Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics,
Speaker 1: where we discussed the top political headlines and we have
Speaker 1: such a great show for you today. Legendary campaign manager
Speaker 1: Stewart Stevens stops by to talk about how Trump gas
Speaker 1: lights us into thinking his policies are popular. Then we'll
Speaker 1: talk to Massachusetts Governor Mora Healley on the real life
Speaker 1: implications of Trump's careless cuts to the government but.
Speaker 2: Versus the news SAMII, the woke Supreme Court. You know
Speaker 2: a lot of people have wondered if they would stand up.
Speaker 2: Apparently they don't stand up when they want when people
Speaker 2: want to put poop in our water, but they do
Speaker 2: deny the Trump administration's request to cancel two billion in
Speaker 2: foreign eight.
Speaker 1: You're still in the poop water. I see.
Speaker 3: I am.
Speaker 1: Got you very upset. So look, this is the only
Speaker 1: thing we have standing between us and autocracy, and this
Speaker 1: is Amy Cony Barrett. The good news is that one
Speaker 1: of Trump's three justices is not a total lackey. The
Speaker 1: bad news is she is very ideologically religious. So this
Speaker 1: is do what you will. Thomas Alito will rubber stamp
Speaker 1: anything that Donald Trump comes up with Gorsic unless it
Speaker 1: has to do with Native Americans, and Brett Cavanaugh are
Speaker 1: basically carbon copies of their older buddies. Amy is actually
Speaker 1: smart and Roberts has already you know, this is just
Speaker 1: his ill gotten legacy. So look, here's the story. Can
Speaker 1: Trump as president cancel legislation passed by Congress? The answer
Speaker 1: is constitutionally no, but Donald Trump doesn't care. Right, So
Speaker 1: Elon Mush is doing all of these things. It's an
Speaker 1: illegal right. Courts have said it's illegal, but now the
Speaker 1: Supreme Court is saying it's illegal. So we have this
Speaker 1: foreign I think that it will now the Supreme Court
Speaker 1: has said that they have to continue to release it.
Speaker 1: We'll see what happens. Because JD has already mused about
Speaker 1: ignoring the courts again, one step closer to the constitutional crisis.
Speaker 1: All of us see ourselves walking into fun times.
Speaker 2: So Maria, as we know, one of the worst witnesses
Speaker 2: against mister Trump, and he hates what people are witness
Speaker 2: against him. Well is mister Trump himself, because he always
Speaker 2: says things that are used to gets to a quarter
Speaker 2: of law, like what you.
Speaker 4: Missed a g.
Speaker 2: Carroll for an ex wife of his, and so many
Speaker 2: other occurrences where do you see it here, Doge.
Speaker 1: Which you'll remember they had said in court that Elon
Speaker 1: was not the head of well during this state of
Speaker 1: the Union, though it's not called the state of a Union,
Speaker 1: the joint addressed to Congress, Donald Trump said, and you'll
Speaker 1: be shocked to hear this, I have created the brand
Speaker 1: new Department of Government Efficiency, Doge. Perhaps you've heard of it, perhaps,
Speaker 1: which is headed by Elon Musk, who is in the
Speaker 1: gallery tonight. So there we go. They were saying that
Speaker 1: it wasn't headed by Elon Musk, but now Trump has
Speaker 1: said it is headed by Elon Musk, and this means
Speaker 1: that it is, and that means that he is in charge.
Speaker 1: And so now a lawyer is submitting new evidence in
Speaker 1: this case against DOGE using Trump's own words, which is,
Speaker 1: of course, one of Trump's biggest problems is when he
Speaker 1: testifies against himself.
Speaker 2: It's not the first time, that's for sure as well.
Speaker 2: Though one of those things, you know, he loves his
Speaker 2: beautiful vets. Yet the Trump administration plans to cut eighty
Speaker 2: thousand employees from veteran affairs, according to Eternal Memo.
Speaker 1: You know, here's the thing about all of this, and
Speaker 1: here's The thing about Trump and veterans. Thirty percent of
Speaker 1: the federal government is veterans, So if you love vets,
Speaker 1: you should probably keep them in the federal government. Whole idea,
Speaker 1: and I think this is like the net net of
Speaker 1: Trump's address to Congress is that he has a lot
Speaker 1: of catchphrases He's going to make government more efficient. But
Speaker 1: a lot of these catchphrases actually mean things that I
Speaker 1: don't think he nor his voters have thought through. He's
Speaker 1: going to make government more efficient by firing eighty thousand veterans, right.
Speaker 1: He's going to make things cheaper by putting in tariffs,
Speaker 1: which will make things more expensive. These ideas are nonsensical
Speaker 1: and they do not lead to the objective. I don't
Speaker 1: understand his voters still seem pretty delighted with him. When
Speaker 1: you think about last night's speech. There was a ton
Speaker 1: of like baiting liberals, saying liberals are bad, ton of
Speaker 1: elevating these very sad stories, but not a lot of
Speaker 1: like how else solve your problems? Right? Like if you
Speaker 1: were to say the man had a mandate for anything,
Speaker 1: it was to make prices lower, what did he spend
Speaker 1: almost no time talking about making prices lower even like
Speaker 1: you think about the boy that they had, this DJ
Speaker 1: who had cancer. So DJ had childhood cancer caused by chemicals?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 1: They think it was caused by an exposure to chemicals.
Speaker 1: This Trump administration is gutting the EPA right so that
Speaker 1: more chemicals can be dumped, so that more children can
Speaker 1: inhale chemicals. And what else have they done? They've froze
Speaker 1: NIH funds And do you know where NIH funds go?
Speaker 1: Childhood cancer? So if you're going to elevate DJ, right,
Speaker 1: then why would you then elevate him and then muse
Speaker 1: about how terrible childhood cancer is all the while cutting
Speaker 1: funding for childhood cancer? And ultimately that is sort of
Speaker 1: a really good example of what is happening this admin
Speaker 1: musing about problems while enacting policy that will in fact
Speaker 1: make the problems worse.
Speaker 4: It's the Republican way in my opinion.
