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 Mike Johnson approves the National Prayer
Speaker 1: Breakfast to be held in the Capitol Church and state.
Speaker 1: Our state is a church. Talking fens is Harry Lippmann
Speaker 1: stops by to talk to us about Trump's incoming legal woes.
Speaker 1: Ben we'll talk to the founders of find Out Pack,
Speaker 1: Gina Ortiz Jones and Lauren Miller, and they'll tell us
Speaker 1: about how they're fundraising to get rid of three Texas
Speaker 1: Supreme Court judges. But first we have the Washington Post
Speaker 1: columnist Dana Milbank. Welcome back, Dana, Dana.
Speaker 2: What's going on?
Speaker 3: A great honor as always to be with you.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry what is happening in Washington, DC with these
Speaker 1: Republicans controlling the House with their one majority.
Speaker 3: It's very exciting because you know, it was just a
Speaker 3: well oiled machine when they had the five vote majority.
Speaker 4: So from that.
Speaker 3: From that point of view, was like, I don't really
Speaker 3: see it as being much different with the one vote majority.
Speaker 3: But if you do it, you know, if you have
Speaker 3: things like the impeachment of majorcas well, I suppose that
Speaker 3: could make a difference there if you've got.
Speaker 1: A speaker who has never been really in leadership.
Speaker 3: Well yeah, but you know, if you what you need
Speaker 3: is Ken Buck or a Tom McClintock, and suddenly the
Speaker 3: whole thing goes down. And then we saw it this week,
Speaker 3: you know, this tax bill, which is has huge bipartisan support.
Speaker 3: There were four New York Republicans. They call themselves moderates.
Speaker 3: I don't think they're actually moderates.
Speaker 1: Right, but they are desperate to keep their seats, so
Speaker 1: in that way, they want to pretend.
Speaker 3: To be moderates, right, And they want to pretend that
Speaker 3: they're doing something for the you know, state and local
Speaker 3: taxes for the you know, the wealthy residents.
Speaker 1: Salt one of Jesse's favorite things.
Speaker 3: Salt. Yeah, I'm a big fan. You know, it's not
Speaker 3: good for the blood pressure. But so they basically shut
Speaker 3: down the House floor for I think forty minutes this week,
Speaker 3: taking a page from the Freedom Caucus. So yeah, it
Speaker 3: makes it even easier to disrupt things and bring everything
Speaker 3: to a halt. But since everything was already disrupted and
Speaker 3: at a halt, I'm not sure it fundamentally changes and
Speaker 3: in a way, we're now at the point where, you know,
Speaker 3: to pass anything then you need to do it without
Speaker 3: a rule, which means you have to have a two
Speaker 3: thirds majority. So in a perverse way, this tiny majority,
Speaker 3: after defeating them for the last year and change, they're
Speaker 3: now deciding, okay, well we just have two things on
Speaker 3: a bipartisan basis, so you can get that two thirds vote,
Speaker 3: so you can avoid the Freedom Caucus and whoever else
Speaker 3: wants to bollocks things up. So it's actually suddenly, after
Speaker 3: all this time had something of a beneficial effect. I
Speaker 3: don't expect that will last terribly long. In fact, Wednesday
Speaker 3: might have been the high water mark for that.
Speaker 1: So basically what happened was Kevin McCarthy, in his incredible
Speaker 1: cravence to Pittoday, decided to put a few magas on
Speaker 1: the Rules Committee, which then made it completely impossible to
Speaker 1: bring anything up for vote.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I mean, so there are two, maybe three maga types
Speaker 3: the kind who are you know, really the rebels the
Speaker 3: Freedom Caucus types on the Rules Committee. So yeah, if
Speaker 3: they vote against the rule with the Democrats, it never
Speaker 3: goes to the floor. But I think even more to
Speaker 3: the point is that you have to pass the rule
Speaker 3: on the floor before you go on to any debate,
Speaker 3: and that's always been a party line vote. You know,
Speaker 3: the majority party sets the rules for the debate, all
Speaker 3: the members of the majority party vote for it even
Speaker 3: if they're not going to support the bill at the end,
Speaker 3: and all the opposition votes against it even if they
Speaker 3: are going to support the bill. So you know, that's
Speaker 3: just been standard. And I think going back to two
Speaker 3: thousand and three, until these guys took over, there had
Speaker 3: not been a single instance of a rule being defeated.
Speaker 3: And now there have been five or six instances of
Speaker 3: the rule being defeated, and a multiple of that they've
Speaker 3: pulled bills off the floor because the rule was going
Speaker 3: to be defeated. So it's now just sort of a
Speaker 3: routine practice to throw sand in the gear.
