Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics,
Speaker 1: where we discussed the top political headlines with some of
Speaker 1: today's best minds and companies. Are now urging the Supreme
Speaker 1: Court to quickly hear Trump's tearuff challenge. H I wonder
Speaker 1: why we have such a great show for you today.
Speaker 1: Talking Points Memo's own Josh Marshall stops by to talk
Speaker 1: Trump overplaying his hand with an unpopular agenda. Ben, we'll
Speaker 1: talk to the Vice chair of the Democratic National Committee,
Speaker 1: Malcolm Kenyatta about the drama inside the DNC and his
Speaker 1: vision for the organization. But first the news.
Speaker 2: All right, Maya, let's start off today with like an
Speaker 2: edition of that I like to call the Tyrant News.
Speaker 2: Senator Alex Padilla called Trump a tyrant on the Senate
Speaker 2: for today, and well, when you think of how a
Speaker 2: tyrant rules, you would think of this picture that I
Speaker 2: saw today of Comptroll Bradlander, who's the second in charge
Speaker 2: of New York City for those not familiar, being choked
Speaker 2: by an ICE official in a mask and another one
Speaker 2: standing by in a really ominous mask.
Speaker 3: And it really is just not giving freedom.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, let's talk about this. ICE has now arrested. Okay,
Speaker 1: our com troller Bradlander. Senator Alex Paedilla, Okay, we were
Speaker 1: told Christy Noms said she did not know he was
Speaker 1: a United States senator. This is not like members of
Speaker 1: Congress couldn't fucking figure out who. By the way, I mean,
Speaker 1: Alex Padilla has been on this podcast. We all know
Speaker 1: who Alex Padia is, and we are not even elected
Speaker 1: members of government.
Speaker 2: One might say, Corey Lewandowski also knew who Alex Padilla was.
Speaker 1: Yes, So I mean, what the point here is that
Speaker 1: there's video of Ice just completely roughing up Lander. There's
Speaker 1: a photo of Lander looking like he's being choked. Again. Look,
Speaker 1: nobody is ever going to want to come here. Number one, Like,
Speaker 1: we are a service economy, we live on tourism, We
Speaker 1: try to engage Taurus. They are not going to want
Speaker 1: to come here. The few who do not have phones,
Speaker 1: you know, who haven't seen what the fuck is going
Speaker 1: on here, are not going to want to come here.
Speaker 1: Second of all, this is a country where we don't
Speaker 1: arrest the people we don't like. Like, that's not how
Speaker 1: this works, or at least it's not how it's supposed
Speaker 1: to work. So we have all of these visuals of
Speaker 1: Ice just arresting democratic politicians, even if the democratic politician
Speaker 1: is doing something stupid. It makes Ice look terrible. And
Speaker 1: one of the things about trump Ism is that there
Speaker 1: are always these unintended consequences, right, things that they didn't
Speaker 1: necessarily mean to happen. And this is such a great
Speaker 1: example of an unintended consequence. So now we're going to
Speaker 1: have a whole news cycle about Ice arresting Bradlander as
Speaker 1: opposed to anything else.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it don't think they are saying that.
Speaker 2: Of course, mister Lander allegedly assaulted the officers. We've seen
Speaker 2: this lie before, since my wife was a part of
Speaker 2: the previous time they lied about this in New York.
Speaker 1: City, where they went and arrested someone in Jaring Nadler's
Speaker 1: office because they said Nadler was going against Ice. It
Speaker 1: turned out none of that was true.
Speaker 2: Yes, so we can't really take these people out there word.
Speaker 2: The other thing I should say is you could hear
Speaker 2: the video. What of the officers literally say you sure
Speaker 2: we want to arrest the second in charge of New
Speaker 2: York City.
Speaker 1: Yeah, let me tell you who the big loser in
Speaker 1: this is, besides Ice and the Trump administration. You know
Speaker 1: who the big loser is, Tell me Andrew Cuomo, because
Speaker 1: nobody who knows who the fuck Brad Lander is and
Speaker 1: being arrested by Ice may be the best thing that
Speaker 1: happens to Lander and the worst thing that happens to
Speaker 1: one Andrew.
Speaker 2: Well, I won't be crying eighty tears anyway. We now
Speaker 2: have a bipartisan bill in Congress from Rocanna and Thomas
Speaker 2: Messi to say Trump can't go to.
Speaker 1: War with a run Yeah. I mean, by the way,
Speaker 1: I am no Thomas Massey fan, but the Thomas Massey's
Speaker 1: and also the ran Paul's. Okay, these are not people
Speaker 1: that anyone particularly wants to agree with. But these guys
Speaker 1: at least have acted in a bipartisan way, and so
Speaker 1: at least they have principles. Like Massy and ran Paul
Speaker 1: have said no, you know, they won't vote for trump Ism,
Speaker 1: and I actually think, I mean this is because they
Speaker 1: don't want to do regime change in Iran, which, by
Speaker 1: the way, I just want to pause from it and
Speaker 1: think about the many times in which America has tried
Speaker 1: to do regime change and how well it's worked out.
Speaker 1: There are some translators from Afghanistan who are being deported
Speaker 1: right now. And so I want to tell you we
Speaker 1: are not a country that can do regime change. We
Speaker 1: can barely do our own regime okay change right, so
Speaker 1: should we be doing regime change? Abs fucking insane. You know,
Speaker 1: Massey goes with the Democrat that's in an effort to
Speaker 1: require congressional approval before Trump attacks Iran. This is one
Speaker 1: hundred percent. First of all, presidents should not be allowed
Speaker 1: to do this unilaterally. This is like a vestige of
Speaker 1: Bush too. You know that they should go. And I'm
Speaker 1: sure there are somebody who listens to this podcast is
Speaker 1: going to tell me the stories of ways in which
Speaker 1: presidents have grabbed power from Congress. But this is another one.
Speaker 1: He should not be able to do this now. Of
Speaker 1: course it's Trump. So Republicans are even more cowardly than usual. Again,
Speaker 1: I don't know what Trump is doing, because no one
Speaker 1: knows what Trump is doing because Trump is so erratic
Speaker 1: and crazy. But Trump's people have been sending out the
Speaker 1: word via the mainstream media that Trump wants to bring
Speaker 1: a Ran back to the table. Who even knows if
Speaker 1: that's what he wants, but that's what his people are
Speaker 1: pretending he wants yeah fun stuff.
Speaker 2: So, speaking of a little bit of Trump pushback in
Speaker 2: the legislative branch, the Senate GOP is rethinking the tax
Speaker 2: cuts and medicare overhaul in Trump's megabill.
