Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Mollie John Fast and this is Fast Politics,
Speaker 1: where we discuss the top political headlines with some of
Speaker 1: today's best minds. And Governor Ronda Santis, or as he's
Speaker 1: known Tiny D. His ban on gender affirming care has
Speaker 1: been overturned by a federal judge. We have a great
Speaker 1: show today. Representative Yavette Clark stops by to talk to
Speaker 1: us about the need to regulate AI and it's actually
Speaker 1: a really fun interview. Then we'll talk to historian Kevin
Speaker 1: Cruz about the precedent of third party candidates and.
Speaker 2: How it works out not well.
Speaker 1: But first we have the host of the Time of Monsters,
Speaker 1: the Nation's get here.
Speaker 2: Welcome back to Fast Politics.
Speaker 3: Geet here, welcome back to having me on Fast Politics.
Speaker 3: Weally you Foster.
Speaker 1: Yes, very excited to have you, and especially because I
Speaker 1: feel like everything and again, I feel like every time
Speaker 1: I say this, I'm like tempting the gods. But it
Speaker 1: seems very much like everything has actually gotten stupid since
Speaker 1: the last time we talked.
Speaker 3: Yes, you know, there's a victimating philosophy. Are we living
Speaker 3: in the best of all possible worlds? Are we living
Speaker 3: in the worst of all possible worlds, and I've come
Speaker 3: to the collusion. Yes, we are living in the stupidest
Speaker 3: of all possible worlds. And that was really shaped by
Speaker 3: a news idea I saw earlier this week where Cardie
Speaker 3: b is fighting with the submarine steps On and I thought, like,
Speaker 3: in what possible universe could like this happened and be
Speaker 3: a good news story, except in the stupidest of all
Speaker 3: possible worlds.
Speaker 1: I'm going to raise you one here because I want
Speaker 1: to get involved in little Bitchgate. Marjorie Taylor Green, who
Speaker 1: as you know, is known for her racism, her stupidity,
Speaker 1: her or whatever, is in a fight with Lauren Bobert
Speaker 1: and called her a little bit discuss.
Speaker 3: Well, I'm gonna talk a little bit of turns, just
Speaker 3: as the Father of Three Girls, although this would be
Speaker 3: the same as I about the Father of Three Boys,
Speaker 3: which is if you deal with children, you're forced to
Speaker 3: deal with cigama and a social interaction where they get
Speaker 3: into these petty fights, which is like you're copying me,
Speaker 3: you're idiot, you're stupid, you're a little words that we
Speaker 3: don't want our kids to use. I was like reminded
Speaker 3: those and like, it really does seem like this is
Speaker 3: sort of like a junior high school drama played out
Speaker 3: in the halls of Congress. I mean having said that,
Speaker 3: like this is like no worse than anything else that
Speaker 3: Republicans could be doing, and perhaps even a little bit
Speaker 3: better because at least it's entertaining.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I have to say, as stupid crap goes, I mean,
Speaker 1: they're also like booing McCarthy. I mean, I know we
Speaker 1: say this every day, but like, has McCarthy completely lost
Speaker 1: control of his caucus?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't think that he has control. And they
Speaker 3: can really unite in a negative way, right, Like we're
Speaker 3: in the age of negative polarization. I think there's even
Speaker 3: more true of Republicans and the Democrats, and so they
Speaker 3: can unite to what they did with Adam Schiff, you know,
Speaker 3: like I to impeach Joe Biden.
Speaker 1: Isn't the beginning of this fight that they both wanted
Speaker 1: to impeach.
Speaker 2: Biden and had different mechanisms for it.
Speaker 3: Well, that's why I brought the junior grade school because
Speaker 3: that is actually a conversation I hear in among young people,
Speaker 3: like you're copying me, you know, like I was doing
Speaker 3: that first, you know, like I was drawing snoopy and
Speaker 3: then now you're drawing snoopy right. You know, in the
Speaker 3: absence of substantive politics, all you have are like free
Speaker 3: floating petty grudges and narcissism and partisanship. And that's what
Speaker 3: we're seeing play out right, Like it just that's all
Speaker 3: they have.
Speaker 2: It seems kind of amazing. So we have this house.
Speaker 1: They can't pass their messaging bills, they can't figure out
Speaker 1: what they're going to do, these Republicans in the House. McCarthy,
Speaker 1: you think he ends up getting to stay or you
Speaker 1: think this is the.
Speaker 2: End of it?
Speaker 3: Hard to predict. I mean, if I would to say anything,
Speaker 3: I don't see how he can stay for a long day. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I do kind of see an implosion coming. I mean,
Speaker 3: I think the longer, more positive thing is that this
Speaker 3: gives the Democrats a really great thing to run on
Speaker 3: to regain the House.
Speaker 1: So I want to talk to you about something that
Speaker 1: I think you'll appreciate. I just read a little article
Speaker 1: about how much cable news networks, even the non right leaning,
Speaker 1: the normal ones, spend a lot of time. And it's
Speaker 1: funny because I've been on panels like this too, and
Speaker 1: mainstream media does this a lot where they spend a
Speaker 1: lot of time talking about Biden's age, doue, like that's
Speaker 1: a favorite topic, and he is incredibly old, but they
Speaker 1: don't talk about the fact that he is three years
Speaker 1: older than Trump.
Speaker 2: I mean, do you think that's strange?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I kind of think that's except that I think
Speaker 3: a lot of these things are driven by polgical messaging
Speaker 3: from the parties. So the demo creds have not really
Speaker 3: made Trump's age and issue because it's surprise, surprise. There's
Speaker 3: like a hundred other things about the guy that right
Speaker 3: to me, right, you know, like he tried to pull
Speaker 3: a coup. You know, he's corrupted as well, he's under
Speaker 3: criminal investigation and indictment. You don't need to talk about
Speaker 3: his age. The Republicans have really hammered on his age
Speaker 3: and they keep doing it. They have a lot of
Speaker 3: ads and had tweets. Their people talk about Biden's age
Speaker 3: all the time. And this is really an example of
Speaker 3: which how the media follows the messaging cues of the
Speaker 3: Republican Party.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, just unbelievable, right, I mean, sort of shocking.
Speaker 3: It's shocking, except that I think this is what Josh
Speaker 3: Marshall talks about a lot, which is that the Republican
Speaker 3: Party and the media have a symbiotic relationship where going
Speaker 3: back to the Reagan era, where there I think a
Speaker 3: lot of people a mainstream party have just decided the
Speaker 3: Republicans are, despite all evidence and despite all elections, the
Speaker 3: mainstream American political party, and if they say something then
Speaker 3: that's like, well, that's something that has to dominate the
Speaker 3: Sunday talk shows. You know. I think there's a sector
Speaker 3: of the media that is very geared despite everything, to
Speaker 3: treating the Republicans as the serious, growing up mainstream party.