Speaker 1: So let's take a moment here to think about how
Speaker 1: this never happened to Nancy Pelosi.
Speaker 3: It is true. I mean, in fairness, it never happened
Speaker 3: John Right or the others either right.
Speaker 1: I mean it didn't right exactly.
Speaker 3: Many any competence speaker right. It's trou I mean, there
Speaker 3: are so many things now you just say, okay, well
Speaker 3: that was unheard of before, but you know, it's now
Speaker 3: just routine in this debauched chamber. But Pelosi was uniquely
Speaker 3: effective because people were afraid of her.
Speaker 1: It's a good point. This is they have really hit
Speaker 1: silly season in the United States House of Representatives. And
Speaker 1: it's not there are not two sides to this. This
Speaker 1: is Republicans engaging in bad politics, right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and it's I mean, it's it's been. I mean, look,
Speaker 3: we're now in what month of fourteen of this constant dysfunction,
Speaker 3: So yeah, I mean, I you know, Pelosi had a
Speaker 3: Democratic majority of a similar size to what the Republicans
Speaker 3: have worked with, and they were able to govern. You know,
Speaker 3: this Senate is a split just as evenly, and sure enough,
Speaker 3: they're you know, despite all the odds, they're able to
Speaker 3: come up with things like you know, a bipart isn't
Speaker 3: compromise on a border bill, which of course the House
Speaker 3: is now kind of kill. It can be done. It's
Speaker 3: just you know that it is a unique problem. It's
Speaker 3: a uniquely Republican problem, and at the moment it's a
Speaker 3: House Republican problem.
Speaker 1: So let's talk about this border bill, because it's an
Speaker 1: amazing bit of real hypocrisy. Republicans said, we are not
Speaker 1: going to fund Ukraine. We want a border. We only
Speaker 1: want the border. We care about the border. The border
Speaker 1: is the most important thing. The border is a crisis.
Speaker 1: The border is this, The border is that because inflation's
Speaker 1: gone way down and we can't on that anymore. So
Speaker 1: now it's the border. So then Chris Murphy, Kirsten Cinema,
Speaker 1: and James Langford sit in a room for three months
Speaker 1: and they put together something that's probably a lot of
Speaker 1: people and nobody's seen the text of it, but from
Speaker 1: what Chris Murphy said to me, it seems like it's
Speaker 1: probably fine. It's going to make everyone unhappy, which means
Speaker 1: it's probably okay ish. But ultimately then Republicans are like, well,
Speaker 1: we can't possibly pass this.
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, it's an astonishing thing. I mean, you've been
Speaker 3: hearing about this existential crisis, an invasion at the border,
Speaker 3: MS thirteen, MS thirteen, murders, Fendyl overdoses. It's just been
Speaker 3: this constant drumbeat and as you said, the absolute insistence
Speaker 3: on it, and you had people like Mike Johnson Steve
Speaker 3: Sclee saying this can only be done with legislation, Congress
Speaker 3: has to act and then making it a requirement, and
Speaker 3: then you know, essentially people called their bluff on it,
Speaker 3: and it might have worked had Trump got in there
Speaker 3: and said, Okay, blame me for the failure of this.
Speaker 3: We don't want to give Democrats this issue during the election.
Speaker 3: So to Trump's credit, he was completely out there in
Speaker 3: the open saying we'd rather have this as an issue
Speaker 3: than actually fix the problem. And now you see Republicans,
Speaker 3: particularly the House Republican it's just sort of all reversing
Speaker 3: themselves and saying totally fine, Biden has all the authority
Speaker 3: he needs, there's no need for legislation whatsoever, and then
Speaker 3: getting sort of further twisted up and saying, well, it
Speaker 3: would be good to have legislation if a were legislation
Speaker 3: like what we had. None of it particularly makes any sense.
Speaker 3: But what is completely obvious is that there is a compromise.
Speaker 3: There is a consensus to do something about asylum policy
Speaker 3: and all the other things, the border security, all the
Speaker 3: other things that Republicans have been howling about for months
Speaker 3: and for years, and they're now going to torpedo that.
Speaker 3: You know, this is a little bit of a replay
Speaker 3: of what we saw back at twenty thirteen and twenty fourteen,
Speaker 3: the Senate worked out a compromise and House Republicans killed it. So,
Speaker 3: I mean, yeah, there's a lot that happens these days
Speaker 3: to make one cynical. But if it really is the
Speaker 3: order that is, you know, causing this massive crisis and
Speaker 3: this massive invasion that they're going to do, right, if.