Speaker 1: Yeah. CBO releases a dynamic score of the House Past
Speaker 1: One Beautiful Bill Act, finding it would add two point
Speaker 1: seven seven trillion to the debt. This is worse than
Speaker 1: the two point four trillion, and that's because the economic
Speaker 1: growth revenue is outlighed by higher debt interest payments.
Speaker 2: Somali, here's a thing I was not looking forward to discussing,
Speaker 2: because we discussed it on Sunday and frankly, it's so repulsive.
Speaker 2: But Senator Mike Lee has decided to leet the social
Speaker 2: media posts where he lied about the motives of a
Speaker 2: murder of a bunch of different legislators in Minnesota after
Speaker 2: he was confronted by both a letter from a colleague,
Speaker 2: Senator Tita Smith in person and reporters where he was
Speaker 2: such a coward he wouldn't even answer the reporters and
Speaker 2: he would not stand by this stupid based Mike Lee
Speaker 2: account where he constantly trolls and makes a mockery of
Speaker 2: our entire system.
Speaker 1: So Mike Lee has this account called based Mike Lee
Speaker 1: where he channels Don Junior, and in it he made
Speaker 1: all of these posts about how the murderer, the guy
Speaker 1: who murdered this woman and her husband the Democratic Minnesota
Speaker 1: State House she had been the house state House leader
Speaker 1: and murdered them in their beds while they were asleep
Speaker 1: in the dead of night because he was a Trump
Speaker 1: supporter and anti choys, Mike Lee posted all these things
Speaker 1: about how he was a Marxist and all sorts of
Speaker 1: really vile, disgustingness, and like so many keyboard warriors, when
Speaker 1: Tina Smith, who is a member of the Senate for
Speaker 1: the state of Minnesota, confronted him, he looked ashen and apologeic.
Speaker 1: I do not think he saw this coming. Then he
Speaker 1: actually deleted the tweets, which is okay, it's good that
Speaker 1: he deleted the tweets, But no apology. No, I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: none of that. No, let me correct the record. Just
Speaker 1: some tweets deleted and now running from reporters. Look, is
Speaker 1: it good to do the right thing? Yes? Is it
Speaker 1: good to delete the tweets? Yes? I mean it's just ridiculous.
Speaker 1: This person is a ridiculous person and this has been disgusting.
Speaker 1: These people were murdered. There are two other members of
Speaker 1: the Minnesota House who are in the hospital, still in surgery.
Speaker 1: I mean the heartiest, the heartiest, Fuck that guy to
Speaker 1: Mike lay who it's actually not moment of fuck Ray,
Speaker 1: but I say it is.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And we should say there's a industrial complex of
Speaker 2: the right wing. Try to give your grandfather a reason
Speaker 2: that they could argue at the dinner table and say
Speaker 2: there's not right wing violence and the same reason elods
Speaker 2: now correct it. Grock factually saying that the right is
Speaker 2: more violent incidents than the left.
Speaker 3: Is that they try to pretend this isn't the case
Speaker 3: so they can keep getting away with it. But it's
Speaker 3: not going to happen.
Speaker 1: Josh Marshall is the editor of Talking Points Memo. Welcome
Speaker 1: back to Fast Politics.
Speaker 4: Josh, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: It was the best of times. It was the worst
Speaker 1: of times. Last night when Donald Trump left the G seven,
Speaker 1: I was like struck by this moment of like, oh, right,
Speaker 1: we have real world stuff and a DoD that's run
Speaker 1: by a weekend host from Fox News.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you know. That was one of the features of
Speaker 4: Trump's first presidency that until COVID, until the world like exploding,
Speaker 4: there wasn't a lot of high stake stuff going on.
Speaker 4: That's good for him, since he's not a manager of
Speaker 4: things in any real way. This second presidency is very different,
Speaker 4: partly because of all the chaos that he has unleashed,
Speaker 4: but also because it's we now live in a more
Speaker 4: chaotic world. And some of that's because of his first presidency.
Speaker 4: Some of that's because we're still kind of in the
Speaker 4: post COVID era. But yeah, I mean it's we see that.
Speaker 4: I actually thought that that was something that was in
Speaker 4: the backdrop to what you just mentioned, his deciding to
Speaker 4: leave the G seven meeting. That in both Washington and
Speaker 4: Jerusalem right now and what's going on in Tehran is
Speaker 4: its own possibly similar, similar world. You have leaders who
Speaker 4: you really don't know what their game is, and that
Speaker 4: creates a lot of a lot of uncertainty, even beyond
Speaker 4: the way that war is inherently uncertain.
Speaker 1: I wrote this piece yesterday for Verny Fair from my
Speaker 1: column about how the grown ups in the room I
Speaker 1: truly believe, for example, during Trump's one point now they
Speaker 1: all went on to write books who were like we
Speaker 1: were the grown ups in the room. We were the
Speaker 1: people who prevented Trump from going for Trump, and their
Speaker 1: argument was that being the grown ups in the room
Speaker 1: saved us all from what could have been something terrible. Now,
Speaker 1: my theory of the case is that the grown ups
Speaker 1: in the room actually just saved Trump, like made him
Speaker 1: electable in a way that may reelectable. So like, in
Speaker 1: some ways it's possible that we would have been honestly
Speaker 1: better off had there not been any grown ups in
Speaker 1: the room.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's possible.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think it's insane, But.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean I think it's both. When you said
Speaker 4: before about they more saved Trump, I think it's both.
Speaker 4: And that fits in with what you're saying by preventing
Speaker 4: him from doing totally out of control things. They both
Speaker 4: prevented damage to the country, certainly in a near term
Speaker 4: you can argue long term, you know, even more damage,
Speaker 4: but prevented damage to the country. But they also insulated him.
Speaker 4: And this is what I have thought a lot, and
Speaker 4: I thought this before the election. I thought it even
Speaker 4: more after the election. That one thing that you know,
Speaker 4: anti Trump people, Democrat, liberals, whatever, however, you know, wherever
Speaker 4: you want to draw the diagram missed about the Trump
Speaker 4: presidency is that because there were those I don't know,
Speaker 4: adults in the room, guardrails, whatever you want to call it,
Speaker 4: that if you just sort of looked away from politics,
Speaker 4: you could say, what was the problem. You know, yeah,
Speaker 4: he was weird and all this, he did all this
Speaker 4: silly stuff, but the economy, again until COVID, remained pretty buoyant.
Speaker 4: If you're not focused on politics and you're just living
Speaker 4: your life, you could say, you know, that was just
Speaker 4: the sort of the Washington Show and it seemed fine.
Speaker 4: And if you're not tuned into politics, so you can
Speaker 4: say he kept the economy going well. Well, you know,
Speaker 4: I'm not sure he did it, but it did keep
Speaker 4: going well.
