact, 0:13:12.559 --> 0:13:14.440 she didn't just turn on him over Epstein. She turned 0:13:14.480 --> 0:13:17.640 him over Gaza, which is another festering wound, but also 0:13:17.800 --> 0:13:20.600 turned them over affordability. She went on CNN of all places, 0:13:20.600 --> 0:13:23.120 and talked about how Mike Johnson was wrong about the 0:13:23.160 --> 0:13:25.800 shutdown and how Donald Trump was wrong about prices going 0:13:25.840 --> 0:13:28.480 down when they're going up now again, are there others 0:13:28.520 --> 0:13:31.280 who have the gut to do what MTG did? She 0:13:31.400 --> 0:13:36.120 has an independent platform. She's very popular, she raises small donors. Yeah, 0:13:36.120 --> 0:13:38.720 she's wealthy and independently. Like, she's able to kind of 0:13:38.720 --> 0:13:40.880 stave off, at least in the short term attacks from Trump. 0:13:41.040 --> 0:13:45.679 The average Republican backbench House member can't and won't, So 0:13:45.880 --> 0:13:47.720 I'm not sure that we'll follow. You're right, the underlying 0:13:47.720 --> 0:13:50.240 issues are the big thing here. Donald Trump made everything 0:13:50.320 --> 0:13:53.360 worse at home and abroad, even though he goes around 0:13:53.360 --> 0:13:56.199 claiming he solved eight wars, which he didn't obviously, and 0:13:56.480 --> 0:13:58.600 on the inflation side, Molly, if you've seen all these 0:13:58.600 --> 0:14:02.040 mega influences praising Trump for taking tariffs off of things, 0:14:02.080 --> 0:14:05.400 now he's like, he put them on there. You told 0:14:05.440 --> 0:14:07.040 us they were fine, they wouldn't raise priss, and now 0:14:07.080 --> 0:14:08.840 you want us to praise him for taking things off. 0:14:09.360 --> 0:14:11.240 Donald Trump is this classic thing where he often you 0:14:11.280 --> 0:14:14.400 often find yourself and a Trump defender defending Trump after 0:14:14.440 --> 0:14:16.560 Trump has thrown you under the bus. So yeah, a 0:14:16.559 --> 0:14:19.040 classic example is Troy Nil's the congress menage spent all 0:14:19.040 --> 0:14:20.880 weekend saying we're not going to release the Epstein files 0:14:20.920 --> 0:14:22.720 for no reason to and then Trump on Sunday said, 0:14:22.720 --> 0:14:24.800 release the Epstein files. And you're like, oh, the memo 0:14:24.840 --> 0:14:26.960 didn't go out in time. And he does that often. 0:14:27.080 --> 0:14:28.840 People go out and defend Trump and then he would 0:14:28.880 --> 0:14:30.800 do the exact opposite of what they just said. So 0:14:30.840 --> 0:14:32.520 that's going to be a running saw for them as well. 0:14:32.720 --> 0:14:34.480 The problem we have, Molly is I was talking to 0:14:34.520 --> 0:14:35.640 a friend the other day and I see, no, we've 0:14:35.640 --> 0:14:36.880 had I think it was last month, and I said, 0:14:36.920 --> 0:14:39.239 we've had nine ten months of Trump. They went, what 0:14:39.240 --> 0:14:41.240 what do you mean? I thought, it's been more than 0:14:41.240 --> 0:14:43.760 a year, and no, it's only none or ten months. 0:14:43.800 --> 0:14:45.480 And there is his sense, and I think people quite 0:14:45.560 --> 0:14:47.400 get that this guy is not even a year in. 0:14:47.880 --> 0:14:52.400 We're all the chaos and harm and incompetence and authoritarianism 0:14:53.040 --> 0:14:54.800 and wars are broad when now maybe going to war 0:14:54.800 --> 0:14:57.960 with Venezuela. All of that's happened in his first ten months. 0:14:58.080 --> 0:15:00.360 We still have more than three years left min minimum 0:15:00.480 --> 0:15:00.920 of this guy. 0:15:01.040 --> 0:15:01.560 Minimum. 0:15:01.680 --> 0:15:07.240 Don't say that it's not nice. I'm already so stressed out. No, 0:15:07.400 --> 0:15:10.320 I'm just kidding, But I do think that's right. And 0:15:10.080 --> 0:15:13.280 I'm thinking about when Donald Trump said that he had 0:15:13.320 --> 0:15:13.800 an MRI. 0:15:14.720 --> 0:15:17.200 Oh but no, he's not sure what four right. 0:15:17.240 --> 0:15:20.200 Yeah, this is his he was second yearly doctor's visit 0:15:20.400 --> 0:15:25.200 had advanced imaging, and everyone was like, oh, advanced imaging, 0:15:25.400 --> 0:15:28.680 Well that's odd. Also a doctor's visit once a year, 0:15:28.720 --> 0:15:32.720 except twice this year because it's And then he said, yeah, 0:15:32.720 --> 0:15:35.480 I had an MRI and they said, dude, was it 0:15:35.560 --> 0:15:36.920 your brain? And he said, I don't know. 0:15:37.960 --> 0:15:38.120 Right. 0:15:38.760 --> 0:15:40.400 They're like they're like, they're like pushing him into that 0:15:40.440 --> 0:15:42.680 circular what is it a little tube they put you? Yeah, 0:15:42.880 --> 0:15:44.800 and he's like, what's just for? I don't know, don't 0:15:44.800 --> 0:15:48.560 worry about it that again. I know we played this horrific 0:15:48.600 --> 0:15:51.360 game far too much, but can you imagine if Joe 0:15:51.360 --> 0:15:53.560 Biden was asked about an MRI that he had hidden 0:15:53.600 --> 0:15:55.720 from the public and then he said about the MRI, 0:15:55.760 --> 0:15:57.600 I had the best MRI ever? 0:15:58.320 --> 0:15:58.800 What was it for? 0:15:59.120 --> 0:16:02.080 I don't know? Yeah, I mean some insane insane that 0:16:02.120 --> 0:16:04.000 this guy can have two medical tests, two annual checks 0:16:04.040 --> 0:16:06.560 as a president. He can have weird bruising on his 0:16:06.640 --> 0:16:08.760 hands that he doesn't need to tell us about. He 0:16:08.840 --> 0:16:12.520 can the ankles, he can disappear from public view or 0:16:12.560 --> 0:16:14.320 not do any interviews for about five six days, or 0:16:14.320 --> 0:16:16.600 allow him say why he can have an MRI and 0:16:16.600 --> 0:16:19.200 we're not told why he gets shot in the ear, 0:16:19.400 --> 0:16:22.280 and we've never actually had any official medical records about it, 0:16:22.280 --> 0:16:24.200 nor been able to speak to the doctors who treated him. 0:16:24.280 --> 0:16:27.440 And miraculously is ear heeled faster than my shaving cuts. 0:16:27.720 --> 0:16:31.080 Yeah, no, no, now it is. It would make a 0:16:31.120 --> 0:16:32.760 person a conspiracy theorist. 0:16:33.440 --> 0:16:36.680 I wrote. I write a Monday morning newsletter for Zeteo 0:16:36.840 --> 0:16:40.320 called first Draft, and this morning, Monday Morning's email newsletter 0:16:40.560 --> 0:16:42.880 is about how we're all Epstein conspiracy theorists. Now, how 0:16:42.920 --> 0:16:46.000 I spent my life resisting conspiracy theories on the left, 0:16:46.040 --> 0:16:48.920 in Muslim communities, anti Semitic, nine to eleven, all of those. 0:16:48.920 --> 0:16:51.760 I've spent years fighting back against those, and yet now 0:16:51.800 --> 0:16:54.000 in twenty twenty five, Donald Trump has made me into 0:16:54.000 --> 0:16:54.960 a conspiracy theorist. 