1
00:00:00,640 --> 00:00:04,160
Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics,

2
00:00:04,360 --> 00:00:07,120
Speaker 1: where we discussed the top political headlines with some of

3
00:00:07,160 --> 00:00:11,640
Speaker 1: today's best minds and companies. Are now urging the Supreme

4
00:00:11,680 --> 00:00:16,880
Speaker 1: Court to quickly hear Trump's tearuff challenge. H I wonder

5
00:00:16,920 --> 00:00:19,400
Speaker 1: why we have such a great show for you today.

6
00:00:19,800 --> 00:00:24,120
Speaker 1: Talking Points Memo's own Josh Marshall stops by to talk

7
00:00:24,400 --> 00:00:29,000
Speaker 1: Trump overplaying his hand with an unpopular agenda. Ben, we'll

8
00:00:29,000 --> 00:00:33,400
Speaker 1: talk to the Vice chair of the Democratic National Committee,

9
00:00:33,960 --> 00:00:39,599
Speaker 1: Malcolm Kenyatta about the drama inside the DNC and his

10
00:00:39,800 --> 00:00:42,519
Speaker 1: vision for the organization. But first the news.

11
00:00:42,800 --> 00:00:45,120
Speaker 2: All right, Maya, let's start off today with like an

12
00:00:45,240 --> 00:00:47,920
Speaker 2: edition of that I like to call the Tyrant News.

13
00:00:48,240 --> 00:00:52,040
Speaker 2: Senator Alex Padilla called Trump a tyrant on the Senate

14
00:00:52,080 --> 00:00:54,680
Speaker 2: for today, and well, when you think of how a

15
00:00:54,720 --> 00:00:58,000
Speaker 2: tyrant rules, you would think of this picture that I

16
00:00:58,040 --> 00:01:01,880
Speaker 2: saw today of Comptroll Bradlander, who's the second in charge

17
00:01:01,920 --> 00:01:04,520
Speaker 2: of New York City for those not familiar, being choked

18
00:01:04,800 --> 00:01:07,880
Speaker 2: by an ICE official in a mask and another one

19
00:01:07,920 --> 00:01:10,919
Speaker 2: standing by in a really ominous mask.

20
00:01:11,400 --> 00:01:14,640
Speaker 3: And it really is just not giving freedom.

21
00:01:15,000 --> 00:01:20,200
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, let's talk about this. ICE has now arrested. Okay,

22
00:01:20,920 --> 00:01:27,840
Speaker 1: our com troller Bradlander. Senator Alex Paedilla, Okay, we were

23
00:01:27,880 --> 00:01:31,039
Speaker 1: told Christy Noms said she did not know he was

24
00:01:31,160 --> 00:01:34,240
Speaker 1: a United States senator. This is not like members of

25
00:01:34,280 --> 00:01:38,080
Speaker 1: Congress couldn't fucking figure out who. By the way, I mean,

26
00:01:39,000 --> 00:01:41,440
Speaker 1: Alex Padilla has been on this podcast. We all know

27
00:01:41,520 --> 00:01:44,440
Speaker 1: who Alex Padia is, and we are not even elected

28
00:01:44,520 --> 00:01:45,480
Speaker 1: members of government.

29
00:01:45,680 --> 00:01:49,200
Speaker 2: One might say, Corey Lewandowski also knew who Alex Padilla was.

30
00:01:49,480 --> 00:01:52,160
Speaker 1: Yes, So I mean, what the point here is that

31
00:01:52,200 --> 00:01:56,760
Speaker 1: there's video of Ice just completely roughing up Lander. There's

32
00:01:56,760 --> 00:02:01,040
Speaker 1: a photo of Lander looking like he's being choked. Again. Look,

33
00:02:01,240 --> 00:02:04,280
Speaker 1: nobody is ever going to want to come here. Number one, Like,

34
00:02:04,400 --> 00:02:08,399
Speaker 1: we are a service economy, we live on tourism, We

35
00:02:08,560 --> 00:02:11,960
Speaker 1: try to engage Taurus. They are not going to want

36
00:02:11,960 --> 00:02:14,880
Speaker 1: to come here. The few who do not have phones,

37
00:02:15,600 --> 00:02:17,560
Speaker 1: you know, who haven't seen what the fuck is going

38
00:02:17,600 --> 00:02:18,880
Speaker 1: on here, are not going to want to come here.

39
00:02:18,919 --> 00:02:21,240
Speaker 1: Second of all, this is a country where we don't

40
00:02:21,360 --> 00:02:23,840
Speaker 1: arrest the people we don't like. Like, that's not how

41
00:02:23,880 --> 00:02:25,960
Speaker 1: this works, or at least it's not how it's supposed

42
00:02:25,960 --> 00:02:28,240
Speaker 1: to work. So we have all of these visuals of

43
00:02:28,240 --> 00:02:32,960
Speaker 1: Ice just arresting democratic politicians, even if the democratic politician

44
00:02:33,040 --> 00:02:36,799
Speaker 1: is doing something stupid. It makes Ice look terrible. And

45
00:02:37,160 --> 00:02:39,720
Speaker 1: one of the things about trump Ism is that there

46
00:02:39,720 --> 00:02:43,360
Speaker 1: are always these unintended consequences, right, things that they didn't

47
00:02:43,400 --> 00:02:46,320
Speaker 1: necessarily mean to happen. And this is such a great

48
00:02:46,360 --> 00:02:49,239
Speaker 1: example of an unintended consequence. So now we're going to

49
00:02:49,320 --> 00:02:54,320
Speaker 1: have a whole news cycle about Ice arresting Bradlander as

50
00:02:54,320 --> 00:02:56,440
Speaker 1: opposed to anything else.

51
00:02:56,960 --> 00:02:59,560
Speaker 3: Yeah, it don't think they are saying that.

52
00:02:59,600 --> 00:03:03,800
Speaker 2: Of course, mister Lander allegedly assaulted the officers. We've seen

53
00:03:03,840 --> 00:03:06,640
Speaker 2: this lie before, since my wife was a part of

54
00:03:06,680 --> 00:03:08,799
Speaker 2: the previous time they lied about this in New York.

55
00:03:08,680 --> 00:03:13,200
Speaker 1: City, where they went and arrested someone in Jaring Nadler's

56
00:03:13,240 --> 00:03:16,480
Speaker 1: office because they said Nadler was going against Ice. It

57
00:03:16,520 --> 00:03:17,800
Speaker 1: turned out none of that was true.

58
00:03:17,960 --> 00:03:20,560
Speaker 2: Yes, so we can't really take these people out there word.

59
00:03:20,560 --> 00:03:22,519
Speaker 2: The other thing I should say is you could hear

60
00:03:22,639 --> 00:03:25,480
Speaker 2: the video. What of the officers literally say you sure

61
00:03:25,560 --> 00:03:27,720
Speaker 2: we want to arrest the second in charge of New

62
00:03:27,800 --> 00:03:28,320
Speaker 2: York City.

63
00:03:28,680 --> 00:03:31,400
Speaker 1: Yeah, let me tell you who the big loser in

64
00:03:31,520 --> 00:03:35,320
Speaker 1: this is, besides Ice and the Trump administration. You know

65
00:03:35,360 --> 00:03:38,760
Speaker 1: who the big loser is, Tell me Andrew Cuomo, because

66
00:03:38,880 --> 00:03:42,200
Speaker 1: nobody who knows who the fuck Brad Lander is and

67
00:03:42,360 --> 00:03:45,120
Speaker 1: being arrested by Ice may be the best thing that

68
00:03:45,200 --> 00:03:48,000
Speaker 1: happens to Lander and the worst thing that happens to

69
00:03:48,120 --> 00:03:48,920
Speaker 1: one Andrew.

70
00:03:49,800 --> 00:03:52,480
Speaker 2: Well, I won't be crying eighty tears anyway. We now

71
00:03:52,560 --> 00:03:56,760
Speaker 2: have a bipartisan bill in Congress from Rocanna and Thomas

72
00:03:56,800 --> 00:03:59,120
Speaker 2: Messi to say Trump can't go to.

73
00:03:59,080 --> 00:04:02,120
Speaker 1: War with a run Yeah. I mean, by the way,

74
00:04:02,520 --> 00:04:08,320
Speaker 1: I am no Thomas Massey fan, but the Thomas Massey's

75
00:04:08,360 --> 00:04:11,880
Speaker 1: and also the ran Paul's. Okay, these are not people

76
00:04:11,920 --> 00:04:15,440
Speaker 1: that anyone particularly wants to agree with. But these guys

77
00:04:15,560 --> 00:04:18,680
Speaker 1: at least have acted in a bipartisan way, and so

78
00:04:19,080 --> 00:04:22,720
Speaker 1: at least they have principles. Like Massy and ran Paul

79
00:04:22,880 --> 00:04:25,839
Speaker 1: have said no, you know, they won't vote for trump Ism,

80
00:04:25,880 --> 00:04:28,040
Speaker 1: and I actually think, I mean this is because they

81
00:04:28,240 --> 00:04:31,800
Speaker 1: don't want to do regime change in Iran, which, by

82
00:04:31,839 --> 00:04:34,120
Speaker 1: the way, I just want to pause from it and

83
00:04:34,200 --> 00:04:36,440
Speaker 1: think about the many times in which America has tried

84
00:04:36,440 --> 00:04:39,320
Speaker 1: to do regime change and how well it's worked out.

85
00:04:39,560 --> 00:04:43,159
Speaker 1: There are some translators from Afghanistan who are being deported

86
00:04:43,240 --> 00:04:46,200
Speaker 1: right now. And so I want to tell you we

87
00:04:46,320 --> 00:04:48,520
Speaker 1: are not a country that can do regime change. We

88
00:04:48,560 --> 00:04:53,159
Speaker 1: can barely do our own regime okay change right, so

89
00:04:53,240 --> 00:04:57,640
Speaker 1: should we be doing regime change? Abs fucking insane. You know,

90
00:04:57,839 --> 00:05:02,000
Speaker 1: Massey goes with the Democrat that's in an effort to

91
00:05:02,080 --> 00:05:06,160
Speaker 1: require congressional approval before Trump attacks Iran. This is one

92
00:05:06,200 --> 00:05:09,040
Speaker 1: hundred percent. First of all, presidents should not be allowed

93
00:05:09,040 --> 00:05:12,120
Speaker 1: to do this unilaterally. This is like a vestige of

94
00:05:12,279 --> 00:05:15,040
Speaker 1: Bush too. You know that they should go. And I'm

95
00:05:15,080 --> 00:05:17,320
Speaker 1: sure there are somebody who listens to this podcast is

96
00:05:17,320 --> 00:05:19,159
Speaker 1: going to tell me the stories of ways in which

97
00:05:19,200 --> 00:05:22,039
Speaker 1: presidents have grabbed power from Congress. But this is another one.

98
00:05:22,080 --> 00:05:24,479
Speaker 1: He should not be able to do this now. Of

99
00:05:24,520 --> 00:05:29,200
Speaker 1: course it's Trump. So Republicans are even more cowardly than usual. Again,

100
00:05:29,560 --> 00:05:31,360
Speaker 1: I don't know what Trump is doing, because no one

101
00:05:31,400 --> 00:05:33,760
Speaker 1: knows what Trump is doing because Trump is so erratic

102
00:05:33,880 --> 00:05:37,920
Speaker 1: and crazy. But Trump's people have been sending out the

103
00:05:37,960 --> 00:05:41,200
Speaker 1: word via the mainstream media that Trump wants to bring

104
00:05:41,200 --> 00:05:43,800
Speaker 1: a Ran back to the table. Who even knows if

105
00:05:43,800 --> 00:05:46,040
Speaker 1: that's what he wants, but that's what his people are

106
00:05:46,080 --> 00:05:48,760
Speaker 1: pretending he wants yeah fun stuff.

107
00:05:49,040 --> 00:05:53,159
Speaker 2: So, speaking of a little bit of Trump pushback in

108
00:05:53,200 --> 00:05:57,159
Speaker 2: the legislative branch, the Senate GOP is rethinking the tax

109
00:05:57,200 --> 00:05:59,919
Speaker 2: cuts and medicare overhaul in Trump's megabill.

110
00:06:00,360 --> 00:06:04,680
Speaker 1: Yeah. CBO releases a dynamic score of the House Past

111
00:06:04,760 --> 00:06:07,479
Speaker 1: One Beautiful Bill Act, finding it would add two point

112
00:06:07,600 --> 00:06:11,080
Speaker 1: seven seven trillion to the debt. This is worse than

113
00:06:11,080 --> 00:06:15,039
Speaker 1: the two point four trillion, and that's because the economic

114
00:06:15,120 --> 00:06:19,560
Speaker 1: growth revenue is outlighed by higher debt interest payments.