Speaker 5: And that's what I So.
Speaker 4: I think this was a big blind spot for people
Speaker 4: to some degree like myself, who figured, all right, people
Speaker 4: are not going to lect that guy again, because you know,
Speaker 4: it's it was really a fight over voters who were
Speaker 4: not plugged in. And if you're not plugged in, you
Speaker 4: weren't paying that close attention. It just wasn't that bad.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we've seen more. I just saw a video of
Speaker 1: a woman who voted for Trump and her father got deported, Like,
Speaker 1: how do you make that? I mean, I guess you
Speaker 1: watch him on Joe Rogan you think, yeah, well, you know,
Speaker 1: why would Joe Rogan steer me wrong? Right?
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 4: I mean there's a lot of people we kind of
Speaker 4: wonder about whether they're having second thoughts. It is a
Speaker 4: little odd that you could have an immediate family member
Speaker 4: who is undocumented and you could think bringing Trump in
Speaker 4: was going to be a great idea that doesn't require
Speaker 4: a lot of creativity. But you know, having said that,
Speaker 4: they did certainly when it was opportune. They definitely said
Speaker 4: this thing, Oh, we're just going to go after the
Speaker 4: criminals and the bad guys and the rapists and everything, and.
Speaker 5: Clearly some people bought that.
Speaker 4: And you know, a lot of what it comes down
Speaker 4: to is people don't think that hard about things, right
Speaker 4: you say, well, didn't you figure it might happen to you?
Speaker 4: People don't get that far down the decision tree. That's
Speaker 4: how people exist in the world to a great extent.
Speaker 1: So Trump comes back Israel and aarn in some kind
Speaker 1: of war. Will America get involved? We don't know. But
Speaker 1: a really interesting story about the right has emerged. So
Speaker 1: we have Tucker Carlson and Marjorie Taylor Green again, you
Speaker 1: know this crew does not want war or who knows
Speaker 1: they have staked their ground as non interventionists sortid.
Speaker 4: Yeah, So talk us through that well with Tucker Carlson,
Speaker 4: there may be something to that. He's kind of moved
Speaker 4: in a very far direction. But a lot of the
Speaker 4: Trump people, you know, you hear Trump bomb someone or
Speaker 4: or killed some super bad guy, they're all for it.
Speaker 4: So in the whole Trump world, I think non interventionism
Speaker 4: is very shallow. It's until Trump says otherwise, But they're
Speaker 4: clearly is something with Israel here. That's a real cleavage,
Speaker 4: and not just because a lot of Trumpers are big
Speaker 4: time anti Semites, right.
Speaker 1: Right, right right, that's right, an important data point. I
Speaker 1: think that's a really important introduction.
Speaker 5: Yeah, but not only that.
Speaker 1: I think, right that's just a part of the tapestry.
Speaker 3: Just a part of it.
Speaker 4: I do think that in the Trump world what they
Speaker 4: want is the sort of the one night stand version
Speaker 4: of kicking ass. They want Trump to lash out and
Speaker 4: bomb people, but they want it to be over the
Speaker 4: next day, and they don't want to have to call
Speaker 4: a few days later and check in and see if
Speaker 4: you want to go on another date.
Speaker 1: Right, right, I mean exactly.
Speaker 4: They want to be super militarily strong and they want
Speaker 4: to dominate, and dominating requires like outbursts of violence, but
Speaker 4: they don't want it to be ongoing. I think that's
Speaker 4: their non interventionism.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's a very good point. And there's
Speaker 1: really a lot of anti Semitism, which I think is
Speaker 1: an unspoken or I think spoken but not spoken nearly enough.
Speaker 1: Because Trumpism wraps itself in being pro Israel, It's ultimately
Speaker 1: not really.
Speaker 4: Pro Israel beyond the fact that there's a domestic politics
Speaker 4: angle for them. I think Trump and a lot of
Speaker 4: trump Ism sees Israel as like a junior mascot of
Speaker 4: trump dominationism, right, you know, young buddy sidekick. So there
Speaker 4: is that aspect of it that is kind of you know,
Speaker 4: killing Arabs basically, or in this case, killing Iranians. And
Speaker 4: I think we're you know, where you have some of
Speaker 4: that cleavage is that most American Jews, to the extent
Speaker 4: that they are attached to Israel, are attached to a
Speaker 4: very different version of Israel, and a version of Israel
Speaker 4: that to a significant extent has been eclipsed over the
Speaker 4: last twenty or thirty years. And the part of Israel
Speaker 4: that the Trump folks are very attached to is the
Speaker 4: part that they are uncomfortable with. That's a whole you know,
Speaker 4: that's a whole thing. But one of the pioneers of
Speaker 4: political anti Semitism, sort of not a hall of fame
Speaker 4: you want to be in, is this guy who is
Speaker 4: the mayor of Vienna at the turn of the nineteenth
Speaker 4: twentieth century. His name is I think Luger, I can't
Speaker 4: remember what his first name was. In any case, was
Speaker 4: sort of the pioneer of populist anti Semitism. There's a
Speaker 4: funny thing because in his own life he had Jewish
Speaker 4: friends dine with Jews, and so there's this famous story
Speaker 4: where he gets asked one time, you're the big Jew hater.
Speaker 4: Why do we see you having, you know, dining with
Speaker 4: Jews and your friends are Jews, And he has his
Speaker 4: famous line he says, I decide who's a Jew? And
Speaker 4: Trump is I think like that, right, He'll decide who
Speaker 4: the Jews are. And you see that even where Asaurus
Speaker 4: is bad because he's you know, he's a bad Jew,
Speaker 4: and then they're good Jews.
Speaker 3: And that's sort of the Trump world.
Speaker 1: Yeah, cannot be stated enough. This is not actually about Judaism.
Speaker 1: This is just about a kind of quoke of a
Speaker 1: white nationalism or a fall right nationalism. You know, it's funny.
Speaker 1: I can ask you about this because you are so intellectual.
Speaker 1: I just realized, no, but seriously, because you know, you
Speaker 1: come from academia, so I can ask you about this.
Speaker 1: So I'm reading this book right now because I've been
Speaker 1: on my book tour, How to Lose Your Mother. It's
Speaker 1: available now.
Speaker 4: You should be so proud of your success. It's just
Speaker 4: it's it seems to be flying off the shelves.
Speaker 1: It's actually sold out everywhere, which is making me completely crazy.