0:16:55.040 --> 0:17:02.240 Yeah, because there is no way to process this information. 0:17:02.840 --> 0:17:05.080 It just doesn't make sense, right, Like all of this stuff, 0:17:05.080 --> 0:17:08.000 it's just huh. 0:17:06.760 --> 0:17:10.720 Oh, there's just too many smoking guns. Jeffrey Epstein sends 0:17:10.720 --> 0:17:14.080 an email to an unknown person in December twenty eighteen, 0:17:14.600 --> 0:17:17.639 saying I'm the only one who can bring him down. 0:17:18.359 --> 0:17:21.119 Seven months later, he's arrested and detained by Trump's doj 0:17:21.240 --> 0:17:23.600 A month after that, he dies in prison where the 0:17:23.640 --> 0:17:26.879 cameras aren't working. Well, sorry, what a Netflix writer's room 0:17:26.880 --> 0:17:29.000 would throw that out as being unrealistic and a little 0:17:29.000 --> 0:17:29.800 bit too on the nose. 0:17:30.440 --> 0:17:32.840 Yeah, it's not good. It's not good. 0:17:33.240 --> 0:17:35.359 It's nothing about our current predicament is good. 0:17:35.840 --> 0:17:39.399 I want to talk for a minute about this pivot. 0:17:39.600 --> 0:17:43.840 So Trump World, he knew the discharged petition, Mike Johnson 0:17:43.960 --> 0:17:47.520 shuts down the entire House of Representatives, sends everyone up 0:17:47.560 --> 0:17:50.480 there if he uses a seat an elected Democrat from Arizona. Right, 0:17:50.760 --> 0:17:53.199 do you remember what the numbers are it was? I 0:17:53.240 --> 0:17:56.800 think it was a third forty day shutdown. The House 0:17:56.920 --> 0:17:59.280 was in session for four days. 0:17:59.400 --> 0:18:02.360 Yeah, something in saying not double digits. 0:18:02.600 --> 0:18:05.760 Yeah, he sent them home because he did not want 0:18:05.960 --> 0:18:09.400 them to sign the discharge petition or do any business 0:18:09.560 --> 0:18:13.280 or get together and talk about Epstein. So now they 0:18:13.320 --> 0:18:15.520 know they're going to lose this discharge vote. And we 0:18:15.600 --> 0:18:17.480 heard that it may be as many we had heard 0:18:17.480 --> 0:18:19.760 that it might have been as many as one hundred Republicans. 0:18:19.840 --> 0:18:22.520 We're going to vote on them vote against him. So 0:18:22.640 --> 0:18:25.480 he decides on Sunday night. You reference this, but I 0:18:25.520 --> 0:18:27.360 think we have to talk about a little more, decides 0:18:27.480 --> 0:18:30.280 on Sunday night that he is going to just have 0:18:30.480 --> 0:18:33.199 them release the files, yeah, or have a vote. I'm 0:18:33.240 --> 0:18:34.160 releasing the file yes. 0:18:34.200 --> 0:18:35.840 So to be clear, it's interesting how you phrased that, 0:18:35.920 --> 0:18:39.080 because let's be clear, the files are with the Department 0:18:39.119 --> 0:18:42.520 of Justice. Pam Bundy famously went on Fox in February 0:18:42.560 --> 0:18:45.160 and said they're on my desk ready to go, right, 0:18:45.200 --> 0:18:47.159 So when we talk about releasing the files, it doesn't 0:18:47.200 --> 0:18:49.600 require a vote in Congress. Now Donald Trump wants to 0:18:49.640 --> 0:18:51.640 rease the files, he can rease the files tomorrow money. 0:18:51.680 --> 0:18:54.000 It's not as if his DOJ is some independent entity. 0:18:54.119 --> 0:18:56.280 We know that Pam Bundy is basically just to kind of, 0:18:56.680 --> 0:18:59.000 you know, like a restaurant server at this point for 0:18:59.040 --> 0:19:01.080 Donald Trump. She moves as soon as he tells her 0:19:01.160 --> 0:19:03.000 to move. So if he wants, he can just put 0:19:03.040 --> 0:19:05.479 out a truth social post. Think Pam put out all 0:19:05.520 --> 0:19:09.800 the files tonight on a website. This whole vote for 0:19:09.840 --> 0:19:11.760 it is just him trying to cover himself from an 0:19:11.760 --> 0:19:14.240 embarrassing loss, as you said, or a defection of many 0:19:14.240 --> 0:19:16.560 members of his party. Thomas Massey, who's gone to war 0:19:16.600 --> 0:19:19.520 with aside from MTG, the Republican congressman who's been leading 0:19:19.560 --> 0:19:22.680 the charge with Rocannor on the Epstein discharge. He's said 0:19:22.760 --> 0:19:25.200 very eloquently that you know, Donald Trump will be gone. 0:19:25.200 --> 0:19:26.560 I'm not sure he will be gone. It may be 0:19:26.600 --> 0:19:29.280 gone in four years, but you'll still be around and 0:19:29.320 --> 0:19:31.439 people remember you as defenders of pedophiles. He said to 0:19:31.480 --> 0:19:34.560 his colleagues, that's obviously had some traction that reminds Yeah. 0:19:34.600 --> 0:19:38.080 And then he went after Massey for getting remarried too quickly. 0:19:38.359 --> 0:19:42.520 With Mary Massey, a widows wife died raight, he went 0:19:42.560 --> 0:19:45.119 after him for getting married again. And Laura Luma, his 0:19:45.320 --> 0:19:48.600 media ally questioned how Massey's wife died. I mean, there 0:19:48.640 --> 0:19:50.520 is no bottom for this Republican party. 0:19:50.880 --> 0:19:53.119 And it is also important to remember this is like 0:19:53.240 --> 0:19:58.480 Donald Trump, who's three wives in and has numerous allegations 0:19:58.480 --> 0:19:59.240 of infidelity. 0:19:59.400 --> 0:20:01.920 Allegedly she did on his third wife just after she 0:20:02.040 --> 0:20:02.520 gave birth. 0:20:02.800 --> 0:20:03.440 Was a porn star. 0:20:06.880 --> 0:20:07.080 Yeah. 0:20:07.640 --> 0:20:12.159 Anyway, so there, so there will be a vote. Now, 0:20:12.880 --> 0:20:15.159 let's talk about this protocol for a minute. There'll be 0:20:15.160 --> 0:20:17.560 a vote now, and then it we'll go to the Senate. 0:20:17.960 --> 0:20:19.400 And do they even have the votes in the Senate 0:20:19.440 --> 0:20:22.120 because Republican Senators there in a very different vote. They 0:20:22.160 --> 0:20:25.480 were never on the whole Epstein train, right. It was 0:20:25.720 --> 0:20:30.440 very much an MTG. Bobert, you know, a massy kind 0:20:30.440 --> 0:20:32.120 of unhinged folks in the House. 