115
00:06:19,920 --> 00:06:23,279
Speaker 2: Somali, here's a thing I was not looking forward to discussing,

116
00:06:23,320 --> 00:06:27,919
Speaker 2: because we discussed it on Sunday and frankly, it's so repulsive.

117
00:06:27,960 --> 00:06:30,520
Speaker 2: But Senator Mike Lee has decided to leet the social

118
00:06:30,600 --> 00:06:34,599
Speaker 2: media posts where he lied about the motives of a

119
00:06:34,680 --> 00:06:38,160
Speaker 2: murder of a bunch of different legislators in Minnesota after

120
00:06:38,200 --> 00:06:41,680
Speaker 2: he was confronted by both a letter from a colleague,

121
00:06:41,839 --> 00:06:45,640
Speaker 2: Senator Tita Smith in person and reporters where he was

122
00:06:45,680 --> 00:06:48,760
Speaker 2: such a coward he wouldn't even answer the reporters and

123
00:06:48,839 --> 00:06:52,200
Speaker 2: he would not stand by this stupid based Mike Lee

124
00:06:52,400 --> 00:06:55,919
Speaker 2: account where he constantly trolls and makes a mockery of

125
00:06:55,960 --> 00:06:57,039
Speaker 2: our entire system.

126
00:06:57,400 --> 00:07:01,159
Speaker 1: So Mike Lee has this account called based Mike Lee

127
00:07:01,160 --> 00:07:05,640
Speaker 1: where he channels Don Junior, and in it he made

128
00:07:05,720 --> 00:07:09,800
Speaker 1: all of these posts about how the murderer, the guy

129
00:07:09,840 --> 00:07:14,160
Speaker 1: who murdered this woman and her husband the Democratic Minnesota

130
00:07:14,280 --> 00:07:16,960
Speaker 1: State House she had been the house state House leader

131
00:07:17,120 --> 00:07:19,360
Speaker 1: and murdered them in their beds while they were asleep

132
00:07:19,520 --> 00:07:22,280
Speaker 1: in the dead of night because he was a Trump

133
00:07:22,320 --> 00:07:26,520
Speaker 1: supporter and anti choys, Mike Lee posted all these things

134
00:07:26,560 --> 00:07:29,000
Speaker 1: about how he was a Marxist and all sorts of

135
00:07:29,280 --> 00:07:34,840
Speaker 1: really vile, disgustingness, and like so many keyboard warriors, when

136
00:07:35,160 --> 00:07:38,360
Speaker 1: Tina Smith, who is a member of the Senate for

137
00:07:38,440 --> 00:07:43,760
Speaker 1: the state of Minnesota, confronted him, he looked ashen and apologeic.

138
00:07:44,040 --> 00:07:47,640
Speaker 1: I do not think he saw this coming. Then he

139
00:07:47,760 --> 00:07:51,120
Speaker 1: actually deleted the tweets, which is okay, it's good that

140
00:07:51,160 --> 00:07:54,679
Speaker 1: he deleted the tweets, But no apology. No, I'm sorry,

141
00:07:54,760 --> 00:07:57,600
Speaker 1: none of that. No, let me correct the record. Just

142
00:07:57,800 --> 00:08:02,320
Speaker 1: some tweets deleted and now running from reporters. Look, is

143
00:08:02,360 --> 00:08:04,800
Speaker 1: it good to do the right thing? Yes? Is it

144
00:08:04,880 --> 00:08:08,640
Speaker 1: good to delete the tweets? Yes? I mean it's just ridiculous.

145
00:08:08,880 --> 00:08:12,920
Speaker 1: This person is a ridiculous person and this has been disgusting.

146
00:08:13,080 --> 00:08:17,120
Speaker 1: These people were murdered. There are two other members of

147
00:08:17,160 --> 00:08:22,360
Speaker 1: the Minnesota House who are in the hospital, still in surgery.

148
00:08:22,720 --> 00:08:27,240
Speaker 1: I mean the heartiest, the heartiest, Fuck that guy to

149
00:08:27,440 --> 00:08:30,160
Speaker 1: Mike lay who it's actually not moment of fuck Ray,

150
00:08:30,240 --> 00:08:31,440
Speaker 1: but I say it is.

151
00:08:33,480 --> 00:08:36,400
Speaker 2: Yeah, And we should say there's a industrial complex of

152
00:08:36,480 --> 00:08:39,840
Speaker 2: the right wing. Try to give your grandfather a reason

153
00:08:39,880 --> 00:08:42,000
Speaker 2: that they could argue at the dinner table and say

154
00:08:42,240 --> 00:08:45,400
Speaker 2: there's not right wing violence and the same reason elods

155
00:08:45,480 --> 00:08:49,440
Speaker 2: now correct it. Grock factually saying that the right is

156
00:08:49,640 --> 00:08:51,439
Speaker 2: more violent incidents than the left.

157
00:08:51,720 --> 00:08:53,760
Speaker 3: Is that they try to pretend this isn't the case

158
00:08:53,880 --> 00:08:55,760
Speaker 3: so they can keep getting away with it. But it's

159
00:08:55,760 --> 00:08:56,520
Speaker 3: not going to happen.

160
00:09:01,440 --> 00:09:04,960
Speaker 1: Josh Marshall is the editor of Talking Points Memo. Welcome

161
00:09:05,160 --> 00:09:07,680
Speaker 1: back to Fast Politics.

162
00:09:07,320 --> 00:09:08,600
Speaker 4: Josh, thanks for having me.

163
00:09:08,840 --> 00:09:11,240
Speaker 1: It was the best of times. It was the worst

164
00:09:11,280 --> 00:09:15,000
Speaker 1: of times. Last night when Donald Trump left the G seven,

165
00:09:16,320 --> 00:09:19,880
Speaker 1: I was like struck by this moment of like, oh, right,

166
00:09:20,080 --> 00:09:23,800
Speaker 1: we have real world stuff and a DoD that's run

167
00:09:24,040 --> 00:09:27,520
Speaker 1: by a weekend host from Fox News.

168
00:09:28,120 --> 00:09:30,360
Speaker 4: Yeah, you know. That was one of the features of

169
00:09:30,400 --> 00:09:35,280
Speaker 4: Trump's first presidency that until COVID, until the world like exploding,

170
00:09:35,640 --> 00:09:39,120
Speaker 4: there wasn't a lot of high stake stuff going on.

171
00:09:39,559 --> 00:09:42,320
Speaker 4: That's good for him, since he's not a manager of

172
00:09:42,400 --> 00:09:46,800
Speaker 4: things in any real way. This second presidency is very different,

173
00:09:46,880 --> 00:09:50,720
Speaker 4: partly because of all the chaos that he has unleashed,

174
00:09:50,800 --> 00:09:53,640
Speaker 4: but also because it's we now live in a more

175
00:09:53,720 --> 00:09:56,480
Speaker 4: chaotic world. And some of that's because of his first presidency.

176
00:09:56,720 --> 00:09:59,200
Speaker 4: Some of that's because we're still kind of in the

177
00:09:59,240 --> 00:10:02,720
Speaker 4: post COVID era. But yeah, I mean it's we see that.

178
00:10:02,880 --> 00:10:05,720
Speaker 4: I actually thought that that was something that was in

179
00:10:05,760 --> 00:10:09,120
Speaker 4: the backdrop to what you just mentioned, his deciding to

180
00:10:09,200 --> 00:10:14,200
Speaker 4: leave the G seven meeting. That in both Washington and

181
00:10:14,400 --> 00:10:18,760
Speaker 4: Jerusalem right now and what's going on in Tehran is

182
00:10:18,800 --> 00:10:23,640
Speaker 4: its own possibly similar, similar world. You have leaders who

183
00:10:24,280 --> 00:10:28,280
Speaker 4: you really don't know what their game is, and that

184
00:10:29,160 --> 00:10:32,920
Speaker 4: creates a lot of a lot of uncertainty, even beyond

185
00:10:32,960 --> 00:10:34,800
Speaker 4: the way that war is inherently uncertain.

186
00:10:35,040 --> 00:10:38,040
Speaker 1: I wrote this piece yesterday for Verny Fair from my

187
00:10:38,200 --> 00:10:41,920
Speaker 1: column about how the grown ups in the room I

188
00:10:42,080 --> 00:10:47,079
Speaker 1: truly believe, for example, during Trump's one point now they

189
00:10:47,120 --> 00:10:51,160
Speaker 1: all went on to write books who were like we

190
00:10:51,160 --> 00:10:52,960
Speaker 1: were the grown ups in the room. We were the

191
00:10:53,000 --> 00:10:56,880
Speaker 1: people who prevented Trump from going for Trump, and their

192
00:10:57,400 --> 00:11:00,200
Speaker 1: argument was that being the grown ups in the room

193
00:11:00,480 --> 00:11:04,800
Speaker 1: saved us all from what could have been something terrible. Now,

194
00:11:04,920 --> 00:11:07,320
Speaker 1: my theory of the case is that the grown ups

195
00:11:07,320 --> 00:11:11,720
Speaker 1: in the room actually just saved Trump, like made him

196
00:11:12,160 --> 00:11:17,880
Speaker 1: electable in a way that may reelectable. So like, in

197
00:11:17,960 --> 00:11:22,040
Speaker 1: some ways it's possible that we would have been honestly

198
00:11:22,520 --> 00:11:24,600
Speaker 1: better off had there not been any grown ups in

199
00:11:24,600 --> 00:11:24,920
Speaker 1: the room.

200
00:11:25,280 --> 00:11:26,199
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's possible.

201
00:11:26,320 --> 00:11:29,040
Speaker 1: I mean, I think it's insane, But.

202
00:11:29,280 --> 00:11:31,600
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean I think it's both. When you said

203
00:11:31,600 --> 00:11:34,120
Speaker 4: before about they more saved Trump, I think it's both.

204
00:11:34,240 --> 00:11:37,040
Speaker 4: And that fits in with what you're saying by preventing

205
00:11:37,120 --> 00:11:40,439
Speaker 4: him from doing totally out of control things. They both

206
00:11:40,840 --> 00:11:43,880
Speaker 4: prevented damage to the country, certainly in a near term

207
00:11:43,920 --> 00:11:46,040
Speaker 4: you can argue long term, you know, even more damage,

208
00:11:46,120 --> 00:11:49,400
Speaker 4: but prevented damage to the country. But they also insulated him.

209
00:11:49,480 --> 00:11:53,600
Speaker 4: And this is what I have thought a lot, and

210
00:11:53,640 --> 00:11:55,440
Speaker 4: I thought this before the election. I thought it even

211
00:11:55,480 --> 00:11:58,160
Speaker 4: more after the election. That one thing that you know,

212
00:11:58,559 --> 00:12:02,200
Speaker 4: anti Trump people, Democrat, liberals, whatever, however, you know, wherever

213
00:12:02,240 --> 00:12:05,360
Speaker 4: you want to draw the diagram missed about the Trump

214
00:12:05,400 --> 00:12:10,080
Speaker 4: presidency is that because there were those I don't know,

215
00:12:10,120 --> 00:12:13,000
Speaker 4: adults in the room, guardrails, whatever you want to call it,

216
00:12:13,320 --> 00:12:16,040
Speaker 4: that if you just sort of looked away from politics,

217
00:12:16,360 --> 00:12:18,480
Speaker 4: you could say, what was the problem. You know, yeah,

218
00:12:18,520 --> 00:12:20,520
Speaker 4: he was weird and all this, he did all this

219
00:12:20,600 --> 00:12:25,640
Speaker 4: silly stuff, but the economy, again until COVID, remained pretty buoyant.

220
00:12:25,960 --> 00:12:28,600
Speaker 4: If you're not focused on politics and you're just living

221
00:12:28,640 --> 00:12:31,080
Speaker 4: your life, you could say, you know, that was just

222
00:12:31,120 --> 00:12:34,400
Speaker 4: the sort of the Washington Show and it seemed fine.

223
00:12:34,679 --> 00:12:37,600
Speaker 4: And if you're not tuned into politics, so you can

224
00:12:37,679 --> 00:12:40,680
Speaker 4: say he kept the economy going well. Well, you know,

225
00:12:40,880 --> 00:12:42,680
Speaker 4: I'm not sure he did it, but it did keep

226
00:12:42,720 --> 00:12:43,199
Speaker 4: going well.