Speaker 1: But it's amazing, and it is on the New York
Speaker 1: Times bestseller list, hopefully to stay. I'm very superstitious, but
Speaker 1: I'm reading this book on my book tour. The Anatomy
Speaker 1: of Fascism by Robert O. Paxton. I don't know if
Speaker 1: you know this book, And in it he's talking about
Speaker 1: how fascism is very much a cult of personality and
Speaker 1: that you can't do it with a non charismatic leader. Right.
Speaker 1: You have to have a Mussolini. You gotta have a Hitler.
Speaker 1: You gotta have even a pinochet, you can't. It doesn't
Speaker 1: work with an al Gore.
Speaker 4: Absolutely, And yes, that is absolutely part of it. And
Speaker 4: the hero worship and oddly the kind of even the
Speaker 4: eccentricities are kind of part of it, and the kind
Speaker 4: of the operatic kind of personality are part of it too.
Speaker 4: It's a weird aesthetic.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So do you think that what happens is that
Speaker 1: people are caught of guard by the humor? For example,
Speaker 1: in trump Ism, there's a certain kind of humor right
Speaker 1: like he's a ridiculous character, and that then they go
Speaker 1: along with things they might not otherwise had it been
Speaker 1: so like a JD. Vance is not going to get
Speaker 1: away with stuff that a Donald Trump is, just like
Speaker 1: Mike Pets was unable to get away with stuff that
Speaker 1: a Donald Trump did. Do you think the humor tricks
Speaker 1: constituents into going along with stuff or do you think
Speaker 1: that it just is irrelevant and that they're in a
Speaker 1: cultive personality.
Speaker 4: Well, I don't think it's irrelevant. I think how these
Speaker 4: cults of personality work are very complex, and it's important
Speaker 4: for people who revile Trump, who just who despise him,
Speaker 4: to see that in his own way. He is very charismatic.
Speaker 4: He's funny in his own way. Now it's often a
Speaker 4: sadistic kind of humor, but he does have this public
Speaker 4: style that is very effective. And one of the things
Speaker 4: about Trump is that he has these moments of self
Speaker 4: awareness and even kind of self criticism in a way,
Speaker 4: not self criticism exactly, but awareness of some of his craziness.
Speaker 4: And I, like many other people, have given a lot
Speaker 4: of thought to this. It's almost something that is not
Speaker 4: susceptible to discoursive thought in the way that you might
Speaker 4: write down in an academic book. It's a little more
Speaker 4: like jazz in a way. You get a feel for it.
Speaker 4: But I think all of those are part of it.
Speaker 4: And when we talk about a cult of personality, the humor,
Speaker 4: all of those things are part of it. Probably many
Speaker 4: of your listeners have seen this too, that Mike Lee,
Speaker 4: senator from Utah, the sort of the very degenerate senator
Speaker 4: from Mutah, is maybe in a little trouble now because
Speaker 4: one of the senators, Senator Smith from Minnesota, kind of
Speaker 4: called him out about these terrible tweets. And one of
Speaker 4: the many things that that episode shows is that people
Speaker 4: play these online personas and it becomes a separate world.
Speaker 4: And so we all have some experience of that, of
Speaker 4: the performative nature of these things. In some ways we
Speaker 4: live in that world. And Donald Trump is like a
Speaker 4: master of that world, of creating this kind of distracting
Speaker 4: alternative reality that is always on the move, always taking
Speaker 4: things in another direction, is entertaining, distracting, mesmerizing, and that thing,
Speaker 4: very hard to capture, is really central to his power.
Speaker 4: Even though it seems sort of silly and distracting and
Speaker 4: stupid and is all those things, it's central to it.
Speaker 4: And yeah, that is at the core of his power.
Speaker 4: And it's a weird thing to understand.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, it's funny because I watch him speak
Speaker 1: a lot, unfortunately for me. I'll watch c SPAN and
Speaker 1: you'll hear him do things like he'll say, well, we
Speaker 1: like you. Wasn't much of a Trumper, but now they're Trumpers.
Speaker 1: He's good to us the most mega he was so mega.
Speaker 1: We didn't like this, but we do like what he
Speaker 1: really thought about someone, which, if you think about it,
Speaker 1: think about all of the very well meaning democratic politicians
Speaker 1: who you and I really like are partisan favorites who
Speaker 1: will absolutely not fucking tell you anything. Right, it's a superpower.
Speaker 5: In a way, it is a superpower.
Speaker 4: And that's kind of a version of what I was
Speaker 4: talking about about the self criticism. It's not only self criticism,
Speaker 4: but he'll kind of go into it his own internal
Speaker 4: monologue sometimes, right, yep. And I do think that is
Speaker 4: a big reason that he has a hold on some
Speaker 4: people people's sense so like he's real and in a sense,
Speaker 4: I think what is resonating with them is that he's
Speaker 4: up there riffing and it's not planned, and he's kind
Speaker 4: of it is kind of stream of consciousness. Now, most
Speaker 4: of his stream of consciousness is nonsense and just making
Speaker 4: things up. It plays as a kind of authenticity for people.
Speaker 4: I want the next Democratic leaders to be on social
Speaker 4: media a lot. Oh yeah, that was you know, one
Speaker 4: of the things about not even his first presidency, but
Speaker 4: his first campaign was everybody else is like, okay, should
Speaker 4: we put out a press release for this? And he's
Speaker 4: just going on Twitter.
Speaker 5: Right. You know.
Speaker 1: It's funny because it's like we have had the minority
Speaker 1: leader on this podcast, and you know, they put out
Speaker 1: press release after press release after press release, but nobody
Speaker 1: cares because it's a press release, and if he just
Speaker 1: would tweet out what he really thought. I mean, it
Speaker 1: is an information desert, and if you tweet out what
Speaker 1: you really think, people will respond to it. And if
Speaker 1: you have something that's completely you know, run over by
Speaker 1: legal six times, nobody gives a fuck.
Speaker 4: It's not news. It's not news. Like look, I'm in
Speaker 4: the news business. I never look at press releases. You
Speaker 4: don't put out a press release to make news. You
Speaker 4: put out a press release to be able to say
Speaker 4: you said something. And so there's a part of this.
Speaker 4: You know, it is not an accident that Donald Trump
Speaker 4: was a creation of the tabloid newsworld of the New
Speaker 4: York of the nineteen eighties. It's not an accident because
Speaker 4: that is where that is sort of where our current
Speaker 4: media culture was born, the beginnings of electronic media, the
Speaker 4: tabloid culture, all of that stuff. And so it makes
Speaker 4: sense that, you know, all the ability to just kind
Speaker 4: of like, I'm going to keep in the news and
Speaker 4: going to keep doing stuff that people have to react to.
Speaker 4: And it's just critical for people who care about politics
Speaker 4: to understand why he is powerful in that way.
Speaker 5: You have to like it.
