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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 Republicans are definitely in disarray. Today.

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Speaker 1: We have a phenomenal show. Inside Elections. Analyst Jacob Rubashkin

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Speaker 1: joins us to talk about what he sees coming out

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Speaker 1: of the mid terms. Then we talked to Lawfair senior

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Speaker 1: editor Roger Parloff, who is covering the oathkeeper's federal trial,

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Speaker 1: and he tells us what he's seeing there. But first

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Speaker 1: we talked to Washington Post Associate editor Ruth Marcus. Welcome

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Speaker 1: to Fast Politics, Ruth Marcus, thanks for having me. I'm

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Speaker 1: Verry thrilled to have you. First, we're going to talk

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Speaker 1: about this piece you wrote about the Supreme Court and

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Speaker 1: Justice John Roberts, because we are in another Supreme Court season. Uh.

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Speaker 1: And also it turns out I feel like these mid terms,

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Speaker 1: John Roberts must have been sitting there going like, oh,

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Speaker 1: I was right. If only they had listened to me, right,

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Speaker 1: I mean, explained to me what his sort of ethosys

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Speaker 1: and his thinking was and how it ended up affecting everything. Well,

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Speaker 1: that's a big question. But basically John Roberts tried to

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Speaker 1: get the five other conservative justices to slow things down.

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Speaker 1: He didn't say joan over rule Row or Row was

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Speaker 1: correctly decided. He said, let's just not do it right now, guys,

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Speaker 1: and let's find another way of telling Mississippi and the

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Speaker 1: Dobbs case, which everybody knows by now, that sure, go

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Speaker 1: ahead and restrict abortion after fifteen weeks. Justice Alito said, look,

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Speaker 1: we're going to have for the five justice conservative justices,

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Speaker 1: including himself, five other conservative justices. Look, we're going to

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Speaker 1: have to deal with this sooner or later, so let's

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Speaker 1: just do it now and get it out of the way.

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Speaker 1: And by the way, if this has a political effect,

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Speaker 1: for good or for bad, that is not our problem.

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Speaker 1: We do not worry about politics, he said. We just

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Speaker 1: worry about the law. It turned out, I think that

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Speaker 1: probably the justices across the ideological spectrum, as I was,

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Speaker 1: were quite surprised by the impact of outright over ruling

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Speaker 1: Row during this midterm election year. Abortion has always been

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Speaker 1: obviously a really compelling turnout generating issue for conservative voters,

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Speaker 1: for evangelical voters, and therefore a boon to Republicans. It

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Speaker 1: turned out more than anybody had anticipated in the past,

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Speaker 1: because the notion that Row was under siege, that there

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Speaker 1: was a threat to Row had never gotten Democratic voters

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Speaker 1: out before and never gotten pro choice voters out to

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Speaker 1: vote for Demo crats. This time, after the Court acted,

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Speaker 1: it really got everybody off their duff's, really got them

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Speaker 1: to the polls, made a difference in a lot of races,

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Speaker 1: and it was at or and you're the top of

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Speaker 1: voters most important issues. We're in this sort of weird

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Speaker 1: period now where Roberts has lost control of the court.

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Speaker 1: There are these three justices who they moved fast, they

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Speaker 1: broke a lot of stuff, and now they're back for

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Speaker 1: another another season. I mean, how do you think this

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Speaker 1: plays out? I think it's more than three. I wrote

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Speaker 1: it an say last year called Rule of Six, and

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Speaker 1: some of my liberal lawyer friends actually thought it was

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Speaker 1: too dire, but it basically said watch out for this court.

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Speaker 1: This is a court that has really ignoring the guard rails,

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Speaker 1: is not going to slow down, is not going to

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Speaker 1: take things step by step. And that turned out to

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Speaker 1: be true because there is an exponential difference between five

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Speaker 1: conservative justices and six conservative justices, because with five they

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Speaker 1: can go much farther doctrine Lee, and they can go

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Speaker 1: much faster. So we're what we're gonna see. We saw

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Speaker 1: it last year. Obviously they overruled Row, but they dramatically

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Speaker 1: extended the reach of the Second Amendment and really constrained

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Speaker 1: what the federal government, states and cities can do to

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Speaker 1: pass um what I would consider rational gun laws. They

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Speaker 1: really restricted the power of the administrative state in this

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Speaker 1: case called West Virginia versus e. P A, which was

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Speaker 1: climate change, but really invented a whole new doctrine that's

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Speaker 1: going to hamstring regulatory agencies across the governmental landscape. And

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Speaker 1: this term they've tied up, among other things, uh, dismantling

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Speaker 1: affirmative action. So my message another essay that I wrote

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Speaker 1: was buckle up, because if you thought last term was bad,

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Speaker 1: it's not like this one's going to be. Uh. This

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Speaker 1: one is going to have its own turbulence. Let's sort

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Speaker 1: of cycle into the mid terms. You have done this

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Speaker 1: for a while. Were you very surprised by what happened

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Speaker 1: on Tuesday? I would say that anybody who says they're

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Speaker 1: not surprised by what happened on Tuesday is just full

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Speaker 1: of it. And misremembering what they said on Monday, what

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Speaker 1: they said to their significant others at the breakfast table

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Speaker 1: on Tuesday morning. Come on, who saw this coming. I

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Speaker 1: thought that what we were going to see at best

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Speaker 1: was referring to the mean that things looked great for

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Speaker 1: Democrats over the summer. I never really trusted that. I

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Speaker 1: just thought that was a kind of false spring in

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Speaker 1: the summertime. But I also thought, if you look at history,

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Speaker 1: if you look at where the president is, if you

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Speaker 1: look at all of these things, I'm not sure I

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Speaker 1: was expecting the red tsunami, but I can say for

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Speaker 1: sure I was not expecting the red trickle that has

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Speaker 1: turned out to be. And I think there are a

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Speaker 1: lot of things that can help explain that. Dobbs is

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Speaker 1: one of them. Trump is one of them. The intersection

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Speaker 1: of Trump and candidate quality is one of them. And

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Speaker 1: I just think we all should breathe an enormous sigh

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Speaker 1: of relief and maybe question are lurching from assumption to assumption,

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Speaker 1: which local journalism's a little hard for us to actually

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Speaker 1: pull off. You know, it's funny because I was thinking

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Speaker 1: about that, because you know, a lot of times people

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Speaker 1: will say, like one of the bad things about Twitter, which,

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Speaker 1: by the way, now is the is the upside down world,

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Speaker 1: So who even knows if anyone's going to use it anymore.

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Speaker 1: But like, one of the bad things about Twitter is

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Speaker 1: there's so much groupthink. And I was thinking about these

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Speaker 1: elections because you know, the few people I saw who

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Speaker 1: I mean, I remember, I did so many interviews, and

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Speaker 1: I would be like, well, if Democrats can keep and

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Speaker 1: and then I'd be like, no, there's no way they

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Speaker 1: can't keep the House. Democrats won't And here we are,

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Speaker 1: and it's like not likely, but it's not impossible that

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Speaker 1: I mean this, Democrats could theoretically keep the House. I mean, like,

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Speaker 1: I do feel like there is a lot of that.

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Speaker 1: You know, you don't want to be wrong. I think

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Speaker 1: it's more than the whatever went wrong in people's prognostications

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Speaker 1: was more than group think. I ran into a Democratic

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Speaker 1: strategist maybe a week before the election who was just

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Speaker 1: earring it up right that we're gonna lose twenty to

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Speaker 1: thirty seats in the House. And that's the optimistic projection.

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Speaker 1: And the Senate is on a night's edge, the notion

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Speaker 1: that Kevin McCarthy would get a majority. But it's a

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Speaker 1: majority that you know he'll he'll be jealous. I think

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Speaker 1: of Nancy Pelosi's majority if and Wendy becomes Speaker is

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Speaker 1: just extraordinary. And the idea that we have spent these

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Speaker 1: billions and billions of dollars to end up with something

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Speaker 1: that is, if Republicans take control of the House, it

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Speaker 1: will be significantly different from where we were before, but

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Speaker 1: another very close house, even closer house than another super

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Speaker 1: close likely Democratic, I think at this point, Senate, Wow, yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean, the historical precedents for this is like there

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Speaker 1: are three elections in this century where the president and

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Speaker 1: power has been able to keep the majorities. Do you

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Speaker 1: think that Biden is like this sort of underestimated. I mean,

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Speaker 1: I feel like the whole administration has been really underestimated.

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Speaker 1: Well that might be, but I'm not sure that Biden

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Speaker 1: explains this outcome. What do you think does Biden did

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Speaker 1: get some things, important things done and important things past,

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Speaker 1: but I'm not sure voters awarded him for that. And

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Speaker 1: It's clear that voters don't want him to run again.