Speaker 2: Anyway, speaking of the Republican way, the town halls have
Speaker 2: gotten very scary for these triggered snowflakes since people are
Speaker 2: not happy with the Republican congressmen who are attending them,
Speaker 2: and RCC sent out a memo saying no more town
Speaker 2: halls and governor walls who is just a guest on
Speaker 2: our YouTube channel has a very good solution.
Speaker 1: Yes, Governor Walls, your a friend of mine. Go to
Speaker 1: our YouTube is very very good with the best.
Speaker 4: We have some great stuff coming up this week. I
Speaker 4: might have great.
Speaker 1: Stuff on the YouTube. Go to YouTube Molly John Fast
Speaker 1: Fast Politics. So this is actually really smart and this
Speaker 1: is what when we talk about flooding the zone with facts,
Speaker 1: this is what we're talking about. Tim Walls offers to
Speaker 1: meet with voters whose GOP reps refuse to hold town halls.
Speaker 1: Canceling town halls to avoid voter backlashes the thing you
Speaker 1: do right before you lose the majority, said one Democratic strategy.
Speaker 1: Let's not be over confident your team. But Dems are
Speaker 1: actually and is right. But this is a really good point.
Speaker 1: Flood the zone with facts. Flood the zone with facts.
Speaker 1: The only way to counter flooding the zone with the
Speaker 1: bs is flooding the zone with facts. And doing this
Speaker 1: when it comes to these town halls is really good.
Speaker 1: Like Democrats can be where Republicans won't be, and that's
Speaker 1: the only way they're going to get their message though,
Speaker 1: because remember the problem is not what the democratic messages,
Speaker 1: or maybe it is, but Really, the problem is that
Speaker 1: Democrats message is not getting through because what is getting
Speaker 1: through is the lies and obfuscation from the Republican side.
Speaker 1: Stuart Stevens is a legendary campaign manager and the author
Speaker 1: of the Conspiracy to End America Five Ways My old
Speaker 1: Party is driving our democracy to autocracy. Welcome back to
Speaker 1: fast politics. Stuart Stevens, right, smally anything going on? No, nothing.
Speaker 1: There was so many times during the day I'm like,
Speaker 1: how the fuck do we have vacuate?
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, I think we had with Trump a collapse
Speaker 3: of a center right party in America. So you don't
Speaker 3: have a center right party in America. They're saying the
Speaker 3: country is at least half center right. Yeah, I think
Speaker 3: completely upsets the balance. I think Trump's election has been
Speaker 3: greatly misunderstood.
Speaker 1: Yeah, oh good, I would like to understand.
Speaker 3: An election day, the COUMBA president had a forty percent
Speaker 3: approval rating. In modern politics, no one has ever gotten
Speaker 3: over two points higher. Incombent party's never gotten more than
Speaker 3: two points higher than approval rating. The right track was
Speaker 3: twenty seven percent. No incombent party's ever won with it
Speaker 3: below forty five. It was a perfect environdent for a challenger,
Speaker 3: and we know from polls six cent we know anything
Speaker 3: from polls that another challenger Nikki Haley or lean young
Speaker 3: Kin would have done better than Trump. Trump won was
Speaker 3: usually as a challenger. That's not to be confused with
Speaker 3: an embrace of trump Ism. And you know, I mean,
Speaker 3: I think this is how people end up worst of
Speaker 3: being volcanos. There's the draft of volcano Belch as it ranged,
Speaker 3: and the next thing you know, you're throwing virgins into
Speaker 3: the volcano gud. The two are not related. And I
Speaker 3: think that they knew that Project twenty twenty five was
Speaker 3: poisoned from their polling, and now that people were having
Speaker 3: a drink, it hadn't gotten less toxic. What I find
Speaker 3: just the most remarkable here is how this party that
Speaker 3: I was drawn to with Ronald Reagan standing in front
Speaker 3: of the Berlin Wall. Here on this wall, I'm scorte.
Speaker 3: The Republican Party is now on the other side of
Speaker 3: the wall. It is the we should get out of
Speaker 3: NATO and help rebuild a Warshawa party. And I just
Speaker 3: don't think anything like this is that I'm or whatever's
Speaker 3: ever happened in a democracy that the beating heart of
Speaker 3: the Republican Party was anti Soviet Union, anti communism, staring
Speaker 3: in Russia, and now it's the beating heart of Putinism
Speaker 3: and pro Russia.
Speaker 4: Wow.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Yeah, it's funny because it's like I think about
Speaker 1: the bottle, right, and I think about Alis Slackin. So
Speaker 1: there is a school of thought which I don't not
Speaker 1: subscribe to it, but I think it's an oversimplification. It's
Speaker 1: hard to parse. Right. The biggest problem was, I think,
Speaker 1: was Joe Biden's complete inability to communicate social media. Mainstream
Speaker 1: media could not And you know, is that because he's
Speaker 1: the world's oldest person or is that because he was
Speaker 1: never a good communicator? Who cares? But that was like
Speaker 1: the fundamental original sin of how we got where we
Speaker 1: got in twenty twenty four. But there's a school of
Speaker 1: thought which thought Harris would be able to connect with
Speaker 1: the normal, sane Republicans. Right, those are gone. They are
Speaker 1: Democrats now, right, because the people Trump got to turn out, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, I just want to revisit, like sort of
Speaker 1: how to go forward from here? Trump got low propensity voters,
Speaker 1: he basically told I mean. The great example is the
Speaker 1: story in the Washington Post last week the woman who
Speaker 1: voted for him because she thought he would make IVF free.
Speaker 1: That's like a great example, right, he said lots of
Speaker 1: different things to lots of different people, promised the world
Speaker 1: and now they can't get it, which actually happened in
Speaker 1: Trump one point zero, but because we are the United
Speaker 1: States of Amnesia, no one remembered. Meanwhile, Harris was like,
Speaker 1: I can't give you this. I can't do that. That's
Speaker 1: not how any of this works. Which American voters they
Speaker 1: don't like that. So here's the question. Democrats decided, we'll
Speaker 1: embrace Liz Cheneyism. We'll get the sane ones. There are
Speaker 1: no sane ones. So where do Democrats go from here?