Speaker 4: He does have this one superpower it's what I guess
Speaker 4: people have recently started calling the attention economy. If you
Speaker 4: want to move in the news world, it's like, you know,
Speaker 4: improvisational jazz in a quintet. You've got to be able
Speaker 4: to hold the stage for a little while, right. It's
Speaker 4: very strange stuff, but these very kind of symbolist things
Speaker 4: translate into hard power that get people's families torn apart
Speaker 4: and sent to a gulag in El Salvador. So things
Speaker 4: that seem very silly and fluffy translate into real power
Speaker 4: and real violence.
Speaker 1: Thank you, thank you, sayank you, thank you, Josh.
Speaker 5: Marshall, thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1: Malcolm Kenyatta is a vice chair of the Democratic National
Speaker 1: Committee and a Pennsylvania state representative for the one hundred
Speaker 1: and eighty first district. Welcome to Fast Politics, Malcolm.
Speaker 5: Allie, I'm so happy to be here, and more than
Speaker 5: anything else, I'm going to start by plugging your book.
Speaker 5: I can't wait to read it.
Speaker 1: Oh, thank you, Yes, this is it, How to Lose
Speaker 1: Your Mother Me plugging the podcast podcast. So now let's
Speaker 1: talk about you. Are DNC vice chair again, yes again?
Speaker 1: So what happened? Explain to us to your DNC vice chair.
Speaker 1: I have known you for a long time. You're a
Speaker 1: state representative in Pennsylvania. You're excellent. You ran against Fetterman
Speaker 1: in the primary when Fetterman was not what he is
Speaker 1: right now, which is totally not what I remember him
Speaker 1: to be. You did not win that primary. You went
Speaker 1: back to state legislature. You became a vice chair of
Speaker 1: the DNC along with David Hogg. Now catch us up
Speaker 1: on what happened next.
Speaker 5: Yeah, what happened next was a series, you know, sometimes
Speaker 5: an intentional and sometimes unintentional miscommunications about what happened next
Speaker 5: is often spend a lot of time trying to tell
Speaker 5: the facts here, long story short after the election, anybody
Speaker 5: who's ever been in a long, annoying, fucking meeting knows
Speaker 5: about Robert's rules of order, And effectively, one of the
Speaker 5: people who was unsuccessful said back on February the twenty
Speaker 5: eighth that Robert's rules of order weren't followed in her view,
Speaker 5: and back in February she filed that challenge to the
Speaker 5: election results. And because unlike this authoritarian administration, the Democratic
Speaker 5: Party actually believes in due process, there was a process
Speaker 5: where she got to file a complaint we had a
Speaker 5: number of days to respond to her complaint. The committee
Speaker 5: had a number of days to hear that complaint. Already
Speaker 5: people's eyes are glazing over. But ultimately what happened are
Speaker 5: I know, I'm in it. My eyes are glazed over.
Speaker 5: But what ultimately happened was the Committee decided to hould
Speaker 5: the election again, you know, which I did not think
Speaker 5: was you know appropriate. I called it at the time,
Speaker 5: you know, a slap in my face. But in this moment,
Speaker 5: with everything going on, with a president that is so lawless,
Speaker 5: so out of control, and so willing to throw away
Speaker 5: all of the modern safety net so that they can
Speaker 5: stuff the pockets of the wealthiest people the world has
Speaker 5: ever seen, we need a strong democratic party. And a
Speaker 5: part of what we need in this moment is not
Speaker 5: for everybody who's ever been frustrated with Democrats to walk away.
Speaker 5: I've been frustrated with Democrats. I'm chief among them. But
Speaker 5: the question is what do we do with that frustration.
Speaker 5: I decided to go into the building and try to
Speaker 5: fucking change it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is why I love you. So tell me
Speaker 1: what happens next?
Speaker 5: So what happens you know next? Does we have our
Speaker 5: you know, Big Officers Retreat back in March on March
Speaker 5: to twenty fifth, where Ken Martin our new chair. For
Speaker 5: folks who don't know Ken, Ken was the guy after
Speaker 5: the twenty sixteen election who led a lot of the
Speaker 5: reforms in the DNC around minimizing the power of superdelegates,
Speaker 5: trying to get the party out of the you know,
Speaker 5: the gilded ages where people in smoke filled rooms picked
Speaker 5: our nominees, and he laid out a series of like
Speaker 5: twenty I think it is reforms to the party, including
Speaker 5: officer neutrality. A month later, David Hogg announced that he
Speaker 5: was going to do this primary thing with leaders we deserve.
Speaker 1: You know what, let's stop for a second. Officer neutrality
Speaker 1: explain to us what that means.
Speaker 5: So back in twenty sixteen, and for some of the
Speaker 5: people who were like jump in my comments and say, Malcolm,
Speaker 5: what about twenty sixteen. Back in twenty sixteen, I was
Speaker 5: not an electric official. There was a well known presidential
Speaker 5: primary which we've never gotten over between ever ever, ever,
Speaker 5: like I'm going to tell my grandkids about this. Yeah,
Speaker 5: that's right, And out of that primary there was a perception,
Speaker 5: and some could even say a reality. I'm not going
Speaker 5: to Quipple over that. But at the minimum, there was
Speaker 5: a perception that the party was not even handed in
Speaker 5: that primary. And what we must all endeavor to do
Speaker 5: is to make sure or that never happens again.
Speaker 1: Right, And that was because of super delegates too.
Speaker 5: Right now, because of super delegates and like just many
Speaker 5: aspects of the process that people can point to. But
Speaker 5: I want to be crystal clear, I don't want any people,
Speaker 5: ten people sitting in a smoke filled room or no
Speaker 5: smoke field room, in a room in DC, looking across
Speaker 5: the country trying to pick our freaking nominees. I think
Speaker 5: we trust voters to pick our nominees. But let me
Speaker 5: make this point, because this has been sort of people's assumption.
Speaker 5: The DMC, the Democratic National Committee, is not an incumbent
Speaker 5: protection racket. My job is not to re elect incumbents.
Speaker 5: My job is to elect Democratic nominees that are chosen
Speaker 5: by Democratic voters in their districts. That's our job, full stop.
Speaker 5: And unfortunately, the election challenge that was filed back in February,
Speaker 5: and Ken calling profice in neutrality back in March, you
Speaker 5: have so many people still to this day are saying
Speaker 5: that this is somehow payback for David and now saying
Speaker 5: that he would not Abuie by officer neutrality back in April,
Speaker 5: that timeline just doesn't work. And I've said this constantly,
Speaker 5: but you know, a li will get around the block
Speaker 5: while the truth is putting its shoes on, and so
Speaker 5: I decided to put my shoes on tell the truth
Speaker 5: about what's happening.