227
00:12:43,400 --> 00:12:44,560
Speaker 5: And that's what I So.

228
00:12:44,640 --> 00:12:47,880
Speaker 4: I think this was a big blind spot for people

229
00:12:48,280 --> 00:12:51,160
Speaker 4: to some degree like myself, who figured, all right, people

230
00:12:51,160 --> 00:12:53,480
Speaker 4: are not going to lect that guy again, because you know,

231
00:12:53,640 --> 00:12:57,040
Speaker 4: it's it was really a fight over voters who were

232
00:12:57,040 --> 00:12:58,840
Speaker 4: not plugged in. And if you're not plugged in, you

233
00:12:58,840 --> 00:13:01,280
Speaker 4: weren't paying that close attention. It just wasn't that bad.

234
00:13:01,679 --> 00:13:04,120
Speaker 1: Yeah, we've seen more. I just saw a video of

235
00:13:04,160 --> 00:13:09,400
Speaker 1: a woman who voted for Trump and her father got deported, Like,

236
00:13:09,960 --> 00:13:12,160
Speaker 1: how do you make that? I mean, I guess you

237
00:13:12,280 --> 00:13:16,280
Speaker 1: watch him on Joe Rogan you think, yeah, well, you know,

238
00:13:16,320 --> 00:13:19,240
Speaker 1: why would Joe Rogan steer me wrong? Right?

239
00:13:19,920 --> 00:13:20,240
Speaker 5: Yeah?

240
00:13:20,320 --> 00:13:22,960
Speaker 4: I mean there's a lot of people we kind of

241
00:13:23,000 --> 00:13:25,840
Speaker 4: wonder about whether they're having second thoughts. It is a

242
00:13:25,880 --> 00:13:28,720
Speaker 4: little odd that you could have an immediate family member

243
00:13:28,720 --> 00:13:32,160
Speaker 4: who is undocumented and you could think bringing Trump in

244
00:13:32,320 --> 00:13:34,800
Speaker 4: was going to be a great idea that doesn't require

245
00:13:34,840 --> 00:13:37,800
Speaker 4: a lot of creativity. But you know, having said that,

246
00:13:38,200 --> 00:13:42,400
Speaker 4: they did certainly when it was opportune. They definitely said

247
00:13:42,400 --> 00:13:44,120
Speaker 4: this thing, Oh, we're just going to go after the

248
00:13:44,120 --> 00:13:47,160
Speaker 4: criminals and the bad guys and the rapists and everything, and.

249
00:13:47,280 --> 00:13:49,240
Speaker 5: Clearly some people bought that.

250
00:13:49,320 --> 00:13:51,120
Speaker 4: And you know, a lot of what it comes down

251
00:13:51,160 --> 00:13:54,480
Speaker 4: to is people don't think that hard about things, right

252
00:13:54,559 --> 00:13:56,679
Speaker 4: you say, well, didn't you figure it might happen to you?

253
00:13:56,800 --> 00:13:59,480
Speaker 4: People don't get that far down the decision tree. That's

254
00:13:59,520 --> 00:14:02,040
Speaker 4: how people exist in the world to a great extent.

255
00:14:02,400 --> 00:14:08,760
Speaker 1: So Trump comes back Israel and aarn in some kind

256
00:14:08,800 --> 00:14:12,920
Speaker 1: of war. Will America get involved? We don't know. But

257
00:14:13,040 --> 00:14:18,040
Speaker 1: a really interesting story about the right has emerged. So

258
00:14:18,120 --> 00:14:23,400
Speaker 1: we have Tucker Carlson and Marjorie Taylor Green again, you

259
00:14:23,440 --> 00:14:26,680
Speaker 1: know this crew does not want war or who knows

260
00:14:26,760 --> 00:14:30,760
Speaker 1: they have staked their ground as non interventionists sortid.

261
00:14:31,080 --> 00:14:36,120
Speaker 4: Yeah, So talk us through that well with Tucker Carlson,

262
00:14:36,280 --> 00:14:39,640
Speaker 4: there may be something to that. He's kind of moved

263
00:14:39,680 --> 00:14:42,480
Speaker 4: in a very far direction. But a lot of the

264
00:14:42,520 --> 00:14:46,960
Speaker 4: Trump people, you know, you hear Trump bomb someone or

265
00:14:47,360 --> 00:14:50,360
Speaker 4: or killed some super bad guy, they're all for it.

266
00:14:50,640 --> 00:14:54,400
Speaker 4: So in the whole Trump world, I think non interventionism

267
00:14:55,040 --> 00:14:59,320
Speaker 4: is very shallow. It's until Trump says otherwise, But they're

268
00:14:59,320 --> 00:15:04,200
Speaker 4: clearly is something with Israel here. That's a real cleavage,

269
00:15:04,200 --> 00:15:07,280
Speaker 4: and not just because a lot of Trumpers are big

270
00:15:07,320 --> 00:15:08,960
Speaker 4: time anti Semites, right.

271
00:15:09,040 --> 00:15:12,680
Speaker 1: Right, right right, that's right, an important data point. I

272
00:15:12,720 --> 00:15:14,360
Speaker 1: think that's a really important introduction.

273
00:15:14,840 --> 00:15:16,440
Speaker 5: Yeah, but not only that.

274
00:15:16,520 --> 00:15:19,840
Speaker 1: I think, right that's just a part of the tapestry.

275
00:15:19,720 --> 00:15:20,440
Speaker 3: Just a part of it.

276
00:15:20,720 --> 00:15:22,920
Speaker 4: I do think that in the Trump world what they

277
00:15:23,000 --> 00:15:26,400
Speaker 4: want is the sort of the one night stand version

278
00:15:26,480 --> 00:15:29,640
Speaker 4: of kicking ass. They want Trump to lash out and

279
00:15:30,000 --> 00:15:32,160
Speaker 4: bomb people, but they want it to be over the

280
00:15:32,200 --> 00:15:34,240
Speaker 4: next day, and they don't want to have to call

281
00:15:34,280 --> 00:15:36,200
Speaker 4: a few days later and check in and see if

282
00:15:36,200 --> 00:15:37,640
Speaker 4: you want to go on another date.

283
00:15:37,600 --> 00:15:38,960
Speaker 1: Right, right, I mean exactly.

284
00:15:40,600 --> 00:15:43,920
Speaker 4: They want to be super militarily strong and they want

285
00:15:43,960 --> 00:15:48,560
Speaker 4: to dominate, and dominating requires like outbursts of violence, but

286
00:15:48,600 --> 00:15:50,960
Speaker 4: they don't want it to be ongoing. I think that's

287
00:15:51,000 --> 00:15:52,360
Speaker 4: their non interventionism.

288
00:15:52,680 --> 00:15:55,000
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's a very good point. And there's

289
00:15:55,040 --> 00:15:58,320
Speaker 1: really a lot of anti Semitism, which I think is

290
00:15:58,360 --> 00:16:03,080
Speaker 1: an unspoken or I think spoken but not spoken nearly enough.

291
00:16:03,240 --> 00:16:08,359
Speaker 1: Because Trumpism wraps itself in being pro Israel, It's ultimately

292
00:16:08,560 --> 00:16:10,000
Speaker 1: not really.

293
00:16:09,600 --> 00:16:13,240
Speaker 4: Pro Israel beyond the fact that there's a domestic politics

294
00:16:13,280 --> 00:16:16,760
Speaker 4: angle for them. I think Trump and a lot of

295
00:16:16,760 --> 00:16:22,120
Speaker 4: trump Ism sees Israel as like a junior mascot of

296
00:16:22,200 --> 00:16:28,000
Speaker 4: trump dominationism, right, you know, young buddy sidekick. So there

297
00:16:28,160 --> 00:16:31,280
Speaker 4: is that aspect of it that is kind of you know,

298
00:16:31,400 --> 00:16:35,840
Speaker 4: killing Arabs basically, or in this case, killing Iranians. And

299
00:16:35,880 --> 00:16:38,240
Speaker 4: I think we're you know, where you have some of

300
00:16:38,320 --> 00:16:43,320
Speaker 4: that cleavage is that most American Jews, to the extent

301
00:16:43,360 --> 00:16:45,480
Speaker 4: that they are attached to Israel, are attached to a

302
00:16:45,560 --> 00:16:47,800
Speaker 4: very different version of Israel, and a version of Israel

303
00:16:47,880 --> 00:16:51,640
Speaker 4: that to a significant extent has been eclipsed over the

304
00:16:51,720 --> 00:16:55,000
Speaker 4: last twenty or thirty years. And the part of Israel

305
00:16:55,320 --> 00:16:57,800
Speaker 4: that the Trump folks are very attached to is the

306
00:16:57,800 --> 00:17:00,840
Speaker 4: part that they are uncomfortable with. That's a whole you know,

307
00:17:00,880 --> 00:17:04,719
Speaker 4: that's a whole thing. But one of the pioneers of

308
00:17:04,840 --> 00:17:08,040
Speaker 4: political anti Semitism, sort of not a hall of fame

309
00:17:08,080 --> 00:17:10,119
Speaker 4: you want to be in, is this guy who is

310
00:17:10,200 --> 00:17:12,760
Speaker 4: the mayor of Vienna at the turn of the nineteenth

311
00:17:12,840 --> 00:17:15,080
Speaker 4: twentieth century. His name is I think Luger, I can't

312
00:17:15,080 --> 00:17:17,080
Speaker 4: remember what his first name was. In any case, was

313
00:17:17,160 --> 00:17:21,000
Speaker 4: sort of the pioneer of populist anti Semitism. There's a

314
00:17:21,000 --> 00:17:23,840
Speaker 4: funny thing because in his own life he had Jewish

315
00:17:23,840 --> 00:17:27,320
Speaker 4: friends dine with Jews, and so there's this famous story

316
00:17:27,440 --> 00:17:30,400
Speaker 4: where he gets asked one time, you're the big Jew hater.

317
00:17:30,600 --> 00:17:33,320
Speaker 4: Why do we see you having, you know, dining with

318
00:17:33,440 --> 00:17:35,639
Speaker 4: Jews and your friends are Jews, And he has his

319
00:17:35,680 --> 00:17:38,800
Speaker 4: famous line he says, I decide who's a Jew? And

320
00:17:38,960 --> 00:17:42,000
Speaker 4: Trump is I think like that, right, He'll decide who

321
00:17:42,040 --> 00:17:45,359
Speaker 4: the Jews are. And you see that even where Asaurus

322
00:17:45,400 --> 00:17:47,840
Speaker 4: is bad because he's you know, he's a bad Jew,

323
00:17:48,000 --> 00:17:49,040
Speaker 4: and then they're good Jews.

324
00:17:49,040 --> 00:17:50,280
Speaker 3: And that's sort of the Trump world.

325
00:17:50,680 --> 00:17:55,119
Speaker 1: Yeah, cannot be stated enough. This is not actually about Judaism.

326
00:17:55,240 --> 00:18:01,000
Speaker 1: This is just about a kind of quoke of a

327
00:18:01,040 --> 00:18:05,600
Speaker 1: white nationalism or a fall right nationalism. You know, it's funny.

328
00:18:05,920 --> 00:18:10,160
Speaker 1: I can ask you about this because you are so intellectual.

329
00:18:10,280 --> 00:18:13,760
Speaker 1: I just realized, no, but seriously, because you know, you

330
00:18:14,440 --> 00:18:16,760
Speaker 1: come from academia, so I can ask you about this.

331
00:18:16,960 --> 00:18:18,919
Speaker 1: So I'm reading this book right now because I've been

332
00:18:18,960 --> 00:18:21,600
Speaker 1: on my book tour, How to Lose Your Mother. It's

333
00:18:21,640 --> 00:18:22,520
Speaker 1: available now.

334
00:18:22,960 --> 00:18:24,920
Speaker 4: You should be so proud of your success. It's just

335
00:18:25,119 --> 00:18:27,840
Speaker 4: it's it seems to be flying off the shelves.

336
00:18:27,640 --> 00:18:31,600
Speaker 1: It's actually sold out everywhere, which is making me completely crazy.

337
00:18:31,680 --> 00:18:33,840
Speaker 1: But it's amazing, and it is on the New York

338
00:18:33,840 --> 00:18:37,879
Speaker 1: Times bestseller list, hopefully to stay. I'm very superstitious, but

339
00:18:37,880 --> 00:18:40,160
Speaker 1: I'm reading this book on my book tour. The Anatomy

340
00:18:40,160 --> 00:18:42,760
Speaker 1: of Fascism by Robert O. Paxton. I don't know if

341
00:18:42,760 --> 00:18:46,280
Speaker 1: you know this book, And in it he's talking about

342
00:18:46,320 --> 00:18:50,280
Speaker 1: how fascism is very much a cult of personality and

343
00:18:50,320 --> 00:18:54,680
Speaker 1: that you can't do it with a non charismatic leader. Right.