0:20:32.280 --> 0:20:32.479 I mean. 0:20:32.480 --> 0:20:34.200 The great irony, as I point out in my newsletter 0:20:34.280 --> 0:20:38.000 this morning, is these guys spent four years banging the 0:20:38.040 --> 0:20:42.199 druma about Epstein, jumping on QAnon bandwagons about it being 0:20:42.240 --> 0:20:47.440 a secret crazy the politicians covering up a child sex 0:20:47.480 --> 0:20:50.879 trafficking ring. Turns out they may have been right, but 0:20:51.040 --> 0:20:53.639 the ring and the cover up was on their side 0:20:53.640 --> 0:20:56.560 of the aisle, right, correct. That's that's the problem they 0:20:56.600 --> 0:20:58.800 have now is all of these people, not just the 0:20:58.840 --> 0:21:01.560 members of Congress, but the Bune and the Cashpatel, the FBI, 0:21:01.600 --> 0:21:04.359 Derek to Devis, they all pushed this Epstein stuff and 0:21:04.400 --> 0:21:06.439 now they're in a position to really make sure that 0:21:06.480 --> 0:21:08.240 they're unable to go through with it. And we know 0:21:08.280 --> 0:21:10.760 the timeline Molly on the reporting. It's when they went 0:21:10.800 --> 0:21:13.560 through the files. They devoted hundreds of members of the government, 0:21:13.880 --> 0:21:16.399 hundreds of members of the bureaucracy were diverted onto the 0:21:16.440 --> 0:21:19.040 task of going through the files and just doing control. 0:21:19.200 --> 0:21:22.119 F Trump control f. Trump all the way through and 0:21:22.160 --> 0:21:24.280 when you saw how many times his name appears, and 0:21:24.359 --> 0:21:26.960 Detail has put a searchable archive of all of the 0:21:27.240 --> 0:21:29.760 twenty thousand documents that were released by the House Oversight Committee. 0:21:29.760 --> 0:21:31.440 You can look at zataio dot com. You can search 0:21:31.480 --> 0:21:33.879 them for yourselves. You will see Donald Trump's name appears 0:21:33.880 --> 0:21:36.640 more than anybody else is apart from Jeffrey Epstein. That's 0:21:36.640 --> 0:21:38.960 when they decided we can't release this stuff. We have 0:21:39.040 --> 0:21:40.919 to pretend all is fine, there's nothing to see here, 0:21:40.960 --> 0:21:41.879 Move along, move along. 0:21:42.359 --> 0:21:45.840 Yes, I just wonder where it goes, right, because so 0:21:45.920 --> 0:21:49.840 we know that Pambondi supposedly had in our desk. Again, 0:21:50.080 --> 0:21:54.000 we don't really know because everybody's lying. I think it's 0:21:54.040 --> 0:21:57.399 fair was to agree that pretty much everybody's lying here. 0:21:57.640 --> 0:21:59.879 My position on this administration is you assume it's alioned. 0:22:00.080 --> 0:22:01.160 Let's proved to be the true too. 0:22:01.400 --> 0:22:03.840 But either way, we know there's a ton of information 0:22:03.960 --> 0:22:06.879 that did go to the DJ and it was videos 0:22:06.920 --> 0:22:10.520 and emails and depositions. I mean, that's the other thing 0:22:10.520 --> 0:22:13.360 that's worth's remembering is right now, all we've seen are 0:22:13.440 --> 0:22:16.920 the emails that they flooded us with from the Republicans 0:22:16.960 --> 0:22:20.679 the Oversight Committee emails, and then we've seen the emails 0:22:20.720 --> 0:22:24.280 from Bloomberg from Jason Leopold that he got from Floyd's. 0:22:24.880 --> 0:22:28.840 That is it. We haven't seen like I mean, I 0:22:28.880 --> 0:22:32.480 guess that the House released some stuff like the Michael 0:22:32.480 --> 0:22:36.240 Wolf that long Michael Wolf article. Can we talk? Can 0:22:36.280 --> 0:22:39.879 we do two seconds on Michael Wolf here? Because so 0:22:40.040 --> 0:22:45.399 this is a guy who was like advising, writing, doing 0:22:45.480 --> 0:22:47.399 pr for Friendly. 0:22:47.160 --> 0:22:50.320 Jeffrey Epstein one of the most famous journalists of our time. 0:22:51.040 --> 0:22:52.800 He's super famous. A lot of people in this you 0:22:52.880 --> 0:22:55.040 don't like it for good reason. I think these emails 0:22:55.080 --> 0:22:57.760 show everything that's wrong with journalism in this country, the 0:22:57.800 --> 0:23:01.159 worst parts of our kind of established journalism. And his 0:23:01.320 --> 0:23:04.199 argument just to play devil's advocate. He's arguing that I 0:23:04.280 --> 0:23:06.240 have to suck up to these people to get access. 0:23:06.280 --> 0:23:08.119 That's how I got an interview with Donald Trump. And 0:23:08.119 --> 0:23:09.440 we know that's how it works with Trump. You suck 0:23:09.520 --> 0:23:11.000 up to Trump. He invites you in, he gives you 0:23:11.040 --> 0:23:12.480 an interview, then he doesn't like what you've written and 0:23:12.520 --> 0:23:14.320 he attacks you. We know that that's what happened to Wolf. 0:23:14.400 --> 0:23:16.600 He wrote these best selling books Fire and Fury, and 0:23:16.760 --> 0:23:18.760 I think hold three or four books, I've lost track, 0:23:18.880 --> 0:23:20.840 and he did that by sucking up clearly with Epstein. 0:23:20.840 --> 0:23:22.200 I think it's harder for him to make that case 0:23:22.240 --> 0:23:24.120 because it's very clear from the emails that we've seen 0:23:24.280 --> 0:23:26.600 that they were friends, that he was advising him, that 0:23:26.680 --> 0:23:29.440 he was trying to spin on his behalf and giving 0:23:29.480 --> 0:23:32.280 him pr and media advice. It's kind of disgusting because 0:23:32.560 --> 0:23:35.159 let's not forget Molly important point for the context for 0:23:35.240 --> 0:23:38.040 all these emails. Whether it's Larry Summers, who's also in 0:23:38.080 --> 0:23:43.600 the emails on how to how to move on a 0:23:43.600 --> 0:23:46.600 allegedly on a Chinese academic whose father was a Communist 0:23:46.640 --> 0:23:49.240 Party official, whether it's Summers, whether it's Wolf, whether it's 0:23:49.440 --> 0:23:53.040 God Helpers, Non Chomsky, whoever's in those emails. They all 0:23:53.160 --> 0:23:56.199 knew at that point that this guy was convicted in 0:23:56.200 --> 0:23:59.760 two thousand and eight for child sex crimes or so listening. 0:23:59.760 --> 0:24:01.520 At that point that the plea Dearly got was for 0:24:01.680 --> 0:24:04.439 listening an under eighteen. But the point is they all 0:24:04.520 --> 0:24:06.119 knew who he was, they all knew what was guilty. 0:24:06.160 --> 0:24:09.080 It was set he was a registered sexis predator. 0:24:09.119 --> 0:24:10.840 At that point, he had been in prison, even if 0:24:10.840 --> 0:24:12.359 it was a kind of soft prison that he got 0:24:12.359 --> 0:24:15.239 to you every day, and so there's no excuse for 0:24:15.320 --> 0:24:17.360 any of these people to have been friendly with him, 0:24:17.480 --> 0:24:20.920 hanging out with him, giving him advice. It's truly disgusting 0:24:21.000 --> 0:24:23.480 and de prayed. There's a real reflection of what goes 0:24:23.520 --> 0:24:25.840 on on fortune, and some of it really confirms for 0:24:25.880 --> 0:24:27.840 a lot of people go back to conspiracy theory stuff 0:24:28.040 --> 0:24:31.440 about just how intertwined kind of the most deprayed elements 0:24:31.440 --> 0:24:33.080 of our media and political establishments are. 0:24:33.280 --> 0:24:39.520 I also think that it speaks to a kind of world. 