Speaker 1: Ken Martin says he wants officer neutrality. This is part
Speaker 1: of a larger decision. Explain a little more about this.
Speaker 5: It's to make sure that particularly in this presidential primary,
Speaker 5: and Molly, I'm sure you'll interview all of them, well,
Speaker 5: hopefully not all of them, because they're gonna, like ninety people
Speaker 5: who run for president.
Speaker 1: Ook are going to be just an absolute epic shit show.
Speaker 5: Yes, it's gonna be so many people, and I think
Speaker 5: in that process, as you might imagine, there are gonna
Speaker 5: be a lot of hard feelings, a lot of people
Speaker 5: who have thoughts about the process. And when it's over,
Speaker 5: and when any primary is over, you need somebody who
Speaker 5: people know cared about the outcome of the game as
Speaker 5: a good referee should, but wasn't trying to be a
Speaker 5: player in the game. And the DNC. Our job and
Speaker 5: what we're doing is building the infrastry structure so that
Speaker 5: when our candidates come out of those primaries they have
Speaker 5: all the tools they need to be successful. And that
Speaker 5: means that we have to invest and rebuild our state parties.
Speaker 5: I was just in Mississippi and all of you know,
Speaker 5: our last Democratic nominee, Mike Best be there.
Speaker 1: We had him on like six times.
Speaker 5: Yeah, he was the strongest statewide Democrat we've seen in
Speaker 5: Mississippi in modern history. And he said this multiple times.
Speaker 5: And the new chair who came in, you know, on
Speaker 5: the tail end of that campaign, by the way, was
Speaker 5: very clear that they needed to build out the infrastructure.
Speaker 5: We shouldn't be asking Democratic nominees to build out the
Speaker 5: voter contact infrastructure, even things around you know, voter community,
Speaker 5: you know around excuse me, media and communications. There are
Speaker 5: a bunch of different things that we need to do
Speaker 5: that the Democratic Party is investing in. And so our
Speaker 5: job is to build infrastructure so our nominees win, not
Speaker 5: to try to pick our nominees. And that does not
Speaker 5: mean that we don't want robust primaries. If you are
Speaker 5: listening to this podcast and you're thinking about running for office,
Speaker 5: run for office. I'm not trying to stop you. If
Speaker 5: a running office, run for office on whatever platform you have,
Speaker 5: run for office, talk to voters in your district and
Speaker 5: go out and win. And when you are the nominee,
Speaker 5: sign me up to do whatever event I need to
Speaker 5: do to make sure you beat whatever authoritarian supporting Republican
Speaker 5: is on the other side.
Speaker 1: All right, So then you guys have another election and
Speaker 1: David does not run again.
Speaker 5: Explain, Yeah, so you know why David chose not to
Speaker 5: run again. You know, obviously, you know he put out
Speaker 5: a statement to that effect. But you know, in the
Speaker 5: first election, we won pretty handily. You needed I think
Speaker 5: it was two hundred and one votes. We got two
Speaker 5: hundred and ninety eight votes. I think David got two fourteen.
Speaker 5: We won pretty handily. And throughout my work in the
Speaker 5: one hundred and thirty days or so before the election,
Speaker 5: you know, I traveled twenty one thousand miles to a
Speaker 5: nine states, did three dozen events, fundraisers, the list goes
Speaker 5: on and on to try to build this party, and
Speaker 5: I was confident that I would have the votes to
Speaker 5: win again. David made a decision to focus his work
Speaker 5: on leaders we deserve. I said it at the time.
Speaker 5: You know, I really wish him the best. There is
Speaker 5: nothing wrong with robust primaries. We have folks in organized
Speaker 5: labor who endorse different people. We have you know, Emily's List,
Speaker 5: Run for Something, which is an incredible organization that supports
Speaker 5: young people running for office, Collective Pack Victory Fund, so
Speaker 5: many different organizations. We're going to play in primaries, and
Speaker 5: they should, and I'm going to be waiting for those
Speaker 5: primaries to be over to support them. However, however we
Speaker 5: can at the DNC.
Speaker 1: So then explain to me what happened with Randy Wineingarden.
Speaker 5: Yeah, so let me let me. Let me say this,
Speaker 5: and I said this on the MSNBC. I think I
Speaker 5: was on like right after this news broke. Randy and
Speaker 5: Lee Saunders, our dear, dear friends of mine. Let me
Speaker 5: say that there is no Malcolm Kenyata in politics without
Speaker 5: asks me and AFT. The support of their members and
Speaker 5: their support personally has meant so much to me, and
Speaker 5: their friendship means so much to me, and I respect
Speaker 5: their decision to step back. But I think the only
Speaker 5: question that I think we really need to answer is
Speaker 5: what are we going to do for working people and
Speaker 5: working families to make their lives better. And you heard
Speaker 5: me say this over and over again. Even Fox News
Speaker 5: said they're sick of me saying yeah. But I think
Speaker 5: the Democratic Party has a singular mission and ultimately a
Speaker 5: singular message. We have to make life better and a
Speaker 5: part of that equation obviously is making sure that people
Speaker 5: get a fair wage, that they get the benefits and
Speaker 5: dignity they deserve on the job. And no, you know,
Speaker 5: there are very few people who have fought as hard
Speaker 5: for those changes and for those rights and earned benefits
Speaker 5: then Lease Honders and Randy Weingarten, So you know they're
Speaker 5: taking a step back. I absolutely respect them, but I
Speaker 5: know where I'm going to see them on a picket
Speaker 5: line on some fight for justice, and they're going to
Speaker 5: be fighting arm in arm with the Democratic Party to
Speaker 5: elect Democratic candidates who care about those values. But I
Speaker 5: think as a party right now, we are going to
Speaker 5: be focused not on the past, but on what our
Speaker 5: party must be. And I think you know, if you
Speaker 5: want to get on TV right now, Molly, you know it.
Speaker 5: You just say Democrats suck, write an op ed, it
Speaker 5: gets published. You can be an a blog of any
Speaker 5: show you want to be on and you know that's
Speaker 5: all well and good. I think enough op eds have
Speaker 5: been written about what the Democrats did wrong. I'm sick
Speaker 5: of that shit. I think it's our responsibility to talk
Speaker 5: about what we're going to do next, to tell people
Speaker 5: who we are going to be and what we've been.
Speaker 5: And so that's why I go all across this country
Speaker 5: talking about how we're going to make life better for
Speaker 5: working people and working families. And I have no doubt
Speaker 5: that those two leaders are going to continue to do
Speaker 5: that work, no matter what their role or title is.