Speaker 1: Should they be just lying about stuff? Because it worked
Speaker 1: really well for Trump and the rest of the party
Speaker 1: seems to be spinning around the drain that way? Where
Speaker 1: do you go when things have devolved this much?
Speaker 3: So let's step back. Republican is celebrating because they only
Speaker 3: lost to eighty six percent of Black voters. Right, they're
Speaker 3: celebrating because they only lost sixty three percent of Asian Americans,
Speaker 3: celebrating because they only lost fifty four percent of Hispanics.
Speaker 3: Usually in politics, we consider losing bad. So the only
Speaker 3: group with winning are not on college educated white which
Speaker 3: is the fastest declining group in America two thousand and
Speaker 3: worked on a boost campaign. You know, we look at polls.
Speaker 3: It was about sixty percent of the electorate. Now it's
Speaker 3: thirty eight. It'll be less. So when we finish, I
Speaker 3: think that there is a lot of confusion. I mean,
Speaker 3: Trump never won working class voters. You weren't white working
Speaker 3: class voters. He never won low propensity voters. You weren't
Speaker 3: white lower propensity voters. And going back to sixteen, I
Speaker 3: always thought that the voters that he would gain at
Speaker 3: the lower propensity because of the Muslim stuff, because of
Speaker 3: Mexico is a bunch of vrapist stuff. All of that
Speaker 3: that you gained, you would lose in college educated voters,
Speaker 3: which was happening right up until the Coomi letter. I
Speaker 3: think it's very instructive in this election to look at say, Virginia,
Speaker 3: New Jersey, does it I think very legitimate controls in
Speaker 3: this election. No one was really a campaigning in Virginia
Speaker 3: or New Jersey. There was no campaign, So where was
Speaker 3: that trumpet a lot better? And I think that we
Speaker 3: tend to look at Trump and come to the conclusion
Speaker 3: that all everything we know about politics is wrong, which
Speaker 3: to I think is proven to be true. But again,
Speaker 3: a country that seventy five percent of the people think
Speaker 3: we're going on the wrong track seventy three percent, that
Speaker 3: is not a party to embrace a vice president. And look,
Speaker 3: I think causalities are the hardest thing in politics. But
Speaker 3: probably in years to come, no one is going to
Speaker 3: look at this and say, you know, this whole thing
Speaker 3: of having incombent president resigned in July and going with
Speaker 3: the vice president, we should keep doing that.
Speaker 1: No, no, right, And historically that's never worked, you know,
Speaker 1: like remember the last time that happened where the Democrat
Speaker 1: resigned and the vice president took over, and it was
Speaker 1: a fucking disaster too, And it was even there was
Speaker 1: more time and it was still a disaster. So I
Speaker 1: think for sure that's absolutely true. I also just wonder,
Speaker 1: I mean, and then the thing that I feel like
Speaker 1: we really don't talk about, which we should is this
Speaker 1: post COVID brain fog, which America really got affected by.
Speaker 1: But here's my question. So Tuesday, Trump gave a speech
Speaker 1: and his approval rating was the highest it's ever been
Speaker 1: for him, which is still low for normal presidents, but
Speaker 1: high for him. And then right before he went on
Speaker 1: it sort of ticked down. So now it is again
Speaker 1: sort of more disapproved than approved, where it's we're in
Speaker 1: that wrong direction. He's finally almost back to normal. And
Speaker 1: you know, it took the Ukraine stuff and the tear
Speaker 1: off stuff and the crashing the Dow stuff to get
Speaker 1: us here we are six weeks in.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: You know what's really interesting about this is only two
Speaker 3: presidencies have had a lower favorability for the president one
Speaker 3: hundred days after his first hundred days versus election day,
Speaker 3: which makes sense, like I didn't vote for the guy,
Speaker 3: but I'm going to give him a chance. So at
Speaker 3: this point Biden had almost fifty percent favorables, Obama had
Speaker 3: sixty five percent favorables. Even Bush had like I think
Speaker 3: fifty seven percent favorable with Bush two in two thousand
Speaker 3: and four. The only two presidency whether this doesn't have
Speaker 3: was Trump on two pousand and seventeen and Trump today,
Speaker 3: which I think is actually kind of profound because he's
Speaker 3: shedding voters. The hardest thing for people in life probably
Speaker 3: to admit is why I made a mistake, particularly this
Speaker 3: close to when you made the mistake. You have people
Speaker 3: who voted for Trump who now are not for Trump,
Speaker 3: and it usually goes the other way because people like
Speaker 3: to say that they voted for someone who won. So
Speaker 3: usually in polling you ask after an election, did you
Speaker 3: vote for somebody? The person who won is going to
Speaker 3: do better in that poll than they actually get an
Speaker 3: election day. That kind of human I want admit I
Speaker 3: voted for a loser. I think that's a really profound trend.
Speaker 3: None of this gets away from the fact that the
Speaker 3: Democratic Party has two problems. It doesn't have a message
Speaker 3: and it doesn't have a messenger. But I think both
Speaker 3: of those are pretty easily fixable. There's a lot of
Speaker 3: talent in the party is needed somebody to emerge. We
Speaker 3: didn't have a process of a primary and which other
Speaker 3: people could be both. I mean, thinking about it, in
Speaker 3: two thousand and four, jar and Kerry lost to President
Speaker 3: cyber Barack Obama won it with the speech, and we
Speaker 3: didn't have a similar sort of process here. We're a
Speaker 3: very personality driven country. I mean, there's reason People magazine
Speaker 3: has more subscribers than Foreign Affairs. And what's really necessarious
Speaker 3: for a new group of Democrats emerges the face of
Speaker 3: the party, which I don't know who picks flocking, But
Speaker 3: that's not a bad start. I'll take the CIA over
Speaker 3: against the Russian age.