344
00:18:54,760 --> 00:18:58,320
Speaker 1: You have to have a Mussolini. You gotta have a Hitler.

345
00:18:58,440 --> 00:19:01,040
Speaker 1: You gotta have even a pinochet, you can't. It doesn't

346
00:19:01,080 --> 00:19:02,280
Speaker 1: work with an al Gore.

347
00:19:02,840 --> 00:19:06,760
Speaker 4: Absolutely, And yes, that is absolutely part of it. And

348
00:19:07,600 --> 00:19:10,560
Speaker 4: the hero worship and oddly the kind of even the

349
00:19:10,600 --> 00:19:13,600
Speaker 4: eccentricities are kind of part of it, and the kind

350
00:19:13,600 --> 00:19:17,000
Speaker 4: of the operatic kind of personality are part of it too.

351
00:19:17,359 --> 00:19:18,560
Speaker 4: It's a weird aesthetic.

352
00:19:19,000 --> 00:19:23,080
Speaker 1: Yeah. So do you think that what happens is that

353
00:19:23,359 --> 00:19:29,600
Speaker 1: people are caught of guard by the humor? For example,

354
00:19:29,800 --> 00:19:32,960
Speaker 1: in trump Ism, there's a certain kind of humor right

355
00:19:33,119 --> 00:19:36,919
Speaker 1: like he's a ridiculous character, and that then they go

356
00:19:37,080 --> 00:19:39,880
Speaker 1: along with things they might not otherwise had it been

357
00:19:40,080 --> 00:19:42,800
Speaker 1: so like a JD. Vance is not going to get

358
00:19:42,800 --> 00:19:45,239
Speaker 1: away with stuff that a Donald Trump is, just like

359
00:19:45,480 --> 00:19:47,800
Speaker 1: Mike Pets was unable to get away with stuff that

360
00:19:47,880 --> 00:19:50,320
Speaker 1: a Donald Trump did. Do you think the humor tricks

361
00:19:50,440 --> 00:19:53,400
Speaker 1: constituents into going along with stuff or do you think

362
00:19:53,480 --> 00:19:56,000
Speaker 1: that it just is irrelevant and that they're in a

363
00:19:56,080 --> 00:19:57,160
Speaker 1: cultive personality.

364
00:19:57,800 --> 00:20:01,560
Speaker 4: Well, I don't think it's irrelevant. I think how these

365
00:20:01,600 --> 00:20:06,800
Speaker 4: cults of personality work are very complex, and it's important

366
00:20:06,840 --> 00:20:10,280
Speaker 4: for people who revile Trump, who just who despise him,

367
00:20:10,400 --> 00:20:14,320
Speaker 4: to see that in his own way. He is very charismatic.

368
00:20:14,680 --> 00:20:16,840
Speaker 4: He's funny in his own way. Now it's often a

369
00:20:16,880 --> 00:20:20,680
Speaker 4: sadistic kind of humor, but he does have this public

370
00:20:20,760 --> 00:20:23,240
Speaker 4: style that is very effective. And one of the things

371
00:20:23,280 --> 00:20:26,760
Speaker 4: about Trump is that he has these moments of self

372
00:20:26,760 --> 00:20:29,879
Speaker 4: awareness and even kind of self criticism in a way,

373
00:20:30,040 --> 00:20:34,280
Speaker 4: not self criticism exactly, but awareness of some of his craziness.

374
00:20:34,440 --> 00:20:37,680
Speaker 4: And I, like many other people, have given a lot

375
00:20:37,680 --> 00:20:40,679
Speaker 4: of thought to this. It's almost something that is not

376
00:20:41,400 --> 00:20:45,040
Speaker 4: susceptible to discoursive thought in the way that you might

377
00:20:45,080 --> 00:20:47,200
Speaker 4: write down in an academic book. It's a little more

378
00:20:47,240 --> 00:20:49,679
Speaker 4: like jazz in a way. You get a feel for it.

379
00:20:49,800 --> 00:20:51,960
Speaker 4: But I think all of those are part of it.

380
00:20:52,040 --> 00:20:55,560
Speaker 4: And when we talk about a cult of personality, the humor,

381
00:20:55,680 --> 00:20:58,400
Speaker 4: all of those things are part of it. Probably many

382
00:20:58,400 --> 00:21:00,960
Speaker 4: of your listeners have seen this too, that Mike Lee,

383
00:21:01,119 --> 00:21:03,960
Speaker 4: senator from Utah, the sort of the very degenerate senator

384
00:21:04,000 --> 00:21:06,240
Speaker 4: from Mutah, is maybe in a little trouble now because

385
00:21:06,320 --> 00:21:09,000
Speaker 4: one of the senators, Senator Smith from Minnesota, kind of

386
00:21:09,040 --> 00:21:12,439
Speaker 4: called him out about these terrible tweets. And one of

387
00:21:12,480 --> 00:21:15,800
Speaker 4: the many things that that episode shows is that people

388
00:21:15,960 --> 00:21:20,240
Speaker 4: play these online personas and it becomes a separate world.

389
00:21:20,440 --> 00:21:22,399
Speaker 4: And so we all have some experience of that, of

390
00:21:22,480 --> 00:21:25,600
Speaker 4: the performative nature of these things. In some ways we

391
00:21:25,760 --> 00:21:28,359
Speaker 4: live in that world. And Donald Trump is like a

392
00:21:28,480 --> 00:21:33,520
Speaker 4: master of that world, of creating this kind of distracting

393
00:21:33,920 --> 00:21:40,760
Speaker 4: alternative reality that is always on the move, always taking

394
00:21:40,800 --> 00:21:49,800
Speaker 4: things in another direction, is entertaining, distracting, mesmerizing, and that thing,

395
00:21:50,320 --> 00:21:54,600
Speaker 4: very hard to capture, is really central to his power.

396
00:21:54,840 --> 00:21:57,800
Speaker 4: Even though it seems sort of silly and distracting and

397
00:21:57,840 --> 00:22:01,600
Speaker 4: stupid and is all those things, it's central to it.

398
00:22:01,920 --> 00:22:06,480
Speaker 4: And yeah, that is at the core of his power.

399
00:22:06,520 --> 00:22:08,560
Speaker 4: And it's a weird thing to understand.

400
00:22:09,280 --> 00:22:13,000
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, it's funny because I watch him speak

401
00:22:13,040 --> 00:22:17,160
Speaker 1: a lot, unfortunately for me. I'll watch c SPAN and

402
00:22:17,200 --> 00:22:19,879
Speaker 1: you'll hear him do things like he'll say, well, we

403
00:22:20,560 --> 00:22:24,120
Speaker 1: like you. Wasn't much of a Trumper, but now they're Trumpers.

404
00:22:24,440 --> 00:22:28,040
Speaker 1: He's good to us the most mega he was so mega.

405
00:22:28,160 --> 00:22:30,600
Speaker 1: We didn't like this, but we do like what he

406
00:22:30,720 --> 00:22:34,200
Speaker 1: really thought about someone, which, if you think about it,

407
00:22:34,400 --> 00:22:39,720
Speaker 1: think about all of the very well meaning democratic politicians

408
00:22:39,880 --> 00:22:44,720
Speaker 1: who you and I really like are partisan favorites who

409
00:22:44,760 --> 00:22:51,000
Speaker 1: will absolutely not fucking tell you anything. Right, it's a superpower.

410
00:22:51,040 --> 00:22:53,600
Speaker 5: In a way, it is a superpower.

411
00:22:53,640 --> 00:22:55,679
Speaker 4: And that's kind of a version of what I was

412
00:22:55,720 --> 00:22:58,680
Speaker 4: talking about about the self criticism. It's not only self criticism,

413
00:22:58,760 --> 00:23:00,760
Speaker 4: but he'll kind of go into it his own internal

414
00:23:00,800 --> 00:23:05,280
Speaker 4: monologue sometimes, right, yep. And I do think that is

415
00:23:05,480 --> 00:23:08,800
Speaker 4: a big reason that he has a hold on some

416
00:23:08,840 --> 00:23:12,240
Speaker 4: people people's sense so like he's real and in a sense,

417
00:23:12,640 --> 00:23:16,080
Speaker 4: I think what is resonating with them is that he's

418
00:23:16,200 --> 00:23:19,640
Speaker 4: up there riffing and it's not planned, and he's kind

419
00:23:19,680 --> 00:23:23,160
Speaker 4: of it is kind of stream of consciousness. Now, most

420
00:23:23,200 --> 00:23:28,320
Speaker 4: of his stream of consciousness is nonsense and just making

421
00:23:28,400 --> 00:23:32,240
Speaker 4: things up. It plays as a kind of authenticity for people.

422
00:23:32,560 --> 00:23:36,080
Speaker 4: I want the next Democratic leaders to be on social

423
00:23:36,200 --> 00:23:39,840
Speaker 4: media a lot. Oh yeah, that was you know, one

424
00:23:39,880 --> 00:23:42,520
Speaker 4: of the things about not even his first presidency, but

425
00:23:42,560 --> 00:23:46,240
Speaker 4: his first campaign was everybody else is like, okay, should

426
00:23:46,280 --> 00:23:47,800
Speaker 4: we put out a press release for this? And he's

427
00:23:47,840 --> 00:23:48,720
Speaker 4: just going on Twitter.

428
00:23:49,080 --> 00:23:49,520
Speaker 5: Right. You know.

429
00:23:49,680 --> 00:23:52,600
Speaker 1: It's funny because it's like we have had the minority

430
00:23:52,680 --> 00:23:55,920
Speaker 1: leader on this podcast, and you know, they put out

431
00:23:55,960 --> 00:23:59,399
Speaker 1: press release after press release after press release, but nobody

432
00:23:59,720 --> 00:24:02,480
Speaker 1: cares because it's a press release, and if he just

433
00:24:02,920 --> 00:24:06,320
Speaker 1: would tweet out what he really thought. I mean, it

434
00:24:06,560 --> 00:24:09,480
Speaker 1: is an information desert, and if you tweet out what

435
00:24:09,520 --> 00:24:12,560
Speaker 1: you really think, people will respond to it. And if

436
00:24:12,600 --> 00:24:16,560
Speaker 1: you have something that's completely you know, run over by

437
00:24:16,680 --> 00:24:18,800
Speaker 1: legal six times, nobody gives a fuck.

438
00:24:19,359 --> 00:24:22,199
Speaker 4: It's not news. It's not news. Like look, I'm in

439
00:24:22,240 --> 00:24:24,959
Speaker 4: the news business. I never look at press releases. You

440
00:24:25,040 --> 00:24:27,520
Speaker 4: don't put out a press release to make news. You

441
00:24:27,640 --> 00:24:30,000
Speaker 4: put out a press release to be able to say

442
00:24:30,000 --> 00:24:32,159
Speaker 4: you said something. And so there's a part of this.

443
00:24:32,320 --> 00:24:35,520
Speaker 4: You know, it is not an accident that Donald Trump

444
00:24:36,080 --> 00:24:41,560
Speaker 4: was a creation of the tabloid newsworld of the New

445
00:24:41,640 --> 00:24:44,440
Speaker 4: York of the nineteen eighties. It's not an accident because

446
00:24:44,560 --> 00:24:48,200
Speaker 4: that is where that is sort of where our current

447
00:24:48,280 --> 00:24:52,359
Speaker 4: media culture was born, the beginnings of electronic media, the

448
00:24:52,400 --> 00:24:56,160
Speaker 4: tabloid culture, all of that stuff. And so it makes

449
00:24:56,200 --> 00:24:58,680
Speaker 4: sense that, you know, all the ability to just kind

450
00:24:58,680 --> 00:25:01,600
Speaker 4: of like, I'm going to keep in the news and

451
00:25:01,720 --> 00:25:04,280
Speaker 4: going to keep doing stuff that people have to react to.

452
00:25:04,640 --> 00:25:08,600
Speaker 4: And it's just critical for people who care about politics

453
00:25:08,640 --> 00:25:11,600
Speaker 4: to understand why he is powerful in that way.

454
00:25:11,800 --> 00:25:12,640
Speaker 5: You have to like it.

