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 Republican Representative Michael McCall won't seek
Speaker 1: re election after eleven terms. We have such a great
Speaker 1: show for you today. The Lincoln Project's own Rick Wilson
Speaker 1: joins us to discuss the rights escalating rhetoric of revenge
Speaker 1: for Charlie Kirk's death. Ben will talk to the former
Speaker 1: chair of the Wisconsin Democrats, Ben Wickler about how the
Speaker 1: Democratic Party effectively builds to counter the GOP.
Speaker 2: But first the news, so BALI, there is a leadership
Speaker 2: fight a bruin. It seems Chris van Holland is looking
Speaker 2: to become the leader in the Senate. Hakim Jefferies has
Speaker 2: some choice words for him, but I think Chris is
Speaker 2: dead on here and as the type of fighter I
Speaker 2: think we could use personally.
Speaker 1: Chris van Holland had this really good point about Mom
Speaker 1: Dami and he said, yet many members of the Senate
Speaker 1: and the House representing New York have stayed on the sidelines.
Speaker 1: And he's right. He said that that kind of spineless
Speaker 1: politics is what people are sick of. They need to
Speaker 1: get behind him and get behind him.
Speaker 2: Now that's about as boys words as Dems do. That's
Speaker 2: like a political smack in the face to start a
Speaker 2: fight whatever sek for.
Speaker 1: Old white guys like this is as rough as they get.
Speaker 1: And look, Holland is right. Mondanni won the nomination. He
Speaker 1: won it by as it's not like there's a primary
Speaker 1: going on. And I think what's really interesting about this
Speaker 1: is it's not like Mondani is some unpopular candidate. He's
Speaker 1: a really popular candidate. So then you have to ask
Speaker 1: yourself think about this, Why are they not endorsing someone
Speaker 1: who won their districts. These are politicians. They tend to
Speaker 1: do things that are politically expedient, So what is the
Speaker 1: move here? Why are they not doing it? And when
Speaker 1: you think about it that way, the reasons they're not
Speaker 1: doing it are pretty damn it.
Speaker 2: I think Jeffries has long been accused by the left
Speaker 2: of being hostile towards them in a way that they
Speaker 2: can barely make sense of.
Speaker 1: I think the most important thing about Leader Jeffries is
Speaker 1: that he is really bad at the Internet. And so
Speaker 1: you may not love Gavin Newsom ideologically, but the guy
Speaker 1: is good at the Internet.
Speaker 2: You can be Bernie Sanders would be nine billion years
Speaker 2: old to be good at.
Speaker 1: The internets, AOC good at the Internet. There are a
Speaker 1: lot of Democrats, Chris Murphy. Not anyone's idea of a
Speaker 1: crazy leftist good at the internet. You know who's not
Speaker 1: good at the internet. Leader Jeffries, Leader Jeffries. This is
Speaker 1: what poor Justin said. Leader Jeffries will have more to
Speaker 1: say about the general election, well advanced of November fourth,
Speaker 1: by the way, in case for those keeping Scurt home,
Speaker 1: we are at September fourteenth, so he really only has
Speaker 1: six weeks if he's going to do it. Meanwhile, he said,
Speaker 1: confuse New Yorkers are asking themselves a question Chris van who. No,
Speaker 1: we're not. We know exactly who Chris van Holland is,
Speaker 1: and making fun of Chris van Holland does not make
Speaker 1: you then seem like you have the situation in hand.
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, Well, speaking of situations, we're monitoring as the
Speaker 2: joke quakes to go. The mayor of Memphis, Paul Jung,
Speaker 2: says he's certainly not happy about Trump's National Guard deployment.
Speaker 1: Nobody should be happy, right, I think we all need
Speaker 1: to pause for a minute. The framing is a lie.
Speaker 1: He's not sending the National Guard into fight crime. The
Speaker 1: National Guard does not fight crime. The police fight crime.
Speaker 1: The National Guard get there and they end up having
Speaker 1: to do terrible jobs that they're not meant to be doing,
Speaker 1: picking up trash, intimidating people. So the whole you know,
Speaker 1: it's like reject Trump's framing. He didn't go to war
Speaker 1: with universities because he cared about anti semitism. He went
Speaker 1: to war with universities because they saw from Victor Orbond
Speaker 1: that if you want to enact and authoritarian crackdowns, you
Speaker 1: have to start with the universities. That's what this was.
Speaker 1: So when you look at this, this is not about crime,
Speaker 1: This is about deployment. This is about spectacle. And also,
Speaker 1: by the way, this is about distracting from the tariff
Speaker 1: fiasco and inflation. Trump has decided that going into Memphis
Speaker 1: is better because Tennessee is a red state, and that
Speaker 1: he'll be greeted as a liberator, you know, tends to be.
Speaker 1: We are not greeted as liberators when our military role
Speaker 1: into different cities, especially ones that have their own protocol
Speaker 1: for protecting themselves.
Speaker 2: I thought part of trump Ism was that we learned
Speaker 2: the lessons of Iraqis and now what he always claims,
Speaker 2: but he didn't learn that they'll greet us as liberators.
Speaker 3: Thing.
Speaker 1: Listen, man, he's brought peace. He's brought peace everywhere. He's
Speaker 1: brought peace to India and Pakistan, he's brought peace to
Speaker 1: the Middle East.
Speaker 2: This is why he's going to get the.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's spent forty five piece deals in five days.
Speaker 3: That's what I've been told.
Speaker 1: Do you remember when we were ninety trade deals in
Speaker 1: ninety days?
Speaker 2: You know that seems to have stucked my mind because
Speaker 2: there's a shit from every single day to forget about
Speaker 2: all the lives. They tell, well, we never.
Speaker 1: Got the deals. There were no deals, no deals, no deals,
Speaker 1: just days.
Speaker 4: Well.
Speaker 2: Another myth of this administration is the Party of free speech.
Speaker 1: Yes, they love free speech except sometimes do you.
Speaker 2: Know what the Party of free speech is talk about doing?
Speaker 2: A new bill would allow Marco Ruby of a strip
Speaker 2: US citizens' passports over political speech.
Speaker 1: So we talked about this with Rip and my grandfather did,
Speaker 1: in fact have his passport strip. The Supreme Court has
Speaker 1: ruled against this. Now trumperol doesn't mind doing illegal stuff.
Speaker 1: That's like kind of the brand a legal stuff. But
Speaker 1: I do think that the fact that this crew has
Speaker 1: decided that they're going to go after passports and maybe
Speaker 1: they pass it, it's unconstitutional. It's against the Constitution. I mean,
Speaker 1: I don't know, well the Supreme Court like rollover probably,
Speaker 1: but I think we're seeing here that this is we're
Speaker 1: just in water world here where they just make up stuff.