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Speaker 1: So I'm having a hard time assigning him credit for

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Speaker 1: this outcome. I am more assigning blame for the outcome

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Speaker 1: than I am credit. That is to say, blame on

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Speaker 1: the Supreme Court from the Republican point of view, or

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Speaker 1: thank you sam Alito from sure. I guess from my

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Speaker 1: point of view, since I've never actually said blame on

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Speaker 1: you know, among at the top of the heat Donald Trump.

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Speaker 1: He picked a lousy candidates and then didn't fund them.

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Speaker 1: So that's where we are. And I think it's much

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Speaker 1: more a revulsion at those candidates, of revulsion at the

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Speaker 1: Court all worry about anti democratic election denying craziness that

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Speaker 1: people are witnessing, than it is an endorsement on Biden.

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Speaker 1: And you could tell that really from the White House argument,

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Speaker 1: because the White House argument was, this isn't a referendum

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Speaker 1: on a We don't want it to be a referendum

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Speaker 1: on us. We know if it's a referendum on us,

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Speaker 1: we are going to get shelect. Uh, it's a choice.

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Speaker 1: So that's why I'm not given president credit. Yeah, exactly,

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Speaker 1: But I want to get into that for a second.

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Speaker 1: It does seem to me like in these midterm elections,

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Speaker 1: voters rejected this authoritarian vision that the GOP had, right like,

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Speaker 1: voters rejected especially like these candidates like I don't know

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Speaker 1: if carry Lake is gonna win, but all the other

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Speaker 1: ones of these election dies, not all of them, but

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Speaker 1: a large quantity of these, like swing state election deniers

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Speaker 1: who were trumpy enough to win a primary, those guys

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Speaker 1: lost the generals. I mean, so I do feel like

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Speaker 1: that authoritarian vision, the sort of Peter I don't even

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Speaker 1: want to say his name, but you know, that's sort

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Speaker 1: of the funder of Jade Vance, that those people sort

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Speaker 1: of vision has really the American people don't like that.

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Speaker 1: I think they don't like it, and that is great,

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Speaker 1: that is great news. But there were are two scary

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Speaker 1: things that remain. One is the number of election deniers

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Speaker 1: that were on the ballot, and a number of them

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Speaker 1: did get elected, not and not the scariest ones in

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Speaker 1: the scariest places, So we should be thankful for that.

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Speaker 1: The other thing that continues to scare me is the

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Speaker 1: fact that of the electorate believes the big Law. It

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Speaker 1: cannot be dislodged from their head. If you had told

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Speaker 1: people in sixteen that people were going to believe four

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Speaker 1: years later that the election was stolen from the candidate

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Speaker 1: who lost it, I don't think people would have believed you.

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Speaker 1: And I think, well, I don't mean to be negative,

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Speaker 1: because I think I my overwhelming feeling about Tuesday's results

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Speaker 1: or the results whenever we get them, is huge relief.

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Speaker 1: But we really need to continue to be unsettled about

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Speaker 1: where we are. Yeah, And also I think that that's

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Speaker 1: a good point that the sort of shift, the way

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Speaker 1: that Trump has gotten the Republican Party to shift, really

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Speaker 1: is an important piece of data. Now. You know, among

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Speaker 1: the really stupid columns that I've written in the past

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Speaker 1: was one probably in fifteen maybe twenty sixteen before the

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Speaker 1: election that talked about how one reason we didn't really

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Speaker 1: need to worry that much about Trump that I was

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Speaker 1: worried about him was there wasn't going to be Trumpism

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Speaker 1: without Trump. In other words, he didn't have an ideology,

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Speaker 1: he didn't have a vision. So once he faded from

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Speaker 1: the scene, whatever horrible things he had, however he had

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Speaker 1: perverted our democracy would be in the rear view mirror.

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Speaker 1: That was just idiotic. Maybe not at the time, but

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Speaker 1: it's certainly idiotic in hindsight, because he has left this

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Speaker 1: toxic legacy of conspiracy, theorism, tendency toward authoritarianism, at election denialism.

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Speaker 1: That is just if he shuffles off the scene tomorrow,

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Speaker 1: it's still going to be with us, right, No, I

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Speaker 1: think that's right. I mean, it's been interesting to see

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Speaker 1: the people who were able to carry on this Trumpist legacy,

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Speaker 1: and they tend to be people like to scantists. We'll

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Speaker 1: see if carry like gets elected. But like I wrote

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Speaker 1: like ten different pieces about how trumpis um doesn't scale,

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Speaker 1: and it ends up it does to a certain extent.

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Speaker 1: We'll join the crowd. That point about the election deniers

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Speaker 1: is really important. It's like it infects everything trumps um.

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Speaker 1: But we we had the candidate for governor in Wisconsin

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Speaker 1: say if I am elected, no one but a Republican

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Speaker 1: will ever win an election in Wisconsin. Again, how un American,

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Speaker 1: how undemocratic, how outrageous is that? And we just kind

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Speaker 1: of gulped about it, but moved on. Now we're still

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Speaker 1: there are a bunch of seats that are not decided.

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Speaker 1: The houses not decide. The Senate is not though it

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Speaker 1: seems like the Senate will go for Democrats. How do

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Speaker 1: you think now it plays out? We've got a special

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Speaker 1: election in Georgia. I mean, what, what do you think

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Speaker 1: the next month looks like? What the next month looks

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Speaker 1: like will be determined by what the next several days

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Speaker 1: or week looks like in Arizona and Nevada, because if

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Speaker 1: the Georgia race turns out to not be determinative of

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Speaker 1: the outcome, then it will be hard fought, but not

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Speaker 1: cataclysmic thermonuclear level thought. If things get split there, then

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Speaker 1: we just have Georgia, you know, two point oh yet again,

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Speaker 1: and you just have to um. I'm kind of having

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Speaker 1: a little bit of a nice time imagining being inside

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Speaker 1: Mitch McConnell's head, at bit of clothes at having through

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Speaker 1: this again and seeing once again, honestly, a majority, a

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Speaker 1: Senate majority that by all normal political metrics should be

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Speaker 1: his yanked away from him by the ineptitude and idiocy

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Speaker 1: of Donald Trump. How do you think the speakership plays

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Speaker 1: out well? Assuming it's Republican? Um, the combination of I'm

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Speaker 1: trying to think of a semi nice way to say this,

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Speaker 1: and here's how I'm going to say. Kevin McCarthy is

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Speaker 1: no Nancy Pelosi. Yes, And what I mean by that

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Speaker 1: is Nancy Pelosi is a magnificent political and legislative tactician,

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Speaker 1: and she knows how to crack the whip and keep

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Speaker 1: her caucus largely in line. Kevin McCarthy isn't, and the

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Speaker 1: smaller his majority is, the more difficult. His already difficult

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Speaker 1: task will be trying to keep these Freedom Caucus and

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Speaker 1: other Marjory Taylor Green crazy. We can cross our fingers

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Speaker 1: at Lauren Bobert loses, but he's got the crazy Caucus

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Speaker 1: to deal with. He's not the greatest person to deal

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Speaker 1: with them. They are inclined to flex their muscle, and

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Speaker 1: they seem to be ready to do it to the max.

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Speaker 1: I'm just braced for, first of all, constant stories about

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Speaker 1: the Kevin McCarthy speakership if it comes to that on

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Speaker 1: the brink uh, and also constant stories about the crazy

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Speaker 1: investigative and other rabbit holes the House Republicans are pursuing.

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Speaker 1: Because he's Kevin McCarthy is not going to have the

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Speaker 1: power over the caucus to settle them down and to

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Speaker 1: encourage them not to pursue these things. Because if there's

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Speaker 1: one thing that we know about how not to attract

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Speaker 1: voters and keep your majority, it's why don't we go

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Speaker 1: ahead and impeach a bunch of people? Why don't we

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Speaker 1: go ahead and conduct investigations that nobody can even understand

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Speaker 1: and what they're all about. But that's not going to

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Speaker 1: stop them, right, It's like what happened in with Clinton. Indeed,

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Speaker 1: do you see a possible scenario? And again, this is

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Speaker 1: like really out there, but I think I just want

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Speaker 1: you to weigh in on this. Is there a scenario

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Speaker 1: where two or three more moderate backbench Republicans switched to

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Speaker 1: Democrat to give Democrats the majority in the House? Yeah?

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Speaker 1: Who is the moderate backbench Republican who's left? Seriously? I

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Speaker 1: mean I don't I am not a House expert, but

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Speaker 1: last I checked, Liz Cheney, no moderate, but no back bencher,

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Speaker 1: but reasonable and patriotic reason all about Donald Trump is gone.