455
00:25:12,800 --> 00:25:15,840
Speaker 4: He does have this one superpower it's what I guess

456
00:25:15,840 --> 00:25:18,760
Speaker 4: people have recently started calling the attention economy. If you

457
00:25:18,800 --> 00:25:21,280
Speaker 4: want to move in the news world, it's like, you know,

458
00:25:21,320 --> 00:25:24,720
Speaker 4: improvisational jazz in a quintet. You've got to be able

459
00:25:24,800 --> 00:25:27,160
Speaker 4: to hold the stage for a little while, right. It's

460
00:25:27,240 --> 00:25:31,160
Speaker 4: very strange stuff, but these very kind of symbolist things

461
00:25:31,600 --> 00:25:35,439
Speaker 4: translate into hard power that get people's families torn apart

462
00:25:35,480 --> 00:25:39,040
Speaker 4: and sent to a gulag in El Salvador. So things

463
00:25:39,040 --> 00:25:44,800
Speaker 4: that seem very silly and fluffy translate into real power

464
00:25:45,000 --> 00:25:45,920
Speaker 4: and real violence.

465
00:25:46,320 --> 00:25:49,080
Speaker 1: Thank you, thank you, sayank you, thank you, Josh.

466
00:25:48,760 --> 00:25:50,760
Speaker 5: Marshall, thank you so much for having me.

467
00:25:52,960 --> 00:25:57,680
Speaker 1: Malcolm Kenyatta is a vice chair of the Democratic National

468
00:25:57,720 --> 00:26:02,199
Speaker 1: Committee and a Pennsylvania state representative for the one hundred

469
00:26:02,200 --> 00:26:07,440
Speaker 1: and eighty first district. Welcome to Fast Politics, Malcolm.

470
00:26:07,280 --> 00:26:09,359
Speaker 5: Allie, I'm so happy to be here, and more than

471
00:26:09,400 --> 00:26:11,840
Speaker 5: anything else, I'm going to start by plugging your book.

472
00:26:11,880 --> 00:26:12,760
Speaker 5: I can't wait to read it.

473
00:26:13,040 --> 00:26:16,600
Speaker 1: Oh, thank you, Yes, this is it, How to Lose

474
00:26:16,680 --> 00:26:20,480
Speaker 1: Your Mother Me plugging the podcast podcast. So now let's

475
00:26:20,600 --> 00:26:26,760
Speaker 1: talk about you. Are DNC vice chair again, yes again?

476
00:26:27,240 --> 00:26:30,720
Speaker 1: So what happened? Explain to us to your DNC vice chair.

477
00:26:31,200 --> 00:26:33,159
Speaker 1: I have known you for a long time. You're a

478
00:26:33,200 --> 00:26:38,600
Speaker 1: state representative in Pennsylvania. You're excellent. You ran against Fetterman

479
00:26:39,040 --> 00:26:43,159
Speaker 1: in the primary when Fetterman was not what he is

480
00:26:43,240 --> 00:26:48,040
Speaker 1: right now, which is totally not what I remember him

481
00:26:48,040 --> 00:26:50,640
Speaker 1: to be. You did not win that primary. You went

482
00:26:50,720 --> 00:26:55,200
Speaker 1: back to state legislature. You became a vice chair of

483
00:26:55,320 --> 00:26:59,520
Speaker 1: the DNC along with David Hogg. Now catch us up

484
00:26:59,560 --> 00:27:00,959
Speaker 1: on what happened next.

485
00:27:01,320 --> 00:27:06,399
Speaker 5: Yeah, what happened next was a series, you know, sometimes

486
00:27:06,440 --> 00:27:11,400
Speaker 5: an intentional and sometimes unintentional miscommunications about what happened next

487
00:27:11,480 --> 00:27:13,800
Speaker 5: is often spend a lot of time trying to tell

488
00:27:14,040 --> 00:27:17,760
Speaker 5: the facts here, long story short after the election, anybody

489
00:27:17,760 --> 00:27:20,760
Speaker 5: who's ever been in a long, annoying, fucking meeting knows

490
00:27:20,800 --> 00:27:24,000
Speaker 5: about Robert's rules of order, And effectively, one of the

491
00:27:24,040 --> 00:27:27,520
Speaker 5: people who was unsuccessful said back on February the twenty

492
00:27:27,560 --> 00:27:31,879
Speaker 5: eighth that Robert's rules of order weren't followed in her view,

493
00:27:32,320 --> 00:27:35,840
Speaker 5: and back in February she filed that challenge to the

494
00:27:35,960 --> 00:27:40,520
Speaker 5: election results. And because unlike this authoritarian administration, the Democratic

495
00:27:40,560 --> 00:27:43,720
Speaker 5: Party actually believes in due process, there was a process

496
00:27:43,720 --> 00:27:45,520
Speaker 5: where she got to file a complaint we had a

497
00:27:45,600 --> 00:27:48,440
Speaker 5: number of days to respond to her complaint. The committee

498
00:27:48,440 --> 00:27:50,760
Speaker 5: had a number of days to hear that complaint. Already

499
00:27:50,760 --> 00:27:55,080
Speaker 5: people's eyes are glazing over. But ultimately what happened are

500
00:27:55,720 --> 00:27:57,560
Speaker 5: I know, I'm in it. My eyes are glazed over.

501
00:27:57,680 --> 00:28:01,119
Speaker 5: But what ultimately happened was the Committee decided to hould

502
00:28:01,160 --> 00:28:03,840
Speaker 5: the election again, you know, which I did not think

503
00:28:04,119 --> 00:28:06,320
Speaker 5: was you know appropriate. I called it at the time,

504
00:28:06,600 --> 00:28:09,399
Speaker 5: you know, a slap in my face. But in this moment,

505
00:28:09,600 --> 00:28:13,520
Speaker 5: with everything going on, with a president that is so lawless,

506
00:28:13,560 --> 00:28:18,600
Speaker 5: so out of control, and so willing to throw away

507
00:28:18,880 --> 00:28:21,400
Speaker 5: all of the modern safety net so that they can

508
00:28:21,440 --> 00:28:23,960
Speaker 5: stuff the pockets of the wealthiest people the world has

509
00:28:23,960 --> 00:28:26,680
Speaker 5: ever seen, we need a strong democratic party. And a

510
00:28:26,720 --> 00:28:29,000
Speaker 5: part of what we need in this moment is not

511
00:28:29,040 --> 00:28:31,879
Speaker 5: for everybody who's ever been frustrated with Democrats to walk away.

512
00:28:32,160 --> 00:28:34,760
Speaker 5: I've been frustrated with Democrats. I'm chief among them. But

513
00:28:34,960 --> 00:28:36,960
Speaker 5: the question is what do we do with that frustration.

514
00:28:37,080 --> 00:28:39,480
Speaker 5: I decided to go into the building and try to

515
00:28:39,480 --> 00:28:40,120
Speaker 5: fucking change it.

516
00:28:40,480 --> 00:28:42,800
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is why I love you. So tell me

517
00:28:42,880 --> 00:28:43,840
Speaker 1: what happens next?

518
00:28:44,120 --> 00:28:46,960
Speaker 5: So what happens you know next? Does we have our

519
00:28:47,360 --> 00:28:50,920
Speaker 5: you know, Big Officers Retreat back in March on March

520
00:28:50,960 --> 00:28:53,920
Speaker 5: to twenty fifth, where Ken Martin our new chair. For

521
00:28:54,040 --> 00:28:57,280
Speaker 5: folks who don't know Ken, Ken was the guy after

522
00:28:57,360 --> 00:29:00,080
Speaker 5: the twenty sixteen election who led a lot of the

523
00:29:00,200 --> 00:29:03,520
Speaker 5: reforms in the DNC around minimizing the power of superdelegates,

524
00:29:03,880 --> 00:29:06,600
Speaker 5: trying to get the party out of the you know,

525
00:29:06,760 --> 00:29:09,520
Speaker 5: the gilded ages where people in smoke filled rooms picked

526
00:29:09,520 --> 00:29:11,840
Speaker 5: our nominees, and he laid out a series of like

527
00:29:11,880 --> 00:29:14,480
Speaker 5: twenty I think it is reforms to the party, including

528
00:29:14,760 --> 00:29:18,880
Speaker 5: officer neutrality. A month later, David Hogg announced that he

529
00:29:19,000 --> 00:29:21,760
Speaker 5: was going to do this primary thing with leaders we deserve.

530
00:29:22,040 --> 00:29:25,160
Speaker 1: You know what, let's stop for a second. Officer neutrality

531
00:29:25,280 --> 00:29:26,760
Speaker 1: explain to us what that means.

532
00:29:27,200 --> 00:29:29,160
Speaker 5: So back in twenty sixteen, and for some of the

533
00:29:29,240 --> 00:29:31,560
Speaker 5: people who were like jump in my comments and say, Malcolm,

534
00:29:31,560 --> 00:29:33,600
Speaker 5: what about twenty sixteen. Back in twenty sixteen, I was

535
00:29:33,640 --> 00:29:36,960
Speaker 5: not an electric official. There was a well known presidential

536
00:29:37,000 --> 00:29:42,240
Speaker 5: primary which we've never gotten over between ever ever, ever,

537
00:29:42,840 --> 00:29:45,120
Speaker 5: like I'm going to tell my grandkids about this. Yeah,

538
00:29:45,160 --> 00:29:48,600
Speaker 5: that's right, And out of that primary there was a perception,

539
00:29:48,680 --> 00:29:50,239
Speaker 5: and some could even say a reality. I'm not going

540
00:29:50,280 --> 00:29:52,640
Speaker 5: to Quipple over that. But at the minimum, there was

541
00:29:52,680 --> 00:29:56,160
Speaker 5: a perception that the party was not even handed in

542
00:29:56,200 --> 00:29:59,360
Speaker 5: that primary. And what we must all endeavor to do

543
00:29:59,480 --> 00:30:01,640
Speaker 5: is to make sure or that never happens again.

544
00:30:01,920 --> 00:30:04,760
Speaker 1: Right, And that was because of super delegates too.

545
00:30:04,720 --> 00:30:07,200
Speaker 5: Right now, because of super delegates and like just many

546
00:30:07,280 --> 00:30:10,920
Speaker 5: aspects of the process that people can point to. But

547
00:30:10,960 --> 00:30:14,560
Speaker 5: I want to be crystal clear, I don't want any people,

548
00:30:14,960 --> 00:30:17,800
Speaker 5: ten people sitting in a smoke filled room or no

549
00:30:18,560 --> 00:30:21,360
Speaker 5: smoke field room, in a room in DC, looking across

550
00:30:21,400 --> 00:30:24,280
Speaker 5: the country trying to pick our freaking nominees. I think

551
00:30:24,320 --> 00:30:26,760
Speaker 5: we trust voters to pick our nominees. But let me

552
00:30:26,800 --> 00:30:29,920
Speaker 5: make this point, because this has been sort of people's assumption.

553
00:30:30,360 --> 00:30:34,040
Speaker 5: The DMC, the Democratic National Committee, is not an incumbent

554
00:30:34,320 --> 00:30:38,560
Speaker 5: protection racket. My job is not to re elect incumbents.

555
00:30:38,880 --> 00:30:41,640
Speaker 5: My job is to elect Democratic nominees that are chosen

556
00:30:41,640 --> 00:30:45,640
Speaker 5: by Democratic voters in their districts. That's our job, full stop.

557
00:30:45,920 --> 00:30:50,560
Speaker 5: And unfortunately, the election challenge that was filed back in February,

558
00:30:50,600 --> 00:30:53,720
Speaker 5: and Ken calling profice in neutrality back in March, you

559
00:30:53,800 --> 00:30:56,840
Speaker 5: have so many people still to this day are saying

560
00:30:57,000 --> 00:31:00,400
Speaker 5: that this is somehow payback for David and now saying

561
00:31:00,400 --> 00:31:03,080
Speaker 5: that he would not Abuie by officer neutrality back in April,

562
00:31:03,200 --> 00:31:06,520
Speaker 5: that timeline just doesn't work. And I've said this constantly,

563
00:31:06,600 --> 00:31:08,240
Speaker 5: but you know, a li will get around the block

564
00:31:08,320 --> 00:31:10,480
Speaker 5: while the truth is putting its shoes on, and so

565
00:31:10,680 --> 00:31:13,240
Speaker 5: I decided to put my shoes on tell the truth

566
00:31:13,280 --> 00:31:14,040
Speaker 5: about what's happening.

567
00:31:14,240 --> 00:31:18,360
Speaker 1: Ken Martin says he wants officer neutrality. This is part

568
00:31:18,440 --> 00:31:22,160
Speaker 1: of a larger decision. Explain a little more about this.

