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 the RNC now makes staffers answer
Speaker 1: if the twenty twenty election was stolen.
Speaker 2: They have to make sure you'll lie about that. We
Speaker 2: have such an interesting show for you today.
Speaker 1: Domestic policy advisor to President Biden you're Atandent stops by
Speaker 1: to talk to us about the Republican war on reproductive
Speaker 1: rights and health more generally. Then we'll talk to historian
Speaker 1: Thomas Zimmer about his deep dive into the Heritage Foundation
Speaker 1: and their plan for Project twenty twenty five.
Speaker 2: It's actually fascinating and terrifying.
Speaker 1: But first we have NBC National Affairs correspondent John Heilman.
Speaker 2: Welcome back to Fast Politics. John, Thank you.
Speaker 3: Hey, Molly, you were like on Morning Joe And you know,
Speaker 3: I like nothing. I like better when I'm in Los
Speaker 3: Angeles and I wake up at three am to watch
Speaker 3: the six am hour of Morning Joe Live, because I Yeah,
Speaker 3: that's the kind of psychopath I am.
Speaker 1: So let's talk about the vibe shift in American politics.
Speaker 1: I mean, there certainly is a lot of anxiety about
Speaker 1: RFK Junior and Nicole Shanahan. But it's not clear that
Speaker 1: he can get you know, he still has had trouble
Speaker 1: getting on the ballots. He's almost completely funded by a
Speaker 1: Republican I mean, it seems like there's a vibe, a
Speaker 1: larger vibe shift in this world's longest general election.
Speaker 2: Yes, no, I mean, what do you what do you
Speaker 2: feel here?
Speaker 3: Moly. One of the one of the advantages, one of
Speaker 3: the few advantages to being in my age, my rapidly
Speaker 3: encroaching decrepitude and senility, is that I've like kind of
Speaker 3: I've done on some of these races before, and so
Speaker 3: like the momentary vibe shift is like, not is not
Speaker 3: really one of my it's one of my moral enemies.
Speaker 3: People overstated the degree to which Joe Biden was dead
Speaker 3: and toast and Donald Trump's gonna kill Joe Biden and
Speaker 3: people now, especially in the liberal media, Well, we'll seize
Speaker 3: on a couple of poles and claim and the combination
Speaker 3: of a series of things. He did really well at
Speaker 3: the State of the Union. There are a couple of
Speaker 3: poles to show there's been a State of the Union bounce.
Speaker 3: Trump is obviously having all the problems he's having, although
Speaker 3: those are ongoing, and people will now say there's a
Speaker 3: bit of a bibe shift and we all think that
Speaker 3: Biden's bouncing back. My view, you may not ever want
Speaker 3: to have you back on the podcast again because I'll
Speaker 3: say the same, which is the race is going to
Speaker 3: be really close, and it's going to be really close.
Speaker 3: Vibe shifts don't take place within the margin of era,
Speaker 3: but polling shifts do. It's always been a margin of
Speaker 3: ARA race. It's still a margin of air race. It's
Speaker 3: going to be a margin of era race until election day.
Speaker 3: And there are six seven maybe five, sorry, tween five
Speaker 3: and seven states that will determine the outcome. The numbers
Speaker 3: of votes that will determine the outcome is tiny, so
Speaker 3: small things that will happen much closer to election day.
Speaker 3: You can't be determinative. And the thing about r FK
Speaker 3: is that the third party problem is a real problem
Speaker 3: for Biden, and some of these people are going to
Speaker 3: get on tickets. It looks like that they may the
Speaker 3: Biden people that may be fortunate in that no labels
Speaker 3: doesn't seem like it's going to be able to put
Speaker 3: a candidate on the ballot, which would have been bad
Speaker 3: for them. The RFK thing is a bit of a conundrum.
Speaker 3: The Trump people think that RFK is the only one
Speaker 3: of the potential third party candidates who could hurt Trump
Speaker 3: because of the fact that it's not just a Republican donor.
Speaker 3: But you know, he connects to a lot of these
Speaker 3: anti Backs people, and those are Trump people, So you know,
Speaker 3: he's obviously going to take some votes away from both
Speaker 3: of them because he's a Kennedy on one side and
Speaker 3: he's also anti Backs on the other side. He's a
Speaker 3: wild card. But I thought for a year and continue
Speaker 3: to think that the race is a margin of arra
Speaker 3: race that's going to be really, really close, and I
Speaker 3: don't think anything's going to change my view about that.
Speaker 3: When someone starts pulling consistently ahead or behind of the
Speaker 3: other person outside the margin of error incredible polls. We
Speaker 3: can have a conversation about bibe ships. I mean, I'm
Speaker 3: not dissing the question. I'm just saying no, no. I
Speaker 3: think I think that people who thought Biden was dead
Speaker 3: overstated the case. And I think people who think that
Speaker 3: somehow Biden is going to cruise to reelection are out
Speaker 3: of their minds. I think the reality is it's going
Speaker 3: to be really hard fought, and that he is perfectly
Speaker 3: capable to winning the race. Joe Biden is and I
Speaker 3: would even I continue to say that I make him
Speaker 3: a slight favorite in winning the race, but I would
Speaker 3: have said that three weeks ago or three months ago
Speaker 3: just as much. And I do think the state of
Speaker 3: the Union is really if you really think about vibe
Speaker 3: shifts in terms of people, just the Democratic bed wedding
Speaker 3: reducing in volume and volume reach, and maybe it's cooling
Speaker 3: a bit. It's not quite as warm the bed wedding.
Speaker 3: You know, they're like everything's chilled, they're chilling a little bit.
Speaker 3: Is the state of the Union is the key element
Speaker 3: of that. It's like to see Biden get over to
Speaker 3: perform like that and then to see a little bit
Speaker 3: of movement, and the numbers has reduced a very bunch
Speaker 3: of very nervous nellies. They're a little bit nervous now.
Speaker 3: So that's yes, there's a little bit of a vibe shift,
Speaker 3: but again I think the underlying data suggests super close.
Speaker 3: Biden probably the slight favorite, but Trump could win. And
Speaker 3: I think that everybody's just fixed that of their brains
Speaker 3: right now. That's really the underlying dynamics of the race
Speaker 3: are like that and are going to be like that
Speaker 3: probably until November.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, that's not a bad way to think
Speaker 1: about any presidential campaign or race.
Speaker 3: So when you look at a poll and the poll
Speaker 3: has a margin of error in it, right, and you
Speaker 3: see the margin of error says margin of era three points.
Speaker 3: That means the margin of era applies to both people's numbers.
Speaker 3: So if you want to know what the margin of
Speaker 3: error is, you multiply it by two. It's really six.