0:24:39.600 --> 0:24:43.200 I mean, this is a world that doesn't necessarily exist anymore, right, 0:24:43.480 --> 0:24:46.840 some of it? And thank God for that ready, Like 0:24:47.040 --> 0:24:47.800 I mean, would you? 0:24:47.840 --> 0:24:50.160 But unfortunately some of these emails are from like twenty 0:24:50.160 --> 0:24:53.080 eighteen and twenty nineteen, like this time right now, it's stuff, 0:24:53.119 --> 0:24:55.960 and these connections are still happening, pretty dark, and people 0:24:55.960 --> 0:24:58.360 give it, oh well, Bill Clinton, I'm like, yeah, nobody 0:24:58.400 --> 0:25:03.479 cares right about freaking about. 0:25:02.160 --> 0:25:06.240 A nonpartisan exercise. You know, if and I know he's not, 0:25:06.440 --> 0:25:09.320 but if Barack Obama, who is like as close to 0:25:09.400 --> 0:25:13.240 sort of a democratic deity as one could have if 0:25:13.240 --> 0:25:15.920 he were in there, we want him out too. I mean, 0:25:15.920 --> 0:25:17.480 this is not a partisan activity. 0:25:17.520 --> 0:25:19.960 I mean, his name is mentioned at different times in 0:25:20.000 --> 0:25:22.080 the emails. But yeah, there's no evidence that Obama of 0:25:22.080 --> 0:25:24.879 a partied with Epstein or went on his jet in 0:25:24.880 --> 0:25:27.600 the way that Clinton and Trump did. Right, and again 0:25:27.760 --> 0:25:29.639 no accusations of wrongdo we have to add in this 0:25:29.800 --> 0:25:33.240 very ligitious climate, but it looks bad. And the fact 0:25:33.280 --> 0:25:35.199 that he's tried to cover it up until Sunday night 0:25:35.200 --> 0:25:36.520 when he said release it all. The fact that he 0:25:36.560 --> 0:25:38.200 was willing to go to what would Marjorie Taylor Green, 0:25:38.359 --> 0:25:41.520 The fact that he announced that criminal investigation into only 0:25:41.600 --> 0:25:46.280 democrats mentioned in the documents, how was I amazing? The fact, 0:25:46.400 --> 0:25:48.760 I mean again with Trump, each and every one of 0:25:48.800 --> 0:25:50.720 these things that we're talking about, for any other president 0:25:50.800 --> 0:25:54.240 would be a multi week, multi month scandal. The fact 0:25:54.240 --> 0:25:56.720 that dog Drum just casually on Sunday told his Aney general, 0:25:56.760 --> 0:25:59.439 I want you to investigate these democrats who are in 0:25:59.480 --> 0:26:02.200 the far and she said sure, I'm an appointed attorney 0:26:02.280 --> 0:26:04.520 right now, that in itself, Molly, you and I were 0:26:04.520 --> 0:26:06.000 saying this last year. If we said this last thing, 0:26:06.040 --> 0:26:08.199 we were told it was Trump drangement syndrome, suggests that 0:26:08.200 --> 0:26:10.200 Trump would do stuff as brazenly as he's doing. 0:26:10.359 --> 0:26:12.919 Yeah, no, it's so true. Thank you for making the 0:26:12.960 --> 0:26:15.840 time for me. I always really enjoyed talking to you, 0:26:16.280 --> 0:26:17.360 despite the shit. 0:26:17.480 --> 0:26:19.119 I feel like when I told you and I told Earlie, 0:26:19.119 --> 0:26:21.639 whether it's on my podcast, it's like a therapy session. 0:26:23.400 --> 0:26:28.280 Vanessa Williamson is a Senior Fellow in Governance Studies at 0:26:28.320 --> 0:26:31.879 the Brookings Institute and the author of the Price of Democracy, 0:26:32.080 --> 0:26:37.000 The Revolutionary Power of Taxation in American History. Welcome to 0:26:37.080 --> 0:26:38.760 Fast Politics, Vanessa. 0:26:38.680 --> 0:26:39.800 Oh, thanks for having me. 0:26:40.080 --> 0:26:42.880 You are a scholar. You have written this book. It's 0:26:42.920 --> 0:26:45.639 a little counterintuitive, so talk us through this idea. 0:26:45.720 --> 0:26:48.240 So I think for far too long. You know, it's 0:26:48.240 --> 0:26:51.240 a real conservative trope frankly that, oh, taxation is tyranny, 0:26:51.280 --> 0:26:54.960 But the reality is almost literally diametrically the opposite. That 0:26:55.040 --> 0:26:58.480 is to say that taxes are things that free countries 0:26:58.520 --> 0:27:01.119 do really well. Elected official are really good at raising 0:27:01.119 --> 0:27:04.280 tax money, and tyrants hate taxes. They always have. So 0:27:04.359 --> 0:27:07.879 the story in my book is the story of American democracy, 0:27:07.960 --> 0:27:11.560 focusing on how fights over taxation are actually the fights 0:27:11.560 --> 0:27:14.720 ober democracy. That's true now, and it's always been true. 0:27:15.160 --> 0:27:18.080 Explain how it was true then, because this is like 0:27:18.119 --> 0:27:19.520 a pretty bold statement. 0:27:20.640 --> 0:27:22.840 Well, let me start with just a story. You've probably 0:27:22.840 --> 0:27:25.520 heard of the Boston Tea Party. You may recall this event, right, 0:27:25.600 --> 0:27:29.120 So these mechanics and artisans in Boston seventeen seventy three, 0:27:29.240 --> 0:27:31.240 it's the middle of winter and they go down to 0:27:31.280 --> 0:27:33.320 Boston Harbor and they throw all this tea in the harbor. 0:27:33.359 --> 0:27:34.040 What was that about? 0:27:34.080 --> 0:27:36.959 Almost anyone would tell you about taxes. People hate taxes. 0:27:36.960 --> 0:27:39.159 They were high taxes. They were complaining about taxes. Well, 0:27:39.160 --> 0:27:41.399 they were complaining about taxes. They were complaining about a 0:27:41.440 --> 0:27:45.000 tax cut. The British government had decided to give an 0:27:45.160 --> 0:27:48.560 enormous tax break to the East India Company, a corporation 0:27:48.600 --> 0:27:51.080 that was deemed too big to fail. And this was 0:27:51.119 --> 0:27:54.600 going to be, as Sam Adams put it, introductive of monopolies. Right. 0:27:54.640 --> 0:27:56.840 It was too big of a tax break for a corporation, 0:27:57.280 --> 0:28:00.040 and that is what motivated the Sons of Liberty to 0:28:00.080 --> 0:28:02.040 throw that tea in the harbor. Now, if the basic 0:28:02.040 --> 0:28:04.960 American understanding of the Boston Tea Party is wrong, it 0:28:05.040 --> 0:28:07.680 might be worth reconsidering more generally the role taxes have 0:28:07.760 --> 0:28:09.600 played in our history. And it's important to remember that 0:28:09.640 --> 0:28:12.359 taxes are two things. Right, They're the portion of our 0:28:12.400 --> 0:28:14.520 labor that we contribute to the public good. That is 0:28:14.560 --> 0:28:16.920 why people are so proud to be taxpayers. Right, We'll 0:28:16.960 --> 0:28:19.720 always say that, oh, I'm a taxpayer, and why because 0:28:19.720 --> 0:28:21.920 they're proud to have contributed. And if you think about 0:28:21.960 --> 0:28:24.679 what the taxes go to, they are the revenue that 0:28:24.760 --> 0:28:28.239 empowers our democratic government. So if you're asking yourself, you know, 0:28:28.440 --> 0:28:32.720 if taxation is tyranny, why is Donald Trump destroying the irs? 0:28:33.040 --> 0:28:36.240 The reason is because he wants private donations to pay 0:28:36.240 --> 0:28:38.840 for things. He wants to extort things from particular companies. 