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Speaker 1: Adam Kinsinger is gone, Jamie Harrera Butler is gone. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: all of the people who voted to impeach Trump are gone.

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Speaker 1: So are there two or three that could flip? And

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Speaker 1: they'd have to be in a district where that would

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Speaker 1: work to their favor And that just seems I was

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Speaker 1: that seems pretty remote to me. I was wondering actually

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Speaker 1: whether there was some possibility that Democrats could lure Lisa

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Speaker 1: Rakowski over to their side of me? Right, But she

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Speaker 1: may lose. She may lose, but I was wondering if

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Speaker 1: if she wins, and if control hangs in the balances,

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Speaker 1: she fed up and up with her party, that she

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Speaker 1: might write. I don't think so, but let's you know,

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Speaker 1: the lays that likely as the defecting Republicans on the

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Speaker 1: other side of the chair. So interesting, Ruth Marcus, thank

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Speaker 1: you for joining us. I hope you'll come back. Fun

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Speaker 1: to talk. I'd love to great. Jacob Rubashian is an

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Speaker 1: analyst at Inside Elections. Welcome to Fast Politics, Jacob, thanks

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Speaker 1: for having me. So we're in this super interesting post

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Speaker 1: election election counting fiasco is happening. Well, what we ended

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Speaker 1: up seeing happen on Tuesday night was Democrats really holding

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Speaker 1: their own in pretty much all of their competitive races

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Speaker 1: across the country except in a few local areas where

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Speaker 1: they really did suffer serious losses. And what that means

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Speaker 1: is that instead of a red wave materializing or a

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Speaker 1: massive Republican year like some out there had had said

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Speaker 1: was was on the way, we're seeing Democrats in strong

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Speaker 1: position in the Senate, certainly having to win just a

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Speaker 1: couple more states to clinch a majority, and in the

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Speaker 1: House of Representatives, at most, they're looking at minimal losses,

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Speaker 1: and you know, perhaps they even have a path to

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Speaker 1: maintaining a very very narrow majority in the House, in

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Speaker 1: the House, in the Senate. I think they're they're they're

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Speaker 1: well positioned. Yeah, it is, it is. Did you see

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Speaker 1: this coming? I tweeted out a clip of you on

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Speaker 1: c SPAN talking about how there was actually a possibility

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Speaker 1: that Democrats could run the table. Were you shocked? I

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Speaker 1: wasn't shocked, because when you do look at our individual

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Speaker 1: race by race ratings, and what we do it inside elections,

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Speaker 1: right is we we analyze every single congressional race in

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Speaker 1: the country and we determine how likely we think it

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Speaker 1: is the Democrats will win it or the Republicans will

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Speaker 1: win it, and then we take those ratings and we

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Speaker 1: try and paint a larger picture. You know. Frankly, we we,

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Speaker 1: as as did everyone else, looked at the macro indicators,

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Speaker 1: the president's approval rating, the economic indicators, and thought that

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Speaker 1: more likely than not, this was probably going to be

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Speaker 1: a good Republican year. So how the races broke down,

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Speaker 1: we expected Republicans would win more of these competitive races.

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Speaker 1: And if you have a Republicans were gonna win because

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Speaker 1: of the head ones, right, because of the inflation. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and just traditionally, you know, independence usually break against the

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Speaker 1: president's party in a midterm election. This is the first time.

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Speaker 1: And you know, I try not to use exit polling

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Speaker 1: data all that much because it's it's body and not

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Speaker 1: a great indicator. But if you look at the CNN

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Speaker 1: exit poll, you're seeing independence break for Democrats or you know,

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Speaker 1: it's a very very close, and that is something Normally

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Speaker 1: we see the president's party lose independence by double digits

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Speaker 1: in a mid terms. So clearly something different happened. And

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Speaker 1: what that meant was when you went back to our ratings,

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Speaker 1: Republicans weren't actually favored in two hundred and eighteen seats,

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Speaker 1: right in our final set of ratings, we only have

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Speaker 1: them favored into sixteen. And so there still was a path.

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Speaker 1: And that's what I would saying last week on c

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Speaker 1: SPAN was that if everything goes right for Democrats, if

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Speaker 1: everything clicks just the way it needs to, they still

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Speaker 1: have a path to a very very narrow majority. I'm

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Speaker 1: talking to eighteen to seventeen kind of kind of majority.

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Speaker 1: And at the moment that path still exists. Wow, is

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Speaker 1: there a historical precedent for this. The best precedent is

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Speaker 1: probably nineteen the second Bill Clinton mid term election after

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Speaker 1: the impeachment. Yeah, so it was right in the midst

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Speaker 1: of all of that impeachment craziness that so clearly backfired

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Speaker 1: on the Republicans in the House, costs Newt Gingrich his

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Speaker 1: speakers ship. That was a moment where we saw the

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Speaker 1: president's party not just maintain their majority, or they didn't

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Speaker 1: have the majority, but they picked up seats. Now, Democrats

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Speaker 1: aren't going to pick up seats this cycle. I think

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Speaker 1: we we can rule out that possibility, but the fact

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Speaker 1: that they might come out with a majority is a

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Speaker 1: historical to to an amazing extent. And I think, you know, look,

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Speaker 1: the world was a different place in nine The country

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Speaker 1: was in a very different place, and and so in

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Speaker 1: some ways, if Democrats maintain the House this year, it's

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Speaker 1: it's an even bigger historical aberration than than ninety eight.

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Speaker 1: But otherwise it's hard to think of a precedent. You know,

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Speaker 1: it's it's nineteen thirty four in two thousand two are

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Speaker 1: the only times when the president's party has had a

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Speaker 1: good mid term year in the House of Representatives this

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Speaker 1: is so interesting. I want to get into this for

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Speaker 1: another minute. So basically, it seems like Republicans alienated independence. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that seems to be what happened in everywhere except New

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Speaker 1: York and Florida, which are those two specific localized areas

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Speaker 1: where the red wave really did hit. And it's quite fascinating.

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Speaker 1: If you had told me a week ago that Rhonda

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Speaker 1: Santis was going to win by twenty points and Marco

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Speaker 1: Rubio was going to win by seventeen points and Republicans

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Speaker 1: were gonna flip four seats in New York State, and

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Speaker 1: then asked me what I thought was going to happen overall.

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Speaker 1: I would have been mr Red Wave if I had

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Speaker 1: had that limited information. But you know, it was contained,

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Speaker 1: It was contained to those two states and in a

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Speaker 1: really interesting way, and everywhere else, you know, we saw

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Speaker 1: indias break towards Democrats. It's interesting because we know that

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Speaker 1: Ronald Lauder pumped eleven million dollars in to the campaign

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Speaker 1: of Lee's Eldon, which so that could have some effect

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Speaker 1: on this. Right. Absolutely, I think we are seeing evidence

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Speaker 1: that strong performances at the top of the tip it

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Speaker 1: from governor to Santis, Senator Rubio and then Congressman zelden

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Speaker 1: In in the New York gubernatorial race. All had positive

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Speaker 1: effects for their candidates running down Ballet. The other thing

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Speaker 1: that's going on in New York, Yeah, I mean the

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Speaker 1: Cuomo nonpartisan redistricting, right, Yeah, So New York really got

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Speaker 1: scrambled in the redistricting process. They went through several different

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Speaker 1: iterations of maps. One passed by the state legislature that

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Speaker 1: was tossed out by a Republican judge up in the

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Speaker 1: upstate New York whose decision was ultimately upheld by the

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Speaker 1: Court of Appeals in New York, which was stacked with

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Speaker 1: Cuomo appointees. There was a new map that was introduced

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Speaker 1: as a remedial map, and then it was overhauled slightly.

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Speaker 1: But particularly in these areas where Democrats really suffered is

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Speaker 1: where we kind of saw the most significant changes between

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Speaker 1: the first round of the special Master map in the

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Speaker 1: final round, that being you know, Long Island in the

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Speaker 1: Hudson Valley upstate New York. So there were a number

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Speaker 1: of things. There was the redistricting Michigans. I just want

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Speaker 1: to go into the redistricting because I wrote about this

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Speaker 1: in my old when I was at the Atlantic and

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Speaker 1: it's like kind of an obsession of mine. Cuomo actually

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Speaker 1: set in motion that redistricting in Yes, so Cuomo of

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Speaker 1: course had this unorthodox relationship with the state legislature where

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Speaker 1: he was comfortable with Democrats having less power in Albany

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Speaker 1: because it gave him more power as governor to negotiate

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Speaker 1: with Republicans, and so he was willing to work with

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Speaker 1: Republicans to come up with a map in and a

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Speaker 1: map drawing scheme that was more favorable to Republicans, even

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Speaker 1: as it also helped him accrew personal power as governor.