Speaker 3: What that means is like bo Biden could be up
Speaker 3: forty two to thirty seven over Donald Trump, or fifty
Speaker 3: two to forty seven in a three percent margin of
Speaker 3: aar race, and that's still within the margin of era
Speaker 3: because the three points applies to Biden could be up
Speaker 3: three or down three from what the number is that
Speaker 3: they have for him, and Trump could be up three
Speaker 3: or down three. So in a three point margin of
Speaker 3: era race, you know, you could be up by five
Speaker 3: and you're still within the margin of era. You can
Speaker 3: be down by five and you're still within the margin
Speaker 3: of era. And people think that that like look at
Speaker 3: that number and think, oh, it's if it's beyond the
Speaker 3: three but the lead is bigger than three points. It's
Speaker 3: outside the march of era. That's not true. It's got
Speaker 3: to be out more than six. So like I it's
Speaker 3: the margin of these poles. You haven't learned anything. It's really,
Speaker 3: I mean, it's helpful to remember because you people make
Speaker 3: the mistake on television all the time, the poles. It's
Speaker 3: one of the things that should reinforce People's another thing
Speaker 3: that a lot of people feel in their gut over
Speaker 3: the leap of the last couple cycles. In particular, the
Speaker 3: poles have been proven wrong in a variety of ways,
Speaker 3: over in twenty sixteen, in twenty twenty, in a lot
Speaker 3: of the midterm polling, it's like everybody should be looking
Speaker 3: more at directions and trend lines of polls, and that
Speaker 3: the precise number, Oh, Joe Biden's up by one. Joe
Speaker 3: Biden is never up by one. Donald Trump is never
Speaker 3: up by one. That's always within the margin of ear
Speaker 3: It's meaningless if you start to see trend lines that
Speaker 3: show consistently in high quality polls that one side is
Speaker 3: that the gap is widening, when you're actually that's what
Speaker 3: you should be paying attention to and I always just
Speaker 3: say that only just reinforce the notion to go to
Speaker 3: the top point. Hey, guys, gonna be a close race, and
Speaker 3: there's going to be some ups and downs, and there's
Speaker 3: going to be some moments when people think Biden is
Speaker 3: just dead, and there's going to be some moments people
Speaker 3: think Trump is just dead. And I think if all
Speaker 3: things of you know, unless somebody gets hit by a
Speaker 3: bus or there's a Martian invasion, the reality is that,
Speaker 3: like this is going to be really close race until November.
Speaker 1: It is a good point, though, that Biden has many
Speaker 1: points in mid terms. I mean I wrote a piece
Speaker 1: in the Washington Post that said he should drop out.
Speaker 1: I mean, he has been declared dead many many times,
Speaker 1: Like that's sort of his favorite thing.
Speaker 3: Yes, I mean, look, people, you know, famously Broughck Obama
Speaker 3: told him he couldn't beat Donald Trump in twenty sixteen
Speaker 3: and he to let Hillary Clinton take the reins and
Speaker 3: that you know how that worked out. You know, people
Speaker 3: said he couldn't win the Democratic nomination in twenty twenty
Speaker 3: because the party was too progressive and Bernie and Elizabeth
Speaker 3: Warren now had driven the party to the left, and
Speaker 3: he could never ever win the Democratic nomination, and then
Speaker 3: you know, he got crushed an Aisle, We got crushed
Speaker 3: in New Hampshire. He was definitely dead after those two things.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's when I wrote that story.
Speaker 3: He goes on and sweeps the race, right. People said
Speaker 3: he couldn't beat Trump from the basement, and then he
Speaker 3: beats Trump and twenty twenty, you know, people said that
Speaker 3: he couldn't get anything done. I had to bipartisan way
Speaker 3: on Capitol Hill, and then he gets the efrastructure bill pass.
Speaker 3: People said the Democrats are going to get crushed in
Speaker 3: the twenty twenty two midterms, and that didn't happen. If
Speaker 3: you did a thought bubble over Biden's head whenever he
Speaker 3: hears anyone say we should throw this to an open convention,
Speaker 3: like if James Carvill, who I love and respect. But
Speaker 3: when James Carvill or Ezra Kleiner, someone says, hey, open convention,
Speaker 3: get Biden out of there. What Biden thinks is, you're
Speaker 3: the same people who said I couldn't win the nomination,
Speaker 3: couldn't beat Trump, couldn't succeed in Congress, couldn't have a
Speaker 3: decent mid term in twenty twenty two. Fuck you, like
Speaker 3: you all have been naysaying me for years, and I've
Speaker 3: proven you wrong time and time again. Now on the
Speaker 3: other side of that, that static analysis from Biden's point
Speaker 3: of view, because he is older. Go back and watch
Speaker 3: Biden's announcement speech in twenty twenty in May of twenty nineteen,
Speaker 3: and compared to how he speaks now he's older. You know,
Speaker 3: he's not as robust, he's not as full of energy,
Speaker 3: he's not as clear, he's not as you know a
Speaker 3: lot of things. So he has gotten older. He's not
Speaker 3: as good at candidate as he was in twenty twenty.
Speaker 3: That's not some huge shot at Biden. You know, a
Speaker 3: lot of candidates in that age group at view four
Speaker 3: years later are going to be worse. But it's not
Speaker 3: a perfect rapust to the point that, you know, people
Speaker 3: are worried about Biden's performance to say, hey, I won.
Speaker 3: You guys were doubters before, and I proved you wrong.
Speaker 3: What you have to do is you have to keep
Speaker 3: proving it now. And that's why the State of the
Speaker 3: Union was important, because that's not telling people you guys
Speaker 3: doubted me before and you were wrong. That's showing people
Speaker 3: that you can still have the energy, have the clarity,
Speaker 3: have the force, have the fight in you that you
Speaker 3: can take Donald trumpot if you can show them day
Speaker 3: after day, that's the thing that we'll back off people
Speaker 3: from their bed wedding. And again, I think that's why
Speaker 3: that there's a moment here where people are feeling a
Speaker 3: little less suicidal than they were two months ago. It's
Speaker 3: because that combo of Trump is you know, the money
Speaker 3: thing and all the stuff we know. We can tell
Speaker 3: about Trump all day long, but the Biden a little
Speaker 3: bit of a Biden, you know, the first time you've
Speaker 3: seen upward movement and is pulling in a long time,
Speaker 3: and then this very vivid performance is like white people
Speaker 3: and I think people are you know, I mean, in
Speaker 3: the end, I really care that much about democratic bed
Speaker 3: wedders because I don't think that they really determined who
Speaker 3: wins the race in the end. But it is the
Speaker 3: case that a lot of people that you and I
Speaker 3: run into in the green room at morning, Joe, are
Speaker 3: a little calmer than they were a couple months ago.
Speaker 1: You know, one of the things I think of you
Speaker 1: as doing is like you go to.
Speaker 2: Everywhere, right go to Iowa.
Speaker 1: You know, You're like a person who goes to like
Speaker 1: the important political places. Well also Los Angeles, which is
Speaker 1: not very important politically.
Speaker 3: I usually hit about thirty states a year, so it's
Speaker 3: like I, you know, one way or the other end.
Speaker 3: And sometimes it's more, you know, it's a primary season.
Speaker 3: I'll be in place like Iowa and South Carolina in
Speaker 3: New Hampshire. But I travel a lot, and not just
Speaker 3: back and forth from LA to New York. I end
Speaker 3: up getting to a lot of places for various reasons,
Speaker 3: and so I end up talking to a lot of
Speaker 3: people who are I don't want to say, like I'm
Speaker 3: out like David Broder knocking on doors and talking to
Speaker 3: quote average voters. I'm not like sitting in Manhattan most
Speaker 3: of the time or in DC.
Speaker 2: I feel that so.
Speaker 3: I get to at least, you know, whether it's small business.
Speaker 3: I mean I give speeches and stuff, but you know,
Speaker 3: so it's whether it's a you know, a pharmaceutical company
Speaker 3: board or something in Arizona. People like, oh, you know
Speaker 3: kind of oh, you're on the speaking circuit. But the
Speaker 3: truth is, if you go and talk to the board
Speaker 3: of a pharma company or a healthcare company or a
Speaker 3: real estate management company in Florida, you know, you're meeting.