0:28:39.280 --> 0:28:42.560 He doesn't want a real tax system because taxation is 0:28:42.560 --> 0:28:45.680 something that comes in democratic societies. The freest countries on 0:28:45.720 --> 0:28:48.880 Earth are high tax countries. How do tariffs sort of 0:28:49.000 --> 0:28:52.280 feature into this? Yeah, so it's important to know tariffs. 0:28:52.400 --> 0:28:54.760 When you relied on tariffs for decades and decades and 0:28:54.800 --> 0:28:57.640 decades most of American history, tariffs are what funded the 0:28:57.680 --> 0:28:59.680 federal government. But the tariffs that we have today are 0:28:59.680 --> 0:29:02.720 not like those tariffs because they are not legislated. Right, 0:29:02.880 --> 0:29:04.920 the Congress is not choosing the tariff rates. You know, 0:29:04.960 --> 0:29:06.800 you might think tariffs are bad policy. In fact, you 0:29:06.800 --> 0:29:09.280 should think tariffs are bad policy. It's bad for the economy. 0:29:09.320 --> 0:29:11.520 But it would only be bad policy, It would not 0:29:11.520 --> 0:29:14.520 be anti democratic, except that, actually our tariffrates are decided 0:29:14.520 --> 0:29:17.840 by one guy, apparently through tweets, right, And that is 0:29:18.080 --> 0:29:21.280 fundamentally anti democratic. And it has the effect of sort 0:29:21.320 --> 0:29:23.560 of bringing corporations into line, right, And the point of 0:29:23.560 --> 0:29:25.920 the tariffs and countries into line. The point is not 0:29:26.000 --> 0:29:29.640 to raise revenue. It is to consolidate power. And that's 0:29:29.680 --> 0:29:32.000 how you should be thinking about the terriff frights right now, 0:29:32.080 --> 0:29:34.280 because on the one hand, we have the capacity of 0:29:34.320 --> 0:29:37.400 our own legislature right to raise revenue. That is what 0:29:37.440 --> 0:29:41.040 the founders fought for, right, the idea that the only 0:29:41.080 --> 0:29:44.840 people who can tax are elected legislators. They want state 0:29:44.880 --> 0:29:48.040 governments to or colonial governments at the time. But what 0:29:48.080 --> 0:29:50.000 became our state governments to be the ones in charge 0:29:50.000 --> 0:29:51.800 of raising money? And they didn't think a king could 0:29:51.840 --> 0:29:54.560 do that. And now we're asking that question again. So 0:29:54.800 --> 0:29:57.280 the important thing about tariffs is not whether they're good 0:29:57.280 --> 0:29:59.200 policy or bad policies. When it comes to democracy, you 0:29:59.200 --> 0:30:02.040 know they're bad policy. Sure, lots of popular things are 0:30:02.040 --> 0:30:04.640 bad policy. Loads of unpopular things are bad policy. But 0:30:04.680 --> 0:30:07.040 the thing that's dangerous for our democracy is putting the 0:30:07.080 --> 0:30:09.320 power of taxation in the hands of a single person, 0:30:09.480 --> 0:30:10.880 and we thought a revolution against that. 0:30:11.120 --> 0:30:13.240 This all makes a lot of sense, but I wonder 0:30:13.320 --> 0:30:16.720 if you could give us, like your fantasy of what 0:30:16.920 --> 0:30:20.360 progressive taxation would look like America. I feel like it's 0:30:20.400 --> 0:30:22.640 been at war withood itself about like, what are the 0:30:22.680 --> 0:30:27.000 tax structure that would look like, you know, more of 0:30:27.040 --> 0:30:28.920 a sort of fair country. 0:30:29.160 --> 0:30:31.280 That's a great question. I have part of an answer 0:30:31.360 --> 0:30:33.320 that I think most of your viewers will probably be 0:30:33.360 --> 0:30:34.880 nodding right along with, and part of an answer that 0:30:34.920 --> 0:30:35.760 might come as a surprise. 0:30:35.960 --> 0:30:39.840 Good, especially with things like this when it can be counterintuitive. 0:30:40.040 --> 0:30:41.560 I'm always happy to be surprised. 0:30:41.880 --> 0:30:44.400 So the first part you might expect, a high progressive 0:30:44.400 --> 0:30:48.680 taxation of wealth is really important for democracy at this point, Right, 0:30:48.680 --> 0:30:51.080 we can't have some people have this amount of money 0:30:51.080 --> 0:30:53.560 because money is power and it leads into our politics. 0:30:53.560 --> 0:30:55.800 It has for many decades, and it is now just 0:30:55.880 --> 0:30:59.200 beyond anything that can be managed within the democratic society. Right. 0:30:59.280 --> 0:31:01.320 You might not know Thomas Pain, the guy who wrote 0:31:01.360 --> 0:31:02.920 Common Sense. Right, this is the guy who wrote the 0:31:02.960 --> 0:31:05.680 pamphlet that convinced Americans not just to fight for independence, 0:31:05.720 --> 0:31:08.080 but to fight to not have a monarchy. Thomas Pain 0:31:08.240 --> 0:31:10.280 common sense. He also a few years later, in the 0:31:10.320 --> 0:31:13.880 Rights of Man, proposed a progressive income tax, a very 0:31:14.200 --> 0:31:16.560 very novel idea at the time. It was a tax 0:31:16.600 --> 0:31:19.479 on the income from wealth. Progressivity was basically he had 0:31:19.520 --> 0:31:21.240 to like do the math and a table in the 0:31:21.280 --> 0:31:22.840 Rights of Man to explain this to people because it 0:31:22.880 --> 0:31:25.400 was new. The top rate was one hundred percent. Now 0:31:25.400 --> 0:31:27.080 it was really high brackets. 0:31:26.760 --> 0:31:29.640 All right, seems like too high. 0:31:29.720 --> 0:31:32.320 Well, so it's a marginal rate, remember, So it means 0:31:32.320 --> 0:31:35.000 that it applies to all your money over a particular point, 0:31:35.120 --> 0:31:37.520 you know. And he wrote his pounds and in seven 0:31:37.640 --> 0:31:40.920 you know, in seventeen ninety. So the amount he chose 0:31:40.960 --> 0:31:43.760 is not what's important. If you update that to modern statistics, 0:31:43.760 --> 0:31:46.600 it's about a billion dollars. So what Thomas Pain was 0:31:46.600 --> 0:31:50.080 saying was that beyond a certain level of wealth, all 0:31:50.160 --> 0:31:52.640 the additional income you're receiving, you shouldn't be allowed to 0:31:52.720 --> 0:31:55.400 keep it, because what he said was it caused corruption 0:31:55.520 --> 0:31:56.760 to elections. 0:31:56.440 --> 0:31:59.719 Right, which turns out to be he is a genius. 0:31:59.400 --> 0:32:01.640 Right, Yeah, he knew it was up there, guy, So 0:32:01.800 --> 0:32:04.280 I think on the one side, there's what Thomas Pain said, 0:32:04.360 --> 0:32:06.560 which is that there's a certain level of concentration of 0:32:06.560 --> 0:32:09.680 wealth that's dangerous to a republic, and taxation is one 0:32:09.720 --> 0:32:11.760 of the mechanisms. There are many mechanisms that you need. 0:32:11.840 --> 0:32:14.640 One of the mechanisms help restrain that. Right, it should 0:32:14.680 --> 0:32:16.440 not be the only tool in the toolkit. Right. There 0:32:16.440 --> 0:32:18.640 are all kinds of things about monopolies and all other 0:32:18.680 --> 0:32:20.440 things you need to be doing, But one of the 0:32:20.480 --> 0:32:24.240 mechanisms that's really important is limiting the consolidation of wealth. 