Speaker 1: I mean, is it that sort of brilliant lie that
Speaker 1: Republicans have convinced the media they're too lefty and so
Speaker 1: they have to sort of go along with a Republican
Speaker 1: narrative and the way they might not if they weren't
Speaker 1: worried about appearing to lefty.
Speaker 3: Yeah. No, I think there's a bit of brilliant sort
Speaker 3: of working of the refs. But I mean a lot
Speaker 3: of it. I mean, if you look at what's happening
Speaker 3: as CNN, a lot of because of the fact that
Speaker 3: a lot of media is just corporate and so you know,
Speaker 3: the people working there including the hosts or whatever might
Speaker 3: be lean liberal or lean funterest even, but the people
Speaker 3: owning these companies are you know, they're they're pretty standard Republicans,
Speaker 3: and they're always putting pressure, you know, like, why are
Speaker 3: I hearing you know, these GOP talking points.
Speaker 1: I went to a party the other night and there
Speaker 1: are a lot of wealthy, very wealthy people, and this
Speaker 1: conversation moved to a thing that I hear a lot
Speaker 1: of wealthy people talk about, which is how little they're
Speaker 1: allowed to talk about that they can't they don't have
Speaker 1: free speed. I wondered if this was just bullshit they
Speaker 1: say in order because they just don't want to pay taxes,
Speaker 1: or if they really do feel like any kind of
Speaker 1: accountability on speech is somehow censorship.
Speaker 3: Well, I think it's the old saying that you know,
Speaker 3: like if you're privileged, then you know, a quality looks
Speaker 3: like a person. Right. They've been used to get, you know,
Speaker 3: having their speech dominate for years and not get challenged.
Speaker 3: I mean that's the thing. Now they can still say
Speaker 3: all the things they believe, but they're going to get
Speaker 3: challenged and they're going.
Speaker 4: To be made fun of it.
Speaker 3: I think this is the sort of way in which
Speaker 3: social media led to this panic about wokeness, which is
Speaker 3: really a paic about the fact that if you say
Speaker 3: something dumb, right wing things then you will actually get
Speaker 3: people like people made fun of funny. Yeah, I think
Speaker 3: there's you know, there's a class of rich people that
Speaker 3: find that intolerable that you know, like the peasants are
Speaker 3: revolting as well.
Speaker 4: Brooks likes to say.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, just unbelievable.
Speaker 1: And in fact, I've been listening to Gorvidal's essays from
Speaker 1: a million years ago and they're very and there's a
Speaker 1: lot of stuff in there that's, you know, that is
Speaker 1: not how we write.
Speaker 2: Or talk anymore.
Speaker 1: But what I think is so interesting is he talks
Speaker 1: about the people who were so against the Equal Rights
Speaker 1: Amendment being passed and the kind of scare tactics they
Speaker 1: used women using men's bathrooms.
Speaker 2: Right, it's all the same stuff.
Speaker 3: No, exactly. I know, the panic has come back a
Speaker 3: long time and there's nothing new under the sun for
Speaker 3: all that. I think the new aspect is what you
Speaker 3: have zero did on, which is that I think the
Speaker 3: rich in particular feel imperiled, and I think that they're
Speaker 3: the ones that are funding a lot of these sort
Speaker 3: of anti Wook campaigns and making that part of politics
Speaker 3: because they do feel threatened that, you know, they're not
Speaker 3: getting their way on everything as they're used to.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean that was what I was struck by.
Speaker 1: And the you know, the seriousness with which these people
Speaker 1: take themselves was I mean good for them, you know.
Speaker 3: But well you know, I mean I mean, like, honestly,
Speaker 3: I think for rich people's actually I think you know,
Speaker 3: the sort of revolt that we're seeing, this sort of
Speaker 3: you know, uprising and challenging is actually good for them.
Speaker 3: But they're not going to appreciate it. But I mean
Speaker 3: it's good to have. If you're used to always getting
Speaker 3: your own way, that makes you a very poor judge
Speaker 3: of things in life, and you know, you actually need
Speaker 3: someone to say, like, you shouldn't get into this like
Speaker 3: submarine that's just like a tin cab operated by a
Speaker 3: little computer module.
Speaker 4: It just makes no sense.
Speaker 3: Like if you're used to getting your own way and
Speaker 3: always being surrounded by yes people, you're you're not going
Speaker 3: to have that you know, common sense grounding in reality
Speaker 3: that the rest of us have.
Speaker 1: I mean, it is it's I mean, I do think
Speaker 1: that thing you just said we're fairness, The quest for fairness,
Speaker 1: the interest in fairness looks like oppression to them. I mean, right,
Speaker 1: none of us is fair, right, We're just trying to
Speaker 1: you know, have a little bit less wealth inequality.
Speaker 2: And that is infuriating to them.
Speaker 1: I do think it's interesting because like we see, you know,
Speaker 1: what we've seen with Twitter is what happens when very
Speaker 1: rich people get the platform, right, get famous, and get
Speaker 1: to say whatever they want. And what I think is
Speaker 1: so interesting is like they are really surprised how much
Speaker 1: the rest of us don't like them.
Speaker 3: Oh absolutely, absolutely, yeah. I mean that this is the
Speaker 3: whole be al Musk story as well, right, you know,
Speaker 3: I mean he was okay with being a Democrat as
Speaker 3: long as that nothing he was interested in it was
Speaker 3: being challenged, you know. But you know, once you add
Speaker 3: like black Lives Matter and trans right and even if
Speaker 3: people talking about taxation, he feels like under thread and
Speaker 3: so you know, like, okay, I'm gonna buy Twitter and
Speaker 3: make it like ebegal to use the word cis.
Speaker 1: That whole illegal to use the word cis thing. He
Speaker 1: has a trans kid.
Speaker 3: He has a tran kid who he does not speak to.
Speaker 3: And you know who has decided not to be part
Speaker 3: of his life anymore. I mean, when the biography of
Speaker 3: Elon must gets thridden, I think it'll be fascinating. But
Speaker 3: I think it is a case of one of these
Speaker 3: privileged people that could not get what he wanted and
Speaker 3: could not deal with alternative points of view, and it
Speaker 3: really drove him crazy. It is an amazing thing that, Yeah,
Speaker 3: the fact that Elon Musk could not handle having a
Speaker 3: trans kid like drove him to like this insanity of like,
Speaker 3: you know, like losing billions of dollars by buying Twitter,
Speaker 3: and then also wrecking it and destroying his reputation by
Speaker 3: you know, like you like, really openly aligning with the
Speaker 3: far right. It's just like an amazing kind of thing
Speaker 3: to happen. It is just what we've been talking about
Speaker 3: throughout this whole conversation. Just a little bit of challenge
Speaker 3: is too much for them.