Speaker 4: Yep.
Speaker 2: So I find this really disturbing. This is balls onto
Speaker 2: that banner of the cruelty is the point, and also
Speaker 2: getting rich people stupid tax cuts that barely hurt them.
Speaker 2: The Trump administration is canceling grants that support deaf, blind
Speaker 2: students and special education teachers.
Speaker 3: This is cute.
Speaker 1: This is how we got here, right like, this is fraud, waste,
Speaker 1: and abuse. I was told that the richest man in
Speaker 1: the world, he's not the richest anymore, but the second
Speaker 1: richest man in the world was going to cut out fraud, waste,
Speaker 1: and abuse. What he meant was just getting rid of
Speaker 1: money for teachers to teach disabled children. Wisconsin had planned
Speaker 1: to work with these funds to include direct support of
Speaker 1: deaf blind learners and their families in an effort to
Speaker 1: recruit and retain new special education, teachers. It's one thing.
Speaker 1: They cut all this international foreign aid, the kind of
Speaker 1: stuff that you know, millions of people are going to
Speaker 1: die from this, but this is just stuff that is like,
Speaker 1: we have this ballooning debt, we have billionaires not paying taxes.
Speaker 1: Like you guys can pay for deaf blind kids to
Speaker 1: get teachers. I promise you can afford it. Rick Wilson
Speaker 1: is the founder of the Lincoln Project and the host
Speaker 1: of the Enemy's List. Hello, Rick Wilson, Mollie john Fast,
Speaker 1: Great to.
Speaker 3: Be back with you.
Speaker 1: You had a nice littification we did.
Speaker 3: We went to England and Renee and I spent a
Speaker 3: few days in the Cotswalds and a few days in London.
Speaker 3: When I was over there, their number one story in
Speaker 3: the news for like four or five days was that
Speaker 3: the deputy Prime Minister had not paid enough property taxes.
Speaker 3: It wasn't did Trump nuke the moon? It was there
Speaker 3: something cuckoo.
Speaker 1: There's still time. While you were away, Stephen Miller went
Speaker 1: on Fox News and he said some stuff. We're gonna
Speaker 1: We're gonna cut to the veil.
Speaker 3: I know what you're talking about.
Speaker 5: There is a dynastic terrorism movement in this country, when
Speaker 5: you see these organized docs and campaigns where the left
Speaker 5: calls people enemies of the republic, calls them fascists, says
Speaker 5: they're Nazis, says they're evil, says they have to be removed,
Speaker 5: and then prince their addresses.
Speaker 3: What do you think they're.
Speaker 4: Trying to do.
Speaker 5: They are trying to inspire someone to murder them. That
Speaker 5: is their objective, that is their intent.
Speaker 6: And when you see online Sean, as we've seen for
Speaker 6: the last few days, tape after tape after tape of
Speaker 6: federal workers, Beeracrez staffers and the Pentagon educators, professors, healthcare workers,
Speaker 6: nurser nurses celebrating the assassination of Charlie Kirk.
Speaker 5: These are radicalized people. There is a domestic terrorism movement
Speaker 5: in this country.
Speaker 1: I just want to say, you think that the cardigan
Speaker 1: is going to make him seem a little more mallow,
Speaker 1: but it really it's I guess it's a fleece like
Speaker 1: you want to like a guy in a gray fleece.
Speaker 3: Look, I mean it is the It is the sort
Speaker 3: of modern day business bro uniform you want to quarner
Speaker 3: zip or a fleece. You know, it makes you it
Speaker 3: seem like you're casual and yet still smart and sharp
Speaker 3: and approachable and yet not necessarily rabid, bouncing off the
Speaker 3: fucking walls. And you know, Stephen Miller, there's a real
Speaker 3: tell in all of this. Steven Miller immediately goes to it. Oh,
Speaker 3: they call us Nazis, they call us fascists. Well, listen, Stephen,
Speaker 3: if the jack boot fits, wear it, well, I don't
Speaker 3: think that.
Speaker 1: I think that the I think the name calling whatever right.
Speaker 1: Nobody has ever been convinced of anything by calling someone
Speaker 1: a name. The question I have is where are these nurses,
Speaker 1: where are these federal employees celebrating this brutal killing, because
Speaker 1: I have not seen that. Now. Maybe I'm siloed up,
Speaker 1: but I'm not seen for fer.
Speaker 3: Did see a weeks ago Mike Lee and JD. Vance
Speaker 3: and a whole bunch of other Republicans laughing and joking
Speaker 3: about the murder of the former House speaker in Minnesota.
Speaker 3: You know what I did see when Paul Pelosi was
Speaker 3: beaten with a hammer by a crazy guy who was
Speaker 3: inspired by MAGA. I saw Don Junior making jokes about
Speaker 3: it online, thought it was hilarious, And frankly, we saw
Speaker 3: Charlie Kirk hoping that that guy would get bailed out
Speaker 3: at the time.
Speaker 1: So let's just pull back because Stephen Miller is basically
Speaker 1: Trump's chief of staff. So this is not like some
Speaker 1: guy on the internet saying this. This is the President's
Speaker 1: chief of staff.
Speaker 3: Not Molly. It's important to realize not only that Stephen
Speaker 3: Miller is the effective head of the both the Justice
Speaker 3: Department and the Department of Homeland Security.
Speaker 1: Right she is.
Speaker 3: It controls those things top to bottom.
Speaker 1: And one of the things that I think has been
Speaker 1: really interesting about this week that we've seen a lot
Speaker 1: of is that we've seen people from Trump World and
Speaker 1: how they're like, I'm thinking about cash Battel. So Cash
Speaker 1: Battel was so worried about the way that this was
Speaker 1: playing out in the media, social mainstream, and we have
Speaker 1: now Steven Miller going on television, going on Fox News saying,
Speaker 1: you know that he's going to sort of we ideal
Speaker 1: I mean the goal what it sounds like to me
Speaker 1: here and I certainly could be wrong, but it sounds
Speaker 1: like ideological culling of the federal government.
Speaker 3: Look, I think you have to expand past that. You
Speaker 3: have people like Representative Clay Higgins, you have people across
Speaker 3: the across the MAGA verse now saying that anybody who
Speaker 3: doesn't sufficiently praise Charlie Kirk is going to be targeted.
Speaker 3: And I think what you see Miller doing is taking
Speaker 3: a tragic moment, a horrible moment of violence, and now
Speaker 3: trying to weaponize it into a further expansion of the
Speaker 3: power of the executive branch.