Speaker 3: You know lots of people who are they're not the
Speaker 3: coastal elites, and they're not in the Sella corridor class,
Speaker 3: and they think about politics from the standpoint of what
Speaker 3: my taxes look like, what are interest rates look like?
Speaker 3: What are my employees telling me all the time? And
Speaker 3: you get a little bit of a sense, a little
Speaker 3: bit better sense of like what the mood of the
Speaker 3: country is. When you go around, no matter how unscientific
Speaker 3: it is, you kind of get some sense of a
Speaker 3: kind of ambient sense of where people's heads are at.
Speaker 3: And usually it kind of comports with the pulling and
Speaker 3: I would and the broad sense, and I'd say that,
Speaker 3: you know, to answer the question that I think you're
Speaker 3: going to ask, you can't gauge like the week to
Speaker 3: week movements of like anything. It's but you can get
Speaker 3: a sense. And I just would say that, like my
Speaker 3: overwhelming sense of for the last year has been liberal, moderate, conservative,
Speaker 3: everyone has been. If I had to write a book
Speaker 3: about this campaign, it would be is this really the
Speaker 3: best we can do?
Speaker 4: You know?
Speaker 3: That's what you hear from people, And I hear from
Speaker 3: Democrats all the time, not I'm not this is not
Speaker 3: an anti Biden thing. You know Democrats who say, I
Speaker 3: know Joe Biden is better than Donald Trump. I'm going
Speaker 3: to vote for Joe Biden. I know he's on democracy
Speaker 3: side and Donald Trump is a fascist. And I know
Speaker 3: that there's no I'm not no false equivalency here. As
Speaker 3: a citizen, I look at these two octagenarians and say,
Speaker 3: is this really the best America? Is this really the
Speaker 3: two best people who could competing for the presidency? And again,
Speaker 3: I hear that from liberals as much as I hear
Speaker 3: it from moderates and conservatives. People are just a little
Speaker 3: bit like, huh, okay, if this is the choice, I
Speaker 3: know what I'm gonna do. But I'm not like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 3: this is I'm really psyched about this. I mean, on
Speaker 3: either side. Frankly, it's the Trump people. You're that from
Speaker 3: a lot of Republicans too, They're out psyche de Metrump.
Speaker 1: I actually have Republican friends people always shocked by this,
Speaker 1: who were like, you know, very in Trump world, who
Speaker 1: are like hesitantly just going to go along with it
Speaker 1: this time because you can't not right. But here's my
Speaker 1: question for you, Like this was originally that's very bad.
Speaker 1: Senate map for Democrats. I talked to, you know, someone
Speaker 1: in Florida. I was talking about how they think they're
Speaker 1: probably going to be able to get abortion on the ballot.
Speaker 1: In Florida, they got a million signatures one hundred thousand
Speaker 1: Republicans on that there's a theory of the case, or
Speaker 1: at least there's some sort of green shoots of hope
Speaker 1: that these bottom up candidates might move the ticket along.
Speaker 2: I mean, am I wish casting.
Speaker 3: A little bit a little bit, but I don't think
Speaker 3: I mean, not necessarily a lot. I mean, here's one
Speaker 3: way of thinking about what we've seen in American politics
Speaker 3: post Dobbs in this Biden era in general, has been
Speaker 3: you know, Democrats underperforming in polling and overperforming on election day.
Speaker 3: And one of the things that people who are serious
Speaker 3: in the business point to and say is that you know,
Speaker 3: and that's not a trivial thing. I mean, some you
Speaker 3: know that there's something going on there, and what's going
Speaker 3: on there has been that you know, these these issues.
Speaker 3: And I sometimes get yelled at by women for saying,
Speaker 3: you know that we didn't know how much of a
Speaker 3: real voting issued abortion would be until Dobbs came along.
Speaker 3: It was all a hypothetical.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 3: They were like, we knew women would do this or that,
Speaker 3: and I'm like, hey, guys, you know anything. What you
Speaker 3: did was you believed, you thought things, you hoped for things,
Speaker 3: but you didn't know, and none of us knew because
Speaker 3: you'd never seen a fundamental individual liberty stripped away by
Speaker 3: the court in the history of the country. So it's like,
Speaker 3: we give this. The history of the country has been
Speaker 3: a progressive expansion of rights taking one away. Anyone who
Speaker 3: said they knew how salient and motivating an issue that
Speaker 3: would be new is wrong because there was no precedent
Speaker 3: for it. As it turns out, it's a really big deal,
Speaker 3: at least on the basis of what we've seen so
Speaker 3: far in terms of turned out. It's part of the
Speaker 3: explanation of the not just beyond all the polls are
Speaker 3: rolling all the time, there's also the theres the this
Speaker 3: juncture between where Democrats have been in polling and where
Speaker 3: they've been on election day has been that the power
Speaker 3: of Dobbs, and I would say more broadly, the power
Speaker 3: of the series of issues that Dobbs is at the
Speaker 3: center of that have allowed Democrats to paint Republicans accurately,
Speaker 3: I would say as out of touch extremists. That's one
Speaker 3: of the issues. And now there's a p number of
Speaker 3: issues that go into that picture of the Republican Party
Speaker 3: headed by Donald Trump as being extreme and out of
Speaker 3: touch with the center of America. But Dobbs is the
Speaker 3: core of that. And Democrats have successfully done that and
Speaker 3: they're going to try to do it again. And you're
Speaker 3: pointing to an example in Florida where people have it's
Speaker 3: not that they want to make abortion the only issue
Speaker 3: on the ballot, but they understand that it's like the
Speaker 3: lynchpin issue itself is very important, but it's also connected
Speaker 3: to this other picture, which is this party is too
Speaker 3: extreme on a p number on a variety of issues.
Speaker 3: And so look, I think the Senate map, you'd be
Speaker 3: insane or really heavily wishcasting to be like all is well,
Speaker 3: you know, you'd be like that that dog and the
Speaker 3: burning building meme. You know it's sycom. I mean, it's
Speaker 3: like it's it's not that the map is still the map.
Speaker 3: It's still a really tough map, and that outside the
Speaker 3: margin of normalcy, there's not a world where Democrats like
Speaker 3: are picking up seats in the Senate. If the demer
Speaker 3: Routs hold the Senate, it will be a very powerful thing.
Speaker 3: The map is very bad and that there's very few
Speaker 3: pick up opportunities. That's just the reality. But it may
Speaker 3: be maybe not unreasonable to hope that the Democrats can
Speaker 3: put together enough holds that they can maintain control of
Speaker 3: the Senate and or maybe you know, end up at
Speaker 3: fifty to fifty again and it Biden wins that again
Speaker 3: get you control of the Senate. It's not the likeliest outcome,
Speaker 3: but it's not an impossible outcome, and if it turns
Speaker 3: out to be possible, it will be because of this
Speaker 3: larger trend, which is that this issue set is motivating
Speaker 3: people against Republicans and for Democrats in a way that's
Speaker 3: really unprecedented, like I think I've never really quite seen before,
Speaker 3: and all the time of Parro politics, it's just really
Speaker 3: been amazing to watch the way that that abortion and
Speaker 3: then the larger set of issues have motivated people in
Speaker 3: a country that a lot of people have over many
Speaker 3: years of thought is like basically issues don't really move people.
Speaker 3: Turns this one really does, and that collection of them
Speaker 3: and maybe that will work to Democrats paper.