Speaker 1: It really does feel like the Telltale Heart or something
Speaker 1: some kind of Victorian novel where somebody goes insane from nothing.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, I know, absolutely, absolutely, yeah, except I think
Speaker 3: a lot is preemptive. I just said, we're only just
Speaker 3: talking about fairness. But I think that they can imagine,
Speaker 3: like well, what if people actually did something and I
Speaker 3: think they're really preemptively trying to prevent like further social change.
Speaker 2: Oh yes, I think that's right now.
Speaker 1: The question I have is like, we're you know, it's
Speaker 1: another one of these really really scary hot summers where
Speaker 1: it's too hot and the Texas power grid is hanging
Speaker 1: by a thread and we have tornadoes and you know,
Speaker 1: it's the warmest the Atlantic has ever been. I mean
Speaker 1: I just saw someone right like people aren't going to
Speaker 1: be able to survive summers in Texas soon.
Speaker 2: I mean, does this just keep going on?
Speaker 1: Does anyone ever stop and go like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: we're so fucked we have to do something or no, never.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't know. I mean it's very hard to say,
Speaker 3: except that I want to say that there are some
Speaker 3: positive developments, like I do think like you know, renewables
Speaker 3: are getting better and better, and I think we should
Speaker 3: fall under dumrism. But yeah, they're very heading for very
Speaker 3: bad times. I think that you have to just write
Speaker 3: off a certain check of the population that you know,
Speaker 3: like even if it gets like one hundred and fifty degrees,
Speaker 3: they're going to be like doctor Foci, did this you know, like, well.
Speaker 2: That's what we've seen from COVID.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and they will come up with these weird conspiracy theories,
Speaker 3: you know, like facts themselves don't change. Yet. I think
Speaker 3: the only hope is that we do see the kind
Speaker 3: of social movements we've seen, like you know, on climate action,
Speaker 3: with people like Greta Thenberg, and you know, like, oh,
Speaker 3: I think that's the only hope that if you have
Speaker 3: bachel movements of people that try to change ploysical thinking,
Speaker 3: then you can get that. But I think that break
Speaker 3: from the start, you have to write off thirty three
Speaker 3: percent of the populis shure never gonna acknowledge what's happening.
Speaker 1: Right, But I mean, can you fix climate change if
Speaker 1: you have such a large percentage in the country that
Speaker 1: doesn't believe it's happening.
Speaker 3: I think that's really hard. And I think in some ways,
Speaker 3: I mean, you went to the COVID, and COVID kind
Speaker 3: of shows the problem with a collective action in a
Speaker 3: society where a big chunk of the population rejects rational science.
Speaker 3: I don't know. I think that's the great challenge of
Speaker 3: our time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you don't feel as doo Marie as I do.
Speaker 3: Right, I mean, I think, you know, like the science
Speaker 3: is pretty rough in terms of what we're heading for.
Speaker 3: On the other hand, I do actually see like there's
Speaker 3: a lot of people are organizing, and I think that's
Speaker 3: the one all that if you can get a sort
Speaker 3: of a political place where people are like pushing for
Speaker 3: positive change, then I think a lot of these problems
Speaker 3: are actually not totally solvable, but we can get to
Speaker 3: a livable future with the technology that we have.
Speaker 2: What are the things you're watching right now.
Speaker 3: Well, I mean the courts and what's happening with the courts.
Speaker 3: June is the month of court decisions where see some
Speaker 3: really bad ones coming out, especially like no, I think
Speaker 3: this doesn't get as much attention because it's a lot
Speaker 3: of sex seep with the law, criminal justice stuff, terrible stuff.
Speaker 3: I mean, like basically the current decision that came out today,
Speaker 3: like even if you're innocent, you're not gonna yeah, you
Speaker 3: get your right strip. I just think that's terrible stuff.
Speaker 3: And then the good point is that the political reputation
Speaker 3: of the court is an all time low. I just
Speaker 3: saw it's only like twenty nine percent of Americans have
Speaker 3: faith in the courts.
Speaker 2: They're very unpopular yeah, and.
Speaker 3: You know, like as they said in the Wolf of
Speaker 3: Wall Street, those are rookie numbers. You know, let's be
Speaker 3: getting about there. Well, let's get the you know, let's
Speaker 3: get them to zero percent.
Speaker 5: Right. But I mean, what's happening.
Speaker 3: I think that we're heading towards a real like constitutional
Speaker 3: crisis with the courts if they keep putting out like
Speaker 3: unpopular decisions and are also blatantly corrupt, you know, as
Speaker 3: we saw with this recent Leito story. Yeah, I'm hoping
Speaker 3: that even though the Democrats are reluctant to have this fight,
Speaker 3: I think public opinion might drive them to this, that
Speaker 3: there's going to be a reckoning with the courts.
Speaker 1: I think there's no way that they that doesn't happen. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean it's their job, you know, it's Democrats job.
Speaker 1: Like people are so angry about the courts.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's their job. But I mean, you know, the
Speaker 3: current leadership, I don't know if what they're going to do.
Speaker 3: I mean, Dick Durbin, he doesn't have a fighter's instinct.
Speaker 3: His instinct is to write an angry letter, or not
Speaker 3: even angry letter, mildly annoyed letter to John Roberts, Right,
Speaker 3: but with new leadership.
Speaker 2: I think things could change so interesting. Thank you so much, Cheat,
Speaker 2: I hope you will come back.
Speaker 3: Yeah, of course, I always enjoyed BEINGR.
Speaker 1: Congresswoman of Vet Clark represents New York's ninth district. Welcome
Speaker 1: to Fast Politics, Representative Clark.
Speaker 5: Well, thank you for having me, Molly, great to be
Speaker 5: with you.
Speaker 1: I'm really glad to have you, and I am really
Speaker 1: interested in talking to you about AI regulation, which is
Speaker 1: I feel like this is like another opportunity to for
Speaker 1: Congress to finally do some tech regulation that they've shied
Speaker 1: away from before.
Speaker 2: Can you talk to me about.
Speaker 6: This, Juel or Well, let me just say that I've
Speaker 6: introduced legislation that I think is, you know, really critical,
Speaker 6: particularly moving into this election season, and it's called the
Speaker 6: Real Political Ads Act. It dawned on me because I've
Speaker 6: been doing some work in legislating around deep fake technology
Speaker 6: and some other concerns that I've had with the rapid
Speaker 6: deployment of AI that with this upcoming election cycle, this
Speaker 6: will be one of the first elections that we've had
Speaker 6: where AI will be an integral part of what people
Speaker 6: use to advertise their positions politically during a campaign. And
Speaker 6: I thought about the fact that, you know, we're in
Speaker 6: a very toxic political environment. Yes, as those who want
Speaker 6: to be deceptive, who want to harm their opponents for
Speaker 6: the sake of winning an election, can really do some
Speaker 6: damage with AI generated advertising.