Speaker 1: When you have just doing they executive there, Yes we.
Speaker 3: Need the state Department now saying that they want to
Speaker 3: be able to cancel Americans passports if they say the
Speaker 3: wrong things.
Speaker 7: This is an increasingly censor dark visionship. Yeah, well, such
Speaker 7: a sentiship. It's the use of the power of the
Speaker 7: state state to harm the political opponents of the president.
Speaker 1: It's funny because my grandfather after he got out of
Speaker 1: jail caring mccarthier, they actually did take away his passport
Speaker 1: and that's why the family went to Mexico after he
Speaker 1: got a jail, because you could go to Mexico without
Speaker 1: a passport. And they actually went to a very conservative
Speaker 1: Supreme court and were given their passports back because the
Speaker 1: court said you can't take people's passports away for political reasons. Now,
Speaker 1: that was seventy five years ago. Now, our court is
Speaker 1: significantly more conservative than it was I mean seventy five
Speaker 1: years ago. I mean, I feel like this court. You
Speaker 1: give them that question, they might decide differently.
Speaker 3: There was an article in The Times on Sunday about
Speaker 3: the number of times the Supreme Court agrees with the
Speaker 3: administration and the current Supreme Court. No Supreme court in
Speaker 3: history has ever agreed with an administration more frequently than
Speaker 3: this one does. So, you know, Donald Trump could say
Speaker 3: my opponents have to have to be branded in the
Speaker 3: middle of their forehead with an L for loser, and
Speaker 3: they would probably go, well, the executive power should not
Speaker 3: be constrained. Look, Molly, I think what we're seeing here
Speaker 3: these are the kind of things that really show us
Speaker 3: who this administration is. And Stephen Miller by saying that
Speaker 3: he wants to enforce a speech code in this country
Speaker 3: and enforce ideological conformity, and to try to use this
Speaker 3: tragedy to pennant on everyone who speaks against the president,
Speaker 3: you know, it does show you also something that clip,
Speaker 3: in particular, that Steven Miller's crazy. This guy has more
Speaker 3: than a couple of bolts loose up top. I wonder
Speaker 3: in some ways the president looks at Miller and says,
Speaker 3: he's the guy who understands my base. I wonder in
Speaker 3: some ways, just like with RFK, if we're going to
Speaker 3: star reaching a point of diminishing returns with Steven Miller
Speaker 3: soon because that stuff he's doing on TV is cuckoo Town.
Speaker 1: Well again, I think it's also a question of like
Speaker 1: is it more trouble than it's worth? And that goes
Speaker 1: to Chicago. And I'd love to talk about Chicago because
Speaker 1: Trump was all ready to go into Chicago last week
Speaker 1: and he changed his mind.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 1: That is like when Trump says uncle about things that
Speaker 1: is really important to.
Speaker 3: You, it means kil a lot when Trump. When Trump tacos,
Speaker 3: it means a lot. And especially because he really had
Speaker 3: spent a in the in the period before the Kirk incident,
Speaker 3: he had spent about a week saying Chicago was weak
Speaker 3: and dangerous and and the streets were running with blood
Speaker 3: and all this other stuff, and you know, and and
Speaker 3: people like Miller had been out talking to reporters telling
Speaker 3: them We're going to go in, We're gonna we're gonna
Speaker 3: take the city back. You know, if they if they
Speaker 3: screw with us, we'll arrest them. And then he backed off,
Speaker 3: and now we're hearing that he's going to send troops
Speaker 3: to Memphis, which needs it, red state, blue city, red state,
Speaker 3: and to Louisiana, which also red state.
Speaker 1: Blue cities, but again needs it. Is like, is a
Speaker 1: fake framing, right needs it?
Speaker 4: You know what?
Speaker 3: You know? You know, I stand corrected, I stand. You
Speaker 3: could make a better case for it in those communities.
Speaker 1: But you still should not make any case that the
Speaker 1: National Guard should be fighting crime because that's not their job.
Speaker 3: And also with the Unity Sty, they're picking them a trash.
Speaker 1: Right, They're picking up trash, they're planting things, and by
Speaker 1: the way, they are furious. Right. National Guard troops are
Speaker 1: really mad because these people signed up to save drowning
Speaker 1: children and fight wars, not to pick up trash and
Speaker 1: intimidate their neighbors, which is not the purpose. But I
Speaker 1: think it's worth just for another minute talking about why
Speaker 1: Trump did not go into Chicago, because Pritzker has certainly
Speaker 1: has something to do with it. He went into California
Speaker 1: that was ruled illegal. And then I also wonder about
Speaker 1: Brandon Johnson. You know, there was a really united front there.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think he I think he started to look
Speaker 3: at Chicago, and there was a possibility there that the
Speaker 3: Chicago government and courts and law enforcement would all say no,
Speaker 3: not here, bro. And he has been losing in court
Speaker 3: a lot, as you know. And I think that there
Speaker 3: may have been part of this that said, we don't
Speaker 3: want to have a precedent set because look, in Tennessee
Speaker 3: and Louisiana, the state governments are going to say cool,
Speaker 3: we love mister whatever, right. But been in Illinois, I
Speaker 3: think there was a real chance he could have been
Speaker 3: legally and professionally embarrassed by this in terms of the city,
Speaker 3: might have been able to really, you know, put up
Speaker 3: some meaningful obstacles legally and otherwise to this kind of behavior.
Speaker 3: So I think the window in which Trump can use
Speaker 3: the National Guard is closing or has closed. I don't
Speaker 3: think it's an effective strategy. There. There is pushback inside
Speaker 3: the military about it, quietly of ours, because they're all
Speaker 3: over Trump.
Speaker 1: And it was emailed to a reporter at the Washington
Speaker 1: Post that that this was terrible for them and that they.
Speaker 3: Were a look a bad look and killing morale in
Speaker 3: the Guard.
Speaker 1: Yeah, which I mean, the thing that is so interesting
Speaker 1: about this administration is like at so many points. So
Speaker 1: they blew up this boat off the coast. It does
Speaker 1: it certainly seems like the boat they blew up, they
Speaker 1: don't have a definitive answer on what was in it.
Speaker 3: Does they strike you that the boat they blew up
Speaker 3: might not have really been dug.
Speaker 1: Well, they were turning around, you saw that, right, they
Speaker 1: got you know they You know, when people are in
Speaker 1: the midst of surrendering, you're not supposed to kill them, right.
Speaker 3: That is the rule that is part of the Uniform
Speaker 3: Code Military Justice and also in the Geneva Convention a
Speaker 3: variety of other practices of war where someone says, hey, okay,
Speaker 3: I give up. You're not supposed to just kill them.