569
00:31:22,840 --> 00:31:25,560
Speaker 5: It's to make sure that particularly in this presidential primary,

570
00:31:25,560 --> 00:31:27,840
Speaker 5: and Molly, I'm sure you'll interview all of them, well,

571
00:31:27,840 --> 00:31:29,680
Speaker 5: hopefully not all of them, because they're gonna, like ninety people

572
00:31:29,680 --> 00:31:30,440
Speaker 5: who run for president.

573
00:31:30,520 --> 00:31:33,920
Speaker 1: Ook are going to be just an absolute epic shit show.

574
00:31:34,120 --> 00:31:37,280
Speaker 5: Yes, it's gonna be so many people, and I think

575
00:31:37,360 --> 00:31:40,200
Speaker 5: in that process, as you might imagine, there are gonna

576
00:31:40,200 --> 00:31:42,280
Speaker 5: be a lot of hard feelings, a lot of people

577
00:31:42,280 --> 00:31:44,680
Speaker 5: who have thoughts about the process. And when it's over,

578
00:31:44,880 --> 00:31:48,120
Speaker 5: and when any primary is over, you need somebody who

579
00:31:48,160 --> 00:31:51,240
Speaker 5: people know cared about the outcome of the game as

580
00:31:51,240 --> 00:31:53,480
Speaker 5: a good referee should, but wasn't trying to be a

581
00:31:53,480 --> 00:31:57,160
Speaker 5: player in the game. And the DNC. Our job and

582
00:31:57,200 --> 00:32:01,080
Speaker 5: what we're doing is building the infrastry structure so that

583
00:32:01,160 --> 00:32:03,920
Speaker 5: when our candidates come out of those primaries they have

584
00:32:04,000 --> 00:32:06,440
Speaker 5: all the tools they need to be successful. And that

585
00:32:06,560 --> 00:32:08,840
Speaker 5: means that we have to invest and rebuild our state parties.

586
00:32:08,880 --> 00:32:11,720
Speaker 5: I was just in Mississippi and all of you know,

587
00:32:11,880 --> 00:32:14,240
Speaker 5: our last Democratic nominee, Mike Best be there.

588
00:32:14,560 --> 00:32:16,400
Speaker 1: We had him on like six times.

589
00:32:16,640 --> 00:32:19,520
Speaker 5: Yeah, he was the strongest statewide Democrat we've seen in

590
00:32:19,520 --> 00:32:23,520
Speaker 5: Mississippi in modern history. And he said this multiple times.

591
00:32:23,560 --> 00:32:25,800
Speaker 5: And the new chair who came in, you know, on

592
00:32:25,840 --> 00:32:28,160
Speaker 5: the tail end of that campaign, by the way, was

593
00:32:28,320 --> 00:32:31,000
Speaker 5: very clear that they needed to build out the infrastructure.

594
00:32:31,000 --> 00:32:33,640
Speaker 5: We shouldn't be asking Democratic nominees to build out the

595
00:32:33,840 --> 00:32:37,880
Speaker 5: voter contact infrastructure, even things around you know, voter community,

596
00:32:37,920 --> 00:32:41,160
Speaker 5: you know around excuse me, media and communications. There are

597
00:32:41,160 --> 00:32:43,320
Speaker 5: a bunch of different things that we need to do

598
00:32:43,600 --> 00:32:46,160
Speaker 5: that the Democratic Party is investing in. And so our

599
00:32:46,240 --> 00:32:49,440
Speaker 5: job is to build infrastructure so our nominees win, not

600
00:32:49,560 --> 00:32:51,880
Speaker 5: to try to pick our nominees. And that does not

601
00:32:52,120 --> 00:32:55,080
Speaker 5: mean that we don't want robust primaries. If you are

602
00:32:55,120 --> 00:32:57,880
Speaker 5: listening to this podcast and you're thinking about running for office,

603
00:32:58,080 --> 00:33:00,080
Speaker 5: run for office. I'm not trying to stop you. If

604
00:33:00,120 --> 00:33:02,720
Speaker 5: a running office, run for office on whatever platform you have,

605
00:33:03,040 --> 00:33:05,760
Speaker 5: run for office, talk to voters in your district and

606
00:33:05,960 --> 00:33:08,120
Speaker 5: go out and win. And when you are the nominee,

607
00:33:08,280 --> 00:33:10,360
Speaker 5: sign me up to do whatever event I need to

608
00:33:10,360 --> 00:33:14,200
Speaker 5: do to make sure you beat whatever authoritarian supporting Republican

609
00:33:14,280 --> 00:33:15,040
Speaker 5: is on the other side.

610
00:33:15,120 --> 00:33:19,520
Speaker 1: All right, So then you guys have another election and

611
00:33:19,640 --> 00:33:21,320
Speaker 1: David does not run again.

612
00:33:21,480 --> 00:33:24,680
Speaker 5: Explain, Yeah, so you know why David chose not to

613
00:33:24,720 --> 00:33:27,160
Speaker 5: run again. You know, obviously, you know he put out

614
00:33:27,200 --> 00:33:29,840
Speaker 5: a statement to that effect. But you know, in the

615
00:33:29,880 --> 00:33:33,239
Speaker 5: first election, we won pretty handily. You needed I think

616
00:33:33,280 --> 00:33:34,680
Speaker 5: it was two hundred and one votes. We got two

617
00:33:34,720 --> 00:33:37,000
Speaker 5: hundred and ninety eight votes. I think David got two fourteen.

618
00:33:37,040 --> 00:33:39,880
Speaker 5: We won pretty handily. And throughout my work in the

619
00:33:40,000 --> 00:33:42,440
Speaker 5: one hundred and thirty days or so before the election,

620
00:33:42,880 --> 00:33:45,640
Speaker 5: you know, I traveled twenty one thousand miles to a

621
00:33:45,840 --> 00:33:50,440
Speaker 5: nine states, did three dozen events, fundraisers, the list goes

622
00:33:50,480 --> 00:33:52,520
Speaker 5: on and on to try to build this party, and

623
00:33:52,560 --> 00:33:55,200
Speaker 5: I was confident that I would have the votes to

624
00:33:55,240 --> 00:33:58,520
Speaker 5: win again. David made a decision to focus his work

625
00:33:58,600 --> 00:34:00,920
Speaker 5: on leaders we deserve. I said it at the time.

626
00:34:00,960 --> 00:34:02,720
Speaker 5: You know, I really wish him the best. There is

627
00:34:02,760 --> 00:34:05,640
Speaker 5: nothing wrong with robust primaries. We have folks in organized

628
00:34:05,680 --> 00:34:09,279
Speaker 5: labor who endorse different people. We have you know, Emily's List,

629
00:34:09,600 --> 00:34:12,400
Speaker 5: Run for Something, which is an incredible organization that supports

630
00:34:12,440 --> 00:34:16,040
Speaker 5: young people running for office, Collective Pack Victory Fund, so

631
00:34:16,080 --> 00:34:18,600
Speaker 5: many different organizations. We're going to play in primaries, and

632
00:34:18,640 --> 00:34:20,640
Speaker 5: they should, and I'm going to be waiting for those

633
00:34:20,680 --> 00:34:23,799
Speaker 5: primaries to be over to support them. However, however we

634
00:34:23,840 --> 00:34:24,600
Speaker 5: can at the DNC.

635
00:34:25,000 --> 00:34:30,719
Speaker 1: So then explain to me what happened with Randy Wineingarden.

636
00:34:31,000 --> 00:34:32,360
Speaker 5: Yeah, so let me let me. Let me say this,

637
00:34:32,440 --> 00:34:34,319
Speaker 5: and I said this on the MSNBC. I think I

638
00:34:34,360 --> 00:34:37,120
Speaker 5: was on like right after this news broke. Randy and

639
00:34:37,320 --> 00:34:41,120
Speaker 5: Lee Saunders, our dear, dear friends of mine. Let me

640
00:34:41,160 --> 00:34:44,280
Speaker 5: say that there is no Malcolm Kenyata in politics without

641
00:34:44,320 --> 00:34:47,480
Speaker 5: asks me and AFT. The support of their members and

642
00:34:47,480 --> 00:34:50,120
Speaker 5: their support personally has meant so much to me, and

643
00:34:50,160 --> 00:34:52,360
Speaker 5: their friendship means so much to me, and I respect

644
00:34:52,400 --> 00:34:55,320
Speaker 5: their decision to step back. But I think the only

645
00:34:55,440 --> 00:34:57,360
Speaker 5: question that I think we really need to answer is

646
00:34:57,400 --> 00:34:58,920
Speaker 5: what are we going to do for working people and

647
00:34:58,960 --> 00:35:01,520
Speaker 5: working families to make their lives better. And you heard

648
00:35:01,600 --> 00:35:04,000
Speaker 5: me say this over and over again. Even Fox News

649
00:35:04,080 --> 00:35:06,080
Speaker 5: said they're sick of me saying yeah. But I think

650
00:35:06,080 --> 00:35:10,120
Speaker 5: the Democratic Party has a singular mission and ultimately a

651
00:35:10,120 --> 00:35:14,680
Speaker 5: singular message. We have to make life better and a

652
00:35:14,760 --> 00:35:18,440
Speaker 5: part of that equation obviously is making sure that people

653
00:35:18,520 --> 00:35:21,160
Speaker 5: get a fair wage, that they get the benefits and

654
00:35:21,160 --> 00:35:23,960
Speaker 5: dignity they deserve on the job. And no, you know,

655
00:35:24,200 --> 00:35:26,120
Speaker 5: there are very few people who have fought as hard

656
00:35:26,200 --> 00:35:31,000
Speaker 5: for those changes and for those rights and earned benefits

657
00:35:31,040 --> 00:35:33,600
Speaker 5: then Lease Honders and Randy Weingarten, So you know they're

658
00:35:33,640 --> 00:35:36,680
Speaker 5: taking a step back. I absolutely respect them, but I

659
00:35:36,760 --> 00:35:38,320
Speaker 5: know where I'm going to see them on a picket

660
00:35:38,360 --> 00:35:40,640
Speaker 5: line on some fight for justice, and they're going to

661
00:35:40,640 --> 00:35:42,880
Speaker 5: be fighting arm in arm with the Democratic Party to

662
00:35:43,000 --> 00:35:46,799
Speaker 5: elect Democratic candidates who care about those values. But I

663
00:35:46,840 --> 00:35:48,920
Speaker 5: think as a party right now, we are going to

664
00:35:48,960 --> 00:35:51,960
Speaker 5: be focused not on the past, but on what our

665
00:35:52,040 --> 00:35:54,120
Speaker 5: party must be. And I think you know, if you

666
00:35:54,120 --> 00:35:56,120
Speaker 5: want to get on TV right now, Molly, you know it.

667
00:35:56,160 --> 00:35:58,360
Speaker 5: You just say Democrats suck, write an op ed, it

668
00:35:58,360 --> 00:36:00,560
Speaker 5: gets published. You can be an a blog of any

669
00:36:00,560 --> 00:36:02,799
Speaker 5: show you want to be on and you know that's

670
00:36:02,840 --> 00:36:04,840
Speaker 5: all well and good. I think enough op eds have

671
00:36:04,880 --> 00:36:07,680
Speaker 5: been written about what the Democrats did wrong. I'm sick

672
00:36:07,680 --> 00:36:09,680
Speaker 5: of that shit. I think it's our responsibility to talk

673
00:36:09,680 --> 00:36:11,480
Speaker 5: about what we're going to do next, to tell people

674
00:36:11,480 --> 00:36:13,959
Speaker 5: who we are going to be and what we've been.

675
00:36:14,239 --> 00:36:16,600
Speaker 5: And so that's why I go all across this country

676
00:36:16,719 --> 00:36:18,520
Speaker 5: talking about how we're going to make life better for

677
00:36:18,600 --> 00:36:20,960
Speaker 5: working people and working families. And I have no doubt

678
00:36:21,000 --> 00:36:23,040
Speaker 5: that those two leaders are going to continue to do

679
00:36:23,080 --> 00:36:25,000
Speaker 5: that work, no matter what their role or title is.

680
00:36:25,280 --> 00:36:28,920
Speaker 1: So they didn't step down because they were feeling that

681
00:36:29,000 --> 00:36:31,879
Speaker 1: the DNC wasn't doing what it should be doing.

682
00:36:32,200 --> 00:36:35,040
Speaker 5: I can't get into their their heads here. We know

683
00:36:35,080 --> 00:36:37,560
Speaker 5: what they wrote in their letters and what's been reported.