Speaker 1: But do you think that slocking sort of CIA you
Speaker 1: mention Republican presidents. Do you think that's the play? Like,
Speaker 1: do you wonder if there really is sort of like
Speaker 1: if it's better to try and go for the Democratic base. Like,
Speaker 1: for example, there's this theory of the case that the
Speaker 1: original sin was rejecting burning that had the party said,
Speaker 1: you know, this is what a lot of the voters
Speaker 1: seem to want, and even though it makes the donors nervous,
Speaker 1: let's just try it out because this is what they want, right,
Speaker 1: Like it's such a stark contrast to Trump. Right, this
Speaker 1: is what the base wants. We don't want it, but
Speaker 1: it's the base ergo, we're fucked. But Bernie, they were like,
Speaker 1: shut it down, this is not for us. Makes everyone nervous.
Speaker 1: No one wants to have free dental care. Right, So
Speaker 1: do you think the original sin here, and this is
Speaker 1: a real question and not a set of fake question,
Speaker 1: is that reject of the populist movement in the party
Speaker 1: for a Hillary Clinton sort of more manufactured populism that
Speaker 1: people didn't really want like and again this sucks for me. Right,
Speaker 1: they weren't feminists. It turns out they were just populous.
Speaker 1: Bernie had a groundswell of people who decided he was
Speaker 1: their guy. Hillary was I'm with her, you're with her.
Speaker 1: You know. It was a little bit different.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Look, there are a lot of different ways than
Speaker 3: women tolection. I mean, if nothing else, you look at
Speaker 3: the way Trump ran and one is very different than
Speaker 3: the way we as Republicans had won before. We would
Speaker 3: take reasonable big state governors and run them and they
Speaker 3: would be able to get you know, Bush in two
Speaker 3: thousand four is able to get a majority. So trum
Speaker 3: comes along. He's the exact applicant table to the majority. So
Speaker 3: I think it's very difficult to say if this had happened,
Speaker 3: it would have been a disaster. We don't know the
Speaker 3: quality of the candidate. Once you received a nomination, I
Speaker 3: think you become a different candidate. So what would Burnie
Speaker 3: have been like after different candidate? You know? I mean
Speaker 3: I first saw Bernie when I was at Middlebury and
Speaker 3: I was riding my bike down Church Street in Burlington.
Speaker 3: Are scholaris limitic out there the only about rint control
Speaker 3: who's running from mayor, and I was Bernie when he
Speaker 3: won by eight votes. He won't eight votes. So I've
Speaker 3: always found in a fascinating character. I think in the
Speaker 3: long term, though, if you asked me where to put money,
Speaker 3: I'll put money on the slockin. I think that it
Speaker 3: is more the fact that she has I think a
Speaker 3: higher ceiling, the ability to appeal to more people that
Speaker 3: message fuck and Shapiro. I think that is sort of
Speaker 3: an old fashioned way to win elections.
Speaker 1: Here's this seventy percent in the middle, that is what
Speaker 1: you're saying.
Speaker 3: Well, I don't even know what the middle is anymore.
Speaker 3: You know, Bernie Standers is to the right of the
Speaker 3: Republican Party on Russia, right. You know, he was honeymoon
Speaker 3: in Russia, but he didn't like stay there, right, So
Speaker 3: I don't know what to do with these numbers. We're
Speaker 3: the pro tariff party, so the Conservatives and economic theory
Speaker 3: now or the Democrats, they were like what the fuck.
Speaker 3: I do think that the Democratic Party has an underappreciation
Speaker 3: for cultural wars, which is why as a Republican we
Speaker 3: want a lot of races. We had no business winning,
Speaker 3: and the fact that the Harris Caanby never responded to
Speaker 3: this transgender ad. This is a curious fact that we
Speaker 3: don't talk about it. I know Trump never ran a
Speaker 3: positive ad.
Speaker 1: Right, It's so much about responding to everything, communicating as
Speaker 1: much as possible, and not necessarily what you say. Like
Speaker 1: one the worries I have when it comes to the
Speaker 1: leadership in the House is that there's still an obsession
Speaker 1: with getting the message right. And I don't think that
Speaker 1: fucking matters. Like I think if we can learn anything
Speaker 1: from Trump, it's that it's just getting the message out
Speaker 1: and get the message out in a way that you
Speaker 1: didn't have to ten years ago. Like you can't just
Speaker 1: do five interviews, you have to do fifty or one
Speaker 1: hundred or five hundred.
Speaker 4: Yep.
Speaker 3: The road to hell is paved with focus groups in politics,
Speaker 3: because there's this belief that somehow you can get, as
Speaker 3: Roger ray Hills used to say, he get thirty amateurs
Speaker 3: in a room that you're professionals what to do. It's
Speaker 3: based upon this sort of political alchemist theory, if you
Speaker 3: just worked this enough out of this you can get
Speaker 3: some sort of golden message. And there is no golden message.
Speaker 3: I think ninety percent of message is belief in that message,
Speaker 3: which is why there is Bernie is so good. Bernie
Speaker 3: does believe this shit he believed forty years ago, I
Speaker 3: believe it today. He is a genuine guy. And I
Speaker 3: think that that passion people read through. And I mean
Speaker 3: Trump is a passionate hater, not an act. I think
Speaker 3: the JD Vance it's all kind of more of an
Speaker 3: act because I think he's such a sort.
Speaker 1: Of I mean, I don't know what is going on there,
Speaker 1: but like the fact that he has sort of lucked
Speaker 1: his way into this insane situation. It does seem like
Speaker 1: few people are less charming and charismatic than that man.
Speaker 3: He's a Chauncey Gardner of current politics.
Speaker 1: Unbelievable. What do you think would happen if he became president?
Speaker 3: I think he would be president and he would run
Speaker 3: for re election and he would lose the primary.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's what I think too, because for.
Speaker 3: Him to be president when Trump had somehow been exited
Speaker 3: from a scene.
Speaker 1: He doesn't have any of the magic.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he doesn't. You would be able to get what
Speaker 3: you get with Trump with someone else who is sort
Speaker 3: of not crazy. And when dance is on the ballot.