Speaker 3: And look, I think what you're seeing. Also, and there's
Speaker 3: a little bit of a reporting about this, You've got
Speaker 3: Rit Grennell and Marco Rubio fighting over control of who's
Speaker 3: going to be the Venezuela person. It's an odd fight
Speaker 3: and one that I will never see on pay per view,
Speaker 3: I presume. But it really strikes me that one side
Speaker 3: is leaking like a sieve, and it doesn't seem like
Speaker 3: it's Rubio's side who was controlling this until that moment.
Speaker 3: And I wonder what the value added is for the
Speaker 3: Trump administration to declare war on Venezuela and to pretend
Speaker 3: that they're stopping Trendiagua by blowing up shrimp boats.
Speaker 1: Yes, but then there's also the larger question of a
Speaker 1: lot and I feel like so much news got drapped
Speaker 1: out by the by his other stuff. But like Scott
Speaker 1: Bessen had, yes, White House Fight Club, Scott Bessont has,
Speaker 1: now he's going to beat up Pulty. I'll be very
Speaker 1: curious to find out what happens with Bill PULTI because
Speaker 1: this guy provided all of this evidence of stuff, and
Speaker 1: now Lisa Cook it looks like is exonerated, right.
Speaker 3: Or not just a little exonerated, like like completely she
Speaker 3: said in the filings when she filed for the mortgage,
Speaker 3: this is a vacation home. I'm not asking for a
Speaker 3: homestead exemption. So I mean, I think she's got a
Speaker 3: case against this guy.
Speaker 1: I don't parents actually did commit mortgage fraud.
Speaker 3: Right, Yes?
Speaker 1: They correct so they So the irony here is incredibly rich.
Speaker 1: Bill Pulty has made an enemy out of Scott Besson.
Speaker 1: Scott Besson, who you know had his last scene focusing
Speaker 1: with Elon Musk, meaning I just.
Speaker 3: Want to see these guys, Like, I want to see
Speaker 3: these guys fight it out.
Speaker 1: You know what's funny, They said they were going to
Speaker 1: do mm A fighting at the White House. Remember that, Yeah,
Speaker 1: why not just go all in? Well, maybe it's already happening.
Speaker 1: Maybe the m m A fighting is.
Speaker 3: The along the way, right, or.
Speaker 1: Maybe it's just the it's just Scott Best and beating
Speaker 1: up different people from the administration.
Speaker 3: So it's a lot of thrills and spills the fans.
Speaker 3: We'll see on here.
Speaker 1: Is a white House Fight Club, White House fight Club. So,
Speaker 1: and the first rule of White House Fight Club is
Speaker 1: that Scott Besson does in Scott the apparently the White House.
Speaker 3: Flight Club is you leak it to Axios.
Speaker 1: Right, Well, and the second rule of White House Fight
Speaker 1: Club is if you're fighting with someone who has more
Speaker 1: than seven jobs, you're probably gonna get fired. So like, yeah,
Speaker 1: Marco has had fights with people and he's gotten their jobs.
Speaker 1: Scott Bessen has had fights with people and he's gotten
Speaker 1: their jobs. So I could see a world in which
Speaker 1: this is the end of Bill PULTI yeah.
Speaker 3: I mean, I don't think Bill Poulty is a guy
Speaker 3: that Donald Trump wakes up in the morning and says,
Speaker 3: my god, what will I do without him?
Speaker 1: But it is interesting, like that's just another guy, rich
Speaker 1: guy who Trump was friends with. I mean, the barrier
Speaker 1: to entry in this administration continues to be an Evolf right,
Speaker 1: do I like you? Are? The vibes good? Right?
Speaker 3: He was a developer, I know them, I am one,
Speaker 3: I love them all.
Speaker 1: I think the real question, though, is just the idea
Speaker 1: that you have a guy who is just sort of
Speaker 1: putting people in the cabinet. It is the one thing
Speaker 1: that I think is different from Trump one point zero
Speaker 1: is we're not seeing like the wall of firing, which
Speaker 1: means all of these people are staying in the administration,
Speaker 1: which means true. Talk me through that, because that seems
Speaker 1: like I feel like Scott, like firing your your head,
Speaker 1: your director of Defense might have been a better move
Speaker 1: than keeping him in.
Speaker 3: Well. I think Trump looked at the things that hurt
Speaker 3: him politically in the first administration and determined he was
Speaker 3: going to take that sort of Roy Cone approach from
Speaker 3: now on. My people never do anything wrong. They're always right.
Speaker 3: Screw you. If you criticize them, you're criticizing me. And
Speaker 3: I also think there's something that's changed inside the administration
Speaker 3: is he's willing to move people laterally, like Mike Webles
Speaker 3: was was National Security Advisor until they added to Laura Lumer.
Speaker 1: Well and didn't he ask, oh Laura Lumer okay, yeah, yeah, And.
Speaker 3: Laura Lumer fired all of his staff and then Trump said, well, Marco,
Speaker 3: you can be National Security Advisor. And and but Mike
Speaker 3: Walls didn't get humiliated and he got the United Nations job.
Speaker 3: You know, So they play it a little differently this
Speaker 3: time because Trump doesn't want to be seen as losing
Speaker 3: any battles, and so it's going to take a lot
Speaker 3: to fire even sect drunk Pete Hegseth.
Speaker 1: But Pete Seth is still like adding people to signal chat.
Speaker 1: I mean, maybe he's not actively doing it, but clearly
Speaker 1: the problems have not gone away.
Speaker 3: No, and look, Pete Hexseth is is a singularly destructive
Speaker 3: Secretary of Defense. And at no point should the folks
Speaker 3: that are on the current Joint chiefs of Staff ever
Speaker 3: wake up and think I'm serving this country effectively by
Speaker 3: working for Petexseth. They will not be replaced by somebody
Speaker 3: better or more responsible. They are. They're in a deep
Speaker 3: hole with this guy because he is I mean, without
Speaker 3: like being funny or exaggerating, petexth is mentally incapable of
Speaker 3: doing this job. They will put somebody stupider in the job.
Speaker 3: When Pterexath goes.
Speaker 1: Rick, give us like a reason to not despair.
Speaker 3: Donald Trump is a failing president. His poll numbers suck,
Speaker 3: and they suck hard by the way they are bad.
Speaker 3: Donald Trump's numbers are now in the high to mid thirties.
Speaker 3: He is not a popular president. His policies are failing
Speaker 3: almost across the board. Everything he does, almost every single
Speaker 3: day is mediated by the fear of revelations on the
Speaker 3: Epstein matter.