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Speaker 1: And that worked great for him while he was governor,

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Speaker 1: but after he was no longer governor, Democrats tried, they

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Speaker 1: tried to re make the redistricting process in a way

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Speaker 1: that would be more favorable wile to Democrats in the

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Speaker 1: state legislature, and they were successful. They changed the law,

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Speaker 1: but they ultimately were stymied by this stupid county judge

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Speaker 1: up state who who decided that the map that they

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Speaker 1: passed was an unconstitutional gerrymander. So despite finally winning those

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Speaker 1: supermajorities in ten, despite getting rid of Cuomo and having

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Speaker 1: all the pieces in place for you know, there's no

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Speaker 1: reason why New York couldn't have had as an aggressive

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Speaker 1: a map as as Florida had for the Republicans, they

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Speaker 1: were unable to make it happen. So irritating. What were

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Speaker 1: the other things you were talking about that in New

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Speaker 1: York that you were seeing in addition to, of course

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Speaker 1: the underlying redistricting factors, You did have this governor's race

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Speaker 1: that got really close at the end, and even though

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Speaker 1: Governor hocal one the only one by six points, which

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Speaker 1: for a Democrat in New York is a really really

429
00:26:53,040 --> 00:26:56,840
Speaker 1: underwhelming showing. You had that Ronald Lauder money coming in

430
00:26:57,160 --> 00:27:00,560
Speaker 1: ten or eleven million dollars for Lee's elden. You also

431
00:27:00,680 --> 00:27:03,520
Speaker 1: had a Democratic Party then in a lot of ways,

432
00:27:03,520 --> 00:27:07,080
Speaker 1: seems to have atrophied, you know. You you saw certainly

433
00:27:07,119 --> 00:27:10,520
Speaker 1: in New York City where it's very important for Democrats

434
00:27:10,560 --> 00:27:13,760
Speaker 1: to turn out, even though they everyone in New York

435
00:27:13,760 --> 00:27:16,440
Speaker 1: City knows, you know, everyone's going to vote Democratic, but

436
00:27:16,440 --> 00:27:18,359
Speaker 1: you still got to show up to vote in order

437
00:27:18,400 --> 00:27:21,159
Speaker 1: to to win statewide. And we really saw like the

438
00:27:21,200 --> 00:27:25,680
Speaker 1: Brooklyn Democratic Party totally caught off guard when it came

439
00:27:25,720 --> 00:27:28,720
Speaker 1: to actually pushing out votes, getting people out to the polls,

440
00:27:29,359 --> 00:27:32,320
Speaker 1: and when you're when you're putting up the kind of

441
00:27:32,400 --> 00:27:34,840
Speaker 1: numbers that Lee's Eldon was on Long Island, where he's

442
00:27:34,920 --> 00:27:39,120
Speaker 1: from an upstate which is trending more conservative. If you're

443
00:27:39,119 --> 00:27:41,120
Speaker 1: a Democrat, you really got to show up in New

444
00:27:41,200 --> 00:27:45,720
Speaker 1: York City. And so the party system came very close

445
00:27:45,760 --> 00:27:50,040
Speaker 1: to this massive failure. Uh it didn't stay wide, but

446
00:27:50,080 --> 00:27:53,399
Speaker 1: we saw kind of the lingering after effects out on

447
00:27:53,440 --> 00:27:56,280
Speaker 1: Long Island and in the Hudson Valley where Democrats dropped

448
00:27:56,280 --> 00:27:59,600
Speaker 1: four seats, all of which Joe Biden would have carried

449
00:27:59,640 --> 00:28:01,880
Speaker 1: by up words of six or seven points. These were

450
00:28:01,920 --> 00:28:06,560
Speaker 1: not swing you know, Trump districts or evenly divided seats.

451
00:28:06,560 --> 00:28:09,560
Speaker 1: These are seats that vote for Democrats and federal elections

452
00:28:09,600 --> 00:28:13,200
Speaker 1: fairly consistently. And that's true in Florida to the state party. Right,

453
00:28:13,359 --> 00:28:15,920
Speaker 1: isn't that the same in Florida that the Democratic State

454
00:28:15,920 --> 00:28:19,040
Speaker 1: Party like fell apart there? And I think the Florida

455
00:28:19,040 --> 00:28:22,240
Speaker 1: State Party, it would be unfair to compare any other

456
00:28:22,280 --> 00:28:24,680
Speaker 1: state Democratic party to the Florida State Party. I think

457
00:28:24,680 --> 00:28:27,480
Speaker 1: they they exist in their own league. I think they're

458
00:28:27,520 --> 00:28:30,840
Speaker 1: going to have to do some massive, massive restructuring over

459
00:28:30,880 --> 00:28:33,879
Speaker 1: the next couple weeks months, years if they want to

460
00:28:33,880 --> 00:28:37,040
Speaker 1: be competitive again. Let's talk about AOC is calling for

461
00:28:37,080 --> 00:28:41,600
Speaker 1: the New York State Party heads resignation issue right. AOC

462
00:28:41,720 --> 00:28:44,280
Speaker 1: in particular has has been calling for j Jacobs to

463
00:28:44,320 --> 00:28:46,920
Speaker 1: step down for quite some time now. I don't think

464
00:28:46,960 --> 00:28:49,200
Speaker 1: she's the only one who has felt that, the only

465
00:28:49,200 --> 00:28:51,440
Speaker 1: one who has said that. He certainly took a lot

466
00:28:51,480 --> 00:28:54,880
Speaker 1: of flak in the in the Cuomo debacle. I think

467
00:28:54,880 --> 00:28:58,360
Speaker 1: there's gonna be immense pressure to restructure the state party

468
00:28:58,920 --> 00:29:03,200
Speaker 1: following what happened and on on Tuesday. I think they're

469
00:29:03,200 --> 00:29:06,400
Speaker 1: going to claim victory because Governor hocal one and of

470
00:29:06,400 --> 00:29:08,480
Speaker 1: course there was that state of polling that showed it

471
00:29:08,560 --> 00:29:11,479
Speaker 1: really close. We probably shouldn't have trusted that bowling, or

472
00:29:11,720 --> 00:29:13,320
Speaker 1: you know, those of us who didn't trust that bowling

473
00:29:13,360 --> 00:29:16,160
Speaker 1: feel a little better. But to have a governor's race,

474
00:29:16,200 --> 00:29:18,880
Speaker 1: b a six point race in New York, to drop

475
00:29:18,960 --> 00:29:21,800
Speaker 1: four seats, especially four seats that may well be the

476
00:29:21,800 --> 00:29:25,040
Speaker 1: difference between a majority of minority for Democrats, I think

477
00:29:25,040 --> 00:29:28,440
Speaker 1: there's gonna be tremendous pressure to have new leadership there.

478
00:29:28,520 --> 00:29:32,880
Speaker 1: I I don't know enough about the inner palace politics

479
00:29:32,920 --> 00:29:36,280
Speaker 1: of the New York State Democratic Party to to say

480
00:29:36,320 --> 00:29:38,800
Speaker 1: how likely that is or who who would step into j.

481
00:29:38,920 --> 00:29:41,720
Speaker 1: Jacob's place, but he's certainly on the hot seat. Now,

482
00:29:42,000 --> 00:29:43,760
Speaker 1: talk to me about what the rest of the House

483
00:29:43,880 --> 00:29:47,600
Speaker 1: races look like that we'll decide who controls the chamber. Yeah,

484
00:29:47,680 --> 00:29:54,000
Speaker 1: So what we're looking at right now is Republicans have clinched,

485
00:29:54,360 --> 00:29:56,960
Speaker 1: depending on how you want to count, somewhere in the

486
00:29:57,080 --> 00:30:01,480
Speaker 1: high mid to high two tens of seats, and Democrats

487
00:30:01,560 --> 00:30:05,480
Speaker 1: have clinched or are are leading in mid to high

488
00:30:05,560 --> 00:30:11,479
Speaker 1: two hundreds. And there is a handful of outstanding seats

489
00:30:11,520 --> 00:30:15,120
Speaker 1: out there that are going to determine whether Democrats can

490
00:30:15,200 --> 00:30:19,560
Speaker 1: find a way to that magic two and eighteen number.