Speaker 2: And we've already seen this happen with the Trump campaign.
Speaker 5: Absolutely.
Speaker 1: Can you talk a little bit about that or was
Speaker 1: it the DeSantis campaign that did it?
Speaker 5: Actually it was the r n C.
Speaker 2: Oh, that's right, the RNC did. Jesus Christ, there was
Speaker 2: the RNC.
Speaker 6: And what they decided to do was create a video
Speaker 6: using AI AI generated that really depicted President Biden in
Speaker 6: this dystopian us and you know, presiding over a nation
Speaker 6: that you know, was just totally out of control and.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I remember.
Speaker 5: And so it's just critical.
Speaker 6: What they did, to their credit, was they did provide
Speaker 6: a disclaimer, right.
Speaker 2: Which there's no regulation that says they.
Speaker 5: Have to exactly, but that's what my legislation does.
Speaker 6: It essentially says, just like we have required in broadcasts
Speaker 6: and you know, radio, there needs to be a disclaimer
Speaker 6: so the American people and not the themed into believing
Speaker 6: that what they're seeing in terms of political ads are real.
Speaker 1: I'm just fact checking this Desanta's campaign shares a parent
Speaker 1: AI generated fake images of Trump and Faucci. So yes,
Speaker 1: the Desanta's campaign also did it.
Speaker 6: Shockingly, You're correct, My legislation doesn't necessarily address this, but
Speaker 6: the audio AI where people's voices are mimiced to you know,
Speaker 6: the ultimate tone of someone sounding real. Right, there's a
Speaker 6: lot for us to be concerned about in this moment.
Speaker 6: I think that my legislation starts the ball rolling because
Speaker 6: you know, I think that people are far.
Speaker 5: More sensitive to be bombarded.
Speaker 6: By average I thing during you know, the highest political
Speaker 6: seasons that you know, it can be very detrimental. It's
Speaker 6: detrimental in it of itself when people are unable to
Speaker 6: distnguish between what is real and what is spictitious and
Speaker 6: generated by AI.
Speaker 5: So there's a lot of work for us to do
Speaker 5: in this space.
Speaker 6: But I think that you know, we can be gettn
Speaker 6: by at least requiring disclaimers in this period of time
Speaker 6: where we are going to be you know, engaged politically
Speaker 6: and where we know that they unfortunately has been violently
Speaker 6: sparked in the context of our political seasons.
Speaker 1: Does it seem like the Republicans in Congress seem very
Speaker 1: busy fighting with each other and fighting with Kevin McCarthy
Speaker 1: and calling each other terrible names. I mean, do you
Speaker 1: think that you could conceivably get this through the House?
Speaker 6: I was happy to hear that Senator Schumer and a
Speaker 6: bipartisan group of senators are beginning to move at least with.
Speaker 5: An examination of AI.
Speaker 6: I think that that high level of engagement may spark
Speaker 6: some movement in the House. I'm going to push for
Speaker 6: it as hard as I can, because you know, at
Speaker 6: the end of the day, I'm in the minority.
Speaker 5: I've introduced the legislation.
Speaker 6: It's going to, you know, require colleagues on the other
Speaker 6: side of the aisle seeing the significance of this, because
Speaker 6: you know, the sword cuts both ways.
Speaker 1: They seem like they're in disarray. They are Nancy Pelosi
Speaker 1: when she was like that speech where she was.
Speaker 2: Like, you all look miserable.
Speaker 3: Er.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's a rough situation.
Speaker 6: The thing about it is that we all pay the
Speaker 6: price for their dysfunction, right.
Speaker 5: You know, I.
Speaker 6: Would love to be able to sit back and just
Speaker 6: laugh and you know, but I know you know as well,
Speaker 6: you do, Molly, what's in state here?
Speaker 5: We've seen political violence in our lifetime.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, recently.
Speaker 6: Aside from all the other you know, dangers that have
Speaker 6: out here, the self inflicted danger of people being deceived
Speaker 6: into actions that they.
Speaker 5: Control is not a good look for the United States.
Speaker 1: Just talk us through because I think our people, actually
Speaker 1: our listeners will be really interested in this. When you
Speaker 1: have a house like this where it's very tight, there's
Speaker 1: a five seat majority if you wanted to theoretically, I mean,
Speaker 1: we did pass a debt ceiling bill, so like their
Speaker 1: bipartisan legislation can be passed, maybe with bad consequences towards
Speaker 1: Kevin McCarthy, but I mean, life is life. But my
Speaker 1: question to you is if you needed to get this passed,
Speaker 1: and it does seem in my mind like a bipartisan
Speaker 1: thing a little bit, because you do have Republicans who
Speaker 1: are you know, they hate TikTok, they have, you know,
Speaker 1: some anxieties about tech as well. They should do you
Speaker 1: think it would work better to pass it in the
Speaker 1: Senate first.
Speaker 5: You know, Like I said, I think that remains to
Speaker 5: be seen.
Speaker 6: However, with sort of the announcement by Chuck Schumer of
Speaker 6: this bipartisan working that is taking it up, I think
Speaker 6: it provides more pressure on the House to deal with
Speaker 6: this and to deal with it like immediately, and like
Speaker 6: I said, I think the lowest hanging group for us
Speaker 6: would be dealing with political advertising, because that's right now.
Speaker 5: You know, that's right in front of us right now.
Speaker 6: And what we're asking is not something that's far effected
Speaker 6: because we already required disclaimers in political advertising, like I said,
Speaker 6: it either broadcasts or radio that we're just extending it
Speaker 6: now to other platforms that you know didn't exist at
Speaker 6: the point in time where that law went into effect.
Speaker 5: It's not a heavy lift, Molly.
Speaker 6: It's just getting sort of the right folks, starting with
Speaker 6: the chairwoman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, you know,
Speaker 6: to mark up the bill and to get some you know,
Speaker 6: Republican colleagues as coach sponsors, right.
Speaker 2: And do you feel like there's an appetite for that.
Speaker 6: I think that we can generate the right argument for
Speaker 6: it now what's happening on the other side of the
Speaker 6: island terms of their political strategized because they're not doing
Speaker 6: a whole lot of governance. No will, we'll we'll dictate
Speaker 6: it now. If they were in a governance mode, this
Speaker 6: would be a no brainer. That wouldn't exist if they
Speaker 6: were in a governance mode right exactly. So you know, listen,
Speaker 6: we've got a truck at the end of the day.