684
00:36:37,800 --> 00:36:40,200
Speaker 5: But let me just say, you know they they did

685
00:36:40,239 --> 00:36:42,520
Speaker 5: this for you know a number of years. They have

686
00:36:42,640 --> 00:36:45,560
Speaker 5: done their their service and their time at the DMC.

687
00:36:45,800 --> 00:36:49,480
Speaker 5: They have huge organizations that they run, and those organizations

688
00:36:49,520 --> 00:36:52,520
Speaker 5: and the values of AFT, the values of AFTE are

689
00:36:52,560 --> 00:36:56,480
Speaker 5: the Democratic Party values. And when Democrats take the House

690
00:36:56,520 --> 00:36:58,880
Speaker 5: back in twenty twenty six, we better get about the

691
00:36:58,880 --> 00:37:01,759
Speaker 5: business of passing the pro forcing the Senate and the

692
00:37:01,760 --> 00:37:04,759
Speaker 5: President to be against making it easier for people to

693
00:37:04,840 --> 00:37:07,120
Speaker 5: organize on the job. You know. In a now viral

694
00:37:07,200 --> 00:37:09,960
Speaker 5: video where I work in Harrisburg, after a speech that

695
00:37:10,000 --> 00:37:12,480
Speaker 5: I gave about the minimum wage, the Republican leader gets

696
00:37:12,560 --> 00:37:15,399
Speaker 5: up on the floor and says, every job shouldn't have

697
00:37:15,920 --> 00:37:18,399
Speaker 5: a living shouldn't be a living wage because he's such

698
00:37:18,400 --> 00:37:20,680
Speaker 5: a you know, a jerk, you know, in an asshole.

699
00:37:20,719 --> 00:37:23,280
Speaker 5: He does not think people should be paid a dignified wage.

700
00:37:23,360 --> 00:37:26,000
Speaker 5: That's what we're up against right now. And Randy and

701
00:37:26,040 --> 00:37:28,120
Speaker 5: Lee are going to definitely be in the trenches helping

702
00:37:28,200 --> 00:37:30,719
Speaker 5: us do that work, you know, and we respect their leadership.

703
00:37:31,200 --> 00:37:32,800
Speaker 5: But now we have to move forward and do the

704
00:37:32,880 --> 00:37:35,480
Speaker 5: work that we must do, making sure that everybody hears

705
00:37:35,480 --> 00:37:38,680
Speaker 5: about how the Democratic Party wants to make life better

706
00:37:38,960 --> 00:37:41,239
Speaker 5: for working people and working families.

707
00:37:41,640 --> 00:37:46,759
Speaker 1: Jerry Connelly he died in office the day before the

708
00:37:46,880 --> 00:37:50,560
Speaker 1: Big Beautiful Bill was passed by a one full margin.

709
00:37:51,040 --> 00:37:54,399
Speaker 1: In my mind, that strikes me as why we are

710
00:37:54,440 --> 00:37:57,120
Speaker 1: in so much trouble in this moment. Can you speak

711
00:37:57,160 --> 00:37:57,480
Speaker 1: to it?

712
00:37:57,800 --> 00:37:59,520
Speaker 5: Yeah, So, first of all, I just want to say

713
00:37:59,600 --> 00:38:02,880
Speaker 5: just to Rep. Connolly's family and to his you know,

714
00:38:02,920 --> 00:38:06,160
Speaker 5: incredible wife, Kathy I know how hard this is, but

715
00:38:06,360 --> 00:38:09,280
Speaker 5: let me also say, I think that voters are having

716
00:38:09,400 --> 00:38:13,120
Speaker 5: these these conversations, all these conversations that you're talking about.

717
00:38:13,600 --> 00:38:16,359
Speaker 5: I want to see people who have a vision for

718
00:38:16,400 --> 00:38:19,760
Speaker 5: this country, people who have a good way of talking

719
00:38:19,800 --> 00:38:23,439
Speaker 5: about the future, to step up. And honestly, the people

720
00:38:23,600 --> 00:38:25,080
Speaker 5: need to step up the most are the folks who

721
00:38:25,120 --> 00:38:27,440
Speaker 5: have the most on the line. I mean, listen, I'm

722
00:38:27,440 --> 00:38:30,440
Speaker 5: not even thirty five yet I'm asking every single day,

723
00:38:30,440 --> 00:38:32,239
Speaker 5: am I gonna be able to breathe the damn air

724
00:38:32,440 --> 00:38:34,560
Speaker 5: and drink the water? Or me and my husband may

725
00:38:34,600 --> 00:38:37,960
Speaker 5: the start a family to live in a community that's safe.

726
00:38:38,080 --> 00:38:39,680
Speaker 5: And if we had kids, are they going to grow

727
00:38:39,760 --> 00:38:44,680
Speaker 5: up in some authoritarian, right wing maga QAnon regime? And

728
00:38:44,719 --> 00:38:48,920
Speaker 5: so I think invariably you are gonna have people who

729
00:38:49,320 --> 00:38:52,040
Speaker 5: understand the impact of this moment, including a bunch of

730
00:38:52,080 --> 00:38:55,920
Speaker 5: young people, step up and run for office. And they should.

731
00:38:56,239 --> 00:38:59,200
Speaker 5: People should step up and run for office. But we

732
00:38:59,239 --> 00:39:04,279
Speaker 5: shouldn't also so not continue to give Republicans a pass here.

733
00:39:04,600 --> 00:39:07,760
Speaker 5: And I think what often happens is, well, we assume

734
00:39:07,840 --> 00:39:10,080
Speaker 5: Republicans are bad, So why even talk about the fact

735
00:39:10,120 --> 00:39:12,680
Speaker 5: that they're bad? The big bullshit bill, which is what

736
00:39:12,719 --> 00:39:15,640
Speaker 5: I call it, passed because Republicans want it to pass,

737
00:39:15,880 --> 00:39:18,720
Speaker 5: because they do not give a damn about kicking fourteen

738
00:39:18,719 --> 00:39:20,839
Speaker 5: million people off of health care, because they don't care

739
00:39:21,280 --> 00:39:23,880
Speaker 5: about ripping food out of the mouths of kids, because

740
00:39:23,880 --> 00:39:27,680
Speaker 5: they don't care about shutting down critical research that helps

741
00:39:27,760 --> 00:39:31,279
Speaker 5: us deal with issues like cancer and HIV, because they

742
00:39:31,280 --> 00:39:34,120
Speaker 5: don't care about people being kicked out of their homes.

743
00:39:34,440 --> 00:39:37,880
Speaker 5: And the reality is that time and time and time again,

744
00:39:38,320 --> 00:39:42,319
Speaker 5: we are ignoring the advice that comes from a very

745
00:39:42,400 --> 00:39:45,279
Speaker 5: unexpected place. If you ever saw the show Silo, I

746
00:39:45,320 --> 00:39:48,279
Speaker 5: don't watch Silo. My husband watched Silo, and if I

747
00:39:48,320 --> 00:39:50,120
Speaker 5: want to sit in the fucking living room, I apparently

748
00:39:50,120 --> 00:39:52,840
Speaker 5: aren't have to watch Silo too, and so and so

749
00:39:53,360 --> 00:39:56,280
Speaker 5: and so. One of the characters on Silo said something

750
00:39:56,320 --> 00:39:58,279
Speaker 5: that I felt was so impactful. She said, we have

751
00:39:58,320 --> 00:40:00,600
Speaker 5: to figure out how to be angry with each other

752
00:40:01,000 --> 00:40:04,359
Speaker 5: and not at each other, because in this moment, the

753
00:40:04,400 --> 00:40:08,040
Speaker 5: things that we're even defending, I don't think even enough

754
00:40:08,080 --> 00:40:11,880
Speaker 5: Democrats know that this is something we did. Medicare, Medicaid,

755
00:40:11,880 --> 00:40:15,360
Speaker 5: social Security, these are programs that are deeply popular. The

756
00:40:15,400 --> 00:40:20,400
Speaker 5: Affordable Care Act programs that are deeply popular that Democrats passed,

757
00:40:20,560 --> 00:40:22,239
Speaker 5: and we have to get back to the business of

758
00:40:22,320 --> 00:40:24,879
Speaker 5: talking about how we're going to do that again, how

759
00:40:24,880 --> 00:40:27,879
Speaker 5: we're going to make life better and if you hear

760
00:40:27,920 --> 00:40:31,200
Speaker 5: me again, Hey, Malcolm, should young people run for office? Yes? Yes, yes,

761
00:40:31,239 --> 00:40:33,080
Speaker 5: they should run for office. Al Roker did a whole

762
00:40:33,080 --> 00:40:35,759
Speaker 5: documentary about my run for office called Do Not Wait

763
00:40:35,800 --> 00:40:37,760
Speaker 5: Your Turn. You can go watch it if you're bored. Okay,

764
00:40:37,920 --> 00:40:40,759
Speaker 5: So I'm all about this, but I just want to

765
00:40:40,760 --> 00:40:43,040
Speaker 5: be crystal clear that voters are going to decide who

766
00:40:43,040 --> 00:40:44,879
Speaker 5: those nominees are and I'm going to support them.

767
00:40:44,960 --> 00:40:48,200
Speaker 1: Yeah, I get that, and I agree with everything you're saying.

768
00:40:48,239 --> 00:40:50,839
Speaker 1: I probably would have said it. I probably have said

769
00:40:50,880 --> 00:40:53,920
Speaker 1: it myself in a very similar way over the last

770
00:40:53,920 --> 00:40:54,760
Speaker 1: twenty four hours.

771
00:40:54,800 --> 00:40:56,200
Speaker 5: Well you've said it better, I'm sure.

772
00:40:57,280 --> 00:40:59,360
Speaker 1: No, I think about the same. But I want to

773
00:40:59,400 --> 00:41:01,839
Speaker 1: ask you for example, and I say this. You know

774
00:41:02,040 --> 00:41:06,239
Speaker 1: I'm a partisan, So what is responsibilityy with something like

775
00:41:06,320 --> 00:41:09,799
Speaker 1: the Jerry Connolly situation? Like? Because I mean, listen, I

776
00:41:10,000 --> 00:41:12,279
Speaker 1: like a lot of those people. I like a lot

777
00:41:12,280 --> 00:41:14,880
Speaker 1: of the people in the House, a lot of Democratic

778
00:41:14,880 --> 00:41:18,040
Speaker 1: Congress people I call a friend. I talk to people

779
00:41:18,200 --> 00:41:21,760
Speaker 1: before the vote. I know that a lot of people

780
00:41:22,000 --> 00:41:25,080
Speaker 1: liked him, but I just am curious, like basically what

781
00:41:25,200 --> 00:41:27,480
Speaker 1: I heard from people because I asked them why they

782
00:41:27,520 --> 00:41:31,360
Speaker 1: would elevate him instead of AOC because he was battling

783
00:41:31,400 --> 00:41:34,680
Speaker 1: throw cancer, was seventy six and also just was not

784
00:41:34,840 --> 00:41:37,520
Speaker 1: as good a communicator as AOC. And you know, you

785
00:41:37,560 --> 00:41:39,920
Speaker 1: can like him or love him, but he was not

786
00:41:39,960 --> 00:41:43,680
Speaker 1: a politician who broke through. Particularly so when I asked

787
00:41:43,760 --> 00:41:46,359
Speaker 1: people about why they were voting for him, they would say, well,

788
00:41:46,440 --> 00:41:50,560
Speaker 1: it's his turn. And I wonder, whose responsibility is it

789
00:41:50,800 --> 00:41:54,520
Speaker 1: to tell somebody in their seventies who's got throw cancer

790
00:41:54,560 --> 00:41:57,120
Speaker 1: that they can't be ranking member, Like obviously there's a

791
00:41:57,160 --> 00:42:00,879
Speaker 1: failure of leadership here, or doesn't it seem like if

792
00:42:00,960 --> 00:42:03,360
Speaker 1: I had a company and I were running a company

793
00:42:03,400 --> 00:42:05,480
Speaker 1: and you know, we just had And I don't mean

794
00:42:05,520 --> 00:42:07,640
Speaker 1: to push you on this because I really like you

795
00:42:07,680 --> 00:42:10,080
Speaker 1: and we're friends, and I have enough elected who are

796
00:42:10,120 --> 00:42:10,480
Speaker 1: mad at me.

797
00:42:10,719 --> 00:42:11,560
Speaker 5: Oh please put me out.