Speaker 2: Again, John, thank you so much. That was super important.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 1: Near Tandon is a domestic policy advisor to President Biden.
Speaker 2: Welcome back to Fast Politics.
Speaker 4: Near. Great to be with you.
Speaker 2: I'm so happy to have you.
Speaker 1: I feel like there's so much going on in this
Speaker 1: White House, and like I was listening, you know, I'm
Speaker 1: like a big c Span person, so I actually get
Speaker 1: to hear what the President says and right, because that's
Speaker 1: the only place you get to hear it. And also
Speaker 1: the first lady talking about this can that all this
Speaker 1: amazing cancer stuff they're doing with these people who can
Speaker 1: help you navigate the system, and just very very cool stuff.
Speaker 1: So I'm hoping you could talk to us first about
Speaker 1: what's happening in this admin when it comes to healthcare.
Speaker 4: Great.
Speaker 5: I can't think of anything I would like to do more.
Speaker 5: I've been working in hardcare a long time. This is
Speaker 5: my third administration, my third Democratic administration, of course, and
Speaker 5: I've been working on hardcore in in each administration. I
Speaker 5: started off on the administration obviously, work in the bombed
Speaker 5: administration and on the Affordable Care Act. But I think
Speaker 5: people lose sight of is how historic the action of
Speaker 5: the President is taken are. Because we have the lowest
Speaker 5: rate of uninsurance ever, we've been able to do things
Speaker 5: that you know, advocate the best for, like you know
Speaker 5: we're advocated for for decades, like given power for Medicare
Speaker 5: to negotiate drug prices that actually get drug prices down,
Speaker 5: and also do historic protections. We just put out a
Speaker 5: new rule to eliminate junk insurance. These are the short
Speaker 5: term plans where you think you have insurance and it's
Speaker 5: when you need it, it's really no insurance there.
Speaker 1: Like Liberty Health Systems, the company fun Seapack Right Liberty
Speaker 1: Hell to Share exactly Yes, which turned out to be
Speaker 1: a fraud. Shockingly, the company that funded Seapack a couple
Speaker 1: times anyway gone Yes.
Speaker 4: Shockingly.
Speaker 5: When Trump was president, he created he did a rule
Speaker 5: takes Spangen Endurance. I have no idea whether that's connected
Speaker 5: to any particular funder at.
Speaker 4: All, but that's the thing. The difference is pretty start.
Speaker 5: So when it comes to expanding coverage, lowering costs, you know,
Speaker 5: really trying to create protections for.
Speaker 4: People and a healthcare for them.
Speaker 5: The President has been laveser focused and you know, he
Speaker 5: really understands what it means for people. He really thinks
Speaker 5: through the anxiety people have in their healthcare. So of
Speaker 5: lemme goes back to his own experience when he's been
Speaker 5: taking care of a loved one and how anxiety producing
Speaker 5: it can be. So you know, I mean, it really
Speaker 5: is a nord star for him as he started this conversating.
Speaker 5: And I think it is hard to break through on
Speaker 5: some of these issues them tips, because it isn't you
Speaker 5: know sometimes when you have they historic numbers of people
Speaker 5: covered in the affortable correct twenty one million people, and
Speaker 5: I was starting to semitstrate that was twelve million people.
Speaker 5: You know, it just didn't break through because it's not
Speaker 5: a conflict or a fight. It's a good thing that's happening.
Speaker 5: So I appreciate any opportunity to talk about it.
Speaker 1: It must be like very gratifying though if you think
Speaker 1: about I mean, for example, Obamacare is wildly popular and
Speaker 1: it wasn't always and I was thinking about, you know,
Speaker 1: there was so much strong and dram about that policy,
Speaker 1: the idea that you were going to be able to
Speaker 1: get healthcare, and then Trump desperately wanted to get rid
Speaker 1: of it and had to plan for a perfect healthcare
Speaker 1: that everyone was going to love in two weeks, and
Speaker 1: he will get rid of it if he can get
Speaker 1: back into office.
Speaker 2: We know that to be true.
Speaker 1: But what's happened since Obamacare, since the Obama had been
Speaker 1: is that it's become actually really a way of life
Speaker 1: for a lot of Americans. I mean, is it gratifying
Speaker 1: to watch how popular it's become.
Speaker 4: I thought the day would come.
Speaker 5: I mean, there were many years that there wasn't popular
Speaker 5: and we had to defend it. And I remember when
Speaker 5: Trump came into office and there were even some groups
Speaker 5: who thought we should, you know, we might just have
Speaker 5: to cave on allowing Obamacare to go.
Speaker 4: And you know, I just thought that was crazy.
Speaker 5: And I also think that the fight over Obamacare has
Speaker 5: also made clear millions of people, you know, what's really
Speaker 5: at stake. And the fact that forty five million people
Speaker 5: now have coveraged because of Obamacare, twenty one million in
Speaker 5: the exchanges, you know, close to twenty five million in
Speaker 5: the medicaid program, it really means like millions.
Speaker 4: And millions of people reliant on the healthcare coverage.
Speaker 5: The fact that now we're forty states have done Medicaid expansion,
Speaker 5: that it's become much less contention had strong support in
Speaker 5: the public. I mean, I find that gratifying, but I
Speaker 5: also think it's the basic fact that everything they said
Speaker 5: about it, you know, is going to create death panels
Speaker 5: or kill a private insurance was all crazy and wrong.
Speaker 5: And it is an important service, and affordability has been
Speaker 5: a key point. It is hugely popular on now it's growing.
Speaker 5: We got five million people in the last year alone
Speaker 5: signed up for exchange coverage, a three point four million
Speaker 5: routina or one point seven million Black Americans, And so
Speaker 5: you know, it's hugely popular, is having a particular impact
Speaker 5: and prevading insurance picking music color. But I also think
Speaker 5: I've lived through a lot of these fikes, and the
Speaker 5: Republican Party had an ideological objection. Medicare and Medigaid and
Speaker 5: Obama pair is front and center. And that's why, you know,
Speaker 5: last week the republic Cretiqummittee put forward to plan and
Speaker 5: it's like so radical, it's hard to believe.
Speaker 4: It's a cover a four point five brillion.
Speaker 5: Dollar cut to the ACA, HILD, the health insurance program,
Speaker 5: Medicaid programs four point five trillion over ten years. It
Speaker 5: invistiates all of these programs. They voucherize Medicare, and that's
Speaker 5: eighty percent of the House Republican Congress married to Trump,
Speaker 5: who's already tried to get rid of it, and like fot.
Speaker 4: Tooth and nail.
Speaker 5: And that's why I think we have to be really
Speaker 5: conscious that. You know, if you think it's crazy that
Speaker 5: they would try to rip away health in terms for
Speaker 5: forty five million people, that's what they do. This is
Speaker 5: an ideological fight. And so you know, that's why I
Speaker 5: was really practice the President take them on Tuesday and
Speaker 5: really lay out the contracts in North Carolina and just
Speaker 5: drive be really clear about what's with stake, because what
Speaker 5: they kind of rely on is their plans are so
Speaker 5: crazy people don't take it seriously. And when we don't
Speaker 5: take them seriously, that is when things get scary. So
Speaker 5: that is why it's really important and over the next
Speaker 5: several months for it's to really being very clear about
Speaker 5: the difference.