Speaker 6: That's why we introduced the legislation. I'm not a defeatist
Speaker 6: person by any stretch of the imagination. We're gonna cheep
Speaker 6: probing colleagues on the other side of the isle. If
Speaker 6: we can get them to focus, you know, for a
Speaker 6: moment on doing the right thing, not only by the nation,
Speaker 6: but you know, by each other, perhaps we can you know,
Speaker 6: get this bill of moving in committee, and you know
Speaker 6: that there'll be a Eureka moment where both the House
Speaker 6: and the Senate can move to make this law.
Speaker 1: The thing I'm struck by about AI is that, like
Speaker 1: there was not the tech regulation we desperately needed in
Speaker 1: this country, right, and there has been in Europe to
Speaker 1: a certain extent a little bit better, but we really,
Speaker 1: like government really sort of just flew it on that.
Speaker 1: I feel like there's a feeling that this could be
Speaker 1: a way to sort of make it right.
Speaker 5: I hope.
Speaker 6: So, I mean, there are a number of steps that
Speaker 6: proceeded AI that we haven't dealt, right, So, just the
Speaker 6: whole idea of privacy, data ownership things of that nature.
Speaker 5: I mean, all of this thing.
Speaker 6: Exists because the American people are basically, you know, giving
Speaker 6: way their data in order to use the utility that
Speaker 6: is the Internet. And every time we search, you know,
Speaker 6: we go into big data and algorithms are deployed. We
Speaker 6: have no just level of engagement with what is happening
Speaker 6: to us.
Speaker 5: And so it was really up to I believe.
Speaker 6: Congress to set up the Guard to protect the American people.
Speaker 6: And so we've done a number of hearings on privacy,
Speaker 6: but nothing has moved yet. I've got a piece of
Speaker 6: legislation in on you know, algorithmic bias at what damage
Speaker 6: that can do to our society that hasn't been dealt
Speaker 6: with yet. And AI is the convergence of both the
Speaker 6: exposure to data and the algorithms that ultimately, you know,
Speaker 6: govern sort of what we consume. It's sort of the
Speaker 6: perfect marriage of both that at the end of the
Speaker 6: day will give guidance to sort of the behaviors of
Speaker 6: a civil society if we don't put up these gold colts.
Speaker 1: If you will, right, so, let me ask you, your
Speaker 1: New York congresswoman. We have a lot of problems here
Speaker 1: with housing, but we also have these migrants who have
Speaker 1: come here, who are being resettled here. Can we absorb
Speaker 1: these people as we should and how? And are there
Speaker 1: people on the ground who are helping this happen or
Speaker 1: do you feel that they are being used as political bonds?
Speaker 5: Both are correct.
Speaker 6: I think that you use as political bonds, but I
Speaker 6: also believe that we can absorb them.
Speaker 5: I don't think it has to be a New York solution.
Speaker 5: I think it needs to be a national solution. There
Speaker 5: are you know, there are parts of.
Speaker 6: This country where their poise for expansion right.
Speaker 1: Most of the country is I mean, we have a tight,
Speaker 1: tight labor market.
Speaker 2: Absolutely we need people, yeah.
Speaker 5: Absolutely absolutely.
Speaker 6: I mean I think they're just sort of this false
Speaker 6: construct of scarcity that has been erected to scare people
Speaker 6: when you know.
Speaker 5: We know for a fact that right now that their.
Speaker 6: Labor shortages, they have more jobs and more opportunities than
Speaker 6: we have people to fill them. And that's assuming that
Speaker 6: we don't give migrants opportunity. You know, I think that
Speaker 6: if you know, we were honest, we could create you know,
Speaker 6: pathways or work authorization while these individuals sort of get
Speaker 6: their documentation and everything in order and adjudicate it. You know,
Speaker 6: at the end of the day, yes, this is a
Speaker 6: nation of laws, but it's also a nation of immigrants.
Speaker 5: So you know, if that either or.
Speaker 1: All the evidence shows that we desperately need people in
Speaker 1: this country, right. We need them to pay into social Security,
Speaker 1: we need them to work jobs. We have these Republican
Speaker 1: governors in the middle of the country who are loosening
Speaker 1: child labor laws because they don't have anyone to work
Speaker 1: in the factor is I mean, so clearly this is
Speaker 1: a situation where we actually really do need people and
Speaker 1: by keeping them out it just to makes no sense.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and we're not keeping them out, we're trapping.
Speaker 6: Them in a no win situation, you know, a very
Speaker 6: unhealthy situation, unhealthy for them and unhealthy for the greatest
Speaker 6: civil society. There's a lot of work that we get
Speaker 6: doing that space that unfortunately, you know, it's become a
Speaker 6: political football. But for some of our colleagues they've been
Speaker 6: able to use very successfully, you know, fear tactics, you
Speaker 6: know around sort of these individuals who who are making
Speaker 6: their way to the United States, who have made be
Speaker 6: away to the United States. But you know, the data
Speaker 6: statistics demonstrate that you know, all of the propaganda that
Speaker 6: my colleagues are using don't beer out in terms of
Speaker 6: you know what they're peddling in terms of fear tactics
Speaker 6: in a civil society like ours, and in a city
Speaker 6: like New York where you know where an immigrant portal,
Speaker 6: if you will, we can make it work.
Speaker 5: We just need the tools to make it work.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: It makes me wonder what we're doing here, right, because
Speaker 1: Republicans used to be for immigrants. I mean, all of
Speaker 1: this stuff that they're so against, they used to be for.
Speaker 5: This is a different brand.
Speaker 6: This is Maga and Maga, the disciples of Donald Trump, who,
Speaker 6: if you know his political history, you know was not
Speaker 6: a Republican until very recent right, right, right. This is
Speaker 6: a group of cult followers that are linked to a
Speaker 6: cult of personality around Donald Trump, who puts his finger
Speaker 6: in the air in whichever direction blows the meanest. That's
Speaker 6: the direction he's moving it right right, and a lot
Speaker 6: of people with him.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, just unbelievable.
Speaker 1: I mean, do you think that Democrats have shot to
Speaker 1: take back the House and do you feel like they
Speaker 1: have a plan?
Speaker 2: And New York, even more importantly than that, as a
Speaker 2: new Yorker.
Speaker 1: I have been disappointed that Democrats lost seats in New
Speaker 1: York and that j. Jacobs continues to be the chair
Speaker 1: of the Democratic Party in New York.
Speaker 6: Well, let me say that last year was a very
Speaker 6: unique year, and that it was a redistricting year, and
Speaker 6: I think that no one could have been anticipated. You
Speaker 6: know what ultimately took place with the courts in New
Speaker 6: York State around a special Master and a whole host
Speaker 6: of other things that really swung the pendulum in an
Speaker 6: extreme direction that made far more of the I think
Speaker 6: sinks in the state the right leaning than had ever
Speaker 6: been before. We were caught somewhat flat footed there, and
Speaker 6: I think work for preed to sort of pivot ghost
Speaker 6: of Andrew Cuomo. Right, Well, that's part of it. But
Speaker 6: the other was, you know, the really competitive and spirited
Speaker 6: governor's race at the same time, right, so far more
Speaker 6: people who historically have not faced such a spirited contest
Speaker 6: for a governor, I mean Leans, Bill Lean Velden, I
Speaker 6: think created a ripple in the state that made it possible,
Speaker 6: after mean district thing under the special mass for I
Speaker 6: guess more Republicans to be pulled out in some of
Speaker 6: these districts than had been well, these were new districts.
Speaker 5: Now, your question was do I believe me can regain them?
Speaker 5: And I do.
Speaker 6: The brands for the Republicans right now in our state
Speaker 6: is topic.
Speaker 5: You know. We have a.
Speaker 6: George Santos dynamic that's only gonna get worse, you know,
Speaker 6: and those Republican members are in with the madness here
Speaker 6: in Washington hook line and see. I've not heard any
Speaker 6: of them distinguished themselves from these maga Republicans and balloon me.
Speaker 5: I serve on chie committees with the number.
Speaker 6: Of these colleagues, and it astounds me to hear them
Speaker 6: espouse those values, knowing that they come from New York State.
Speaker 2: Crazy.
Speaker 6: Even our Republicans in New York State tended to be
Speaker 6: level headed.
Speaker 5: These folks are off the ramp.
Speaker 2: Thank you, thank you, thank you for coming on. I
Speaker 2: hope you'll come back.
Speaker 5: Absolutely, Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1: Molly Hi, It's Mollie, and I am wildly excited that
Speaker 1: for the first time, Fast Politics, the show you're listening
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Speaker 1: Kevin Cruz is a historian at Princeton University and author
Speaker 1: of myth America.
Speaker 2: Welcome to Fast Politics, Kevin Cruz.
Speaker 4: Great to be here.
Speaker 1: I think of you as a history professor, among other things.
Speaker 1: What's happening right now where we're seeing this Republicans pump
Speaker 1: up a third party candidate. So you could talk to
Speaker 1: us a little bit about third party candidates and how
Speaker 1: that's gone down in sort of recent American history.
Speaker 4: I mean they've usually gone down. I mean they don't
Speaker 4: do much. You make arguments that maybe at best a spoiler.
Speaker 4: I'll start endlest fights online. You can talk about Ralph
Speaker 4: Nader in two thousand, bleeding away just enough support for
Speaker 4: the Gore campaign in Floridas to flip that politics is
Speaker 4: a game of many different moving parts, and so that's
Speaker 4: just one. But yeah, certainly that might have been an effect.
Speaker 4: But that's the best they can do as a spoiler,
Speaker 4: and that's just the nature of the two party system.
Speaker 4: It's very rare for a third party candidate to break free,
Speaker 4: especially in the modern era. Ross Perreaut did extremely well
Speaker 4: in two racism in nineties, and even then it was
Speaker 4: barely a dent. And he only did well because he
Speaker 4: had a personal fortune to set on fire from the
Speaker 4: third party campaign. And unless you're doing that, you're not
Speaker 4: going to get any But you do.
Speaker 1: Have to wonder with Ross Perrau, I mean, he acted
Speaker 1: as a spoiler. He is part of the reason why
Speaker 1: HW didn't get re elected.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, he absolutely is. But in a lot of
Speaker 4: ways it was because he, in that one particular moment,
Speaker 4: was really coinciding with what Clinton was already saying that
Speaker 4: the policies of Reagan and Bush and economics had failed, right,
Speaker 4: and they had. They kind of together represented a real
Speaker 4: majority pushback against that. So in a lot of ways,
Speaker 4: Perrot helped make the case for Clinton. But again it
Speaker 4: didn't rebound to his own benefit.
Speaker 2: It only helped the Democrats exactly. So this period is
Speaker 2: such a strange period. What would you say the historical
Speaker 2: precedent is for.
Speaker 4: The period we're living in. I mean, we're kind of
Speaker 4: at a crossroads, as we always are. It's difficult to
Speaker 4: tell where the past is going to leave until we're
Speaker 4: a few bits out, so I'm reluctant to kind of
Speaker 4: state authoritatively where we are now. It does seem like
Speaker 4: things are in flux. I mean, we've seen the Republican Party,
Speaker 4: certainly over the last ten years, definitely the last since
Speaker 4: twenty sixteen, with the direction of Trump, has really moved
Speaker 4: into a much more a reactionary, much more kind of
Speaker 4: white nationalist politics. This has always been a minor theme
Speaker 4: in the party for at least the last fifty sixty years,
Speaker 4: but a minor theme. And what Trump has done is
Speaker 4: kind of flipped the script and put that part of
Speaker 4: the Republican coalition of a driver's seat, and seems to
Speaker 4: be now, you know, just doubling down and doubling down
Speaker 4: over again and again on this kind of politics of
Speaker 4: white reaction that appeals to an increasingly thin slice of
Speaker 4: the electorate, but it's enough currently to win the Republican nomination,
Speaker 4: and that makes it a kind of a jump ball
Speaker 4: for a general election given our politics. What that means
Speaker 4: for the long term Republican Party, I don't think you
Speaker 4: have to be an actuary to read the graphics and
Speaker 4: know that this is not going to be sustainable long term,
Speaker 4: and eventually the fever will have to break. But for
Speaker 4: the immediate future, I think they're wedded to the best.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean they clearly see the writing on the
Speaker 1: wall here right.
Speaker 4: Well, you know we've had multiple you know, they do
Speaker 4: these post mortems after everyone.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the best.
Speaker 4: They usually have a clear eyed assessment of what went wrong,
Speaker 4: what they need to do better, and then they file
Speaker 4: that away and ignore it. And they do so because
Speaker 4: I think the party analysts have a very long term
Speaker 4: view of the party and are very I think astute
Speaker 4: about what doom lies ahead? Do they keep following this path? Politicians, though,
Speaker 4: are always looking one election ahead, and in the current climate,
Speaker 4: that's all they have to care about, and they are
Speaker 4: committed to that kind of politics and white reaction for
Speaker 4: the foreseeable future.
Speaker 2: Eventually they'll get sick of losing.
Speaker 4: Theoretically, it depends on what is losing, right, So they've
Speaker 4: lost the popular vote in I can't even remember how
Speaker 4: many out of the last eight elections that they've been
Speaker 4: on the losing end. They've managed to hang on to
Speaker 4: the Senate due to the advantages they've got in that system.
Speaker 2: They managed to I mean they don't have the Senate now, I.