491
00:30:20,040 --> 00:30:22,880
Speaker 1: The big picture, of course, is you know, if you

492
00:30:22,880 --> 00:30:25,360
Speaker 1: look back at our our ratings, our final ratings for

493
00:30:25,440 --> 00:30:28,480
Speaker 1: the cycle, we had twenty toss up races. We have

494
00:30:28,560 --> 00:30:33,080
Speaker 1: seen one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven,

495
00:30:33,160 --> 00:30:39,240
Speaker 1: twelve called four Democrats and three called for Republicans. The

496
00:30:39,280 --> 00:30:42,240
Speaker 1: path for the Democratic majority is they have to win

497
00:30:42,720 --> 00:30:46,800
Speaker 1: those other five seats first, which are in California and

498
00:30:47,040 --> 00:30:50,560
Speaker 1: New York and Oregon and Washington, so these West coast

499
00:30:50,600 --> 00:30:52,800
Speaker 1: states and then New York, and then they've got to

500
00:30:52,840 --> 00:30:57,280
Speaker 1: pick off a couple of seats where we thought Republicans

501
00:30:57,280 --> 00:31:01,600
Speaker 1: were at least slightly favored. They've already started. Colorado's eighth district,

502
00:31:01,640 --> 00:31:04,080
Speaker 1: which is a new seat north of Denver. We had

503
00:31:04,080 --> 00:31:08,080
Speaker 1: that rated as a tilt Republican. It's a highly competitive race.

504
00:31:08,200 --> 00:31:11,240
Speaker 1: But the Democrat just want is that the Boubert race.

505
00:31:11,560 --> 00:31:13,760
Speaker 1: That is not the bober race. This this is this

506
00:31:13,840 --> 00:31:17,720
Speaker 1: is a new seat with no incumbent. The Bobert race

507
00:31:17,960 --> 00:31:20,280
Speaker 1: is really that came out of left field, and if

508
00:31:20,280 --> 00:31:23,560
Speaker 1: Democrats can pull that off, talk to us about the

509
00:31:23,640 --> 00:31:27,680
Speaker 1: Lauren Boubert race, because that's a fabulous one. Yeah. So

510
00:31:27,800 --> 00:31:31,680
Speaker 1: Colorado's third district, which is pretty much the entire western

511
00:31:31,760 --> 00:31:36,080
Speaker 1: half of the state, is the home of Lauren Boubert.

512
00:31:36,160 --> 00:31:40,560
Speaker 1: Of course, the conservative, fire brand restaurant owner who knocked

513
00:31:40,560 --> 00:31:44,160
Speaker 1: off a Republican incumbent in a primary in that nobody

514
00:31:44,240 --> 00:31:47,960
Speaker 1: was expecting to lose. Went on to kind of ally

515
00:31:48,000 --> 00:31:51,640
Speaker 1: with Marjorie Taylor Green and Madison Cawthorne and some of

516
00:31:51,680 --> 00:31:55,680
Speaker 1: the more vocal younger Republicans in the House Republican Caucus.

517
00:31:56,040 --> 00:31:58,960
Speaker 1: We did not expect her to have a particularly competitive race.

518
00:31:59,720 --> 00:32:02,320
Speaker 1: This is this is the big surprise here her district

519
00:32:02,400 --> 00:32:07,000
Speaker 1: was made more republican in redistrict in Colorado's redistricting commission

520
00:32:07,400 --> 00:32:10,080
Speaker 1: took out some of the more democratic leaning in areas

521
00:32:10,120 --> 00:32:13,240
Speaker 1: in her district, and so she looked like she was

522
00:32:13,520 --> 00:32:16,840
Speaker 1: going to be set for re election at least this year.

523
00:32:17,000 --> 00:32:20,560
Speaker 1: But Adam Frisch, the Democratic former Athmen City councilman, So

524
00:32:20,880 --> 00:32:23,000
Speaker 1: you know a guy who has made the best of

525
00:32:23,080 --> 00:32:25,680
Speaker 1: his position, right, He's gotten in front of national media,

526
00:32:26,120 --> 00:32:29,160
Speaker 1: he had personal money, he has raised a lot of money.

527
00:32:29,520 --> 00:32:31,920
Speaker 1: Understood kind of the assignment of what it meant to

528
00:32:32,000 --> 00:32:36,719
Speaker 1: run against a Republican who inspired such negative feelings from

529
00:32:36,760 --> 00:32:40,160
Speaker 1: Democrats nationwide. But do it in a way that fit

530
00:32:40,240 --> 00:32:42,520
Speaker 1: the district. I think what we saw in in some

531
00:32:42,600 --> 00:32:46,480
Speaker 1: other places. Take Marcus Flowers, the Democrat who ran against

532
00:32:46,560 --> 00:32:49,560
Speaker 1: Marjorie Taylor Green, that that was a district that no

533
00:32:49,640 --> 00:32:51,840
Speaker 1: Democrat is ever going to win that district. Trump won

534
00:32:51,840 --> 00:32:55,680
Speaker 1: that district by fifty points, and he spent fifteen million dollars.

535
00:32:55,680 --> 00:32:58,240
Speaker 1: He could have spent a hundred and fifty million dollars

536
00:32:58,280 --> 00:33:00,560
Speaker 1: and he still would have lost. Maybe he would have

537
00:33:00,560 --> 00:33:02,480
Speaker 1: gotten a point more than he did, but that's not

538
00:33:02,560 --> 00:33:05,560
Speaker 1: Colorado's third. Right, Colorado's third is a district Trump won

539
00:33:05,600 --> 00:33:09,200
Speaker 1: by six or seven points, So under the right circumstances

540
00:33:09,200 --> 00:33:11,800
Speaker 1: and with the right Democrat and with the right resources,

541
00:33:12,200 --> 00:33:16,000
Speaker 1: it could be competitive. Now again, overall, Colorado turned out

542
00:33:16,040 --> 00:33:19,400
Speaker 1: better for Democrats than I think anyone was really anticipating.

543
00:33:19,800 --> 00:33:24,000
Speaker 1: Adam Frish has been able to make this a tide race.

544
00:33:24,080 --> 00:33:26,880
Speaker 1: I think last I checked, he currently led by sixty

545
00:33:26,880 --> 00:33:32,280
Speaker 1: two or sixty six votes. That's solidly in recount territory.

546
00:33:32,480 --> 00:33:35,200
Speaker 1: And we'll have to see how it turns out. But

547
00:33:35,600 --> 00:33:38,800
Speaker 1: if he wins and flips that seat for Democrats, it

548
00:33:38,960 --> 00:33:41,400
Speaker 1: makes their path to the majority as narrow as it

549
00:33:41,480 --> 00:33:45,800
Speaker 1: is much much easier because they need to be flipping

550
00:33:46,200 --> 00:33:50,720
Speaker 1: those Republican seats. He's not sufficient, but he's probably necessary

551
00:33:50,720 --> 00:33:52,880
Speaker 1: at this point to get to eighteen. I want you

552
00:33:52,960 --> 00:33:55,880
Speaker 1: to tell us who the big winners of this mid

553
00:33:56,000 --> 00:33:59,719
Speaker 1: term war. Yeah, I mean Rhonda Santis number one, number right.

554
00:34:00,040 --> 00:34:03,920
Speaker 1: This was a great night for him. He had been

555
00:34:04,080 --> 00:34:05,960
Speaker 1: taking it on the chin a little bit from from

556
00:34:05,960 --> 00:34:08,480
Speaker 1: Trump over the last couple of days. Trump really had

557
00:34:08,480 --> 00:34:11,200
Speaker 1: seemed to start to rev up those those attacks on him,

558
00:34:11,200 --> 00:34:13,120
Speaker 1: and he gets to walk out of this mid term

559
00:34:13,640 --> 00:34:17,279
Speaker 1: with a twenty point victory in Florida. The last three

560
00:34:17,320 --> 00:34:21,320
Speaker 1: Republican governors of Florida won their elections by one point

561
00:34:21,320 --> 00:34:24,640
Speaker 1: one point and zero point six points, and rohnd De

562
00:34:24,680 --> 00:34:27,279
Speaker 1: Santa is just one by twenty points. So I think

563
00:34:27,320 --> 00:34:29,400
Speaker 1: he's he's got to be at the top of the list.

564
00:34:29,680 --> 00:34:32,160
Speaker 1: And he's got a supermajority in the Florida legislature now,

565
00:34:32,239 --> 00:34:37,000
Speaker 1: so he's he's king down there. The other big winners. Look,

566
00:34:37,320 --> 00:34:41,920
Speaker 1: I think it probably depends on I mean, Gretchen Whitmyer, Right,

567
00:34:42,000 --> 00:34:44,960
Speaker 1: that's a swing state. She carried it. I mean her

568
00:34:44,960 --> 00:34:48,520
Speaker 1: opponents sucked. But you could say to santiss opponent sucked too,

569
00:34:49,000 --> 00:34:51,520
Speaker 1: you know, just Santis's opponent had been elected governor before,

570
00:34:51,560 --> 00:34:52,959
Speaker 1: you know, I think it. Yeah, but he had also

571
00:34:53,120 --> 00:34:57,240
Speaker 1: lost three times. He had he had lost, he had lost,

572
00:34:57,640 --> 00:35:00,600
Speaker 1: he was his His coupertatorial record was one and one

573
00:35:00,920 --> 00:35:03,800
Speaker 1: heading into heading into Tuesday. No, I think Whitmer is

574
00:35:03,840 --> 00:35:06,960
Speaker 1: a big winner here, Tony Evers winning Wisconsin even as

575
00:35:07,239 --> 00:35:11,880
Speaker 1: Democrats couldn't win the Senate race. Josh Shapiro, obviously, I

576
00:35:11,920 --> 00:35:14,399
Speaker 1: think is going to be the subject of a lot

577
00:35:14,480 --> 00:35:19,320
Speaker 1: of chatter over the next two, four, six, eight, twenty years.

578
00:35:19,600 --> 00:35:23,960
Speaker 1: When it comes to Democratic presidential contenders, there are other

579
00:35:24,080 --> 00:35:28,359
Speaker 1: folks out there, you know, who who pulled off victories

580
00:35:28,400 --> 00:35:31,480
Speaker 1: that that were impressive. You know, even even a guy

581
00:35:31,520 --> 00:35:33,880
Speaker 1: like Michael Bennett, who I wouldn't say was you know,

582
00:35:33,960 --> 00:35:36,200
Speaker 1: a quote unquote you know, big winner of the night.

583
00:35:36,360 --> 00:35:40,200
Speaker 1: But he's looking like he's gonna beat his Republican opponent

584
00:35:40,280 --> 00:35:43,719
Speaker 1: by more than ten points. That's his biggest victory in

585
00:35:43,800 --> 00:35:46,440
Speaker 1: his three times running for Senate so far, and it

586
00:35:46,520 --> 00:35:49,080
Speaker 1: comes in a race where Republicans really thought they had

587
00:35:49,080 --> 00:35:52,560
Speaker 1: an outside shot at flipping the seat. You know, look,

588
00:35:52,600 --> 00:35:55,560
Speaker 1: if if if Sean Patrick Maloney hadn't lost his own seat,

589
00:35:55,920 --> 00:35:57,919
Speaker 1: he might look like the smartest guy of them all.

590
00:35:59,000 --> 00:36:02,440
Speaker 1: It really is, you know, obviously unfortunate for him because

591
00:36:02,440 --> 00:36:05,839
Speaker 1: he lost. But this is a guy who was absolutely

592
00:36:05,960 --> 00:36:10,719
Speaker 1: pilloried for most decisions that he made as chairman of

593
00:36:10,760 --> 00:36:15,440
Speaker 1: the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, especially this decision to spend

594
00:36:15,480 --> 00:36:19,759
Speaker 1: money against more conservative Republicans in their primaries to try

595
00:36:19,760 --> 00:36:22,400
Speaker 1: and elevate them and get them to be the general

596
00:36:22,400 --> 00:36:28,080
Speaker 1: election nominees. And he may well end up looking incredibly vindicated,

597
00:36:28,360 --> 00:36:31,200
Speaker 1: I think, frankly, he already has been at least slightly

598
00:36:31,280 --> 00:36:36,320
Speaker 1: vindicated in that Democrats are are looking at minimal losses.

599
00:36:36,920 --> 00:36:39,600
Speaker 1: But if Democrats maintain the House, I mean, that is

600
00:36:39,640 --> 00:36:43,200
Speaker 1: an amazing achievement for you know, the Field Marshal of

601
00:36:43,200 --> 00:36:47,160
Speaker 1: the Democratic Campaign Committee. It just so happens that he

602
00:36:47,239 --> 00:36:51,680
Speaker 1: won't be able to he won't be able to enjoy it.

603
00:36:51,680 --> 00:36:54,120
Speaker 1: It's it's really um I don't know if it's you know,

604
00:36:54,239 --> 00:36:58,040
Speaker 1: Shakespearean or if it's if it's Greek tragedy, but it's

605
00:36:58,080 --> 00:37:01,600
Speaker 1: really quite something to see the split screen there, Jacob

606
00:37:01,840 --> 00:37:04,440
Speaker 1: so interesting. I could keep you for another ten minutes,

607
00:37:04,480 --> 00:37:07,359
Speaker 1: but then Jesse will reach this phone and murder maid.

608
00:37:07,440 --> 00:37:13,840
Speaker 1: Thank you, yeah, thanks for having me. Roger Parloff is

609
00:37:13,880 --> 00:37:19,399
Speaker 1: a senior editor at law Fair. Welcome to Fast Politics,

610
00:37:19,560 --> 00:37:22,880
Speaker 1: Roger Parloff, Thank you very much. So you are in

611
00:37:22,960 --> 00:37:28,319
Speaker 1: the Oathkeeper's trial writing about it. What is happening. We've

612
00:37:28,360 --> 00:37:32,280
Speaker 1: finished the government's case in chief, which took nineteen days,

613
00:37:32,760 --> 00:37:36,759
Speaker 1: and we've started the defense case. We've heard from road

614
00:37:36,840 --> 00:37:40,960
Speaker 1: to the top defendant Stuart Rhodes himself. The judge hopes

615
00:37:41,000 --> 00:37:44,960
Speaker 1: to finish next week, maybe by the end of next week.

616
00:37:45,160 --> 00:37:48,400
Speaker 1: Explain to us who is on track the Oathkeepers. But

617
00:37:48,480 --> 00:37:50,960
Speaker 1: it's a group, so explain to us who is in

618
00:37:51,000 --> 00:37:56,440
Speaker 1: this group. There were actually nine people indicted in this indictment,

619
00:37:56,680 --> 00:38:01,560
Speaker 1: and then there's another indictment that's closely related, and then

620
00:38:01,920 --> 00:38:05,000
Speaker 1: seven have already played guilty, So we're really talking about

621
00:38:05,840 --> 00:38:11,000
Speaker 1: five different people. But this first case is the top

622
00:38:11,280 --> 00:38:15,080
Speaker 1: five people and the founder of the Oath Keepers, the

623
00:38:15,160 --> 00:38:19,879
Speaker 1: lifetime founder and chairman is Elmer Stewart Rhodes the third,

624
00:38:19,960 --> 00:38:23,560
Speaker 1: and then there's four others who are considered the most

625
00:38:23,600 --> 00:38:27,480
Speaker 1: important players in this Nine of the top people were

626
00:38:27,600 --> 00:38:33,200
Speaker 1: actually charged with seditious conspiracy, which is an exceedingly rare charge.

627
00:38:33,480 --> 00:38:36,960
Speaker 1: Can you explain to us what it means? Yes, roughly,

628
00:38:37,320 --> 00:38:41,400
Speaker 1: it can be different things. It can be. For instance,

629
00:38:41,440 --> 00:38:47,680
Speaker 1: the most famous successful recent case was the prosecution of

630
00:38:47,840 --> 00:38:53,839
Speaker 1: the Blind Shake in the World Trade Center bombing, so

631
00:38:54,040 --> 00:38:58,160
Speaker 1: he and about twelve others were convicted in It can

632
00:38:58,200 --> 00:39:00,520
Speaker 1: be a number of different things, and in that case

633
00:39:00,600 --> 00:39:04,920
Speaker 1: it was levying war against the United States. In this case,

634
00:39:05,040 --> 00:39:11,440
Speaker 1: it's conspiracy to use force to oppose the authority of

635
00:39:11,480 --> 00:39:18,240
Speaker 1: the United States or conspiracy to use force two prevent, hinder,

636
00:39:18,560 --> 00:39:22,799
Speaker 1: or delay the execution of certain laws, and in this

637
00:39:22,880 --> 00:39:27,440
Speaker 1: case it's the laws governing the transition of presidential power.