Speaker 1: Right, that is true.
Speaker 3: He has been permanently branded as being a friend associate
Speaker 3: running But however you want to describe it of an
Speaker 3: infamous sex trafficker and an infamous pedophile. He's talking about
Speaker 3: freeing the woman who ran the operations of that infamous
Speaker 3: sex traffickers pedophile child trafficking ring. Yeah, nothing about this
Speaker 3: is good for him. Donald Trump is also now an
Speaker 3: international laughing stock, and he knows about the world knows it.
Speaker 3: The tariff move has absolutely empowered China more than almost
Speaker 3: any other country on Earth. The United States is a
Speaker 3: laughing stock in foreign policy because no matter what Vladimir
Speaker 3: Putin does, Trump will say, yes, sir, three bags full,
Speaker 3: can I go wash your car? Yeah. So he's a
Speaker 3: terrible president. His presidency is failed and failing. He is
Speaker 3: doing awful things, but that ability to do these awful
Speaker 3: things is now diminishing with a weaker economy. It's diminishing
Speaker 3: with an administration that is obsessed with one issue, Jeffrey
Speaker 3: Epstein behind the curtain. And as much as he can
Speaker 3: do evil and do wrong, he's also eighty years old,
Speaker 3: and he's not in good health, and the time is ticking,
Speaker 3: and the actuarial tables are undefeated. And I don't think
Speaker 3: that we should look at Trumps as powerful as he
Speaker 3: would have been if he'd come back in twenty twenty one,
Speaker 3: either a reelection or through January sixth. He's physically and
Speaker 3: mentally office game. He's slipped.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he seems to.
Speaker 3: It's going to catch up with all of us eventually.
Speaker 3: But he is not the guy he was six months ago.
Speaker 3: You can see it, you can feel it. And he
Speaker 3: doesn't have the same instincts and the same ability and
Speaker 3: the same power. Is the Republican Party still his bitch,
Speaker 3: of course it is.
Speaker 1: Ben Wickler is the former head of Wisconsin Democrats. Welcome
Speaker 1: Ben to Fast Politics.
Speaker 4: Thanks got to be back, Bally.
Speaker 1: I wanted to have you on because I wanted to
Speaker 1: talk about the moment Democrats are in and I've written
Speaker 1: a lot about it. I've been thinking about a lot
Speaker 1: about it. It's an insane moment in American life. So
Speaker 1: talk us through what this looks like right now. And
Speaker 1: I want you to talk us through like where the
Speaker 1: Democrats are. First, talk us through Democrats more generally, and
Speaker 1: then talk us through what easing to party party structure.
Speaker 4: Sure, so we have a split screen right now, and
Speaker 4: the split screen is a kind of national conversation that's
Speaker 4: totally dominated by Trump and his allies for two reasons.
Speaker 4: One is that they own the means of distribution. They
Speaker 4: own acts, the federal government, as browbeating national media, as
Speaker 4: the usions the newspapers have been bought by people who
Speaker 4: now have a huge financial interest in koutout and to
Speaker 4: the Trump administration. And the other side is that Trump
Speaker 4: himself and the whole ecosystem that people on the right
Speaker 4: are extremely skilled at driving conversation constantly and so it's
Speaker 4: both that the people who control the algorithms have an
Speaker 4: interest in lifting out their narratives, but also the fact
Speaker 4: that they're a lot better using those algorithms to get
Speaker 4: the word out, and they're doing horrible, horrible things. And
Speaker 4: so there's authoritary breakthrough national crisis moment, and the public
Speaker 4: basically is only hearing from the right. They're not hearing
Speaker 4: from Democrats, in part for structural reasons and in part
Speaker 4: because the kind of across the board, and there's lots
Speaker 4: of individual people that are getting this much better. But
Speaker 4: Democrats need to get really good at figuring out how
Speaker 4: to do things they can break through the news cycle.
Speaker 4: And that means actually not just having the right words
Speaker 4: that are not offensive to anyone, It means actually driving
Speaker 4: actions so that Republicans are responding to what Democrats are
Speaker 4: doing to fight back as opposed to Democrats girl clutching
Speaker 4: at the latest horror. And the horrors are very real.
Speaker 4: It's not wrong to condemn the horrors, but as long
Speaker 4: as we're playing on their turf, we're losing. So that's
Speaker 4: the first part. All of us feel that any what
Speaker 4: has made attention even a bit feels of like how
Speaker 4: could this all be happening and there's no like, you know,
Speaker 4: nothing's breaking through, there's no pushback. Is mind rending. The
Speaker 4: other side of the split screen is what is happening
Speaker 4: on the ground. And I got an early taste of
Speaker 4: this because I was in Wisconsin leading the Democratic Party
Speaker 4: Wisconsin when Elon Musk came in and dropped what you know,
Speaker 4: by my math, it's about fifty three million dollars on
Speaker 4: the Supreme Court race the spring and then lost by
Speaker 4: ten percentage points to Susan Crawford, who got more votes
Speaker 4: not only than any Supreme Court justice ever in the state,
Speaker 4: she got more votes than any Republican candidate for governor
Speaker 4: in a November election in an even numbered you know,
Speaker 4: midterm year has ever gotten That turns out was not atypical.
Speaker 4: Democrats are overperforming over and over and over and over.
Speaker 4: The average over performance is like sixteen percentage points this year,
Speaker 4: which is like vastly higher than it was in twenty seventeen,
Speaker 4: which was a banner year for Democrats kiking ass and
Speaker 4: special elections. And that is driven by this just palpable
Speaker 4: sense of urgency and rage and readiness to do anything
Speaker 4: to save the country that millions of people feel on
Speaker 4: the ground all over the place. If you ask run
Speaker 4: for something, they're saying they're seeing vastly more people signing
Speaker 4: up to run for local office than they've ever seen.
Speaker 4: You can see this whole crop of people announcing campaigns
Speaker 4: for the US Senate, which was supposed to be unwinnable,
Speaker 4: and now in state after state after state, we have
Speaker 4: these really compelling candidates that are communicating in new ways.
Speaker 4: There's just a huge boiling energy. And in a sense,
Speaker 4: these two things are going to crash into each other
Speaker 4: in the next year and a half because on the
Speaker 4: one hand, you have a Trump administration that's trying to
Speaker 4: dismember the country, rig the system, completely lock in permanent control,
Speaker 4: and on the other side, this energy that's coming up
Speaker 4: from below, that is, you know, both through massive organizing
Speaker 4: and mobilization, through ways of lawsuits, through like every non
Speaker 4: election day tactic, but also through political mobilization, is trying
Speaker 4: to counter this this lurch to the right. And I
Speaker 4: think they're going to be booed by the fact that
Speaker 4: Trump has been a total disaster for working people across
Speaker 4: the country, especially the people who pay the least attention
Speaker 4: to politics, who you know, were sort of changing the channel,
Speaker 4: like she's trying something else, because that felt like what
Speaker 4: was going on before wasn't working. If you look at
Speaker 4: the public, they're also concluding that this is not working.
Speaker 4: And so I think there's every likelihood that to the
Speaker 4: extent we have a fair and freevy election, then it
Speaker 4: could also be a wave election and a major change
Speaker 4: election in twenty six. I think the same thing could
Speaker 4: happened this fall. Pennsylvania statrib Court is incredibly important fight Virginia,
Speaker 4: New Jersey. And what the Democratic Party is two things.
Speaker 4: It is, on the one handed, kind of a morphous
Speaker 4: blob of everyone who publicly identifies as the Democrat, every
Speaker 4: elected official of the d next to their name, and
Speaker 4: a lot of people eyes next to their names. It's
Speaker 4: the commentators, it's all the different committees, the spaghetti sup
Speaker 4: of different organizations, it's all the affiliated allied groups. It's
Speaker 4: the all these different elements and this deep fundamental partnership
Speaker 4: with the union movement. And then it's also an institution
Speaker 4: with like the Democratic National Committee, with state committees in
Speaker 4: each state. And this is a moment of reckoning for
Speaker 4: the Democratic Party. And in those moments of reckoning. There's
Speaker 4: always going to be a lot of conflict, Like that's
Speaker 4: just how that's how generational change works, that's how shifting
Speaker 4: shifting gears, how begging things through.
Speaker 3: Works.
Speaker 4: If there wasn't, I think that would be really bad news.
Speaker 4: And I would love to see, like I would love
Speaker 4: to see the Democratic Party breaking through and demonstrating into
Speaker 4: the country that we have an opposition party at this
Speaker 4: moment and that it is fighting back at the same time,
Speaker 4: Like there are these internal conversations that are happening all
Speaker 4: over the place and often spelling out into the public.
Speaker 4: And the most important thing is whether millions of people
Speaker 4: are deciding themselves to become the heroes in this moment
Speaker 4: and taking on the work, which could be recruiting candidate
Speaker 4: or running for off as yourself, or it's donating it,
Speaker 4: marching every weekend and talking to friends and neighbors, making
Speaker 4: list of people you know who didn't vote in twenty
Speaker 4: four Like, there's so many things that people can do.
Speaker 4: So I'm in a hair and fire state about the
Speaker 4: risk of the country to every person in the country.
Speaker 4: It is basically locked in that millions and millions of
Speaker 4: people are going to die because of this administration, because
Speaker 4: of what they've done to vaccines, because of what they've
Speaker 4: done to global health at fart AID, because of what
Speaker 4: they've done to health policy in the United States. Like,
Speaker 4: there's so much pain that has already begun for so
Speaker 4: many people, and it's going to get so much worse,
Speaker 4: and their threat to the basic function of democracy is
Speaker 4: so bad. But I'm heartened by the level of and
Speaker 4: the intensity of the response, even if it's you have
Speaker 4: to look pretty hard to find it because it's not
Speaker 4: being covered properly. That to me is really hardening.
Speaker 1: Okay, you've made me feel so much better. I can't
Speaker 1: decide is it because I like you so much anyway,
Speaker 1: because I'm always like, give a supers wee of red hair,
Speaker 1: so people with red hair are always good. But also
Speaker 1: that you have a soothing present in a moment that
Speaker 1: is not very soothing. Why are you not DNC chair
Speaker 1: And shouldn't you be DNC chair? And make me feel
Speaker 1: better that you're not DNC chair?
Speaker 4: Well, I ran for Dunca chair. I have a lot
Speaker 4: of respect for Kim Martin. I've known for years. I
Speaker 4: think in the race, I was reminded of something that
Speaker 4: I say all the time, you know in Wisconsin, which
Speaker 4: is that if you want to build the trust of
Speaker 4: an electorate, you have to build relationships with them over
Speaker 4: years and not just show up in the last couple
Speaker 4: of months. And I very conscious that I jumped into
Speaker 4: the race for DNC chair on December first of twenty
Speaker 4: twenty four, two months out from election day. This is
Speaker 4: not something that I'd dreamed of and Lake groundwork for.
Speaker 4: And Ken has been leading the Association of the state
Speaker 4: parties and was building relationships, serving on the DNC executive Committee.
Speaker 4: Was making the case to people and they knew him.
Speaker 4: And trust comes from knowing someone and seeing them in action,
Speaker 4: So like elections are like that, and it's why I
Speaker 4: think year round organizing is so absolutely essential. That's the
Speaker 4: gospel that I was preaching. But Ken was making the
Speaker 4: same argument and people knew him, so they heard it
Speaker 4: from him in the same way, which kind of proves
Speaker 4: the argument itself. I will find lots of other ways
Speaker 4: to lead into the fight. And I also think that
Speaker 4: in a sense, this is going to be a fight
Speaker 4: where the DNC of everybody's fantasies wouldn't be able to
Speaker 4: do this by itself because chance. It's going to be
Speaker 4: this huge surge of a bazillion different folks stepping into
Speaker 4: the breach in a bazillion different ways, and that there
Speaker 4: are a lot of voters for whom the Democratic Party
Speaker 4: will never be the right messenger. So even if the
Speaker 4: Democratic Party said everything perfectly in every perfect place, and
Speaker 4: that might improve the party's brand, imagine it was ten
Speaker 4: percentage points better, it would still be really low. Right, Yeah,
Speaker 4: that would be if we could spike up its approval
Speaker 4: as a national party by an unprecedented degree, that still
Speaker 4: would not be enough to get a majority. People like
Speaker 4: great candidates of which we're seeing all these people coming
Speaker 4: out of would work. I love like launch video TV
Speaker 4: is my have replaced right now? These candidates are making
Speaker 4: the case that they see what's wrong with a broken
Speaker 4: system and they're going to challenge the system of role
Speaker 4: and they're going to change it. That people, it is
Speaker 4: not Democrats running on like restore the status quo. Democrats
Speaker 4: are running on this isn't normal, but what's normal is
Speaker 4: not okay, Like we need to actually make this whole
Speaker 4: country work. And if the Democrat like correct party in
Speaker 4: a sense isn't the right messenger for that, because it's
Speaker 4: the oldest political party, I believe, the oldest continuous political
Speaker 4: party in the world. As an entity, it doesn't embody
Speaker 4: the idea of fighting for change in the minds of
Speaker 4: the people who are most skeptical of it. So, you know,
Speaker 4: there's just there's a lot of heroes that we need
Speaker 4: at this moment, and some of them are in the
Speaker 4: party and in the party structure, and a ton of
Speaker 4: them are outside of it. And a lot of the
Speaker 4: voters that we need are people who think that both
Speaker 4: parties are fundamentally broken, corrupt and evil, and who nonetheless
Speaker 4: we need to find, you know, who can communicate with
Speaker 4: them and build enough trust to say it is worth
Speaker 4: it casting a vote in this next election because everything's
Speaker 4: on the line.