Speaker 3: He had four in two thousand, few votes than the
Speaker 3: Republican governor of Ohio. That's really weird. I mean, he's
Speaker 3: four hundred thousand people voted. Just think about it. I mean,
Speaker 3: that's a really long line you line up for in
Speaker 3: a thousand people, and they all they would both that
Speaker 3: they voted for the Republican governor, but not discouch an
Speaker 3: events that doesn't appen very are And I think the
Speaker 3: Advance is just a mess. I mean, he's a guy
Speaker 3: that kind of reinvents himself, but he is the ultimate
Speaker 3: gi candidate because he used to sort of somewhat faux
Speaker 3: Appalachian hillbilly background to get a d al and then
Speaker 3: he becomes you know, goes to Peter Thiel, hangs out,
Speaker 3: he's a globalist. It's just he's a very quixotic, strange,
Speaker 3: weirdly formed candidate. Erson he goes and gives the speech
Speaker 3: in Germany to a party that if his own children
Speaker 3: were brought to a rally, they would probably be booed
Speaker 3: or attacked at that party. That's weird. There are moments
Speaker 3: in politics. You see this a lot in presidential campaigns
Speaker 3: where the only thing you can do is just show
Speaker 3: up and win, like you know, you've lost their primary
Speaker 3: should have won, and you can't talk your way out
Speaker 3: of it and explain why you did. You just have
Speaker 3: to say, Okay, what's next, Like you know, Belichick played
Speaker 3: in the next play. And I think that's where where
Speaker 3: Democrats are now. I think though, that the fundamentals are
Speaker 3: in their favor. The economy is getting worse. If you
Speaker 3: look at Putin's favorability, it is not very high, not
Speaker 3: being driven hired, and a Putin versus Zelensky popularity cond
Speaker 3: just slency's going to win going away. The greatest thanger, though,
Speaker 3: I think, is the damage that they can do in
Speaker 3: the interim, and it's just incredibly troubling, and also the
Speaker 3: Republican Party.
Speaker 1: Stuart Stevens, thank you, Thank you.
Speaker 3: Mark.
Speaker 1: Will you please come back?
Speaker 3: I absolutely love to more.
Speaker 1: Healy is the governor of Massachusetts.
Speaker 5: Welcome, Governor, welcome, good to be with you.
Speaker 1: I listened to that interview you did for the Daily.
Speaker 1: I thought there was a lot of barrier Republican framan
Speaker 1: about some of what she was talking about with the
Speaker 1: Attorney's General. So I am hoping you could first start
Speaker 1: by talking about you were an age you now are
Speaker 1: the governor. This has been the root in which Democrats
Speaker 1: have protected their constituents against this wild federal overreach. So
Speaker 1: talk to me about why that isn't a partisan issue.
Speaker 5: The job of attorney general is to really represent the
Speaker 5: people of your state. And when I was attorney general
Speaker 5: in twenty sixteen, Donald Trump did a number of things
Speaker 5: that hurt a lot of people in states across this country,
Speaker 5: taking away healthcare for example, or attempting to in a
Speaker 5: denying coverage for any number of things, taking away federal
Speaker 5: funding for programs. I mean, we went to court and
Speaker 5: ultimately we suit him well over one hundred times his administration.
Speaker 5: We won eighty five percent of those cases, which shows
Speaker 5: you just how wrong he was and how often he
Speaker 5: was actually violating the law that the courts actually vindicated
Speaker 5: the AGS and said yep, you're right, and we won
Speaker 5: the vast majority of those cases. And those are cases
Speaker 5: that needed to be brought because laws were being violated.
Speaker 5: Here we are now in twenty twenty five Trump two,
Speaker 5: and you see democratic ags doing the same thing, protecting
Speaker 5: their residents, protecting their economies, protecting their states from federal
Speaker 5: overreach in some instances, and from violation of the law
Speaker 5: by the Trump administration. And so I think it's not
Speaker 5: a surprise to me that you see them meeting with success.
Speaker 5: They are meeting with success, and they're going to continue
Speaker 5: to need to do that. And you know, it really
Speaker 5: should not be a partisan thing. I think in this country,
Speaker 5: the idea of the constitution is that we're a nation
Speaker 5: of laws. The judiciary enforces those laws, the legislative brands
Speaker 5: makes those laws, and the executive is supposed to execute
Speaker 5: on those laws. And when that's not happening, the recourse
Speaker 5: is the courts.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there has been I think a ground swell of
Speaker 1: anger among constituents. It has felt a lot of the
Speaker 1: time like leadership Democratic leadership. Republican leadership is totally in
Speaker 1: the tank for Trump. They've given up all their article
Speaker 1: too whatever, they're just in it. But it has felt
Speaker 1: to a lot of us the Democratic leadership has been
Speaker 1: slow to fight back. That has not been my take
Speaker 1: on you, And I'm hoping you could explain to us
Speaker 1: a little bit about your thinking and how you got here.
Speaker 5: Well, you know, Mollie, it's I have a responsibility to
Speaker 5: my state. I said from the outset. I will work
Speaker 5: with the Trump administration. I will work with any administration
Speaker 5: when it is consistent with the law and it helps
Speaker 5: the people of my state, so I said a few
Speaker 5: weeks ago the inauguration. I also said I'd be the
Speaker 5: first to stand up if a president or federal administration
Speaker 5: does something that hurts my state. You know, in terms
Speaker 5: of where we are, I think the first week it
Speaker 5: was maybe about seeing exactly what he would do. I mean,
Speaker 5: so much was laid out in twenty twenty five, but
Speaker 5: you know, people were sort of gauging whether this was
Speaker 5: just going to be a show for a week or
Speaker 5: ten days or two weeks. What I have seen, though,
Speaker 5: with each passing week, and which is why I have
Speaker 5: been speaking up, is he is doing things that are
Speaker 5: totally inconsistent with a true America First agenda, Totally inconsistent
Speaker 5: with an American independence when it comes to energy agenda,
Speaker 5: Totally inconsistent with what I thought was his winning campaign promise,
Speaker 5: which he was going to lower cost because every day
Speaker 5: he is doing something to raise costs on goods for
Speaker 5: people in our state. And so you know, I tried
Speaker 5: to focus as a leader in Massachusetts on how am
Speaker 5: I delivering for people. It's why my first two years,
Speaker 5: I've worked to get the largest housing bill pass so
Speaker 5: we can build more housing and lower costs. It's why
Speaker 5: I cut taxes. I'm the first governor in twenty years
Speaker 5: in Massachusetts to cut taxes. It's why I've expanded child care,
Speaker 5: made community college costs free so more people can get
Speaker 5: educated and ready for the workforce. And at the same time,
Speaker 5: the Trump administration is doing things that interfere with that progress.