638
00:39:27,960 --> 00:39:33,040
Speaker 1: So you know, specifically, uh, the Electoral count Act, the

639
00:39:33,280 --> 00:39:38,279
Speaker 1: Article to twelve and twentieth amendments. So that sitientive conspiracy

640
00:39:38,480 --> 00:39:41,040
Speaker 1: in a nut showing. Like I said, it's been used

641
00:39:41,120 --> 00:39:48,080
Speaker 1: unsuccessfully more recently than that, But the most successful recent

642
00:39:48,120 --> 00:39:51,160
Speaker 1: case was the World Trade Center bombing. When was it

643
00:39:51,239 --> 00:39:56,839
Speaker 1: used unsuccessfully? Well, it was used unsuccessfully in against a

644
00:39:56,880 --> 00:40:02,200
Speaker 1: weird group called the Hootaies. That's interesting, it's almost reminiscent

645
00:40:02,280 --> 00:40:05,719
Speaker 1: of like David koresh and in Waco. But it was

646
00:40:05,960 --> 00:40:08,840
Speaker 1: a far right group and their goal was to murder

647
00:40:08,960 --> 00:40:13,400
Speaker 1: police officers. This is what they you know, conspired and

648
00:40:13,760 --> 00:40:16,879
Speaker 1: they were hoping that this would set off an up

649
00:40:17,120 --> 00:40:20,800
Speaker 1: a national uprising that would top of the government. It

650
00:40:21,000 --> 00:40:25,680
Speaker 1: wasn't a well worked out plan, but in the case

651
00:40:26,480 --> 00:40:29,080
Speaker 1: was tried and the and the judge threw it out

652
00:40:29,480 --> 00:40:33,399
Speaker 1: before the defense case even he just found that it

653
00:40:33,440 --> 00:40:36,279
Speaker 1: was too In CO eight, Uh, there was a lot

654
00:40:36,360 --> 00:40:41,840
Speaker 1: of talk about a conspiracy but no beef. And actually

655
00:40:42,200 --> 00:40:45,239
Speaker 1: that's sort of a relevant case here. If here there

656
00:40:45,280 --> 00:40:48,479
Speaker 1: was an enormous amount of seditious talk, but it's hard

657
00:40:48,560 --> 00:40:53,960
Speaker 1: to prove an actual concrete plan. So there's some parallels. Yeah,

658
00:40:54,040 --> 00:40:56,640
Speaker 1: it sounds like there is. Let's talk about the plan.

659
00:40:56,840 --> 00:40:58,840
Speaker 1: I mean, was there a plan. There was a plan,

660
00:40:59,200 --> 00:41:03,160
Speaker 1: There was not a concrete plan. There was a tremendous

661
00:41:03,160 --> 00:41:09,320
Speaker 1: amount of discussion beginning just days after the election about

662
00:41:09,600 --> 00:41:15,000
Speaker 1: we need to stop Biden from taking power from becoming president.

663
00:41:15,200 --> 00:41:19,240
Speaker 1: Step one was to try to convince Trump to invoke

664
00:41:19,600 --> 00:41:24,120
Speaker 1: the Insurrection Act, which is something like martial law. But

665
00:41:24,239 --> 00:41:27,520
Speaker 1: he would always say if Trump doesn't do it, will

666
00:41:27,600 --> 00:41:30,120
Speaker 1: have to do it ourselves, and it will be a

667
00:41:30,200 --> 00:41:34,759
Speaker 1: much more bloody revolution slash civil war. And so he

668
00:41:34,800 --> 00:41:39,480
Speaker 1: says this in many many contexts, some public, some private.

669
00:41:39,840 --> 00:41:44,520
Speaker 1: The oathkeepers use a lot of encrypted signal chats. Then

670
00:41:44,600 --> 00:41:47,280
Speaker 1: he would also say it in a couple open letters

671
00:41:47,360 --> 00:41:50,880
Speaker 1: to Trump on his website, he would say it in speeches,

672
00:41:51,360 --> 00:41:54,279
Speaker 1: and it's clear that some of his people took him

673
00:41:54,400 --> 00:41:59,440
Speaker 1: very literally. But there's no concrete you know, Okay, on

674
00:41:59,520 --> 00:42:03,680
Speaker 1: the sick, we're going to storm the capital and and

675
00:42:03,760 --> 00:42:08,000
Speaker 1: here's what we do instead. They come prepared, you know,

676
00:42:08,080 --> 00:42:11,360
Speaker 1: they've got an arsenal in Virginia. They've got an arsenal

677
00:42:11,360 --> 00:42:15,520
Speaker 1: at the Comfort in in Arlington County, UM, about ten

678
00:42:15,560 --> 00:42:19,759
Speaker 1: minutes away. All these a R fifteens and hundreds and

679
00:42:19,840 --> 00:42:23,520
Speaker 1: hundreds of rounds of ammunition, and actually several other hotels

680
00:42:23,520 --> 00:42:26,799
Speaker 1: they've got guns in the parking garages and so on.

681
00:42:27,000 --> 00:42:29,760
Speaker 1: And they say, well, that was in case Trump invoked

682
00:42:29,760 --> 00:42:33,440
Speaker 1: the Insurrection Act, then we would. And that's a strange

683
00:42:33,480 --> 00:42:36,880
Speaker 1: thing too, by the way. But what happens is that,

684
00:42:37,000 --> 00:42:41,359
Speaker 1: of course, on the six other people, and mainly I

685
00:42:41,400 --> 00:42:45,200
Speaker 1: think the Proud Boys topple barriers and break the windows

686
00:42:45,239 --> 00:42:50,759
Speaker 1: and enter the capital, and then sort of opportunistically fourteen

687
00:42:50,920 --> 00:42:55,160
Speaker 1: oathkeepers certainly enter the capital. And well more than that.

688
00:42:55,200 --> 00:42:58,279
Speaker 1: There's two groups. And you've seen them, of course in

689
00:42:58,320 --> 00:43:01,839
Speaker 1: the staff formation, you know, the right hand on, and

690
00:43:01,920 --> 00:43:05,440
Speaker 1: of course they're in uniform. Some of them have plate carriers,

691
00:43:05,520 --> 00:43:08,920
Speaker 1: and all of them have tactical vests and helmets, nearly

692
00:43:08,960 --> 00:43:12,160
Speaker 1: all of them. Some have bear spray, and and they

693
00:43:12,200 --> 00:43:17,000
Speaker 1: go in. It certainly looks like a conspiracy. But Rhodes

694
00:43:17,360 --> 00:43:21,080
Speaker 1: does not go in, and he's out front, and the

695
00:43:21,160 --> 00:43:24,799
Speaker 1: question is does anyone give them an order to go in? Right,

696
00:43:25,000 --> 00:43:29,359
Speaker 1: because that would be seditious conspiracy. That would certainly be conspiracy.

697
00:43:29,440 --> 00:43:32,160
Speaker 1: That would show certainly a meeting of the minds of

698
00:43:32,200 --> 00:43:36,719
Speaker 1: everybody that we should go in and accomplish this. What

699
00:43:37,200 --> 00:43:41,080
Speaker 1: a couple of the members of the conspiracy, if if

700
00:43:41,120 --> 00:43:44,560
Speaker 1: there was one. Seven people played guilty the various forms

701
00:43:44,560 --> 00:43:48,400
Speaker 1: of this conspiracy, and two of them testified. So like

702
00:43:48,480 --> 00:43:51,319
Speaker 1: what one of them said was he acknowledged there was

703
00:43:51,360 --> 00:43:56,200
Speaker 1: no plan per se. It was opportunistic. But he said, quote,

704
00:43:56,560 --> 00:43:59,920
Speaker 1: it's this. It was the same idea he's talking about

705
00:44:00,040 --> 00:44:03,280
Speaker 1: in the signal chats. It was the same idea over

706
00:44:03,320 --> 00:44:06,280
Speaker 1: and over. We will do something, we will do something,

707
00:44:06,320 --> 00:44:08,759
Speaker 1: we will do something. And now here we are in

708
00:44:08,800 --> 00:44:11,560
Speaker 1: front of the Capitol doors and they opened and it

709
00:44:11,680 --> 00:44:15,799
Speaker 1: was let's do something. And then the other guy named

710
00:44:15,800 --> 00:44:18,160
Speaker 1: Gray and Young said almost the same thing. He said,

711
00:44:18,320 --> 00:44:20,920
Speaker 1: we talked about doing something about the fraud in the

712
00:44:20,960 --> 00:44:23,960
Speaker 1: election before we went there on the sixth, and then

713
00:44:23,960 --> 00:44:26,440
Speaker 1: when the crowd got got over the barricade and they

714
00:44:26,440 --> 00:44:30,440
Speaker 1: went into the building, an opportunity presented itself to do something.

715
00:44:30,840 --> 00:44:34,960
Speaker 1: We didn't tell each other that meaning to enter the capitol,

716
00:44:35,200 --> 00:44:39,080
Speaker 1: but it was common sense. So that's sort of what

717
00:44:39,120 --> 00:44:43,160
Speaker 1: we know we have. So there's more than that. At

718
00:44:43,239 --> 00:44:48,400
Speaker 1: two thirty one PM on January six, and to remind you,

719
00:44:48,840 --> 00:44:55,000
Speaker 1: the rioters break into the building at thirteen, so everyone

720
00:44:55,040 --> 00:44:58,960
Speaker 1: knows there's a riot going on. At two thirty one,

721
00:44:59,640 --> 00:45:04,000
Speaker 1: the on the ground operations leader of the oath Keepers

722
00:45:04,120 --> 00:45:08,360
Speaker 1: that day, guy named Michael Greene, who's not among these defendants,

723
00:45:08,360 --> 00:45:13,759
Speaker 1: but he's indicted, he calls Rhodes. At two forty seconds later,

724
00:45:14,760 --> 00:45:19,600
Speaker 1: defendant number two, whose name Kelly Meg's, he calls Rhodes also,

725
00:45:20,120 --> 00:45:24,200
Speaker 1: and the first guy is still on the phone, so Rhoades.