Speaker 4: Rooms.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I love that Republican Study Committee because it's like
Speaker 1: all the crazy stuff you would expect to find in
Speaker 1: an oppo file.
Speaker 2: They just put their names to it. You know, they're like, yeah,
Speaker 2: we wanted got the federal.
Speaker 4: That's the point.
Speaker 5: It's not like they feel ashamed that's like what they would.
Speaker 4: Like to do to America.
Speaker 5: It's like, yeah, I think it's like good that they
Speaker 5: put it out because people can received. It's all in
Speaker 5: black and white, you know, basically transforming the Medicare program
Speaker 5: into a boucher program where people like have to tay
Speaker 5: more for coverage.
Speaker 4: You know, that's that's right there.
Speaker 1: I mean, my favorite one is the Heritage Foundation being like,
Speaker 1: why is an IVF better regulated? Like, you guys don't
Speaker 1: want to regulate anything but IVY.
Speaker 2: That's the one place.
Speaker 5: You regulate anything other than women's body that is okay
Speaker 5: to regulate.
Speaker 2: Yeah, IVY.
Speaker 1: Suddenly IVF is the thing they're the most worried about it.
Speaker 1: So that Medicaid expansion is a huge deal and we
Speaker 1: don't cover it so much because in some states you
Speaker 1: have red states with blue governors desperately trying to get
Speaker 1: it past state legislators and attention does not serve. But
Speaker 1: it's going. I mean, this is happening in a lot
Speaker 1: of states. Does that mean more hospitals? Does that mean
Speaker 1: more coverage? I mean, can you give us just a
Speaker 1: little like explainer about what that looks like on the
Speaker 1: ground in a red state where they've done the expansion.
Speaker 5: Well, I'm not going to give you a red state
Speaker 5: because it's very much a purple state. We were just
Speaker 5: in North Carolina, which had a Republican legislature and has
Speaker 5: a Republican legislature that had not done Medicaid expansion or
Speaker 5: had not done Medicaid expansion for years in your years,
Speaker 5: Geverrendor Cooper bought the long, hard fight to convince them
Speaker 5: to do the Medicaid expansion. They passed it. It will
Speaker 5: it's covering four hundred thousand people now in Medicaid and
Speaker 5: will cover six hundred thousand. Just got implemented a few
Speaker 5: months ago, but ultimately we'll cover six hundred thousand people.
Speaker 4: And I'll just give you a great example of what
Speaker 4: it means.
Speaker 5: The President was introduced by a woman who was in
Speaker 5: the Medicaid It was in the gap of coverage, so
Speaker 5: she didn't qualify for the date Medicaid program, but didn't
Speaker 5: make enough for the Affordable Care Act exchanges. So that's
Speaker 5: what was so crazy about this policy. If you were
Speaker 5: slightly higher income, you to get into the exchanges because
Speaker 5: those were federal. If a state hadn't done medicating stage
Speaker 5: and people there were people had no coverage. There was
Speaker 5: that group of people who had no coverage, which is
Speaker 5: so insane because you.
Speaker 4: Know, she told the story which is she's slightly.
Speaker 5: Blind and she hurt her hand and she had to
Speaker 5: go to the hospital. She had an accident and she
Speaker 5: had to go to the hospital. She really needed emergency care.
Speaker 5: She was really worried about it. She didn't didn't have
Speaker 5: health insurance. It happened in December and she just got
Speaker 5: covered by Medicaid, so she was able to go to
Speaker 5: the hospital and not worry about coverage, and she may
Speaker 5: not have gotten to the hospital.
Speaker 4: So it's just that kind of basic anxiety that people have.
Speaker 5: When they don't have health insurance that you know, if
Speaker 5: they get sick bay Cake coverage. But also what's really
Speaker 5: important about it is, you know, eventually why business groups
Speaker 5: supported it in North Carolina is that it really funds
Speaker 5: your rural hospitals. Rural hospitals disproportionately rely on Medicaid. In fact,
Speaker 5: in states that have expanded Medicaid, they've had much fewer
Speaker 5: rural hospital closing and states that haven't expanded Medicaid, you know,
Speaker 5: like Exis, they had a lot more ural hospital clothing
Speaker 5: and what that also means is that people just can't
Speaker 5: get the coverage they need in their community, and it's
Speaker 5: just such a counter productive, ridiculous posture.
Speaker 4: So I'm so glad we're now at forty states.
Speaker 5: But if you really think about we think about it,
Speaker 5: just these governors who have not been the coverage and
Speaker 5: have not done a Medicaid expansion are literally just do
Speaker 5: things and not provide coverage to people out of fight.
Speaker 5: I mean, the reimbursement rate is like ninety five percent,
Speaker 5: close to one hundred percent at for a new state.
Speaker 4: It's really crazy.
Speaker 5: But you know, I also think we have now a
Speaker 5: good date of example of states where you know they're
Speaker 5: doing the right thing. Virginia several years ago, now North Carolina.
Speaker 5: We're getting more and more coverage in more and.
Speaker 2: More, yeah, which is amazing.
Speaker 1: And again this was a problem rural hospitals were unable.
Speaker 1: I'm thinking about this Louisiana report that released last week,
Speaker 1: which had talked about just how there's healthcare deserts. There's
Speaker 1: hospital deserts, and then there's also maternal fetal health deserts,
Speaker 1: and then there's also because of Republicans overturning Roe V.
Speaker 1: Wade and Trump's super trumpefied Supreme Court. You don't have
Speaker 1: obgyns in some of these red states, or you have
Speaker 1: been many fewer than you need. Is there any way
Speaker 1: the federal government can help these women?
Speaker 5: So far, there's some data that we've gotten that ten
Speaker 5: percent of OB when in red states where you know,
Speaker 5: ROW has been overturned and there's where there is no
Speaker 5: right abortion orders of man we see. You know, that's
Speaker 5: a pretty significant decline of access to OBS.
Speaker 4: Like, the challenge on ROW is that it is really hard.
Speaker 5: To undo, you know, when we have a constitutional right
Speaker 5: that's been there for thirty years and is undone. There
Speaker 5: are a limited stepth that the federal government can take
Speaker 5: in terms of just providing access to healthcare.
Speaker 4: You know, we have actually increased investments into maternal health.
Speaker 5: You know, we have a whole strategy around maternal mortality
Speaker 5: which is really focused on trying to give support to hospitals,
Speaker 5: lower resource hospitals, hospitals and horror communities and really focused
Speaker 5: on trying to get them the resources for prenatal care.
Speaker 4: But the challenge with OB's is that.
Speaker 5: You know, we can't bring me people work in states
Speaker 5: they don't want to and so.
Speaker 4: Right, it is really hard. It's a really hard problem.
Speaker 5: I mean, when you basically vilify doctors and you know,
Speaker 5: potentially criminalized you know, basically, where you have an abortion band,
Speaker 5: you are criminalizing doctors who would provide the care that
Speaker 5: is the target. You know, obviously OB's are going to
Speaker 5: feel unwultimary states. And the President has heard from a
Speaker 5: number of doctors who just have left practic He's actually
Speaker 5: heard from doctors who's left practice in states because they're
Speaker 5: scared of because they look at women they want to
Speaker 5: provide care to and can't because of these abortion bands.
Speaker 4: So you know that's hard.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and that's what is.
Speaker 1: You know, I've heard so many stories from ob is
Speaker 1: about what it's like and even like you know this
Speaker 1: story they don't want to tell you. In Tennessee, I
Speaker 1: heard a story of a woman or they didn't want
Speaker 1: to tell her you having a miscarriage. My doctor friend
Speaker 1: was saying, well, her numbers had gone down, down, down
Speaker 1: till we knew that the pregnancy was not holding.
Speaker 2: And they didn't want to.
Speaker 1: Tell her the patient because they didn't want to do
Speaker 1: a DNC. And I mean, that is no way to practice.
Speaker 5: A Madison I mean the fact that people know about care,
Speaker 5: doctors know of here a patient needs and tell them
Speaker 5: they need to get thicker in order to get the
Speaker 5: care because of the law in a state. It's just
Speaker 5: a crazy but it also really speaks to the basication here,
Speaker 5: which is these laws fundamentally believe women's dignity should take
Speaker 5: a second like take you know, should take a sort
Speaker 5: of a second seat. You know, fundamentally these laws are
Speaker 5: really about controlling women.
Speaker 4: And I think that's that's the fight we're in. It
Speaker 4: is insane, but it's also you know, that's the fight
Speaker 4: we're in.
Speaker 5: And we need to elect more people who think differently
Speaker 5: and will pass a national law to protect row.
Speaker 4: That is, that is what is in front of us.
Speaker 5: And you know it's not my place to talk about politics,
Speaker 5: but in this selection, you know, I'm I mean, that's
Speaker 5: the choice that we have. We can allow this to happen,
Speaker 5: or we can in bite to change it.
Speaker 1: Craziness near Tandeon, Thank you so much. I hope you'll
Speaker 1: come back.
Speaker 4: I would love to always great to be with you.
Speaker 1: Thomas Zimmer is a historian at George Washington University and
Speaker 1: author of The Substack Democracy Americana. Welcome to Fast Politics.
Speaker 1: Thomas Zimmer, you're a historian at Georgetown. Not bad, but
Speaker 1: you wrote about something that Jesse and I are obsessed with,
Speaker 1: which is Project twenty twenty five.
Speaker 5: Right.
Speaker 1: I think we actually agree on this idea that this
Speaker 1: is this sort of mainstreaming of anti democracy may actually
Speaker 1: be its most dangerous facet. So give our readers first
Speaker 1: what Project twenty twenty five is, and then let's go
Speaker 1: from there.
Speaker 6: What would the past two months detailed plans have emerged
Speaker 6: on the right for what they want to do upon
Speaker 6: getting back to power. There's different factions on the right.
Speaker 6: They're preparing separate plans. There's also rivalries between them. But
Speaker 6: Project twenty twenty five I think stands out among all
Speaker 6: these different factions at different plans. It was launched in
Speaker 6: April twenty twenty two under the leadership of the Heritage Foundation,
Speaker 6: and it really unites much of the conservative movement, conservative
Speaker 6: think tank machine, the activist lobbying groups behind the goal
Speaker 6: of installing a much more effective, much more ruthless right
Speaker 6: wing regime. If you zoom out then to try to
Speaker 6: understand what is this Project twenty twenty five, I think
Speaker 6: it's best described as the American Rights Declaration of war
Speaker 6: on the idea of a multiracial, pluralistic, diverse society. It's
Speaker 6: a plan to execute what amounts to a comprehensive authoritarian
Speaker 6: takeover of American government, and then a plan to use
Speaker 6: government as a tool to impose a really extreme, a
Speaker 6: radical reactionary agenda and vision for society on the entire
Speaker 6: country against the will of the majority of Americans. And
Speaker 6: it's really is of this idea of a white Christian
Speaker 6: patriarchal order, and everybody has to idea to that. So
Speaker 6: again it's this this, this comprehensive plan to take over
Speaker 6: government and then and then use it as a tool
Speaker 6: to impose that on society.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about what that looks like. Give us some
Speaker 1: very concrete, kind of examples of things that it wants
Speaker 1: to do.
Speaker 6: I think it's important to note that there's so broadly speaking,
Speaker 6: it envisions a vast expansion of presidential power over the
Speaker 6: executive branch of government. So that's the first thing they
Speaker 6: want to do. And then they want to dismantal certain
Speaker 6: parts of government, certain parts of the administrative state and
Speaker 6: federal agencies, while simultaneously mobilizing and weaponizing other parts. I
Speaker 6: think it's really important to keep them together at the
Speaker 6: same time because they talk a lot about, oh, we
Speaker 6: want to dismantle the state, and you know, to some
Speaker 6: extent that's true. For instance, they say our Department of
Speaker 6: Education that needs to be abolished, like straight up abolished,
Speaker 6: it needs to go, or like the EPA, they want
Speaker 6: to delate a lot of stuff. So this is sort
Speaker 6: of the stuff that you would know from a conservative
Speaker 6: legal movement, like get out of you with all these
Speaker 6: regulations and everything that goes against moneyed interests. So that
Speaker 6: needs to go. But at the same time, this is
Speaker 6: not a small government libertarian kind of vision because they
Speaker 6: also identify everything that can be used. So basically, everything
Speaker 6: that is a tool for government to create a thera
Speaker 6: a more egalitarian society needs to go. But everything that
Speaker 6: can be used as a tool to impose the sort
Speaker 6: of reactionary white Christian patriarchal order on society, all that
Speaker 6: needs to be mobilized and weaponized. So for instance, the
Speaker 6: Department of Health and Human Services, right for them, that's
Speaker 6: not about public health, that's entirely about imposing sort of
Speaker 6: a white Christian reactionary understanding of oh there's a man
Speaker 6: and woman and marriages just between a man and a
Speaker 6: woman and whatever like of course, like total abortion ban,
Speaker 6: and that's how they want to use that or the
Speaker 6: CDC for instance, which generally they hate. But also they
Speaker 6: want to create this sort of massive data bank at
Speaker 6: the CDC where every information about every abortion in the
Speaker 6: entire country is of centrally located at this one place.
Speaker 6: So this is not a small government libertarian vision, not
Speaker 6: at all. It's a vision of sort of weaponizing and
Speaker 6: then mobilizing the coersive powers of the state against their enemies.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: No, no, they're total liars. They want to use the
Speaker 1: government to get what they want. But this project twenty
Speaker 1: twenty five comes from the Heritage Foundation. So talk to
Speaker 1: us about the sort of Heritage Foundation and what part
Speaker 1: they play in those Yeah.
Speaker 6: So this is really important because I think some people
Speaker 6: still think, oh, yeah, so Trump Trump is crazy, right,
Speaker 6: and Maga is crazy, and this is of the crazy
Speaker 6: right wing fringe. But this is as establishment as it gets.
Speaker 6: This is not the fringe. The Heritage Foundation was established
Speaker 6: in nineteen seventy three during the Nixon administration, when stills
Speaker 6: of the Conservatives had had this sense that just Nixon
Speaker 6: wasn't enough. They needed a more conservatives of these all
Speaker 6: these institutions to counter what they perceived as of liberal hegemony.
Speaker 6: So they created all these think tanks, and Heritage has
Speaker 6: always been the most important, the most influential conservative think tank,
Speaker 6: the one that is closest to power, that has closest
Speaker 6: to the center of the Republican Party. It was associated
Speaker 6: with Reaganism, and it associated itself with of Reaganism. But
Speaker 6: in recent years it took a decided least of Trumpy
Speaker 6: in turn, and the guy who's currently in charge, Kevin Roberts,
Speaker 6: who became the president of the Courritage Fundation in late
Speaker 6: twenty twenty one, is varies of instrumental in taking the
Speaker 6: Heritage Foundation in a much more openly radical, open lyaset
Speaker 6: of pro Trumpist direction. And so now they openly say
Speaker 6: our mission is to institutionalize Trumpism, by which they mean
Speaker 6: not like containing it or taming it, but making it
Speaker 6: more effective, right, making it more efficient. And so what
Speaker 6: you have here they basically they brought all these conservative
Speaker 6: institutions organizations together, like I think as of right now,
Speaker 6: over one hundred conservative institutions are listed as part of
Speaker 6: their advisory board. Project twenty twenty five's advisory board, and everyone,
Speaker 6: like everyone you can think of is it's like who
Speaker 6: is who of some of reactionary organizations and institutions in America.
Speaker 6: So they brought them all together unite them behind this project.
Speaker 6: And so what this really tells us is it was
Speaker 6: an interesting Here was an interview with Kevin Roberts and
Speaker 6: Indwork Times in December where he said something like this
Speaker 6: is not the fringe, this is heritage. And he's right,
Speaker 6: this is not the fringe. This is as conservative establishment
Speaker 6: as it gets. So this should tell us something about
Speaker 6: where the center the power center of American conservatism, how
Speaker 6: much that has radicalized, how much that has moved to
Speaker 6: the right. And that is why I think this is
Speaker 6: so instructive to look at Project twenty twenty five.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's a really good point. And it's
Speaker 1: so interesting because they have a real plan for things.
Speaker 1: So tell me what else you have found where you're like,
Speaker 1: this is horrifying.
Speaker 6: I'll say, maybe so one more of detailed thing and
Speaker 6: then one big picture thing. So the more detailed thing is,
Speaker 6: like I said, this is a plan to dismantle some
Speaker 6: point of government and then weaponize and mobilize other parts
Speaker 6: of government as sort of a tool.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 6: But all of this only works if you have the
Speaker 6: manpower to like to the right kind of personnel, the
Speaker 6: right kinds of people, to put into these institutions of government,
Speaker 6: into these federal departments, into these federal agencies, into these
Speaker 6: federal commissions. They didn't have that in twenty seventeen. And
Speaker 6: they know exactly that they didn't have that in twenty seventeen, right,
Speaker 6: they didn't have the people, right, so they had to
Speaker 6: rely on Remember all that the adults in the room
Speaker 6: and all that nonsense, but that was actually it wasn't
Speaker 6: true in the White House, but it was true in
Speaker 6: across the agencies in the federal government, all these sort
Speaker 6: of career diplomats or bureaucrats or experts. Right, So this
Speaker 6: time they want to get rid of all of these people.
Speaker 6: Underlying all this is this fever dream of a great
Speaker 6: urge of government officials. They want to come in. They
Speaker 6: want to fire and replace up to fifty thousand federal
Speaker 6: employees by implementing something that they call it's called Schedule F.
Speaker 6: It's basically idea of stripping civil service actions of like
Speaker 6: fifty thousand people in order to make them virable, right
Speaker 6: and then replace them with what they themselves call quote
Speaker 6: conservative warriors. This is explicitly what they're looking for, sore
Speaker 6: right now, they're engaged in this massive vetting operation where
Speaker 6: they're looking for they're using an online questionnaire thing to
Speaker 6: find these of true ideological believers and put them in
Speaker 6: place everywhere. And again, this is a completely different thing,
Speaker 6: completely different animal compared to twenty seventeen. This is not
Speaker 6: just going to be Trump two, is not just going
Speaker 6: to be more of the same of Trump one. Not
Speaker 6: that the first Trump presidency wasn't awful, but this is
Speaker 6: going to be a completely different animal. And this is
Speaker 6: partly why they, like no one understands better than these
Speaker 6: people that they were not ready in twenty seventeen. They
Speaker 6: didn't have plans, they didn't understand government. The people who
Speaker 6: Trump brought in had no idea what they were doing.
Speaker 6: And so this time they understand, we need to be ready,
Speaker 6: we need to have the plans ready, and we need
Speaker 6: to have the people to put in place to sort
Speaker 6: of implement those plans. And I mean again, like this
Speaker 6: is as comprehensive as it gets. This should tell everyone
Speaker 6: next time they will be ready.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that makes sense.
Speaker 6: Over the past few years, I've found one of the
Speaker 6: more frustrating things in American politics is if you try
Speaker 6: to describe to people who may not be paying it
Speaker 6: all that much attention to American politics. By the way,
Speaker 6: this is not the criticism is just not everyone gets
Speaker 6: paid to do this, right.
Speaker 1: No, No, I get it, man, Yeah, no, I get
Speaker 1: paid to do this. But yes, I agree, there's a
Speaker 1: lot of news fatigue, especially after trump Ism.
Speaker 6: Absolutely I get that right. People need to like people
Speaker 6: need to live their lives and they have stuff to
Speaker 6: deal with. That's okay. But then what makes it frustrating
Speaker 6: is when you describe to people, again who don't pay
Speaker 6: all that much attention to American politics, how much the
Speaker 6: American right has radicalized and how radical these plans are.
Speaker 6: You got looked at like you have fallen off the
Speaker 6: deep end, that this is just some lefty crazy conspiracy right, right,
Speaker 6: So it can be really difficult to convey to people. No, look,
Speaker 6: this is what they are saying. So in this respect,
Speaker 6: I think Project twenty twenty five is actually tremendously helpful.
Speaker 6: I'm almost grateful to them for writing this down because
Speaker 6: like the right wing leaders who are behind these projects,
Speaker 6: they could not possibly be clear about the reactionary vision
Speaker 6: they want to impose on the country. They are telling
Speaker 6: us that they do not accept this egalitarian, pluralistic idea
Speaker 6: of a society in which the individual's status is no
Speaker 6: longer determined by race, gender, religion, and well, and they
Speaker 6: feel justified in taking like really radical extreme measures to
Speaker 6: prevent that society from ever becoming a reality, because they
Speaker 6: believe they are defending quote unquote real America in service
Speaker 6: of this higher purpose, the purpose of entrenching the quote
Speaker 6: unquote natural order and divine will. And these are the
Speaker 6: kind of categories in which they think right, in which
Speaker 6: they justify what they are doing. I tell people, look,
Speaker 6: if you don't want to believe me, fair enough, some
Speaker 6: lefty liberal professor who would trust me, fine, okay, just
Speaker 6: read what they have to say. And I always tell people, look, okay,
Speaker 6: So they're putting out this sort of nine hundred and
Speaker 6: twenty page policy agenda report, which I don't expect people
Speaker 6: to read, but in that thing, and they have it
Speaker 6: on their website. You can just google Project twenty twenty five,
Speaker 6: and they have this nine hundred and twenty page report
Speaker 6: on as a PDF document on the website and you
Speaker 6: go to it, and in it the president of the
Speaker 6: Heritage Foundation, Kevin Roberts, he wrote the foreword to it.
Speaker 6: He's calling it a promise to America. So basically his
Speaker 6: promise to America. I'm going to call it a threat,
Speaker 6: but whatever he calls it, his promise to America. Right,
Speaker 6: it's just like fifteen sixteen pages, I think, is what
Speaker 6: it is. And I just want everyone to just just
Speaker 6: read this, just those few pages. It is so open,
Speaker 6: is there's nothing in between the lines. There's no you
Speaker 6: don't have to like translate or read between the lines.