Speaker 1: And that hurt us.
Speaker 5: And I continue to encourage leadership in Congress to speak up.
Speaker 5: Democratic leadership in Congress and democratic leadership in Congress. Frankly,
Speaker 5: everybody should be speaking up. I mean, I don't know
Speaker 5: about you, but if somebody comes from my power tries
Speaker 5: to usurp my power, I'd be pretty upset about that.
Speaker 5: Trump has completely usurped Congress's power. And the Republicans are fine,
Speaker 5: They're just like, okay, take it, they're giving it away.
Speaker 5: But the Democrats got to stand strong on that. They've
Speaker 5: also got to talk to and tell the stories of
Speaker 5: what's happening to everyday Americans out there every day. They
Speaker 5: should be doing that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, I don't understand why they're not doing daily
Speaker 1: press conferences. The way Cuomo did during the pandemic, just
Speaker 1: narrating what's happening, because if they don't, what we saw
Speaker 1: from the twenty twenty four cycle is Republicans certainly won't.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, I do see people like a Brian Shadza,
Speaker 5: Chris Murphy. There are people who've been speaking up. I also,
Speaker 5: Molly think it's important. I don't need press conferences necessarily
Speaker 5: on the Capitol steps. I don't personally think that's affected
Speaker 5: and alongside everyday americans in your district. In fact, let
Speaker 5: them tell the story of what it means to be
Speaker 5: the person who was responsible for inspecting our medicines or
Speaker 5: our milk or or farms, and what it means to
Speaker 5: no longer have them in the job. Right, It's got
Speaker 5: to be more of that. And I just see everyday
Speaker 5: Americans speaking up, and I try to tell everybody when
Speaker 5: you see that, share their social media.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean. One of the I think the great
Speaker 1: crimes of the Biden administration was that they did not
Speaker 1: do any interviews for the first two years, and then
Speaker 1: they were like, why can't we get any coverage? And
Speaker 1: it was like, meanwhile, Donald Trump, that White House is
Speaker 1: always a very leaky White House. The media has him
Speaker 1: in there all the time. It strikes me that already
Speaker 1: we're seeing a number of cases where the federal courts
Speaker 1: are coming in and saying this is illegal. Right, Like,
Speaker 1: practically much of doge is. There's no part of the
Speaker 1: constitution where it's like, if the president has a really
Speaker 1: rich donor, he can bring him in to run stuff.
Speaker 1: So a lot of this is illegal. We haven't yet
Speaker 1: quite seen them ignore the courts, but they're certainly we've
Speaker 1: certainly seen jd. Vance muse about it. I heard Governor
Speaker 1: Mills talk about this a little bit. But what do
Speaker 1: we do when because it feels like it's coming where
Speaker 1: Donald Trump says you can't have that FEMA money because
Speaker 1: I'm not happy with the whatever the way you rake
Speaker 1: your forests, or I mean, what happens when he plays
Speaker 1: chicken with money that you paid in.
Speaker 5: We absolutely cannot accept that the whole system crumbles if
Speaker 5: he does not comply with the law. And people need
Speaker 5: to understand, Okay, yes, he's trying to weaponize federal funding
Speaker 5: and he's threatened to do that, and in that case,
Speaker 5: people need to be out expressing the outrage. Leaning on
Speaker 5: congressional Republicans to buck up and take their power back,
Speaker 5: because it may be somebody else's district impacted today, but
Speaker 5: it could be yours tomorrow and red state, blue state.
Speaker 5: How many people are on medicaid in this country? How
Speaker 5: many people rely on food assistants or seniors relying on
Speaker 5: help paying heating bills, how many people are in vas
Speaker 5: These are not Republican Democrat issues. There are people in
Speaker 5: red states and blue states similarly situated who are going
Speaker 5: to be similarly devastated. Your comment earlier that we've had
Speaker 5: successful rulings to stop some of this bad stuff, illegal
Speaker 5: stuff from happening, is true. It's also true though, that
Speaker 5: the administration is finding ways to slow things down. Okay,
Speaker 5: I still from my office. I'm calling on funds that
Speaker 5: should have been released that havn't come through. I'm calling
Speaker 5: on NIH funding. They haven't even convened the next panel
Speaker 5: to study to approve the next pipeline of NIH funding,
Speaker 5: and so that effectively shuts down research. So it's important
Speaker 5: to bring those cases and enforce the law. People also
Speaker 5: need to know there is real time heard happening. Look
Speaker 5: at the Federal workers right, My dad was one. He
Speaker 5: was chief of water supply for EPA for many years.
Speaker 5: I got a guy out in Springfield, mass He runs
Speaker 5: the VA center out there. Four time deployed in Iraq, Afghanistan,
Speaker 5: combat veteran fired. A third of federal workforce is fired.
Speaker 5: So even though you know rulings are out there saying
Speaker 5: they can't be fired and what they did was wrong,
Speaker 5: you still have had. What are we up to now,
Speaker 5: Seventy eighty thousand people leave the workforce a political career,
Speaker 5: folks who we need. So people just need to be
Speaker 5: both educated about what's happening right now and then speaking
Speaker 5: up because I don't know, well, you know, plenty of
Speaker 5: people voted for Trump thinking that he was going to
Speaker 5: ower their costs. I don't think they voted for him
Speaker 5: thinking that Elon Musk was going to be running around
Speaker 5: with a chainsaw and a bunch of nineteen twenty year
Speaker 5: old rose looking at all our data, taking all our
Speaker 5: bank account information, and figuring out a way that they
Speaker 5: could potentially manipulate that to their business advantage.
Speaker 1: Nobody knows right, nobody knows what DOGE is doing right.
Speaker 1: It's a black box. There's no transparency. We saw a website.
Speaker 1: It had some stuff a lot of it wasn't accurate.
Speaker 1: Is there any way to stop dog because, like it
Speaker 1: does strike me as we're hurtling towards inadvertent privacy data
Speaker 1: disaster here totally.