798
00:42:11,840 --> 00:42:14,720
Speaker 1: Yeah, but I just am wondering, like, whose responsibility isn't

799
00:42:14,760 --> 00:42:18,960
Speaker 1: like Republicans are craven, like we saw Republicans tell Steve

800
00:42:19,000 --> 00:42:21,720
Speaker 1: Scalice he couldn't be in leadership because he had blood cancer.

801
00:42:21,800 --> 00:42:24,440
Speaker 1: We heard Marjorie Taylor Green say that she was like,

802
00:42:24,480 --> 00:42:28,000
Speaker 1: you can't because you had blood cancer. So whose responsibility

803
00:42:28,040 --> 00:42:30,359
Speaker 1: is it to say to someone in their seventies who

804
00:42:30,440 --> 00:42:32,560
Speaker 1: has cancer? And I say this as someone who has

805
00:42:32,600 --> 00:42:36,560
Speaker 1: a husband who had cancer, like, whose responsibility is it

806
00:42:36,600 --> 00:42:37,160
Speaker 1: to say.

807
00:42:37,000 --> 00:42:39,360
Speaker 5: That we listen? I think the antidote to all of

808
00:42:39,400 --> 00:42:42,040
Speaker 5: the problems we have in this moment are those three

809
00:42:42,080 --> 00:42:45,000
Speaker 5: words that open our constitution, We the people. It's not

810
00:42:45,080 --> 00:42:49,600
Speaker 5: like these conversations aren't being had. These conversations are being had.

811
00:42:49,840 --> 00:42:53,360
Speaker 5: We see voters every single day talking about the types

812
00:42:53,400 --> 00:42:57,120
Speaker 5: of candidates that speak to them, Candidates who can talk

813
00:42:57,200 --> 00:43:01,839
Speaker 5: about the future, candidates who have a vision, candidates who have,

814
00:43:02,280 --> 00:43:05,160
Speaker 5: you know, fire in the belly. To meet this moment

815
00:43:05,320 --> 00:43:08,640
Speaker 5: and treat this moment like it's the five alarm fire

816
00:43:08,960 --> 00:43:11,239
Speaker 5: that it is. Treat this moment like we have an

817
00:43:11,280 --> 00:43:15,160
Speaker 5: authoritarian in the White House who's sending the military against

818
00:43:15,360 --> 00:43:17,480
Speaker 5: its citizens. We have to treat it with that, with

819
00:43:17,560 --> 00:43:20,680
Speaker 5: that seriousness. But I want to be very clear with folks.

820
00:43:20,760 --> 00:43:22,439
Speaker 5: I want people to think about this for a second,

821
00:43:22,480 --> 00:43:25,440
Speaker 5: which is why I'm being careful you know, I chose

822
00:43:25,480 --> 00:43:29,839
Speaker 5: to run for a specific gig within the Democratic National Committee,

823
00:43:30,120 --> 00:43:31,680
Speaker 5: and there are a lot of people who look at

824
00:43:31,680 --> 00:43:34,040
Speaker 5: me and say, Malcolm, you always talk about, you know,

825
00:43:34,080 --> 00:43:36,880
Speaker 5: don't wait your turn, your young guy running running running

826
00:43:36,880 --> 00:43:42,360
Speaker 5: for office. The reality, though, is this, we do not

827
00:43:42,640 --> 00:43:46,560
Speaker 5: want officers of the DNC trying to make all of

828
00:43:46,600 --> 00:43:50,000
Speaker 5: these decisions. We don't want that. We don't want that.

829
00:43:50,040 --> 00:43:52,960
Speaker 5: And people think they want that right now because because

830
00:43:52,960 --> 00:43:55,359
Speaker 5: there's somebody who you think agrees with you, who's there.

831
00:43:55,440 --> 00:43:57,040
Speaker 5: But Malcolm's not going to be by sheriff of the

832
00:43:57,120 --> 00:43:59,239
Speaker 5: DNC forever. And what if the next vice chair of

833
00:43:59,280 --> 00:44:01,400
Speaker 5: the d NC says, know what, the progressives are the

834
00:44:01,480 --> 00:44:03,879
Speaker 5: problem with everything in the in the party, and we're

835
00:44:03,880 --> 00:44:06,080
Speaker 5: gonna do everything we can to get them out of

836
00:44:06,600 --> 00:44:08,879
Speaker 5: the party. You know that's wrong. I want to see

837
00:44:08,920 --> 00:44:12,160
Speaker 5: a party that is run by the people, and the

838
00:44:12,200 --> 00:44:15,560
Speaker 5: people are making their their voices heard. People are stepping

839
00:44:15,640 --> 00:44:18,359
Speaker 5: up every single day to run for office. I mean,

840
00:44:18,400 --> 00:44:20,800
Speaker 5: I saw a run for something talk about the amount

841
00:44:20,800 --> 00:44:23,600
Speaker 5: of people who've signed up with them to run for office.

842
00:44:23,680 --> 00:44:25,440
Speaker 5: And I think the best thing that I can do

843
00:44:25,920 --> 00:44:28,360
Speaker 5: is to say, in no uncertain terms and repeat to

844
00:44:28,440 --> 00:44:31,840
Speaker 5: folks that if you want to run for office, you

845
00:44:31,880 --> 00:44:35,239
Speaker 5: should step up and run. I think these conversations are,

846
00:44:35,600 --> 00:44:38,480
Speaker 5: you know, conversations that we that we should have. If

847
00:44:38,480 --> 00:44:40,920
Speaker 5: we're going to make life better for people, we certainly

848
00:44:40,960 --> 00:44:43,600
Speaker 5: have to be willing to have tough conversations as Democrats.

849
00:44:43,920 --> 00:44:48,200
Speaker 5: But I should not be trying to dictate those those conversations,

850
00:44:48,440 --> 00:44:51,160
Speaker 5: you know. And it's very rare that you have political

851
00:44:51,239 --> 00:44:54,520
Speaker 5: leaders that don't think they should be in charge of everything.

852
00:44:54,560 --> 00:44:56,560
Speaker 5: I don't think I should be in charge of everything.

853
00:44:56,760 --> 00:44:58,920
Speaker 5: I think that I should be listening to what voters

854
00:44:59,120 --> 00:45:00,880
Speaker 5: tell me to do, and what voters want me to

855
00:45:00,920 --> 00:45:03,359
Speaker 5: do right now is to make sure that we can win.

856
00:45:03,640 --> 00:45:06,320
Speaker 5: And a part of why the Democratic Party is not one,

857
00:45:06,760 --> 00:45:09,839
Speaker 5: in my view, is that we've treated ourselves for too

858
00:45:09,880 --> 00:45:12,560
Speaker 5: long like we exist to throw a big party every

859
00:45:12,600 --> 00:45:15,640
Speaker 5: four years and just elect a president. And we've changed that.

860
00:45:15,680 --> 00:45:18,920
Speaker 5: We're investing a million dollars a month in state parties,

861
00:45:18,960 --> 00:45:22,239
Speaker 5: the single largest investment out of DC into state so

862
00:45:22,280 --> 00:45:25,160
Speaker 5: we can do year round organizing. We started this program

863
00:45:25,160 --> 00:45:27,759
Speaker 5: like the Blueprint, so every day at ten am, we're

864
00:45:27,800 --> 00:45:29,920
Speaker 5: prebudding all of the lies that are going to come

865
00:45:29,960 --> 00:45:33,280
Speaker 5: from the john S Brady press room where this lady

866
00:45:33,280 --> 00:45:35,840
Speaker 5: gets up with her cross and then says everything that

867
00:45:35,960 --> 00:45:38,440
Speaker 5: Jesus would despise, and the list goes on and on.

868
00:45:38,600 --> 00:45:40,960
Speaker 5: So I have a job to do, and my job

869
00:45:41,040 --> 00:45:44,439
Speaker 5: is to build the infrastructure so Democrats can and can win.

870
00:45:44,920 --> 00:45:47,239
Speaker 5: I want to make sure they win. I want to

871
00:45:47,280 --> 00:45:50,680
Speaker 5: see younger leaders step up to run for office, and

872
00:45:50,680 --> 00:45:52,160
Speaker 5: I want to see leaders who have fire in the

873
00:45:52,160 --> 00:45:54,080
Speaker 5: belly to step up for run for office. And I

874
00:45:54,120 --> 00:45:56,399
Speaker 5: want all of them to be talking about my three

875
00:45:56,400 --> 00:45:58,400
Speaker 5: words on how they're going to make life better for

876
00:45:58,480 --> 00:46:00,719
Speaker 5: working people and working families. I think that's what voters

877
00:46:00,760 --> 00:46:01,200
Speaker 5: want to hear it too.

878
00:46:01,239 --> 00:46:04,759
Speaker 1: Frankly, thank you, thank you, thank you, Malcolm.

879
00:46:04,440 --> 00:46:11,319
Speaker 5: Thank you so much. I really appreciate this opportunity.

880
00:46:09,239 --> 00:46:10,480
Speaker 3: No moment.

881
00:46:12,400 --> 00:46:17,560
Speaker 2: Jesse Cannon Molly friend of the podcast, Mary Ziegler has

882
00:46:17,600 --> 00:46:21,080
Speaker 2: a great article on Slate about how the GOP keeps

883
00:46:21,120 --> 00:46:22,720
Speaker 2: losing public abortion votes.

884
00:46:23,000 --> 00:46:24,840
Speaker 3: So now it's trying a new angle.

885
00:46:25,280 --> 00:46:28,960
Speaker 1: Yeah, choice is popular, you know it's popular. The GOP

886
00:46:29,320 --> 00:46:32,560
Speaker 1: put abortion on the ballot a bunch of times, and

887
00:46:32,760 --> 00:46:37,080
Speaker 1: every time abortion wins. Missouri is an interesting state because

888
00:46:37,120 --> 00:46:39,719
Speaker 1: this is one of these states where they've been using

889
00:46:39,760 --> 00:46:43,480
Speaker 1: it as a test case for anti choice legislation. They

890
00:46:43,520 --> 00:46:48,400
Speaker 1: had a ballot initiative which enshrined creating constitutional reproductive rights.

891
00:46:48,440 --> 00:46:53,359
Speaker 1: But because it's Missouri, the legislators are all Republicans. It's

892
00:46:53,400 --> 00:46:58,600
Speaker 1: a Republican supermajority. So even though voters want to enshrine

893
00:46:59,000 --> 00:47:04,440
Speaker 1: reproductive rights, legislators don't because they're all Republicans. So instead

894
00:47:04,480 --> 00:47:07,200
Speaker 1: of doing what the voters wanted with the ballot initiatives,

895
00:47:07,200 --> 00:47:09,360
Speaker 1: and we saw this in Florida too. Right in Florida,

896
00:47:09,560 --> 00:47:14,760
Speaker 1: they wanted to restore voting to felons and the government

897
00:47:14,880 --> 00:47:16,680
Speaker 1: was like, no, fuck you, we're not going to do it,

898
00:47:16,719 --> 00:47:18,759
Speaker 1: even though you voted for it. So that's what's happening here.

899
00:47:18,920 --> 00:47:23,280
Speaker 1: Missouri is going to try now to pass a ballot

900
00:47:23,360 --> 00:47:28,759
Speaker 1: initiative which will overturn the most recent ballot initiative. This

901
00:47:28,960 --> 00:47:34,320
Speaker 1: is like yet another Republican's hate democracy moment. Right, they lose,

902
00:47:34,600 --> 00:47:37,600
Speaker 1: they don't care, They just cheat. When you realize that

903
00:47:37,600 --> 00:47:40,920
Speaker 1: trump Ism is an extension of this, when you realize

904
00:47:40,960 --> 00:47:44,920
Speaker 1: trumpsm doesn't happen in a vacuum, that the party that

905
00:47:45,080 --> 00:47:49,360
Speaker 1: jerry manders, that the party that does not accept losing

906
00:47:49,400 --> 00:47:52,759
Speaker 1: a ballot initiative that that party. Trump Ism is the

907
00:47:52,880 --> 00:47:55,240
Speaker 1: natural progression of that party.

908
00:47:55,920 --> 00:47:57,719
Speaker 3: One hundred percent.

909
00:47:58,719 --> 00:48:03,040
Speaker 1: That's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in

910
00:48:03,360 --> 00:48:08,800
Speaker 1: every Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Saturday to hear the best

911
00:48:08,880 --> 00:48:13,200
Speaker 1: minds and politics make sense of all this chaos. If

912
00:48:13,239 --> 00:48:16,280
Speaker 1: you enjoy this podcast, please send it to a friend

913
00:48:16,719 --> 00:48:19,920
Speaker 1: and keep the conversation going. Thanks for listening.