Speaker 6: It is so open, it is so aggressive. It is
Speaker 6: sort of this visceral disdain for anything in anyone who
Speaker 6: deviates from this sort of white Christian patriarchal understanding of
Speaker 6: what society should look like. It could not possibly be
Speaker 6: clearer than that. And so I think again, if you
Speaker 6: read this and you come away from this thinking, yeah,
Speaker 6: I like this kind of stuff, okay, whatever, like we
Speaker 6: probably can be friends, but.
Speaker 2: You're probably not listening to this podcast.
Speaker 6: Exactly Like I wouldn't expect that. But then at least
Speaker 6: you know fair enough, you know what's up. But again,
Speaker 6: if you read this at least you get a sense
Speaker 6: of what the stakes are in November, because, in a
Speaker 6: very concrete sense, this is what's on the ballot in November.
Speaker 6: This isn't really about Trump versus Biden. It's more again,
Speaker 6: this is basically a referendum on whether or not the
Speaker 6: attempt to make America into a kind of democratic, pluralistic,
Speaker 6: multiracial society to keep going on that path, whether or
Speaker 6: not that should be continued or maybe completely abolished. Right,
Speaker 6: So this is a thumbs up or down kind of
Speaker 6: vote on some democratic self government and the Civil Rights Order.
Speaker 6: I just don't see how that could be any clearer
Speaker 6: than when you read these of fifteen six pages that
Speaker 6: the Heritage Foundation's president were down there. And again, in
Speaker 6: that sense, I'm I'm honestly kind of grateful for them
Speaker 6: for just writing it down and telling the world, also
Speaker 6: telling it this is our promise to America. And then
Speaker 6: I think America should decide do we like this or not?
Speaker 5: Right?
Speaker 1: No, I agree, obviously on the left, we're all completely horrified.
Speaker 1: But one of the things about trump Ism is there's
Speaker 1: almost no pushback. You know, Trump says the crazy and like,
Speaker 1: with very few exceptions, I mean, Mitch McConnell, who we
Speaker 1: know hates him, already endorsed him. So like, I mean,
Speaker 1: is this just where the Republican Party is now? If
Speaker 1: Democrats were enacting a bold but insane and anti democratic legislation,
Speaker 1: I think there'd be some pushback.
Speaker 6: Yeah, no, I agree. So there are different factions on
Speaker 6: the right, and not everyone wants Project twenty twenty five
Speaker 6: in charge. Right, So Trump's campaign they are working on
Speaker 6: their own sort of set of plans. They call it
Speaker 6: Agenda forty seven. There other there's the America America First
Speaker 6: Policy Institute, like overts of Trump administration alumni coming together,
Speaker 6: like they are working on their own plans, and these
Speaker 6: different factions they're buying for power. They they don't necessarily
Speaker 6: all like each other, so that that stuff is definitely
Speaker 6: going on. But on substance, right, there is no disagreement
Speaker 6: about any of this kind of stuff. That's also why
Speaker 6: I find it very misleading when people sort of say, oh,
Speaker 6: these plans don't matter, Like ultimately Trump is going to
Speaker 6: be Trump, and Trump doesn't care about any of this
Speaker 6: kind of stuff, and he's not the kind of guy
Speaker 6: to implement, you know, a comprehensive policy agenda. Look, I agree,
Speaker 6: Trump's not going to sit down and read nine hundred
Speaker 6: and twenty pages of policy, but he'll.
Speaker 2: Put the judges in that they that they tell him to.
Speaker 6: It's even more than that, I get it right. So
Speaker 6: in some sense he is not exactly an ideal vessel
Speaker 6: for the kinds of ambitious, comprehensive plans that they have
Speaker 6: here because he's erratic, he's lazy, he is volatile, and
Speaker 6: he's not sitting down to like dive into this kind
Speaker 6: of stuff yet. Right, he is sort of he's animated
Speaker 6: by his spirit of vengefulness and grievance, and he is extreme.
Speaker 6: He isn't restrained by norms, and that is precisely why
Speaker 6: the right united behind him in the first place in
Speaker 6: twenty sixteen. They didn't want a conquote normal Republican. They
Speaker 6: wanted someone who would take the gloves of someone who
Speaker 6: would be willing to do whatever it takes in their
Speaker 6: sort of understanding of where America is. So they wanted
Speaker 6: someone who would certainly not reject Project twenty twenty five
Speaker 6: because he thought it was going to be too extreme,
Speaker 6: or because he had qualms about questions of legality and
Speaker 6: precedent and all that. It takes a truly radical president
Speaker 6: in the White House to implement plans like these, because
Speaker 6: they are pretty radical, right, and that is Trump, That
Speaker 6: is Trump. If you compare these plans to what Trump
Speaker 6: himself says what he wants to do, you know, in
Speaker 6: his sort of rambling speeches and rallies and all that
Speaker 6: kind of stuff, the general thrust of Project twenty twenty
Speaker 6: five is entirely in line with what Trump wants to
Speaker 6: do with power, right, Urge these centers from government, place
Speaker 6: them with loyalists, expand presidential power, and make the executive
Speaker 6: into a tool for whatever the regime wants to do. Look,
Speaker 6: it doesn't take much sophisticated analysis to explain why such
Speaker 6: plans would appeal to Trump. He wants power, he wants impunity,
Speaker 6: he wants the ability to plunder.
Speaker 2: Is an autocrat, yeah, right, And.
Speaker 6: He will certainly not sit down again and read through
Speaker 6: the nine hundred and twenty pages of this sort of
Speaker 6: policy agenda report Project twenty twenty They will not no, no,
Speaker 6: But Donald Trump, as someone with aggressively autocratic instincts and sensibilities,
Speaker 6: We'll look at this and think, oh yeah, I kind
Speaker 6: of like this, right, like giving me all this power
Speaker 6: and like purging my enemies from the states and punishing
Speaker 6: my enemies, and he likes all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 6: The idea that there will be some sort of internal
Speaker 6: friction that will sort of make this fail, I find
Speaker 6: that not plausible at all. This this will work really
Speaker 6: well with what Trump wants to do.
Speaker 1: Exactly if Trump gets re elected. This is where we go.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Thomas. I hope you'll come.
Speaker 6: Back absolutely anytime, any time. They're no more perfectly Jesse
Speaker 6: Cannon I drunk fast.
Speaker 3: We know the Republicans don't believe in democracy, but then
Speaker 3: they sometimes do really really hilarious things to show us
Speaker 3: some great examples of this. What are you see in here?
Speaker 1: Kentucky has a Democratic governor named Andy Buschers.
Speaker 2: He just won reelection.
Speaker 1: And one of the things, I mean, this is like
Speaker 1: so unbelievable. You know, you have this Republican state legislature
Speaker 1: and then a democratic governor. So they were real worried
Speaker 1: about their two senators, but only one of them, and
Speaker 1: so they made it so now the governor doesn't get
Speaker 1: to replace a senator if they die. You know why
Speaker 1: they did this right because Mitch MCCONNALLD is about to
Speaker 1: give up leadership, is extremely old, has been having some
Speaker 1: health issues. It's just such a craven power grab and
Speaker 1: it's also set up, you know, in just a totally
Speaker 1: disgusting and for that, that is our.
Speaker 2: Moment of fuck Ray.
Speaker 1: That's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in
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Speaker 1: in politics makes sense of all this chaos. If you
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Speaker 1: and keep the conversation going. And again, thanks for listening.