Speaker 4: Mean they managed to have a real presence of a
Speaker 4: Senate throughout a lot of these years. Right, They've taken
Speaker 4: the White House through the electoral college, and so, yeah,
Speaker 4: they're losing, But as long as they actually win some
Speaker 4: levers of power, I think that's coming enough to keep
Speaker 4: him in play. And the system, as says that, it
Speaker 4: rewards the winners, you know, and so whoever's got the
Speaker 4: power will find a way to hang on to it.
Speaker 1: If you were to sort of go back in history,
Speaker 1: have there been times when a political party has been
Speaker 1: this fucked?
Speaker 4: I mean yeah, I mean you could look at the
Speaker 4: Whigs fifty Yeah, I mean you could actually look at
Speaker 4: the Democrats in the nineteen twenties. They had won the
Speaker 4: White House with what Cleveland and Wilson since the Civil War,
Speaker 4: and that was it. They didn't have control of virtually anything.
Speaker 4: In the nineteen twenties. Will Rogers famously said, you know,
Speaker 4: I don't belong to an organized political Partymocrat and they
Speaker 4: just got their asses kicked time and time again. It
Speaker 4: was ultimately the Depression and the real discrediting of Republican
Speaker 4: policies that changed all that. But from the perspective of
Speaker 4: the nineteen twenties, it looked like the Democrats were, you know,
Speaker 4: on the way out.
Speaker 2: Looking at this sort of historical precedent predict the future.
Speaker 4: Go look, I mean I often say that, you know,
Speaker 4: and I get why people want to ask historians to
Speaker 4: make these predictions. But my training is in hindsight, I'm
Speaker 4: not butits And also I write about all these people
Speaker 4: who made bad predictions in the past. When you know,
Speaker 4: LBJ was elected in a landslide at sixty four, said
Speaker 4: that's it. Conservatism is dead, well, not so much. Reagan
Speaker 4: elected in nineteen eighty a landslight Well, liberalism has gone well,
Speaker 4: not so much. So it's tempting in the moment to
Speaker 4: kind of have these catastrophic takes, but I'm real worried
Speaker 4: about saying them. I will say, I do think we're
Speaker 4: in a moment of reckoning. How long it's going to
Speaker 4: take to come to pass really is going to depend
Speaker 4: on how these next feel shakeout. If it really is
Speaker 4: a series of wipeout for the Republicans, they'll be forced
Speaker 4: to change pace. If they can hang on and eke
Speaker 4: out something close to a fifty to fifty existence. They'll
Speaker 4: stay on this as long as they can.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it sounds right. I'm wondering about this
Speaker 1: sort of world in which we find ourselves in. There
Speaker 1: is no precedent for a political candidate who is the
Speaker 1: front right of a party being indicted both on state
Speaker 1: charges and federal charges, and likely more state charges to come.
Speaker 2: There's no precedent, right, I mean.
Speaker 4: I mean, you know, not a major Eugene Debs ran
Speaker 4: from prison. That's closely done, and it hadn't happened because
Speaker 4: usually parties weed out the candidates with all this baggage,
Speaker 4: and it's a there's a kind of a self regulating
Speaker 4: aspect to the party structure in which you want to
Speaker 4: have the candidate with the biggest chance of winning a
Speaker 4: general election be your nominee and believed or not molly. Traditionally,
Speaker 4: when a candidate was indicted for crimes at the federal
Speaker 4: or state level, that was sort of a deal breaker.
Speaker 4: They would not nominate that person. They would have said,
Speaker 4: find somebody who had the same kind of policy beliefs
Speaker 4: but did not have a long criminal record to be
Speaker 4: the standard bearer for the party. So we're in an
Speaker 4: unprecedented place solely because Republican voters have apparently turned into
Speaker 4: a cult where it's got to be this one man
Speaker 4: and only this one man.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he does have a hold on the party. I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm trying to think of like predent presidents. I mean
Speaker 1: maybe where a sort of one candidate has had a
Speaker 1: sort of death part on a political party. I mean
Speaker 1: you could say like George Washington.
Speaker 4: Right, sure, sure, but even then Washington above anyone else,
Speaker 4: made it clear it wasn't about him. The pattern for
Speaker 4: serving only two terms and kind of kind of the
Speaker 4: modern day Cincinnatus, So he doesn't have that. I mean,
Speaker 4: death grip is the right term here, because there have
Speaker 4: been parties that have really been beholden to major political figures.
Speaker 4: Think of the Democrats and FDR.
Speaker 1: Right, that's what I was. Actually the FDR ran for
Speaker 1: three terms, so ran for four turns on terms, right,
Speaker 1: and was really committed there.
Speaker 4: But he was a winner. Right. Reagan had some some
Speaker 4: low points in his presidency, but you know, won the
Speaker 4: first election one reelection was regarded as a winner. Trump
Speaker 4: really is a death grip because he's going to kill
Speaker 4: him They really have convinced themselves that he's some sort
Speaker 4: of winner. He didn't win a majority of the popular
Speaker 4: vote in twenty sixteen or twenty twenty, he lost the House,
Speaker 4: lost the Senate on his watch, He's got negative coat tails,
Speaker 4: and yet they are convinced that he is the one
Speaker 4: knownly It's really bizarre.
Speaker 1: Do you think that there's a president that's not a
Speaker 1: political president that's sort of more of like a celebrity president,
Speaker 1: Like I'm thinking of.
Speaker 2: Like, is it is he Elvis? Is he? Do you
Speaker 2: know what I mean?
Speaker 1: Like, Yeah, is there some like pied piper like celebrity
Speaker 1: figure that Donald Trump could sort of track to in
Speaker 1: real life?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 4: I mean, I mean there is a sense that it
Speaker 4: is all celebrity. And for all the criticisms Republicans had
Speaker 4: about Barack Obama being a celebrity president, I mean this
Speaker 4: is kind of the host of Celebrity Apprentice. This is
Speaker 4: a guy who's done pitches for sharp image, and you know,
Speaker 4: this is not someone who has kind of a deep,
Speaker 4: you know, a serious kind of gravitas behind them. It's
Speaker 4: all image and that's what they like. And so I mean,
Speaker 4: I'm not the first one to draw a comparison, but
Speaker 4: always reminds me of character of lonesome roads facing the crowd.
Speaker 4: The Eliot Cazenne. Yeah, you know about a TV huckster
Speaker 4: who gets to political following. I mean, that's kind of
Speaker 4: what we've got here. Or if you want to be darker,
Speaker 4: you know, it's Jim Jones in Guyana having his followers
Speaker 4: drink the flavor aid like a cult. I mean, that's
Speaker 4: the kind of real commitment to a single political leader.
Speaker 4: I mean, if you want to go big, it's kind
Speaker 4: of the cult of personality. We've seen authoritarian dictatorships across
Speaker 4: the twentieth century. Yeah, that is really a sense that
Speaker 4: whatever the leader says, that is what we believe. And
Speaker 4: it seemed like that was an exaggeration until we got
Speaker 4: to the twenty twenty campaign when the Republican Party didn't
Speaker 4: even put together a platform. I mean, that is amazing,
Speaker 4: and all they said was basically, whatever Donald Trump says,
Speaker 4: that's what we believe. I mean, that shows how far
Speaker 4: they've got in from principles to personality.
Speaker 1: Last night, Brettbair did this interview with Donald Trump. What's
Speaker 1: happening at Fox is defies explanation, but basically they got fined,
Speaker 1: you know, almost a billion do for lying about the election,
Speaker 1: and now they're sort of trying to push back against
Speaker 1: some of the lying about the election that has happened
Speaker 1: on their network.
Speaker 2: Again, I don't think you get a medal for that, but.
Speaker 1: I'm curious what your sort of take on that is.
Speaker 1: I'm curious also, like, as a student of history, this
Speaker 1: situation we find ourselves in now with a media that
Speaker 1: is really largely unregulated and a social media that is
Speaker 1: almost completely unregulated. Does it just end in tears or
Speaker 1: is there some kind of self regulation that happens or
Speaker 1: some kind of right spot.
Speaker 2: If you look at history, the.
Speaker 4: Movie Network came out in nineteen seventy six and was
Speaker 4: you know, seems surreal and fantastical back then, but we're
Speaker 4: living in it. I mean, it really is that news
Speaker 4: outlets are treated like any other form of entertainment and
Speaker 4: they're looking for ratings, and that's the financial model we've
Speaker 4: set up. Those are the incentives they have. It used
Speaker 4: to be that they thought they could get ratings by
Speaker 4: being the most respected name in news. Now it's just
Speaker 4: whatever gets eyeballs. I don't think there's a real chance
Speaker 4: of any kind of self regulation as long as there's
Speaker 4: still an audience demand for this kind of stuff. But
Speaker 4: I will say what Fox has done recently, and they've been,
Speaker 4: you know, wildly uneven in their approach. What the bread
Speaker 4: Bear interview I think showed was that they do see
Speaker 4: there are certain lines they cannot cross. They cannot allow
Speaker 4: the kind of election lies to go on challenge or
Speaker 4: they know there's going to be a price for them
Speaker 4: to pay. They didn't care about the country paying a price,
Speaker 4: but now, but there's a price for them to pay.
Speaker 4: I think they absolutely care. So they're going to do
Speaker 4: what they can to shoot that down. And it's a
Speaker 4: good thing for us because there are certain people inside
Speaker 4: the kind of the Trump coult who are never going
Speaker 4: to turn in to hear CNN or NPR or MSNBC
Speaker 4: or anything else from the so called you know, lamestream
Speaker 4: media boxes is becoming more suspect in their eyes, there's
Speaker 4: a chance to hear it. If the only thing that
Speaker 4: comes out of this is that maybe Trump learns he
Speaker 4: can't spread those lies is easily on Fox. I think
Speaker 4: he started down on it. Down that ando of itself
Speaker 4: is a good.
Speaker 1: Thing, right, but it is I mean, they are also
Speaker 1: to cable carriage fees.
Speaker 2: There's a lot of self interest here, but it is
Speaker 2: a bit I mean.
Speaker 1: One of the things that I think is pretty interesting
Speaker 1: what's happened with Rubert Murdock is he was one of
Speaker 1: the sort of creators of a sort of media complex
Speaker 1: that runs on opinion and far right opinion.
Speaker 2: That is not new. Those kind of newspapers, magazines and television.
Speaker 4: Channels not all no, no, they've always been there, but
Speaker 4: what is new is the centrality that they play out.
Speaker 4: You had the kind of things that would have been
Speaker 4: spewed on Fox News or OA and N or Newsmax
Speaker 4: or in these channels kind of on the right, far right.
Speaker 4: They'd always been there, but they came out as you know,
Speaker 4: a mimiograph newsletter or an AM radio program. Right. The
Speaker 4: reach was fairly small, and there was a real draw
Speaker 4: on the part of so called respectable conservatives to draw
Speaker 4: a line between those people and themselves, right. William F.
Speaker 4: Buckley was a master of this constantly, you know, fighting
Speaker 4: with the John Birch Society in public to make people
Speaker 4: in the National Review seem respectable. By comparison, there's a
Speaker 4: lot of Cowrick that shows that that's largely overblown, but
Speaker 4: he knew the value of that right that you had
Speaker 4: to signal publicly I am not one of these wackos. Well,
Speaker 4: now it's the exact opposite, right, You've got Republican leaders
Speaker 4: in the House, presidential aspirates who are trying to say
Speaker 4: I'll pardon the January sixth in directionist are giving nods
Speaker 4: and winks to chewing on to all kinds of conspiracies
Speaker 4: on the far right. They want to make sure that
Speaker 4: the voters out there who believe in these crazy things
Speaker 4: think that they're at least sympathetic, if not one of them.
Speaker 2: One last question, who was the dumbest member of the Senate? Though?
Speaker 4: Oh god, it's so tough. I mean, come on, I mean,
Speaker 4: I gotta say Tommy Tuberville at the moment.
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, that is correct. You win the podcast.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's amazing.
Speaker 2: It's got to be Tuberville. It's got to be Tuville, right,
Speaker 2: the Louis Gohmert of the Senate.
Speaker 4: He really is, he really is.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the best. Thank you, thank you, thank you. I
Speaker 2: hope you'll come back anytime.
Speaker 4: Always great to be here. No mo Jesse Cannon, my
Speaker 4: junk fast, that supreme Court is like singing that song Hello,
Speaker 4: can you go about their approval rating just every day.
Speaker 1: Here's the thing about the conservative justices Alito and Thomas
Speaker 1: the worst too. They cannot fly commercial. The problem is
Speaker 1: they cannot fly commercial. They are unable and sadly because
Speaker 1: they only make a couple hundred thousand dollars or maybe
Speaker 1: a little less. As Supreme Court justice is the most
Speaker 1: powerful job in the land, they have to fly commercial,
Speaker 1: so they must take these donations, these gifts quote unquote
Speaker 1: from rich conservatives who often have cases in front of
Speaker 1: the Court, like Paul Singer, and they have to do
Speaker 1: it because they really don't like flying commercial. And I
Speaker 1: have to say, I respect the hell out of the grift.
Speaker 2: We're going to see how unpopular the Supreme Court is
Speaker 2: going to be. I think we're just scraping the bottom
Speaker 2: and there's more to go. And for that, that is
Speaker 2: our moment of fuckery. That's it for this episode of
Speaker 2: Fast Politics.
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Speaker 2: And again thanks for listening