0:32:24.320 --> 0:32:25.440 The other half of what I'm going to say is 0:32:25.440 --> 0:32:27.360 maybe a little more surprising. I think it's really important 0:32:27.400 --> 0:32:30.240 to have broad based taxation because it's broad based taxation 0:32:30.280 --> 0:32:32.200 that in the long term, can fund a social safety 0:32:32.240 --> 0:32:35.240 net that allows people to act as citizens. Right, you 0:32:35.320 --> 0:32:38.960 have to not be afraid that you're going to lose 0:32:39.040 --> 0:32:40.800 your apartment at the end of the month. If you 0:32:40.840 --> 0:32:42.880 want to be able to take the time to read 0:32:42.920 --> 0:32:45.200 the paper and go to the meetings and do all 0:32:45.240 --> 0:32:47.400 the things that citizens are supposed to do, you can't 0:32:47.400 --> 0:32:49.280 be worrying about where your next paycheck is coming from. 0:32:49.400 --> 0:32:51.120 You know, it's not just important that we limit the top. 0:32:51.160 --> 0:32:53.080 We have to keep the bottom up too, and the 0:32:53.120 --> 0:32:54.280 only way you're going to be able to do that 0:32:54.360 --> 0:32:56.200 is with broad based taxation. I'll give you an example, 0:32:56.320 --> 0:32:59.160 Social Security. That's not a particularly progressive tax. It's actually 0:32:59.160 --> 0:33:01.880 a regressive tax. Fund social Security because it falls on 0:33:02.120 --> 0:33:04.160 the money you earned by working, not the wealth you 0:33:04.280 --> 0:33:07.360 learned by having it sit around and garner interest. Medicare too, 0:33:07.480 --> 0:33:10.520 funded by the same payroll taxes. These are regressive taxes. 0:33:10.520 --> 0:33:12.960 Americans love them. They are the favorite tax of the 0:33:13.000 --> 0:33:16.760 American people, right there with sales tax tax. People don't 0:33:16.760 --> 0:33:19.280 mind paying their share if they think it's worthwhile. So 0:33:19.320 --> 0:33:21.720 to me, you need both of these things. You need 0:33:21.800 --> 0:33:24.840 both high progressive taxation. But you also need to recognize 0:33:24.840 --> 0:33:26.360 that that's not where all the money is going to come from. 0:33:26.360 --> 0:33:29.240 Because even when people are extremely rich like they are now, 0:33:29.320 --> 0:33:31.040 there are very few of them. You can't be balancing 0:33:31.080 --> 0:33:32.800 your whole tax system on that. You've got to have 0:33:32.840 --> 0:33:35.480 everyone chipping in. And that's part of a democracy too, right. 0:33:35.680 --> 0:33:38.960 It's part of a democracy to have people paying their 0:33:39.000 --> 0:33:40.760 share and having their say yes. 0:33:41.400 --> 0:33:45.440 Tariffs are obviously a tax, and there's a lot of 0:33:46.520 --> 0:33:52.240 authoritarian stuff mixed in with trump ism mostly authoritarianism. So 0:33:52.840 --> 0:33:56.480 like that you're not seeing any of the sort of 0:33:56.640 --> 0:34:00.520 good that one might get from tariffs. Now, Ueen Trump 0:34:00.560 --> 0:34:02.720 one point zero and Trump two point zero. Biden world 0:34:02.720 --> 0:34:05.160 did keep some of those tariffs on Biden World the 0:34:05.280 --> 0:34:10.400 complicated legacy, but some of the tariffing I think was smart. 0:34:10.840 --> 0:34:13.360 This is like a question that's like goes to a 0:34:13.360 --> 0:34:17.440 particular hobbyhorse of mind, which is, for whatever reason, Republicans 0:34:17.480 --> 0:34:21.560 hate corporate taxes and loove tariffs. Corporate taxes and tariffs 0:34:21.640 --> 0:34:23.880 are the same thing. So I mean they're played by 0:34:23.880 --> 0:34:26.560 the consumer, but ultimately they're paid by the corporation. So 0:34:26.880 --> 0:34:30.000 is there a sort of way in here to tax 0:34:30.040 --> 0:34:35.359 corporations through tariffs to confuse Republicans into raising the corporate tax? Right? 0:34:37.480 --> 0:34:40.040 I love this sort of like indimentional chess aspect of it. 0:34:40.080 --> 0:34:42.080 I may tell you a little bit about tariffs. Right, So, 0:34:42.160 --> 0:34:43.719 first of all, the kind of tariff that we're dealing 0:34:43.719 --> 0:34:45.799 with now, which is where one random I guess not 0:34:45.880 --> 0:34:47.840 very random, but one guy decides them. That is a 0:34:47.880 --> 0:34:50.319 non starter for democracy. You cannot have it work that 0:34:50.360 --> 0:34:52.480 way because it just consolidates power too much. But if 0:34:52.480 --> 0:34:55.200 you're going to talk about a legislated system of tariffs, 0:34:55.440 --> 0:34:58.000 then okay. Economists will have a lot to say about 0:34:58.000 --> 0:35:00.279 whether it's good for the economy as a whole, right, 0:35:00.280 --> 0:35:02.520 whether it produces growthably, It depends very much on what 0:35:02.560 --> 0:35:05.399 the tariffs are. When we had very high teriff rates 0:35:05.440 --> 0:35:08.319 in the United States in the late nineteenth century, those 0:35:08.480 --> 0:35:13.080 tariffs were set upon intentionally to support monopolistic corporations. Right. 0:35:13.280 --> 0:35:16.600 They were preventing consumers and farmers in particular in the 0:35:16.680 --> 0:35:19.680 United States from being able to afford raw materials and 0:35:19.719 --> 0:35:22.160 machinery and things like this that were produced overseas. It 0:35:22.200 --> 0:35:24.480 was a huge gift for US steel. So tariffs can 0:35:24.520 --> 0:35:26.839 be set up in a way that are extremely monopolistic. 0:35:26.840 --> 0:35:29.520 But what's interesting, I think about that story is not 0:35:29.560 --> 0:35:31.560 that we're having those kinds of teriff systems. Now we 0:35:31.600 --> 0:35:34.799 have these very arbitrary, very limited revenue tariffs that are 0:35:34.880 --> 0:35:37.560 dangerous for totally different reasons. But what's interesting to me 0:35:37.680 --> 0:35:40.520 about the old tariff system is that consumers knew they 0:35:40.560 --> 0:35:43.879 were paying, and they rallied for an income tax in 0:35:43.920 --> 0:35:46.400 part because they believed in the income tax. It's very popular, right. 0:35:46.440 --> 0:35:48.719 Remember the Supreme Court bans the income tax. They say 0:35:48.760 --> 0:35:50.839 that income tax is unconstitutional, even though we'd had one 0:35:50.880 --> 0:35:52.640 during the Civil War. In eighteen ninety four, eight to 0:35:52.760 --> 0:35:57.040 ninety five, the Supreme Court declares the income tax unconstitutional. 