Speaker 5: As a former attorney general, we used to go after
Speaker 5: companies that engaged in the kind of wholesale data breach
Speaker 5: that the Trump administration has essentially allowed. Right, So it's
Speaker 5: kind of ironic. The lack of protections or security that
Speaker 5: are in place is really really disturbing. I think a
Speaker 5: couple things. One, yes, it's got to be gated. These
Speaker 5: people are unelected and they are doing things that they
Speaker 5: were not given authority by Congress to do. So it's
Speaker 5: got to be stopped in the courts. It's also got
Speaker 5: to be stopped in the court of public opinion. So
Speaker 5: every day when they have to remove another item from
Speaker 5: the so called wall of receipts because it's bogus and
Speaker 5: made up, there's making up numbers of savings. That's got
Speaker 5: to be called out. Alongside that, the continued telling of
Speaker 5: the destruction. Look, I'm all for efficiency and government, you know,
Speaker 5: I'm all for In fact, I used to prosecute cases
Speaker 5: of fraud, waste and abuse. Okay, we all want more efficiency.
Speaker 5: Taxpayers deserve to have their dollars, you know, maximized, right,
Speaker 5: But you don't destroy it. You don't just just just
Speaker 5: take a wrecking ball to it, which is what this
Speaker 5: really is. From planes falling out of the sky, to
Speaker 5: nobody being home for a little bit at the nuclear stockpile,
Speaker 5: to doctors being let go from VA hospitals, like this
Speaker 5: is bad. It does not make America stronger. It does
Speaker 5: not make us more independent. And like I say, to
Speaker 5: go back to the medical research, which, by the way,
Speaker 5: the government after World War II decided they were going
Speaker 5: to invest in research and science and from that sprang
Speaker 5: forth all sorts of entrepreneurship, business, world saving cures and treatments.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 5: They want to stop all of that, and they want
Speaker 5: to give it all away to China. Right now, who's
Speaker 5: recruiting to take all of that business back to China.
Speaker 5: It doesn't make any sense. I want America to remain
Speaker 5: the greatest superpower on Earth and the world depends on that.
Speaker 5: So I don't understand that Molly.
Speaker 1: The NIH Fund, just because there was you know, Eline
Speaker 1: cooked up this idea that it was going to cut
Speaker 1: indirect funding to fifteen versent. It wasn't a brilliant I mean,
Speaker 1: this person has never had anyone around him who has
Speaker 1: ever told him the truth Like that was what was
Speaker 1: so clear to make. And you know, the indirect funding,
Speaker 1: the way it works is that some times it's as
Speaker 1: much as sixty five percent, but it goes to the institution.
Speaker 1: You have a lot of those said institutions in your state, Harvard, mit.
Speaker 1: So first of all, it was the court put a
Speaker 1: pause on it said that they could go back, but
Speaker 1: the money has not gone back. Right, They're still himming
Speaker 1: in hawing with the grant money, right.
Speaker 5: That's right, and they're not allowing new pots of money
Speaker 5: to be you know, discussed in studies and set up
Speaker 5: for a future pipeline. Here's why this is really important
Speaker 5: and what people have got to understand. We're talking about
Speaker 5: three and a half billion dollars for the state of Massasachusetts.
Speaker 5: It's going to our teaching hospitals, our research institutions, our
Speaker 5: universities to fund postdocs who right now are discovering the
Speaker 5: cure for cancer, for Alzheimer's, for Parkinson's, for als. And
Speaker 5: what the Trump administration and what NIH has done is
Speaker 5: say we're cutting that off, and we're not giving you
Speaker 5: that funding. Now, let me tell you about end quote
Speaker 5: indirect costs. This is a to me nomenclature and semantics.
Speaker 5: At the end of the day, when you support indirect funds,
Speaker 5: you were supporting that. That's research. You can't do research
Speaker 5: without a lab. You can't run experiments in computing without electricity.
Speaker 5: We're talking about eggs lately a lot. Right, If we
Speaker 5: want eggs in this country, do businesses just pay for
Speaker 5: the hen No, they pay for the feed and the
Speaker 5: lighting and the barn and whatever. Right, Like, you need
Speaker 5: to invest in the entirety of these things in order
Speaker 5: to be able to actually have something from that. And
Speaker 5: with NIH funding, so much has happened in science as
Speaker 5: a result. And here's the thing, Mollie, do you know
Speaker 5: how many red so called red states. And I don't
Speaker 5: like the red state blue state naming, but Alabama, for example,
Speaker 5: NIH funds to the point where it is the largest
Speaker 5: employer in the state of Alabama. Texas has got really
Speaker 5: important research happening. This is a big deal. It's bad
Speaker 5: for all our states. It's bad for American competitiveness because again,
Speaker 5: I want America to be the place of invention. And
Speaker 5: where redesign and develop the cures and the treatments. And
Speaker 5: you know what kills me the most? And I don't
Speaker 5: care Democrat, Republican who you are. You mean to say
Speaker 5: right now that it's a good thing that NIH and
Speaker 5: the Trump administration have cut funding and research off. They
Speaker 5: could cut research off for the cure that God forbid,
Speaker 5: your little kid gets cancer, right or your parent gets Alzheimer's.
Speaker 5: That makes no sense. I'm hoping that there can be
Speaker 5: more alignment around that. I'm hoping that there can be
Speaker 5: a greater apprehension about how the system works, how important
Speaker 5: it has been, how much industry has sprung from it
Speaker 5: in innovation in this country, and what it has contributed
Speaker 5: to GDP And to say nothing of the lives saved
Speaker 5: and that is happening in all states with NIH funding.
Speaker 1: No, it's just wild. I mean, it just is sort
Speaker 1: of mind blowing. And if you find that the federal
Speaker 1: government plays check in with money, I mean, what are
Speaker 1: you willing to sort of do to really fight back
Speaker 1: on a federal level when it comes to Trump world
Speaker 1: sort of terrorizing states that it feels mad at.