Speaker 1: You're seeing these huge wins and these specials. Example, as
Speaker 1: there was a Virginia seat fifteen points over deliver on
Speaker 1: that seat. When you look at Democrats in office, Robert
Speaker 1: Garcian oversight is a really good example. They got the
Speaker 1: birthday book, They got the birthday book out there. I
Speaker 1: was shocked at how much that, you know, they handled
Speaker 1: it in just extremely in a way where they were
Speaker 1: able to break through one of the big problems is
Speaker 1: Democrats can't break through. Harris had real problems breaking through
Speaker 1: by an administration could not break through. Give me your
Speaker 1: feeling on.
Speaker 4: This, Yeah, I mean I think that the chair or
Speaker 4: breaking member borg on the Birthday book, it's a perfect
Speaker 4: example of the right kind of move. I'm like working
Speaker 4: in my house right now, and part of what you
Speaker 4: do when you're trying to you prove your house is
Speaker 4: you put positive air pressure into the house and see
Speaker 4: where the air leaks. And I think of what Trump
Speaker 4: is trying to do right now, as it's like you're
Speaker 4: putting air pressure into the whole American political system to
Speaker 4: see every crack in the system where you can then
Speaker 4: like shove through authoritarian power. So like the federal government
Speaker 4: doesn't control the police. Oh, but you can create your
Speaker 4: own secret police force through the ICE funding and through
Speaker 4: sending in truth with all these different things, I think
Speaker 4: in a sense democrats need the same kind of approach
Speaker 4: to think about how to break through, which is to say,
Speaker 4: you have to try a ton of stuff. You have
Speaker 4: to try doing things you haven't done before. You have
Speaker 4: to try. Like the big thing is that message doesn't
Speaker 4: mean anything if no one hears it, and right people
Speaker 4: hear things tends to be through actions, not through words.
Speaker 4: There need to be actual events, things need to happen
Speaker 4: for it to become you know, of note, and that
Speaker 4: is going to I'm sure form the conversation about the shutdown,
Speaker 4: which is like why are we you know, funding the
Speaker 4: This is destruction then the wholesale destruction of the systems
Speaker 4: that have saved millions of American lives for the last
Speaker 4: like half century, like the attacks on healthcare, all these
Speaker 4: different things, Like yesual they have to have a fight
Speaker 4: that draws attention, that shows whose side you're on, and
Speaker 4: there are there are a bunch of people who have
Speaker 4: figured out interesting ways to do that across the country.
Speaker 4: That there should be more like learning from each other,
Speaker 4: and they should be constant experimentation, like the worst has
Speaker 4: already happened. So the risk of screwing up is much
Speaker 4: lower now than it is if you think that, like
Speaker 4: you're right on the right on the border being able
Speaker 4: to to win something back. If Democrats try something and
Speaker 4: nobody notices it, then it's like it never happens. You
Speaker 4: might as well try enough things that eventually some of
Speaker 4: the things are gonna get noticed. And I think that
Speaker 4: that's you know, I think that the fight of a
Speaker 4: redistrictigain actually retaliating with that is great. I think that
Speaker 4: fighting new ways to community communicate is great. I think
Speaker 4: upping production value is great. I think a lot about
Speaker 4: the the January sixth Committee, the fact that they brought
Speaker 4: in you know, serious news like TV producers to create
Speaker 4: something that would actually be a storytelling vehicle and create
Speaker 4: spectacle in moments. That to means the right idea you
Speaker 4: should like simultaneously, you should try super high production value
Speaker 4: stuff that is really well crafted is storytelling, and also
Speaker 4: try a lot of totally spontaneous stuff that is gritty
Speaker 4: and low production value, but that actually, you know, it
Speaker 4: gives people the sense that they're there. There's a political
Speaker 4: scientist who I think it was the discussible had.
Speaker 1: The Fedris Scotch peal with Lover from Harvard.
Speaker 4: Yes, the out party innovation the idea that basically the
Speaker 4: political party that's out of power tends to innovate more.
Speaker 4: And you know, if you remember two thousand and eight,
Speaker 4: Democrats had figured out how to use the Internet first
Speaker 4: and boom, like did they crush it? And then twenty
Speaker 4: sixteen they were still using the vaccine technology they'd built
Speaker 4: when they were out of power. It was literally built
Speaker 4: on the Obamba campaign digital platform and it was trying
Speaker 4: using the thing at that moment. Yeah, this is Democrats
Speaker 4: are out of power now and they need to act
Speaker 4: act like it. And that means like you know, cracking
Speaker 4: things open and seeing what's inside and letting a million
Speaker 4: flowers bloom. Algorithms are changing, like man, I mean AI
Speaker 4: is a good example right now. Right Like there's there's
Speaker 4: this explosion of new ways to create media and create content.
Speaker 4: You can create songs that's only professional songs in a
Speaker 4: couple of minutes. You can create video. There's constantly new things.
Speaker 4: Democrats should try creating a bazillion different things all the
Speaker 4: time and then also used totally not anythings. But like
Speaker 4: it is, it is so much cheaper to be able
Speaker 4: to try making videos like make a you know video
Speaker 4: guide to the Epstein birthday book, like try and make
Speaker 4: twenty different ones, come up with the contest who can
Speaker 4: make the best one to get it up there, and
Speaker 4: that stuff provokes conversation, So I like it's just the
Speaker 4: time to play it. Stafe is so far in the
Speaker 4: back and in the RuView mirror for me and like
Speaker 4: this is a time for a walls car and spaghetti,
Speaker 4: like some of it's going to stake.
Speaker 1: I just wrote this piece for Vanny Fair about democratic messengers,
Speaker 1: who are the democratic messengers? And one of the things
Speaker 1: that I was struck by was a staffer told me
Speaker 1: that they thought that during this election, the twenty eight cycle,
Speaker 1: god willing, that there would be moments where there may
Speaker 1: be like actually going on something like Joe Rogan or
Speaker 1: theovonn would actually be more meaningful because it breaks out
Speaker 1: of the silo.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, a bunch of Democrats have been on Joe
Speaker 4: Rogan and the Theovan and it's great, Like the water's fine.
Speaker 4: Your part of it is that long form podcasting ass
Speaker 4: like a medium form the fath Politics pod.
Speaker 1: Yes, I think we're pretty much short form compared to
Speaker 1: that to three hours.
Speaker 4: Yeah, anything bigger than cable news lends itself to actually
Speaker 4: like finding rapport finding some of you agree and if
Speaker 4: you have a conflict that tends to like go to
Speaker 4: resolute as opposed to people like just get like cut,
Speaker 4: getting their micscut when wandering off. And that's good. It's
Speaker 4: good for Democrats to learn how to do that well.
Speaker 4: And not be constantly like dodging like every possible landmin
Speaker 4: or eggshell, having a bad news cycle and surviving it,
Speaker 4: like is a very good way to discover that Actually
Speaker 4: it's like it is more risky to be completely risk
Speaker 4: averse than it is to create a larger volume and
Speaker 4: a larger presence and the larger footprint. And that's the
Speaker 4: general direction. Like you a world where every media out
Speaker 4: that like at best only has a tiny fraction of
Speaker 4: the country's attentionion, you have to just be in a
Speaker 4: lot more places, a lot more at the time to
Speaker 4: be able to break through, and then every so often,
Speaker 4: like something actually catches the whole country. If you live
Speaker 4: in fear of ever having a bad viral moment, then
Speaker 4: you'll never have a good viral moment. And if you
Speaker 4: ever have a good viral moment, no one will know
Speaker 4: that you exist.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about that, because I think one of the
Speaker 1: things that really hurt by world was being so cautious.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, I think it's pretty clear probably to
Speaker 4: everyone in the universe at this point that the yeah,
Speaker 4: the volume of communication that was coming out of the
Speaker 4: illustration became very very small. And if you remember the beginning,
Speaker 4: of the Harris campaign. It was this explosion like the
Speaker 4: Brat summer that that moment, like all the Viepstakes with
Speaker 4: all my presential candidates going on to TV all the time,
Speaker 4: the kind of audition to spokespeople like that. People were
Speaker 4: actually hearing from Democrats and hearing for them in ways
Speaker 4: that felt new right, and they loved it. Yeah. I
Speaker 4: was at the first I was the opening speaker at
Speaker 4: the first rally in a battleground state of the presidential campaign.
Speaker 4: Emily Harris came to this high school in Wisconsin and
Speaker 4: it was just explosive, like people were ready to lift
Speaker 4: the roof with their cheering and joy. And then that's
Speaker 4: red and they recruited other people and you know, people
Speaker 4: got involved in a level that was like just totally amazing.
Speaker 4: And I think like those good feelings are good People
Speaker 4: fundamentally remember, like at the deepest level, they remember what
Speaker 4: political figures make them feel about themselves, how they make
Speaker 4: them feel in their bodies. And to be able to
Speaker 4: get to the point where you can then trigger any
Speaker 4: kind of feeling, it involves vulnerability, which involves risk. It
Speaker 4: just does They're communicating a lot and then being able
Speaker 4: to find your groove and all the when you think
Speaker 4: through like the kind of political turning point moments, they're
Speaker 4: all things that involve emotion fundamentally, they go deeper than
Speaker 4: arguments or ideas. And I think that's the in a way,
Speaker 4: part of what we need to be looking for in
Speaker 4: candidates for offices at every level and leaders who spokespeople
Speaker 4: all this stuff is people who can actually make people
Speaker 4: feel something, because that's how you can build, like memories
Speaker 4: formed around emotions. The strongest memories are all built around emotions.
Speaker 4: If you have an idea that you can attest to
Speaker 4: that connects to the broader vision. The Democrats are for
Speaker 4: the country, Like Ben, that's great, but the baseline has
Speaker 4: to be what actually like touched you and made you
Speaker 4: feel something and remember it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's right, Ben. Will you please come back?
Speaker 8: I'd be the leaded. Thanks for having me man, No,
Speaker 8: Rick Wilson, Yes, Molly.
Speaker 1: How much of our lives have we spent talking about
Speaker 1: Fox News?
Speaker 4: Too fucking much?
Speaker 1: Honestly, Brian kill Mead you may remember him from nothing,
Speaker 1: that guy kill me? What did Brian Meed say this week?
Speaker 3: Brian killed me this week advocated for giving the homeless
Speaker 3: lethal injections to get them.
Speaker 4: On the street.
Speaker 1: That's right.
Speaker 3: You know. I was told I heard, I heard this
Speaker 3: week that the rhetoric in this country was too hot, yes,
Speaker 3: and that we need to all back down and talk
Speaker 3: nice to do each other. I did not have injecting
Speaker 3: the homeless with lethal injections and killing them on my
Speaker 3: Fox News bingo card this week. Maybe I should have,
Speaker 3: Maybe I should have lowered the standard a little bit, but.
Speaker 1: Jesus lowly, I mean, I understand we're not supposed to
Speaker 1: call them unhoused because it makes us seem unrelatable as liberals.
Speaker 1: But I still think we shouldn't kill them, you.
Speaker 3: Know, whether you call them homeless or unhoused or whatever
Speaker 3: view you have of them. Brian kill Me is now
Speaker 3: advocating since about sixty percent of homeless folks are veterans,
Speaker 3: he's advocating killing homeless veterans. Now he has supposedly walked
Speaker 3: it back some like week walk back on it now.
Speaker 1: He I did apologize, yes, And by the way, for
Speaker 1: a Fox News host to apologize is not nothing.
Speaker 3: No, it's not nothing. But here's the thing. This shows
Speaker 3: you the hypocrisy of how the networks work. If that
Speaker 3: had happened, as we saw from somebody getting fired on
Speaker 3: MSNBC this week for not being sufficiently sensitive about Charlie Kirk.
Speaker 3: If that had happened in another network of any kind
Speaker 3: and any other outlet, he would have been taken off
Speaker 3: the set. But a Fox, it's like haha, So look,
Speaker 3: Ryan killed me. There's no rocket scientist to begin with.
Speaker 3: And maybe he thought it was a funny joke or
Speaker 3: thought he was working up to some sort of like
Speaker 3: statement on it, but he basically was anyone to kill
Speaker 3: the hoholmus. I don't know, call me crazy, but that
Speaker 3: doesn't seem like lowering the temperature with Wilson.
Speaker 1: I'll see you next week.
Speaker 3: I'll see you next week.
Speaker 1: That's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in
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