0:35:57.200 --> 0:35:59.520 So then we have to have a twenty year state 0:35:59.560 --> 0:36:02.279 by state campaign to get our income tax back, and 0:36:02.320 --> 0:36:05.160 they get it done. And part of the reason for 0:36:05.200 --> 0:36:07.280 that is because people thought that wealthy people should be paying. 0:36:08.040 --> 0:36:10.279 But part of the reason is because they knew that 0:36:10.320 --> 0:36:12.960 the tariffs that we had then were really raising prices 0:36:13.000 --> 0:36:15.759 for consumers. And so I think that one of the 0:36:16.320 --> 0:36:19.000 really interesting things to me is whether the costs of 0:36:19.040 --> 0:36:21.640 the tariffs we have now are going to be something 0:36:21.680 --> 0:36:24.200 that people come to recognize as expensive as a part 0:36:24.200 --> 0:36:27.240 of the larger story about inflation and the other ways 0:36:27.239 --> 0:36:30.239 that the cost of living is just going up. Hm. 0:36:30.880 --> 0:36:34.440 So interesting. So you wrote a book with a friend 0:36:34.560 --> 0:36:37.640 of the show. You know, you're on a nerdy podcast 0:36:37.800 --> 0:36:41.000 when the friend of the show is Theedra Scotch Paul, 0:36:41.080 --> 0:36:44.040 who I love so much and think is the genius. 0:36:44.239 --> 0:36:47.279 But she is like the person who saw all of 0:36:47.320 --> 0:36:49.440 this coming from a mile away, and so did you. 0:36:50.080 --> 0:36:54.120 So cannot talk about this moment in American politics without 0:36:54.160 --> 0:36:57.160 talking about the Tea Party and that we are like 0:36:57.320 --> 0:37:01.719 living there fever dream anything you can glean from that 0:37:02.120 --> 0:37:05.680 that you think is useful for now. A good example 0:37:05.800 --> 0:37:09.200 is I was on a panel yesterday with some very 0:37:09.719 --> 0:37:14.600 crazy right wingers and they were asking the normal people 0:37:14.840 --> 0:37:17.640 what the cutoff for abortion should be, right, which is 0:37:17.719 --> 0:37:20.279 like a bullshit question you ask when you want to 0:37:20.320 --> 0:37:23.399 get people going, when you want to have afa on them. 0:37:23.719 --> 0:37:27.040 And so I said, well, let's ask the conservatives when 0:37:27.080 --> 0:37:31.120 they believe life begins. And you know what they all said, right, conception, 0:37:31.520 --> 0:37:34.759 what sort of lessons do you see from the Tea 0:37:34.800 --> 0:37:39.799 Party or what kind of progress negative progress probably have 0:37:39.920 --> 0:37:43.680 you seen, and like what is surprising or whatever else 0:37:43.719 --> 0:37:44.479 you want to talk about. 0:37:44.719 --> 0:37:47.120 Sure, so yeah, theta is one of my very very 0:37:47.120 --> 0:37:49.759 favorite people and it was great fun to write a 0:37:49.800 --> 0:37:52.480 book with her, and we traveled around and visited Tea 0:37:52.560 --> 0:37:55.359 Party groups around the country and there were a couple 0:37:55.400 --> 0:37:58.440 of things that were informative at the time. One of 0:37:58.480 --> 0:38:00.719 them is that the primary issue motive bating Tea Party 0:38:00.719 --> 0:38:03.560 activists was not taxes and spending, which is what sort 0:38:03.560 --> 0:38:06.399 of elite conservative and Republican groups were saying. They were 0:38:06.400 --> 0:38:08.920 motivated about immigration. And I will say it was at 0:38:08.960 --> 0:38:11.160 a Tea Party event that I first heard this will 0:38:11.200 --> 0:38:12.799 have a two thousand and nine or twenty ten that 0:38:12.880 --> 0:38:15.800 I first heard Donald Trump floated as a potential presidential candidate. 0:38:15.840 --> 0:38:17.239 And you know, it was quite a surprise at the 0:38:17.239 --> 0:38:18.960 time because this is a man who had a reality 0:38:19.000 --> 0:38:21.800 TV show. But yeah, it was in many ways getting 0:38:21.800 --> 0:38:23.920 to see into the future of the Republican Party. I 0:38:23.920 --> 0:38:26.279 think there are some valuable lessons. I mean, first of all, 0:38:26.280 --> 0:38:29.759 it's important to understand what was motivating the conservative base 0:38:29.800 --> 0:38:32.680 in the Obama era, because it is critical to understanding 0:38:32.680 --> 0:38:36.360 why Donald Trump was successful. But I think the lessons now, 0:38:36.560 --> 0:38:37.920 right now that I think we've all had time to 0:38:37.960 --> 0:38:41.239 digest what exactly was happening within the Republican Party. The 0:38:41.280 --> 0:38:44.640 really important lesson I think looking forward is the way 0:38:44.680 --> 0:38:47.759 that the Tea Party in opposition. Right we're going about 0:38:47.760 --> 0:38:49.920 the first years of the Obama administration. Obama comes in 0:38:49.960 --> 0:38:53.799 with this huge approval and hope and change. He had 0:38:54.080 --> 0:38:56.759 control of Congress for a moment, you know, not very 0:38:56.760 --> 0:38:58.719 long and not very big margin, but he did and 0:38:58.760 --> 0:39:01.760 people thought, you know, I remember him being on the cover. 0:39:01.960 --> 0:39:05.120 I think it was Time magazine a picture looking like 0:39:05.320 --> 0:39:08.440 FDR right, like this was going to be a monumental 0:39:08.520 --> 0:39:10.680 change in our politics of the style of the new Deal, 0:39:10.760 --> 0:39:12.400 and clearly it was not. But the thing that the 0:39:12.440 --> 0:39:16.520 Tea Party did in opposition to the Obama administration was 0:39:16.640 --> 0:39:21.480 unite three important forces in active grassroots. Now, Tea Party 0:39:21.480 --> 0:39:23.719 activists were mostly older people, right, It was not just 0:39:23.760 --> 0:39:26.080 a random swath of Americans by any stretch of the imagination, 0:39:26.200 --> 0:39:29.279 older middle class, upper middle class people, so they had 0:39:29.320 --> 0:39:32.400 time to protest and to go to their local meetings 0:39:32.400 --> 0:39:35.040 and so forth. But it brought together those grassroots activists 0:39:35.080 --> 0:39:39.080 and allowed them to channel their cultural and racial concerns 0:39:39.520 --> 0:39:42.960 into a very effective opposition to a popular president with 0:39:43.080 --> 0:39:47.680 control of Congress because they were united with a active, 0:39:48.080 --> 0:39:52.359 powerful right wing media infrastructure, and elites followed their lead. 0:39:52.920 --> 0:39:57.160 M Right. It was base driven, yes, sang well, the 0:39:57.440 --> 0:40:02.919 elites drove the base enthusiasm straight into their own priorities, right, 0:40:02.960 --> 0:40:05.759 They drove them that they drove that energy into sort 0:40:05.760 --> 0:40:07.600 of traditional right wing stuff. 0:40:07.880 --> 0:40:11.520 So they were able to capture the enthusiasm of the 0:40:11.520 --> 0:40:14.360 base and then channel it into stuff they wanted. 0:40:14.640 --> 0:40:18.120 Yeah, but what they did not do was distance themselves. 0:40:18.480 --> 0:40:20.880 You know, rank and file Republican legislators certainly did not 0:40:20.920 --> 0:40:23.319 distance themselves from the Tea Party, even when you know, 0:40:23.360 --> 0:40:25.600 I mean the Tea Party activists were often wearing you know, 0:40:25.680 --> 0:40:27.439 kind of wild costumes and some of them were saying 0:40:27.440 --> 0:40:31.280 pretty explicitly racist stuff. Oh yeah, But the Republican Party 0:40:31.280 --> 0:40:33.840 did not walk away from that energy and channeled that energy, 0:40:34.040 --> 0:40:35.839 right And I think that that's a lesson that could 0:40:35.880 --> 0:40:38.720 be really valuable for the Democratic Party today to figure 0:40:38.719 --> 0:40:42.920 out how to take an extremely enthused base, enthused in 0:40:42.960 --> 0:40:45.759 opposition to the presidency, and channel that into wins. Now. 0:40:45.800 --> 0:40:48.600 I think, you know, November the elections looked like a 0:40:48.640 --> 0:40:51.640 little bit of that being underway. But what you'd want 0:40:51.680 --> 0:40:54.759 to see, I think, is something that drives it into policy, 0:40:54.840 --> 0:40:57.800 into an agenda. And also you'd want to see elected 0:40:57.840 --> 0:41:01.480 officials celebrating the activity of their base and not trying 0:41:01.480 --> 0:41:02.239 to walk away from it. 0:41:03.320 --> 0:41:07.920 I feel like that's pointed in humor now I'm just gidding, 0:41:08.400 --> 0:41:11.440 but yeah, so important. What you're saying, if you have 0:41:11.640 --> 0:41:17.560 the space energy, the only possible way to win with 0:41:17.680 --> 0:41:20.960 it is to channel it into the things you want, right. 0:41:21.440 --> 0:41:25.200 Yeah, And I think that it's really important to find 0:41:25.200 --> 0:41:28.040 a way to mobilize people, not just to show up 0:41:28.040 --> 0:41:29.880 for a particular rally, because the Tea Party, you know, 0:41:29.920 --> 0:41:32.000 they had huge rallies, but there were at least reasonably 0:41:32.080 --> 0:41:36.640 large rallies. But they had regular meetings, They attended local 0:41:36.680 --> 0:41:39.920 city council meetings, they ran for local office, right And 0:41:40.000 --> 0:41:42.400 it was the combination of those things that built a 0:41:42.440 --> 0:41:46.919 moment that created a wave election the following the following year. 0:41:47.280 --> 0:41:49.279 So those are the aspects of the Tea Party. I 0:41:49.320 --> 0:41:51.480 think that are forward looking if we're thinking about what 0:41:51.520 --> 0:41:54.160 opposition to a presidency looks like. And I think also, 0:41:54.239 --> 0:41:57.640 you know, just recognizing the seeds of the moment that 0:41:57.680 --> 0:42:00.560 we're in today, the sort of ice and the anti 0:42:00.560 --> 0:42:05.200 immigration you know how recently that was added to the 0:42:05.239 --> 0:42:09.480 Republican Party. There's always been conservative opposition to immigration, sure, 0:42:09.680 --> 0:42:12.800 but the Republican Party had before Donald Trump, you know 0:42:13.480 --> 0:42:15.720 a few people who would sign on to some version 0:42:15.800 --> 0:42:18.600 of some sort of immigration reform. And that ended with Trump, 0:42:18.640 --> 0:42:21.120 and that really marks, I think the moment where the 0:42:21.160 --> 0:42:24.439 sort of Tea Party ethos, that anti immigration ethos came 0:42:24.480 --> 0:42:27.640 to dominate in a way that has had atrocious horrifying 0:42:27.640 --> 0:42:28.800 consequences for the country. 0:42:29.040 --> 0:42:33.080 So interesting. Thank you is thank you for joining us, Vanessa. 0:42:32.960 --> 0:42:34.040 Oh, thank you for having me. 0:42:34.080 --> 0:42:34.800 This was fun. 0:42:36.600 --> 0:42:37.840 A moment. 0:42:39.560 --> 0:42:44.400 Jesse Cannon MARII Project twenty twenty five. It foretold many things. 0:42:44.520 --> 0:42:46.360 I looked at one of my favorite websites today, the 0:42:46.400 --> 0:42:49.520 Project twenty twenty five tracker, and it seems we are 0:42:49.560 --> 0:42:52.279 forty eight percent through the plans now. And here's a 0:42:52.280 --> 0:42:55.040 big one. They've figured out how they're going to take 0:42:55.080 --> 0:42:57.560 apart the Department of Education and split it into a 0:42:57.600 --> 0:42:59.040 whole bunch of other departments. 0:42:59.120 --> 0:43:02.440 Yeah. I didn't see that coming, just kidding. We totally 0:43:02.480 --> 0:43:04.680 saw that coming. And Trump even said he was going 0:43:04.719 --> 0:43:07.480 to do it. I mean that's the best part I mean, 0:43:07.560 --> 0:43:09.560 and by best part, I mean worst part of this 0:43:09.600 --> 0:43:12.359 whole story is that Trump even said he was going 0:43:12.440 --> 0:43:16.879 to do it. Like none of this should be a surprise, 0:43:17.160 --> 0:43:21.560 Like this is what Trump wanted to do. This is 0:43:21.640 --> 0:43:23.600 what he said he was going to do with these 0:43:23.640 --> 0:43:28.040 guys had like dismantle the Department of Education sweatshirts. I mean, 0:43:28.080 --> 0:43:31.480 this is like this was always the plan. So when 0:43:31.520 --> 0:43:34.319 you see stuff like this happening, when you see like 0:43:34.400 --> 0:43:38.160 Trump World doing things like this. This is what it is. 0:43:38.320 --> 0:43:40.520 This was always the plan. Will they be able to 0:43:40.520 --> 0:43:44.680 sue in court? Will Trump maybe lose? Maybe? But no 0:43:44.719 --> 0:43:46.560 one should be blindsided by any of this. 0:43:46.760 --> 0:43:48.560 Can I take us back to a time when I'm 0:43:48.680 --> 0:43:52.000 on the debate stage? Rick Perry was asked which departments 0:43:52.000 --> 0:43:54.600 he dismantled. He couldn't remember all of the ones he 0:43:54.640 --> 0:43:57.000 wanted to dismantle. Well, now some of those departments are 0:43:57.040 --> 0:43:58.520 getting the Department of Education. 0:43:59.000 --> 0:44:03.600 Yeah, Rick Perry. 0:44:04.120 --> 0:44:05.799 Everyone really thought that was going to be a thing 0:44:05.840 --> 0:44:07.440 that happened, but it was just fetch. 0:44:08.200 --> 0:44:12.560 That's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in 0:44:12.880 --> 0:44:18.320 every Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday to hear the best 0:44:18.400 --> 0:44:22.719 minds and politics make sense of all this chaos. If 0:44:22.760 --> 0:44:25.800 you enjoy this podcast, please send it to a friend 0:44:26.239 --> 0:44:29.440 and keep the conversation going. Thanks for listening.