Speaker 1: So they didn't step down because they were feeling that
Speaker 1: the DNC wasn't doing what it should be doing.
Speaker 5: I can't get into their their heads here. We know
Speaker 5: what they wrote in their letters and what's been reported.
Speaker 5: But let me just say, you know they they did
Speaker 5: this for you know a number of years. They have
Speaker 5: done their their service and their time at the DMC.
Speaker 5: They have huge organizations that they run, and those organizations
Speaker 5: and the values of AFT, the values of AFTE are
Speaker 5: the Democratic Party values. And when Democrats take the House
Speaker 5: back in twenty twenty six, we better get about the
Speaker 5: business of passing the pro forcing the Senate and the
Speaker 5: President to be against making it easier for people to
Speaker 5: organize on the job. You know. In a now viral
Speaker 5: video where I work in Harrisburg, after a speech that
Speaker 5: I gave about the minimum wage, the Republican leader gets
Speaker 5: up on the floor and says, every job shouldn't have
Speaker 5: a living shouldn't be a living wage because he's such
Speaker 5: a you know, a jerk, you know, in an asshole.
Speaker 5: He does not think people should be paid a dignified wage.
Speaker 5: That's what we're up against right now. And Randy and
Speaker 5: Lee are going to definitely be in the trenches helping
Speaker 5: us do that work, you know, and we respect their leadership.
Speaker 5: But now we have to move forward and do the
Speaker 5: work that we must do, making sure that everybody hears
Speaker 5: about how the Democratic Party wants to make life better
Speaker 5: for working people and working families.
Speaker 1: Jerry Connelly he died in office the day before the
Speaker 1: Big Beautiful Bill was passed by a one full margin.
Speaker 1: In my mind, that strikes me as why we are
Speaker 1: in so much trouble in this moment. Can you speak
Speaker 1: to it?
Speaker 5: Yeah, So, first of all, I just want to say
Speaker 5: just to Rep. Connolly's family and to his you know,
Speaker 5: incredible wife, Kathy I know how hard this is, but
Speaker 5: let me also say, I think that voters are having
Speaker 5: these these conversations, all these conversations that you're talking about.
Speaker 5: I want to see people who have a vision for
Speaker 5: this country, people who have a good way of talking
Speaker 5: about the future, to step up. And honestly, the people
Speaker 5: need to step up the most are the folks who
Speaker 5: have the most on the line. I mean, listen, I'm
Speaker 5: not even thirty five yet I'm asking every single day,
Speaker 5: am I gonna be able to breathe the damn air
Speaker 5: and drink the water? Or me and my husband may
Speaker 5: the start a family to live in a community that's safe.
Speaker 5: And if we had kids, are they going to grow
Speaker 5: up in some authoritarian, right wing maga QAnon regime? And
Speaker 5: so I think invariably you are gonna have people who
Speaker 5: understand the impact of this moment, including a bunch of
Speaker 5: young people, step up and run for office. And they should.
Speaker 5: People should step up and run for office. But we
Speaker 5: shouldn't also so not continue to give Republicans a pass here.
Speaker 5: And I think what often happens is, well, we assume
Speaker 5: Republicans are bad, So why even talk about the fact
Speaker 5: that they're bad? The big bullshit bill, which is what
Speaker 5: I call it, passed because Republicans want it to pass,
Speaker 5: because they do not give a damn about kicking fourteen
Speaker 5: million people off of health care, because they don't care
Speaker 5: about ripping food out of the mouths of kids, because
Speaker 5: they don't care about shutting down critical research that helps
Speaker 5: us deal with issues like cancer and HIV, because they
Speaker 5: don't care about people being kicked out of their homes.
Speaker 5: And the reality is that time and time and time again,
Speaker 5: we are ignoring the advice that comes from a very
Speaker 5: unexpected place. If you ever saw the show Silo, I
Speaker 5: don't watch Silo. My husband watched Silo, and if I
Speaker 5: want to sit in the fucking living room, I apparently
Speaker 5: aren't have to watch Silo too, and so and so
Speaker 5: and so. One of the characters on Silo said something
Speaker 5: that I felt was so impactful. She said, we have
Speaker 5: to figure out how to be angry with each other
Speaker 5: and not at each other, because in this moment, the
Speaker 5: things that we're even defending, I don't think even enough
Speaker 5: Democrats know that this is something we did. Medicare, Medicaid,
Speaker 5: social Security, these are programs that are deeply popular. The
Speaker 5: Affordable Care Act programs that are deeply popular that Democrats passed,
Speaker 5: and we have to get back to the business of
Speaker 5: talking about how we're going to do that again, how
Speaker 5: we're going to make life better and if you hear
Speaker 5: me again, Hey, Malcolm, should young people run for office? Yes? Yes, yes,
Speaker 5: they should run for office. Al Roker did a whole
Speaker 5: documentary about my run for office called Do Not Wait
Speaker 5: Your Turn. You can go watch it if you're bored. Okay,
Speaker 5: So I'm all about this, but I just want to
Speaker 5: be crystal clear that voters are going to decide who
Speaker 5: those nominees are and I'm going to support them.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I get that, and I agree with everything you're saying.
Speaker 1: I probably would have said it. I probably have said
Speaker 1: it myself in a very similar way over the last
Speaker 1: twenty four hours.
Speaker 5: Well you've said it better, I'm sure.
Speaker 1: No, I think about the same. But I want to
Speaker 1: ask you for example, and I say this. You know
Speaker 1: I'm a partisan, So what is responsibilityy with something like
Speaker 1: the Jerry Connolly situation? Like? Because I mean, listen, I
Speaker 1: like a lot of those people. I like a lot
Speaker 1: of the people in the House, a lot of Democratic
Speaker 1: Congress people I call a friend. I talk to people
Speaker 1: before the vote. I know that a lot of people
Speaker 1: liked him, but I just am curious, like basically what
Speaker 1: I heard from people because I asked them why they
Speaker 1: would elevate him instead of AOC because he was battling
Speaker 1: throw cancer, was seventy six and also just was not
Speaker 1: as good a communicator as AOC. And you know, you
Speaker 1: can like him or love him, but he was not
Speaker 1: a politician who broke through. Particularly so when I asked
Speaker 1: people about why they were voting for him, they would say, well,
Speaker 1: it's his turn. And I wonder, whose responsibility is it
Speaker 1: to tell somebody in their seventies who's got throw cancer
Speaker 1: that they can't be ranking member, Like obviously there's a
Speaker 1: failure of leadership here, or doesn't it seem like if
Speaker 1: I had a company and I were running a company
Speaker 1: and you know, we just had And I don't mean
Speaker 1: to push you on this because I really like you
Speaker 1: and we're friends, and I have enough elected who are
Speaker 1: mad at me.
Speaker 5: Oh please put me out.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but I just am wondering, like, whose responsibility isn't
Speaker 1: like Republicans are craven, like we saw Republicans tell Steve
Speaker 1: Scalice he couldn't be in leadership because he had blood cancer.
Speaker 1: We heard Marjorie Taylor Green say that she was like,
Speaker 1: you can't because you had blood cancer. So whose responsibility
Speaker 1: is it to say to someone in their seventies who
Speaker 1: has cancer? And I say this as someone who has
Speaker 1: a husband who had cancer, like, whose responsibility is it
Speaker 1: to say.
Speaker 5: That we listen? I think the antidote to all of
Speaker 5: the problems we have in this moment are those three
Speaker 5: words that open our constitution, We the people. It's not
Speaker 5: like these conversations aren't being had. These conversations are being had.
Speaker 5: We see voters every single day talking about the types
Speaker 5: of candidates that speak to them, Candidates who can talk
Speaker 5: about the future, candidates who have a vision, candidates who have,
Speaker 5: you know, fire in the belly. To meet this moment
Speaker 5: and treat this moment like it's the five alarm fire
Speaker 5: that it is. Treat this moment like we have an
Speaker 5: authoritarian in the White House who's sending the military against
Speaker 5: its citizens. We have to treat it with that, with
Speaker 5: that seriousness. But I want to be very clear with folks.
Speaker 5: I want people to think about this for a second,
Speaker 5: which is why I'm being careful you know, I chose
Speaker 5: to run for a specific gig within the Democratic National Committee,
Speaker 5: and there are a lot of people who look at
Speaker 5: me and say, Malcolm, you always talk about, you know,
Speaker 5: don't wait your turn, your young guy running running running
Speaker 5: for office. The reality, though, is this, we do not
Speaker 5: want officers of the DNC trying to make all of
Speaker 5: these decisions. We don't want that. We don't want that.
Speaker 5: And people think they want that right now because because
Speaker 5: there's somebody who you think agrees with you, who's there.
Speaker 5: But Malcolm's not going to be by sheriff of the
Speaker 5: DNC forever. And what if the next vice chair of
Speaker 5: the d NC says, know what, the progressives are the
Speaker 5: problem with everything in the in the party, and we're
Speaker 5: gonna do everything we can to get them out of
Speaker 5: the party. You know that's wrong. I want to see
Speaker 5: a party that is run by the people, and the
Speaker 5: people are making their their voices heard. People are stepping
Speaker 5: up every single day to run for office. I mean,
Speaker 5: I saw a run for something talk about the amount
Speaker 5: of people who've signed up with them to run for office.
Speaker 5: And I think the best thing that I can do
Speaker 5: is to say, in no uncertain terms and repeat to
Speaker 5: folks that if you want to run for office, you
Speaker 5: should step up and run. I think these conversations are,
Speaker 5: you know, conversations that we that we should have. If
Speaker 5: we're going to make life better for people, we certainly
Speaker 5: have to be willing to have tough conversations as Democrats.
Speaker 5: But I should not be trying to dictate those those conversations,
Speaker 5: you know. And it's very rare that you have political
Speaker 5: leaders that don't think they should be in charge of everything.
Speaker 5: I don't think I should be in charge of everything.
Speaker 5: I think that I should be listening to what voters
Speaker 5: tell me to do, and what voters want me to
Speaker 5: do right now is to make sure that we can win.
Speaker 5: And a part of why the Democratic Party is not one,
Speaker 5: in my view, is that we've treated ourselves for too
Speaker 5: long like we exist to throw a big party every
Speaker 5: four years and just elect a president. And we've changed that.
Speaker 5: We're investing a million dollars a month in state parties,
Speaker 5: the single largest investment out of DC into state so
Speaker 5: we can do year round organizing. We started this program
Speaker 5: like the Blueprint, so every day at ten am, we're
Speaker 5: prebudding all of the lies that are going to come
Speaker 5: from the john S Brady press room where this lady
Speaker 5: gets up with her cross and then says everything that
Speaker 5: Jesus would despise, and the list goes on and on.
Speaker 5: So I have a job to do, and my job
Speaker 5: is to build the infrastructure so Democrats can and can win.
Speaker 5: I want to make sure they win. I want to
Speaker 5: see younger leaders step up to run for office, and
Speaker 5: I want to see leaders who have fire in the
Speaker 5: belly to step up for run for office. And I
Speaker 5: want all of them to be talking about my three
Speaker 5: words on how they're going to make life better for
Speaker 5: working people and working families. I think that's what voters
Speaker 5: want to hear it too.
Speaker 1: Frankly, thank you, thank you, thank you, Malcolm.
Speaker 5: Thank you so much. I really appreciate this opportunity.
Speaker 3: No moment.
Speaker 2: Jesse Cannon Molly friend of the podcast, Mary Ziegler has
Speaker 2: a great article on Slate about how the GOP keeps
Speaker 2: losing public abortion votes.
Speaker 3: So now it's trying a new angle.
Speaker 1: Yeah, choice is popular, you know it's popular. The GOP
Speaker 1: put abortion on the ballot a bunch of times, and
Speaker 1: every time abortion wins. Missouri is an interesting state because
Speaker 1: this is one of these states where they've been using
Speaker 1: it as a test case for anti choice legislation. They
Speaker 1: had a ballot initiative which enshrined creating constitutional reproductive rights.
Speaker 1: But because it's Missouri, the legislators are all Republicans. It's
Speaker 1: a Republican supermajority. So even though voters want to enshrine
Speaker 1: reproductive rights, legislators don't because they're all Republicans. So instead
Speaker 1: of doing what the voters wanted with the ballot initiatives,
Speaker 1: and we saw this in Florida too. Right in Florida,
Speaker 1: they wanted to restore voting to felons and the government
Speaker 1: was like, no, fuck you, we're not going to do it,
Speaker 1: even though you voted for it. So that's what's happening here.
Speaker 1: Missouri is going to try now to pass a ballot
Speaker 1: initiative which will overturn the most recent ballot initiative. This
Speaker 1: is like yet another Republican's hate democracy moment. Right, they lose,
Speaker 1: they don't care, They just cheat. When you realize that
Speaker 1: trump Ism is an extension of this, when you realize
Speaker 1: trumpsm doesn't happen in a vacuum, that the party that
Speaker 1: jerry manders, that the party that does not accept losing
Speaker 1: a ballot initiative that that party. Trump Ism is the
Speaker 1: natural progression of that party.
Speaker 3: One hundred percent.
Speaker 1: That's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in
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