Speaker 5: Of course I'll fight back. Of course I'll stand up
Speaker 5: I'll stand up for my state. I'll stand up for
Speaker 5: my residents. I'll stand up for our businesses. I'll stand
Speaker 5: up for our economy. I was trying to have this
Speaker 5: conversation with the Trump administration about wind for example. This
Speaker 5: is an administration that's been all about haven't we heard
Speaker 5: America energy independence? Well, it seems to me if that's
Speaker 5: really what you believe, then you shouldn't take solar off
Speaker 5: the table. You can have oil and gas, But why
Speaker 5: are you taking solar off the table, which is deployed
Speaker 5: in the states around including many red states around the country.
Speaker 5: Why are you taking away that energy source? Why are
Speaker 5: you killing the wind industry which right now is powering
Speaker 5: homes off the coast of Massachusetts with its windmills, and
Speaker 5: we've got others and deployment. By the way, talk about
Speaker 5: an economic impact in Massachusetts alone, Molly, We've got nineteen
Speaker 5: hundred contracts in forty one states related to the wind industry.
Speaker 5: These are jobs, labor jobs, construction jobs, all of which
Speaker 5: goes away if the Trump administration takes away the wind industry.
Speaker 5: You know, they're making the steal for our stuff. In Kentucky,
Speaker 5: they're making the ships for our stuff in Louisiana, Texas,
Speaker 5: like it has such a big effect, and like I
Speaker 5: want lower costs, and one way to have lower energy
Speaker 5: cost is you're bringing more energy online. So why would
Speaker 5: you take away something that can be a huge value
Speaker 5: add to energy independence for this country. I'll fight back.
Speaker 5: I'm trying to explain impact and consequence and to encourage
Speaker 5: people to do that because Congress has got to act.
Speaker 5: Congress has got to step up and act, and I
Speaker 5: don't think that they're going to do that unless they
Speaker 5: hear the pain and the plight of every day America
Speaker 5: and saying, hey, this isn't what I signed up for.
Speaker 5: It's hurting me.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Governor. Good to be with you. No moment
Speaker 1: set Jesse CANNONBALLI junk fast.
Speaker 2: I think one of the funny things a lot of
Speaker 2: people will always think about is like, will the corporations
Speaker 2: come to our defense? Will the people who are invested
Speaker 2: in our economy come to the people's defense?
Speaker 4: And we're starting to see it.
Speaker 2: I was shocked, as somebody who reads marketing emails and
Speaker 2: lets some of them get in my path, how many
Speaker 2: emails I got this week from big companies saying we're
Speaker 2: not raising our prices yet, but Target CEO Streams said
Speaker 2: you'll pay more because of Trump's tariffs within days.
Speaker 1: So I want to point out here that the billionaire's
Speaker 1: elon Jeff Bezos, that crew was more than happy to
Speaker 1: kiss the rang because they thought it made good business sense.
Speaker 1: But now that these companies realize that this is going
Speaker 1: to be bad for business, they're becoming honest Again. Do
Speaker 1: I think that these people are doing this because they
Speaker 1: love us and want to see us healthy. No, they
Speaker 1: don't give a fuck about us. It is more that
Speaker 1: these corporations don't want to be blamed for downsides. They
Speaker 1: want to protect their bottom line. They know, if you're
Speaker 1: the Target CEO, you want to make money for your shareholders.
Speaker 1: You know that making things more expensive for no reason
Speaker 1: is going to decrease value for your shareholders. You're going
Speaker 1: to make less money because things are going to be
Speaker 1: more expensive and people aren't going to spend as much.
Speaker 1: So they are trying to get Trump to change his mind.
Speaker 1: And now we're watching this parade of people trying to
Speaker 1: get Trump to change his mind. The problem is Trump
Speaker 1: is not thoughtful or sensible. He doesn't respond. One of
Speaker 1: the things you saw with Biden administration, even if you
Speaker 1: don't like them, when people wanted them to do something,
Speaker 1: they could get them to do it. So a great
Speaker 1: example is like there was this bank that all the
Speaker 1: tech bros were invested in. It crashed. Everybody put pressure
Speaker 1: on them to save this bank. They save the bank.
Speaker 1: Do I think that they should have saved the bank?
Speaker 1: I don't fucking know. But the point was that were
Speaker 1: very responsive to things. So if you said stuff to them,
Speaker 1: they sort of understood, here's Trump. This is a totally
Speaker 1: stupid idea. Everyone in the world thinks it's stupid. I'm
Speaker 1: not sure you could find five people who think tariffs
Speaker 1: are a good idea, but you can find one, and
Speaker 1: that one is called Donald Trump. Now everyone in the
Speaker 1: world is going to try to get him to change
Speaker 1: his mind. You know, now already there are carveouts for
Speaker 1: car companies and they're going to be more carve outs.
Speaker 1: But you know, the markets are rallying back, so maybe
Speaker 1: they think that, you know, he delayed the car tariff.
Speaker 1: People are taking whatever little bits they're hoping Trump will
Speaker 1: change his mind. And you know, we heard Howard Lutnix
Speaker 1: say maybe he will, maybe he won't. I mean the
Speaker 1: instability is bad for the market and a whole, but
Speaker 1: they're trying to be very optimistic. What I think is
Speaker 1: so incredibly annoying about this tariff stuff is that this
Speaker 1: market is desperate to give Donald Trump the benefit of
Speaker 1: the damn right, Like they really want him to be
Speaker 1: good for the market. Like if a Democrat did this
Speaker 1: kind of stuff, the market would just crater. But they
Speaker 1: just somehow like trickle down. These people so want trickle
Speaker 1: down economics to work.
Speaker 2: I compared it the other night to rooting for your
Speaker 2: perpetual drunk driving Fred when he walks up to the
Speaker 2: bar that the bartender suddenly drops dead and they can't
Speaker 2: serve them.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so that's where we are.
Speaker 4: That's about the odds are of it going.
Speaker 1: Well, Yeah, there we go. That's it for this episode
Speaker 1: of Fast Politics. Tune in every Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and
Speaker 1: Saturday to hear the best minds and politics make sense
Speaker 1: of all this chaos. If you enjoy this podcast, please
Speaker 1: send it to a friend and keep the conversation going.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening.