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. We're on vacation, but that doesn't mean
Speaker 1: we don't have an amazing show for you today. Mark
Speaker 1: Rascoe Lusto drops by to talk to us about his
Speaker 1: recent trip to Ukraine. But first we have law Dorc
Speaker 1: news is Chris Guidner. Welcome back to Fast Politics. Chris, Hi,
Speaker 1: I'm so excited to have you this Supreme Court season.
Speaker 1: They took the pills, the abortion pills. They have a
Speaker 1: case with that. They have a lot of stuff on
Speaker 1: their docket that could be really fucked discussed.
Speaker 2: This is a big term.
Speaker 3: We say that every year, and sadly it's often true.
Speaker 3: I mean, we've now got this possibility of Trump related
Speaker 3: cases going up quickly. We've got this case over medication abortion.
Speaker 3: We've got these really big cases over the administrative state,
Speaker 3: which sounds really intricate and boring, but it really comes
Speaker 3: down to who in our government has the power and
Speaker 3: whether the executive branches is actually able to govern or
Speaker 3: whether the Supreme Board is just going to have the
Speaker 3: final say and be able to tell us at all
Speaker 3: times what government is able to do.
Speaker 1: I mean, I've heard a lot of speculation, read a
Speaker 1: lot of speculation about the Supreme Court and what it
Speaker 1: might do and how it might try to prove itself
Speaker 1: to be lost in saying that it has I mean,
Speaker 1: am I just the boy whistling in the dark to
Speaker 1: keep myself from being afraid?
Speaker 3: I don't think you are completely with the caveat that
Speaker 3: anything can always get worse. I think that we are
Speaker 3: seeing evidence that the public attention and public pressure on
Speaker 3: the Court is having an effect, and that is a
Speaker 3: good thing. I think we are seeing evidence that, particularly
Speaker 3: Chief Justice Roberts and then the three trumpetpointees, who, let's
Speaker 3: face it, they're looking at this as I'm going to
Speaker 3: be on the Court for the next twenty years or
Speaker 3: so or longer, and so it's not necessarily a one
Speaker 3: month decision about what to do, and they are looking
Speaker 3: at the long term implications for the credibility of the
Speaker 3: Court and realizing that you might need to find some limits.
Speaker 2: Or you're going to lose all of your authority.
Speaker 1: It's true, there's a lot. I mean, I'm looking at
Speaker 1: the dock at now, and I'm just looking at all
Speaker 1: these case says Purdue Pharma case. I mean, there's some
Speaker 1: environmental cases, there's More versus United States. Well there's another
Speaker 1: NR case. I mean, what are you looking at here?
Speaker 2: The More case is a perfect example.
Speaker 3: It's a case that when the Justices took it, it's
Speaker 3: about this weather. Unrealized income can be taxed under the
Speaker 3: sixteenth Amendment, And the original sort of take when the
Speaker 3: Supreme Court took it was this could be a huge
Speaker 3: case where they essentially rule any wealth tax off the board.
Speaker 1: Which is the dream. Let's be honest, all those billionaires,
Speaker 1: that's their dream.
Speaker 3: The Wall Street Journal issued an editorial the day after
Speaker 3: the Supreme Court granted cert saying, this is a really
Speaker 3: big case about the wealth tax. But then we got
Speaker 3: into arguments and it turned out to sort of be
Speaker 3: I mean, it's not obviously not a dud of a case.
Speaker 3: It's still important, but the debate and discussion ended up
Speaker 3: being over a much more narrow issue, and it seems
Speaker 3: like we're gonna get a lot of that this term
Speaker 3: where it only takes four justices to grant certain a case,
Speaker 3: to agree to hear a case, but that doesn't mean
Speaker 3: that that's where a case is going to end. This
Speaker 3: is the fallout from Dobbs. We've talked for a year
Speaker 3: and a half about the fallout from Dobbs on abortion,
Speaker 3: both for restrictions and also for how it's sort of
Speaker 3: changed the electorate. But I think there's a real long
Speaker 3: term effect on the Court, or at least a mid
Speaker 3: term effect on the Court that they realized that there
Speaker 3: are political, small pe political consequences to the courts standing
Speaker 3: in society when they go to far. We're watching cases
Speaker 3: like more, We're watching cases like it was originally low
Speaker 3: or bright enterprises, but now it's this case called Relentless
Speaker 3: that is addressing how much deference federal agencies get at
Speaker 3: interpreting laws. And the reality is that the federal government
Speaker 3: is so big that you need to give some deference
Speaker 3: to agencies or you're not going to be able to
Speaker 3: run a government. But the counter of that is maybe
Speaker 3: there are some people who don't want the federal government
Speaker 3: to be able to run, and so they would like
Speaker 3: that deference to be gone. And we're going to have
Speaker 3: arguments in that case toward the middle of January.
Speaker 1: And then there's the big blockbuster, which is raining.
Speaker 3: There was the big Blockbusterrahamian then weheard arguments in it,
Speaker 3: and this is the case about there's a federal law
Speaker 3: that if somebody has a standing domestic violence restraining order
Speaker 3: out against them, that they cannot have a fire. And
Speaker 3: the question in the case is whether that federal law
Speaker 3: is unconstitutional under the Second Amendment. In light of this
Speaker 3: Clarence Thomas inspired Second Amendment history and tradition, if the
Speaker 3: founding fathers could beat their wives, then why can't people? Now, Yeah,
Speaker 3: that's sort of the harsh end of Clarence Thomas's interpretation
Speaker 3: of the Second Amendment. And this case is a put
Speaker 3: your money where your mouth his case in a way.
Speaker 3: And when we heard arguments, it sounded like a whole
Speaker 3: lot of the Court is not willing to go that far,
Speaker 3: and they're likely to sort of pull back on what
Speaker 3: Bruin means in practice. Bruin was the case striking down
Speaker 3: New York's gun case.
Speaker 1: Right. That's interesting because they just decided Bruin like ten
Speaker 1: weeks ago. I mean, why do you think that is?
Speaker 3: I think it was another situation liked Awe where the
Speaker 3: Supreme Court has been going since Heller for nearly twenty
Speaker 3: years in this direction of a robust Second Amendment right
Speaker 3: and Bruin came down.
Speaker 1: And the goal with Bruin was to limit states, cities,
Speaker 1: municipalities from being able to create their own gun restrictions.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and it seemed like it was sort of this
Speaker 3: goal was being reached from the right, from the NRA people.
Speaker 3: But then reality set in, and as is the modern
Speaker 3: reality in America, there were a lot of mass shootings
Speaker 3: and it became pretty clear that this was not going
Speaker 3: to be a workable solution. And so we got the
Speaker 3: Rahemi arguments that were very skeptical of a world in
Speaker 3: which this federal law would not be allowed. And then
Speaker 3: we perhaps even more surprisingly, just in December here the
Speaker 3: Supreme Court allow to Illinois's assault weapons ban to remain
Speaker 3: in effect during litigation. After the Seventh Circuit had held
Speaker 3: that the ban was allowed the Supreme Court, the challengers
Speaker 3: to Illinois law came up to the Supreme Court on
Speaker 3: the shadow docket and asked for the Illinois law to
Speaker 3: be put on hold during their expected appeal to the
Speaker 3: Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court last week, with no descents,
Speaker 3: said the law can go into effect until we make
Speaker 3: a further decision on it that sends a message to
Speaker 3: the lower courts that that is a law that they
Speaker 3: are allowing to go into effect. It's on the shadow docket.
Speaker 3: It wasn't a decision on the merits. But just like
Speaker 3: the bad shadow docket decision. Second message, Like with Texas
Speaker 3: SP eight back in the day, this sends a message
Speaker 3: as well.
Speaker 1: So let's talk about this abortion law. This is this case,
Speaker 1: the metha pristone. It was brought to a crazy trump
Speaker 1: a judge on a docket that they knew they would
Speaker 1: get him, Matthew cosmeric and in Texas, in Northern District
Speaker 1: of Texas. They knew they were going to get him.
Speaker 1: They knew he was a trumpet point d. They knew
Speaker 1: he was a complete zealot. He was like, that's it.
Speaker 1: The FDA is wrong, even though it's been a proof
Speaker 1: since two thousand and the Comstock Act is legit, and
Speaker 1: let's let's go ban this thing now. It's cooked up
Speaker 1: to them. This is a case, I feel like where
Speaker 1: it's about abortion, but it's also about can you take
Speaker 1: drugs off the market because you don't like what they do?
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, this was the weird situation where you had planned.
Speaker 3: Parenthood and the FDA and big pharma all on the
Speaker 3: same side.
Speaker 2: We don't get that a lot this.
Speaker 1: Is ultimately could be devastating to big pharma.
Speaker 2: It could in a sense.
Speaker 3: We did have an example of sort of good news
Speaker 3: such as it comes from this court.
Speaker 1: Right, good news. It needs quotes around it, Yeah, good
Speaker 1: good good issue.
Speaker 3: Let these twenty twenty three edition news which was now
Speaker 3: When this case was heard at the Fifth Circuit, the
Speaker 3: Fifth Circuit pulled back part of Kesmeric's ruling. What they
Speaker 3: said is the original two thousand approval of mephropristown. The
Speaker 3: challenge to that was on time. You can't bring it,
Speaker 3: you're too late. What the Fifth Circuit upheld was Kasmeric's
Speaker 3: ruling as to the later changes easing access to the
Speaker 3: drug in twenty sixteen.
Speaker 2: In twenty twenty one.
Speaker 3: That includes the ending of the in person requirement, so
Speaker 3: allowing it to be sent via mail, and the DOJ
Speaker 3: and Danko, who makes miffrapracts, went to the Supreme Court
Speaker 3: and said, we want you to hear this appeal to
Speaker 3: reverse the Fifth Circuit on those decisions so to allow
Speaker 3: the eased access. The challengers to mif for pristone's approval
Speaker 3: said if you take DOJ's case. We also want you
Speaker 3: to take the underlying two thousand approval. We want to
Speaker 3: appeal the Fifth Circuits ruling against us on that, and
Speaker 3: what the Supreme Court did earlier in December said we're
Speaker 3: going to take DOJ and Danko's request about reversing the
Speaker 3: Fifth Circuit on the eased access, but we're not going
Speaker 3: to take the challengers appeal of the two thousand approval.
Speaker 3: So that again for twenty twenty three, is a good sign.
Speaker 3: That says the Supreme Court doesn't even want to consider
Speaker 3: the two thousand approval. That is fine, that is safe
Speaker 3: and is not going to be on appeal at the
Speaker 3: Supreme Court. All that's going to be appealed, which is
Speaker 3: still important, particularly in a post row environment, is the
Speaker 3: eased restriction. It allows for later prescription, allows for fewer appointments.
Speaker 1: Have they had the oral arguments yet?
Speaker 3: No, That will be probably in April, could be in March.
Speaker 2: I haven't looked at the calendary. It would either be
Speaker 2: late March or late April.
Speaker 1: Do you think that this Supreme Court as you're listening
Speaker 1: to them, I want to ask you about this idea
Speaker 1: that Allie Mestyle had told me once that he thought, actually,
Speaker 1: Amy Cony Barrett was the smartest of these new justices.
Speaker 3: Oh, that's definitely true. Okay, it's like level degrees of difference.
Speaker 1: But yeah, so talk to me about that, because I
Speaker 1: think that's pretty interesting. I mean, she's definitely a zalad,
Speaker 1: a crazy religious salad. But let's talk about that.
Speaker 3: The really interesting thing. And I just read somewhere about it.
Speaker 3: Oh it was people were we're sharing information news articles
Speaker 3: from when Sandrade O'Connor was confirmed, and there was the
Speaker 3: line in the New York Times article from Linda Greenhouse
Speaker 3: from the day of her confirmation vote about the fact
Speaker 3: that basically you don't know what's going to happen after
Speaker 3: a justice is on a court for a long time
Speaker 3: once they're confirmed. The fact is that all of these
Speaker 3: justices that were basically hand picked by Leonard Leo were
Speaker 3: largely picked to overturn Row, and they did that. But
Speaker 3: the fact is that the law is a very broad area.
Speaker 2: There's a lot of things that are covered.
Speaker 3: By the law, and I think what we're going to
Speaker 3: see over time is that it's very easy in light
Speaker 3: of the outcome in Row, in light of some of
Speaker 3: the most clear ideological cases overturning affirmative action. That like
Speaker 3: to see these three new justices as the three trumpet points,
Speaker 3: and I there will be some ways in which they're similar,
Speaker 3: but they're also just very different. And I think over time,
Speaker 3: as they are on the court for longer and sort
Speaker 3: of stake out their areas of expertise, like, we're going
Speaker 3: to see them in different ways. And I think the
Speaker 3: fact is that Justice Barrett is really smart, and I
Speaker 3: think we see that already in the ways in which
Speaker 3: sort of her and Justice Kagan engage on things, the
Speaker 3: ways in which she's engaged already with Justice Jackson on things.
Speaker 2: And while I would gladly get rid of her.
Speaker 3: Vote anytime that we could on the court, I don't
Speaker 3: think she's often going to be voting in ways that
Speaker 3: I agree with. I think that she definitely helps raise
Speaker 3: the level of argument in a way that honestly helps
Speaker 3: Kagan at times being able to fight with somebody at
Speaker 3: her level.
Speaker 1: So is Kagan the smartest of the liberal.
Speaker 3: Justice I don't know about that. I think the Jackson
Speaker 3: is certainly holding her way.
Speaker 1: Yeah, she's very smart, but we're.
Speaker 3: Still very new and her time on the court, I
Speaker 3: always say, like, you don't want to judge a justice
Speaker 3: their first like year or two, because, like, especially if
Speaker 3: they've been in an appeals court judge before, this is
Speaker 3: very different. You're making the decisions now, and if you
Speaker 3: were an appeals court judge before, you sort of had
Speaker 3: adapted to a way of thinking that was like deferring
Speaker 3: to what the Supreme Court's precedents were, that you don't
Speaker 3: need to do anymore.
Speaker 1: And so a lot of people think this year is
Speaker 1: going to be less insane than previous years of this court.
Speaker 1: Do you think that's right or do you think we're
Speaker 1: all setting ourselves up?
Speaker 2: I think that's right.
Speaker 3: I think the big problem with this term is that
Speaker 3: some of the most important cases are the least sexy cases.
Speaker 3: They are these administrative lost cases. There was this case
Speaker 3: over the method of funding the Consumer Protection Bureau consumer
Speaker 3: Financial Protection Bureau. There is going to be this relentless
Speaker 3: case over whether we cheap deference to agencies. This issue
Speaker 3: of who has the final say, the executive branch, the
Speaker 3: legislative branch, the judicial branch at different points in our
Speaker 3: history has changed over time, and as the federal government grew,
Speaker 3: it became pretty clear that there were so many decisions
Speaker 3: being made that you had to let the experts within
Speaker 3: agencies who had been hired, not political people, but people
Speaker 3: who were spending their lives working at the EPA, working
Speaker 3: in the Social Security Administration, working in the securities in
Speaker 3: exchange commit we have to defer to them to make
Speaker 3: these basic decisions about how we're organizing these things. And
Speaker 3: if the Supreme Court pulls that back and says, no,
Speaker 3: we're not going to defer to agencies, it could really
Speaker 3: upend the stability of a whole lot of agencies and
Speaker 3: then with that rippling out from there, a whole lot
Speaker 3: of industries.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for joining us. Thanks that was great,
Speaker 1: Thank you, Molly. Mark Rostau Lusto is a scholar of
Speaker 1: religion in Hungary and Romania, as well as managing editor
Speaker 1: of the Journal of Global Catholicism. Welcome back to Fast Politics,
Speaker 1: Mark Gustau.
Speaker 2: Maali, it's great to be here.
Speaker 1: So you have been in a lot of places. Explain
Speaker 1: to me what's happening in western Ukraine right now.
Speaker 4: I just got back from two weeks of reporting in Ukraine.
Speaker 4: I was really kind of all up and down the
Speaker 4: western area of the country up to Leviv and down
Speaker 4: to cities around the Slovakian and Hungarian border. And I
Speaker 4: have to say that the mood of the country right
Speaker 4: now is really anxious, very very anxious, very insecure. The
Speaker 4: war is just ruling. The most professional soldiers, the ones
Speaker 4: who have had trained to be in the army at
Speaker 4: the beginning, they have died and recruits are replacing them.
Speaker 4: In the small western Ukrainian city where I was spent,
Speaker 4: where I spent most of the time, which was really
Speaker 4: far from the front lines, now, I had to pause
Speaker 4: in my car behind long funeral processions multiple times a day.
Speaker 4: There were air raid sirens and people were you know,
Speaker 4: they're very aware of the war and the way it's going,
Speaker 4: and it's causing a lot of people to have a
Speaker 4: deep sense of insecurity and unease they are.
Speaker 1: Economy was so flooded with aid, buddy, right, I mean,
Speaker 1: now is it just completely dried up?
Speaker 4: There is still aid coming in the EU, and certainly
Speaker 4: the the US government is still sending aid and there
Speaker 4: are humanitarian organizations that are working with the huge numbers
Speaker 4: of internal refugees in the country. You know, over five
Speaker 4: million people were displaced just inside Ukraine. But it is
Speaker 4: true that militarily, the summer did not show a lot
Speaker 4: of improvement in terms of the moving of the front lines.
Speaker 4: I spoke with one man, a friend who works for
Speaker 4: humanitarian NGO. You know, he was really wanted to tell
Speaker 4: me about the kind of political situation that's going on
Speaker 4: in Ukraine right now. He said that Zolinsky has really
Speaker 4: boxed himself into a corner.
Speaker 2: It would be a.
Speaker 4: Great tragedy and really the West's fault if Ukraine had
Speaker 4: to see territory to putin Although it might have to happen,
Speaker 4: he said, the problem is that Zelinsky has really staked
Speaker 4: his entire political career on winning back everything, every little
Speaker 4: inch of land, and so Zelensky is stuck between a
Speaker 4: rock and a hard place because if negotiations do begin,
Speaker 4: he would really have to resign. So my friend said,
Speaker 4: you know, I don't know who takes his place. That's
Speaker 4: one of the other kind of really anxiety provoking things.
Speaker 4: It's not really clear if there's a better option. Zelensky
Speaker 4: has done such an amazing job.
Speaker 1: Zelensky is losing the confidence of his people.
Speaker 4: I wouldn't go that far, Molly, but you know, I
Speaker 4: think that my friend finished everything. He wanted to say
Speaker 4: by saying he's the best that we have, right, So
Speaker 4: you know, I wouldn't say that he's losing the confidence.
Speaker 4: I would just more kind of broadly say that it's
Speaker 4: a difficult time and people are really wondering what the
Speaker 4: way forward is.
Speaker 1: Is there a way to make a deal here? It
Speaker 1: feels like they're going to just keep going with this.
Speaker 1: I mean, isn't there a way to make some kind
Speaker 1: of deal with Putin? Or do you think it's just
Speaker 1: he's so unreliable you.
Speaker 4: Can I mean, I think history has told us that
Speaker 4: when you make deals with fascist dictators doesn't lead to
Speaker 4: happy things for the rest of the world.
Speaker 1: Right, Oh this is true, But I mean I don't
Speaker 1: trust Putin. But I also I don't know where you go, right,
Speaker 1: because there's no appetite from America, right, there's fairly appetite
Speaker 1: for Israel, and Israel has sort of more of a
Speaker 1: historical relationship with the American AID and even they are
Speaker 1: just really may not even get any aide. So do
Speaker 1: you think there's any sort of hail Mary here?
Speaker 4: Well, I don't think we should be looking for easy solutions,
Speaker 4: you know, I mean, wars never end with you know, easy, quick,
Speaker 4: idealistic and idealized endgames. That's not how geopolitics works, even
Speaker 4: when we're talking about kind of peaceful conflicts. And here
Speaker 4: we're talking about a brutal, imperialistic state trying to take
Speaker 4: over another state. So I don't think there's going to
Speaker 4: be a Hail Mary. I think people who presented the
Speaker 4: conflict as something that could be easily one we're at
Speaker 4: the beginning at least, we're you know, optimistic, too optimist.
Speaker 2: But the other thing, you.
Speaker 4: Know, I think that what we're sort of losing touch
Speaker 4: with and this was why I went there, which was
Speaker 4: one of the reasons why I went and did this reporting,
Speaker 4: is that what Ukrainians are trying to do right now,
Speaker 4: and one of the reasons why we in the United States,
Speaker 4: especially on the left, should support the US military aid
Speaker 4: for Ukraine is that they're trying to build a multi racial,
Speaker 4: multi ethnic, multi religious, open and free democracy. And that's
Speaker 4: really what we're trying to support in Ukraine right now,
Speaker 4: through military aid, through humanitarian aid, through all sorts of
Speaker 4: different kinds of aid. You know, we're talking about an
Speaker 4: aspiring European society, and you know, Europe itself, the EU
Speaker 4: has recognized that aspiration to be realist sincere by agreeing
Speaker 4: to open formal accession negotiations.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but I mean, we're barely hanging on here, right,
Speaker 1: Get it.
Speaker 4: When people on the left say that we have problems
Speaker 4: of our own at home, not to demonize that position,
Speaker 4: but I would say that the left has an isolationist
Speaker 4: problem of its own that we need to confront. You
Speaker 4: know that everybody talks about the isolationism of the right,
Speaker 4: but there is absolutely an isolationism of the left, and
Speaker 4: both are problematic, not equally problematic, but problematic. So there
Speaker 4: have been increasingly strong calls amongst progressives to stop sending
Speaker 4: money to Ukraine military aid and all sorts of other
Speaker 4: kinds of aid. And you know, oftentimes those arguments are
Speaker 4: paired with the claim that we have injustices of our
Speaker 4: own in the US to reckon with. And oftentimes people
Speaker 4: on the left say that the war is NATO's fault
Speaker 4: for expanding into Russian's fear of influence and provoking Russia.
Speaker 1: I don't think anyone thinks that. I mean, I've read
Speaker 1: it in the Nation, right, but I mean, ultimately that's
Speaker 1: a very, very sort of horroreshoe I mean Putin just
Speaker 1: decided this was an easy get for him. I don't
Speaker 1: think there's anything that Ukraine could have done that would
Speaker 1: have prevented it. I mean, he tried it before, you know.
Speaker 1: I mean, this is just he feels that Russia is
Speaker 1: still entitled to that. Nobody wants Ukraine to have to
Speaker 1: make a deal with Putin. But Ukraine might have to
Speaker 1: make a deal with Putin. What would that look like?
Speaker 4: That's hard to say, Molly. I'm not going to be
Speaker 4: sitting around that table. I don't think that Ukrainians should
Speaker 4: approach that table anytime. I don't think that the US
Speaker 4: government should force them or push them strongly.
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't think the US government can force them.
Speaker 1: The US government is just one of the many kind
Speaker 1: of supports that Ukraine has, And there's really I mean,
Speaker 1: there's certainly a school of thought that Europe may backstop them.
Speaker 1: But I'm just thinking about sort of like in the
Speaker 1: case of like you have sort of a limited window
Speaker 1: of what you can get done, what does that look like?
Speaker 4: Well, So, I mean I would say that, Molly, if
Speaker 4: you plopped yourself down in Ukraine and you said to
Speaker 4: the average person on the street, you're going to have
Speaker 4: to negotiate with Putin, you get thrown out of the room,
Speaker 4: not probably aggressively, but you'd get shown the door. If
Speaker 4: those conversations are happening, and I'm not saying that they are,
Speaker 4: but if they're happening, they're happening amongst.
Speaker 1: Ukrainians, right right.
Speaker 4: I mean it's not for us on the left in
Speaker 4: the US public commentators or even politicians to start telling
Speaker 4: Ukrainians exactly how to handle that, right.
Speaker 1: It's more of like a game. Thats how with may
Speaker 1: question what can they do?
Speaker 2: I can't answer the question.
Speaker 4: I can't speculate down that path because the consequences of
Speaker 4: doing that are just going to be way too strong. Okay,
Speaker 4: to publicly question the Ukrainian war effort right now, even
Speaker 4: despite all the anxieties and all the uncertainties that people have,
Speaker 4: there is too politically damaging. I mean, it plays into
Speaker 4: Putin's hands. Putin wants people to start questioning Ukraine's collective
Speaker 4: will to defend itself.
Speaker 1: I mean I just meant like, if they can't get
Speaker 1: any more money, I mean, you.
Speaker 2: Know that also benefits him.
Speaker 1: I know it benefits him. Here's the problem. It's like
Speaker 1: in my mind, and again, you have a problem in America,
Speaker 1: which is a people under fifty they are very anti intervention.
Speaker 1: This may not be completely true, but from what I
Speaker 1: see anecdotally, and what we're seeing is that people under
Speaker 1: the edge of fifty really do not want to fund
Speaker 1: foreign wars because we've had so many disasters. Yes, what
Speaker 1: I think Biden has done really well is he's sort
Speaker 1: of giving Ukraine all of our old toys and making
Speaker 1: new ones. The problem is now that this war has
Speaker 1: become so hyperpartisan and you don't have Republicans who are
Speaker 1: willing to get on board with it, it gets harder
Speaker 1: and harder to get them the money that they need,
Speaker 1: and so they are going to ultimately, I mean, hopefully
Speaker 1: they get backstopped by Europe for a certain amount of time,
Speaker 1: but you could see a world where their choice has
Speaker 1: become more and more limited. It's not up to America
Speaker 1: to do anything. But if they can't get the cash
Speaker 1: from America, they have a problem.
Speaker 4: Well, I think the response to that is to say,
Speaker 4: let's get them the cash. I mean, I think it's
Speaker 4: still very possible. I guess I just don't share your pessimism,
Speaker 4: and I think it's up to us on the left
Speaker 4: help Ukrainians make the case for why America should stand
Speaker 4: in solidarity with them, especially folks on the left. I
Speaker 4: was old enough to march against the Iraq War, you know.
Speaker 4: I mean I was living in New York City at
Speaker 4: the time, and I remember that we filled up the
Speaker 4: entirety of the East Side. We've blocked traffic on multiple
Speaker 4: avenues to protest that criminal intervention. And I think it
Speaker 4: was one of the most stupid foreign policy decisions in
Speaker 4: I don't know a recent history, but I don't think
Speaker 4: that we should let the shadow of that past mistake
Speaker 4: cloud our judgment. Now.
Speaker 1: It's interesting because I also marched against Iraq War, and
Speaker 1: I was part of that, and I was actually pregnant.
Speaker 1: I agree that the Iraq War was just awful, and
Speaker 1: I agree, but ultimately, I think the problem in Afghanistan
Speaker 1: was a disaster of Vietnam. I mean basically all the
Speaker 1: wars in America has gotten into since World War Two.
Speaker 1: I mean, you could argue we don't have a great
Speaker 1: track record of nation building. And ultimately, my problem, like
Speaker 1: fundamentally in a theoretical sense, is that like the endgame
Speaker 1: is you're going to remove Putin and then you're going
Speaker 1: to nation build in Russia. I mean that seems like
Speaker 1: a disaster.
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah.
Speaker 4: No, I mean I don't think that's the game at all.
Speaker 4: I mean I also don't think that the US is
Speaker 4: going to be nation building in Ukraine. No, I don't either,
Speaker 4: at least if we think of nation building in the
Speaker 4: way that George Bush used it in a completely ridiculous
Speaker 4: sense in Iraq. Right. So the point being that the
Speaker 4: European Union has stepped up to the table and said,
Speaker 4: we're going to be helping Ukraine build a nation. Yeah,
Speaker 4: they're taking the lead on that. That's what it means
Speaker 4: when they have open formal accession negotiations, you know. I mean,
Speaker 4: if you want to reinterpret that term, it's kind of
Speaker 4: a technical term. But what they're saying is, all right,
Speaker 4: let's work together to build an open and free, multi religious,
Speaker 4: multi ethnic, multi racial society.
Speaker 1: Right, which is great. It's just not necessarily going to happen.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 4: Well, nothing is ever guaranteed. I mean, we're talking geopolitics, right,
Speaker 4: we have to be realistic. But I think that the
Speaker 4: fact that we're doing this with partners with NATO, with
Speaker 4: the EU, we're not footing the bill entirely by ourselves.
Speaker 4: This is not a George W. Bush type Hail Mary
Speaker 4: attempt at taking over the world and buying oil for
Speaker 4: the US.
Speaker 1: I mean, not to be annoying, but with the first Golfer,
Speaker 1: America had tons, they had a whole consortium of countries.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think it's hard to make the case
Speaker 1: for Ukraine when we're not in them per se. But
Speaker 1: there are two different wars now raging, right.
Speaker 4: You know, I am in no way qualified to try
Speaker 4: to draw lines of connection between what's going on in
Speaker 4: the Middle East and what's going on in Ukraine.
Speaker 1: No, but I mean it's more just exhausting resources and
Speaker 1: also like psychologically exhausting for the American voter.
Speaker 4: You know. And honestly, I don't think it's actually exhausting
Speaker 4: America's financial resources. I mean, in relative terms, I'm sure
Speaker 4: that we spent a lot more in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Speaker 1: But there was appetite for it then.
Speaker 2: Right, it's the psychological appetite for it.
Speaker 4: And I think thatism on the left is a really
Speaker 4: really dangerous thing right now, you know. I mean I
Speaker 4: think that you know, we need to find reasons on
Speaker 4: the left to support Ukraine, and I think creating an
Speaker 4: open society is a major major reason with partners like
Speaker 4: the EU and NATO, helping Ukraine build an open society
Speaker 4: is really crucial and I think that's a reason that
Speaker 4: the Left can get on board to support aid for Ukraine.
Speaker 1: Marcos Stowe, thank you so much for joining us.
Speaker 4: Thank you, Molly, Molly. These conversations are always some of
Speaker 4: the most fun that I have.
Speaker 1: That's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in
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