726
00:45:24,400 --> 00:45:28,920
Speaker 1: Nine seconds later, Rhodes merges the calls this is because

727
00:45:28,960 --> 00:45:31,400
Speaker 1: we have call records, we don't know, you know, we

728
00:45:31,440 --> 00:45:34,879
Speaker 1: don't have a transcript. So then the three of them

729
00:45:34,880 --> 00:45:38,399
Speaker 1: are on the phone for nine seconds. That takes us

730
00:45:38,440 --> 00:45:42,240
Speaker 1: to the middle of two thirty three pm. Meg's gets

731
00:45:42,280 --> 00:45:46,520
Speaker 1: off the phone, and then the operations leader continues talking

732
00:45:46,600 --> 00:45:51,240
Speaker 1: to Rhodes for two more minutes. Two minutes after Meg's

733
00:45:51,360 --> 00:45:55,200
Speaker 1: gets off the phone, he leads Stack one, which is

734
00:45:55,239 --> 00:46:00,520
Speaker 1: fourteen Oathkeepers, up the East Capital steps and into a capital.

735
00:46:01,040 --> 00:46:04,799
Speaker 1: So that's some circumstantial evidence. What do you think the

736
00:46:04,880 --> 00:46:07,400
Speaker 1: jury is going to do? I think they will convict

737
00:46:07,440 --> 00:46:12,520
Speaker 1: on something, and there are choices. Conspiracy is the big issue,

738
00:46:12,719 --> 00:46:15,440
Speaker 1: and of course the top charge is the big issue,

739
00:46:15,840 --> 00:46:20,520
Speaker 1: and I suspect that Rhodes. Well, I think there's pretty

740
00:46:20,520 --> 00:46:23,760
Speaker 1: good evidence against RhoD I'm not sure that all five

741
00:46:23,840 --> 00:46:28,040
Speaker 1: will be convicted of that top charge. It's even possible

742
00:46:28,640 --> 00:46:32,080
Speaker 1: they might be concerned about conspiracy. And if they don't

743
00:46:32,200 --> 00:46:36,480
Speaker 1: convict on conspiracy, remember Rhodes is not in the capital,

744
00:46:36,760 --> 00:46:39,640
Speaker 1: so they're not going to convict him of some of

745
00:46:39,680 --> 00:46:43,040
Speaker 1: the other charges either. They would probably still get him

746
00:46:43,160 --> 00:46:46,080
Speaker 1: on there's a there there. Four of the five are

747
00:46:46,160 --> 00:46:49,960
Speaker 1: charged with destroying evidence, including him, so that would still

748
00:46:50,000 --> 00:46:53,719
Speaker 1: be a strong charge. I think it's not a foregone conclusion,

749
00:46:54,280 --> 00:46:59,760
Speaker 1: he testified. I don't think that went particularly well. He said.

750
00:47:00,080 --> 00:47:03,439
Speaker 1: About that phone call, he said, well, you know it

751
00:47:03,520 --> 00:47:07,040
Speaker 1: was very hard in you know, in a crowd situation,

752
00:47:07,160 --> 00:47:11,400
Speaker 1: the phones don't work very well, and so Meg's I

753
00:47:11,480 --> 00:47:15,799
Speaker 1: couldn't hear anything when he called, and the prosecutor on

754
00:47:15,880 --> 00:47:19,680
Speaker 1: cross said, so you couldn't hear him, But nine seconds

755
00:47:19,800 --> 00:47:22,960
Speaker 1: later you merge the calls, and he said, yeah, well,

756
00:47:23,000 --> 00:47:26,160
Speaker 1: just in case I could, I could catch him. And

757
00:47:26,200 --> 00:47:29,120
Speaker 1: then they stay on the call for ninety seconds and

758
00:47:29,200 --> 00:47:33,239
Speaker 1: you're saying, Kelly, can you hear me? Kelly, you know

759
00:47:33,360 --> 00:47:37,799
Speaker 1: what is happening here? And that was his defense. And

760
00:47:37,920 --> 00:47:42,400
Speaker 1: then he called as his own witness, Michael Green, and

761
00:47:42,480 --> 00:47:46,080
Speaker 1: he testified, which was very unusual, and he wasn't that

762
00:47:46,160 --> 00:47:49,719
Speaker 1: bad a witness. It's very unusual because he's under indictment.

763
00:47:50,320 --> 00:47:53,879
Speaker 1: Usually you don't testify in somebody else's case when you're

764
00:47:53,920 --> 00:47:57,640
Speaker 1: already under indictment. And he said he remembered, he just

765
00:47:57,680 --> 00:48:00,600
Speaker 1: didn't remember any such calls, so you know, it was

766
00:48:00,640 --> 00:48:02,759
Speaker 1: a riot. There were a lot of people yelling. He

767
00:48:02,800 --> 00:48:08,480
Speaker 1: couldn't hear anything, so that all sounded pretty unconvincing. But

768
00:48:08,960 --> 00:48:17,480
Speaker 1: that's where it stands. Thank you, Roger, Molly, John Fast.

769
00:48:17,840 --> 00:48:22,839
Speaker 1: Who is this, Jessie Cannon. Matt Gates lives to fight

770
00:48:22,840 --> 00:48:26,640
Speaker 1: another day in Congress, so he's decided it's time for

771
00:48:26,719 --> 00:48:28,759
Speaker 1: him to put his foot down. Show whose boss on

772
00:48:28,840 --> 00:48:32,360
Speaker 1: this party? Certainly there's a lot of interesting stuff happening

773
00:48:32,440 --> 00:48:35,800
Speaker 1: right now in the Republican parties fight for the House,

774
00:48:35,920 --> 00:48:38,319
Speaker 1: which they still do not as we are taping this

775
00:48:38,640 --> 00:48:42,279
Speaker 1: on whatever day it is Thursday, we still don't know

776
00:48:42,360 --> 00:48:46,880
Speaker 1: who is controlling the House. There's California votes, there's Nevada votes,

777
00:48:47,239 --> 00:48:51,080
Speaker 1: Nevada votes, there's lots of votes that are uncounted. Matt

778
00:48:51,160 --> 00:48:54,840
Speaker 1: Gates coming in hot with a tweet that says, McCarthy

779
00:48:54,880 --> 00:48:59,200
Speaker 1: that's Kevin McCarthy, the want to be Speaker of the House. McConnell,

780
00:48:59,480 --> 00:49:03,760
Speaker 1: that is McConnell, the wanna be Majority Leader of the Senate.

781
00:49:04,360 --> 00:49:09,959
Speaker 1: And McDaniels that is Rona Romney. You may remember mits

782
00:49:10,040 --> 00:49:15,120
Speaker 1: niece who is the head of the GOP Mick failure

783
00:49:15,160 --> 00:49:18,680
Speaker 1: not quite the word smith. Perhaps it's time for him

784
00:49:19,440 --> 00:49:24,600
Speaker 1: to hire some writers. That said, I think that the

785
00:49:24,719 --> 00:49:27,239
Speaker 1: MAGA Caucus is not going to go down without a fight,

786
00:49:27,640 --> 00:49:30,520
Speaker 1: and Kevin McCarthy is going to go through some things.

787
00:49:30,560 --> 00:49:35,440
Speaker 1: And honestly, it couldn't have happened to a more cowardly sickopant.

788
00:49:35,800 --> 00:49:38,640
Speaker 1: You know, everybody was predicting that they're going to come

789
00:49:38,760 --> 00:49:43,200
Speaker 1: for McConnell because Trump's been matadum McCarthy because he's weak.

790
00:49:43,320 --> 00:49:46,279
Speaker 1: But did you see Rona Romney? Did you see that

791
00:49:46,320 --> 00:49:48,879
Speaker 1: part coming? I no longer I'm in the predictions game.

792
00:49:49,200 --> 00:49:53,320
Speaker 1: I'm in the wow. I'm here as a conscientious observer.

793
00:49:55,040 --> 00:49:58,360
Speaker 1: That's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in

794
00:49:58,400 --> 00:50:01,240
Speaker 1: every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday a to your the best

795
00:50:01,320 --> 00:50:04,759
Speaker 1: minds in politics makes sense of all this chaos. If

796
00:50:04,800 --> 00:50:07,319
Speaker 1: you enjoyed what you've heard, please send it to a

797
00:50:07,400 --> 00:50:11,280
Speaker 1: friend and keep the conversation going. And again, thanks for listening.

798
00:50:12,800 --> 00:50:12,840
Speaker 1: H