Speaker 1: It's a crisis, you should at least want to fix
Speaker 1: it right.
Speaker 3: Right, even if it's not perfect, you know, go ahead
Speaker 3: and try it. And look, it's all well and good
Speaker 3: to say that Biden has all the authority he needs.
Speaker 3: It's just plain nonsense. You know. First of all, he's
Speaker 3: taken more executive actions than Trump ever did. Yeah, Trump
Speaker 3: had a lot of policies that worked, and most of
Speaker 3: them have been struck down in the courts because they
Speaker 3: were illegal, so they can't be re implemented. Then there
Speaker 3: are others like patch and release. Okay, end it, well, right,
Speaker 3: you can end it if you have the money to
Speaker 3: detain all these people, which Congress hasn't provided. So his
Speaker 3: hands really are tied to a great extent, and it
Speaker 3: does require congressional action.
Speaker 1: Remember, Republicans have been so mad at Obama for executive actions.
Speaker 1: All right, Like this was how dare you use these
Speaker 1: executive actions? Now they're saying, well, if Biden wants to
Speaker 1: solve the border, you can use executive actions.
Speaker 3: Right, you can just take out his pen. Yes, there
Speaker 3: are hypocrisies folded into hypocrisies here. That's like the third
Speaker 3: level hypocrisy on executive action.
Speaker 1: This is like the underlying anxiety I think we all
Speaker 1: have in this political world. What is the information that
Speaker 1: people are getting. If people were able to absorb this information,
Speaker 1: they'd be like, this is absolute madness. But do you
Speaker 1: think that voters are following this and how would they?
Speaker 3: Well, it's probably the usual story where you know, if
Speaker 3: you're in the maga Fox News silo, no, you're probably
Speaker 3: not getting this information at all, or to the extent
Speaker 3: you are. It's that Biden created this problem and he
Speaker 3: has the tools he needs to fix it. But I
Speaker 3: do think this is you know, if you look at
Speaker 3: there at the larger reality based population, which will after all,
Speaker 3: to t the outcome of the election. I think this
Speaker 3: does change the debate, at least rhetorically in the sense
Speaker 3: of giving Democrats some ammunition saying right, there is a
Speaker 3: crisis at the border, or at least a really big problem.
Speaker 3: We got together with some sensible Republicans and came up
Speaker 3: with a solution, and Donald Trump said he will be
Speaker 3: happy to take the blame for bringing it down. So
Speaker 3: you know, at the very least it wants the argument
Speaker 3: against Democrats. But you know, I don't in a way.
Speaker 3: I don't even like to think about this as a
Speaker 3: political matter. That Just think about how reckless and irresponsible
Speaker 3: that is. Unless the Republicans were making it up and
Speaker 3: they just weren't concerned all along about hundreds of thousands
Speaker 3: dying from opioid over doses and gang violence and all
Speaker 3: these murders and rapes and terrorists coming across the border.
Speaker 3: So either you didn't really mean it in the first place,
Speaker 3: or worse that you actually do mean it and this
Speaker 3: stuff is going on, but you'd rather have a campaign
Speaker 3: issue than do something.
Speaker 1: The problem for Republicans is either the threat is or
Speaker 1: the threat is not real, and here's an opportunity to
Speaker 1: solve the thread. I don't believe polls, but polling whatever
Speaker 1: for Biden is bad. People we know in New York
Speaker 1: and Washington are very mad at him for a number
Speaker 1: of reasons, But you look at the fundamentals of like
Speaker 1: the political landscape right now, right we have this miraculous
Speaker 1: you saw I'm sure you saw this piece of axios yesterday.
Speaker 1: Of all of the G seven countries, America has sort
Speaker 1: of done the impossible and has this soft inflationary landing, right,
Speaker 1: which is sort of not in Paul Krugman's greatest dreams.
Speaker 1: Has this happened?
Speaker 4: You know?
Speaker 1: And we do ten thousand interviews a week, So how
Speaker 1: much time have I sat with Justin Wolfers And he says,
Speaker 1: am I optimistic? I'm optimistic, but do I know you
Speaker 1: know so much hemming and hawing, And it turns out
Speaker 1: they were right. So really, the Inflation Reduction Act, instead
Speaker 1: of being this terrible bite nomics punchline, it actually reduced inflation.
Speaker 1: So if this were a Republican president, people would say
Speaker 1: this guy is unstoppable because the economy is so good.
Speaker 1: But for some reason for this, it's like, no, chicken
Speaker 1: prices haven't gone down enough and gas is only under
Speaker 1: three dollars. But it just seems to me like there's
Speaker 1: way more pessimism in the media landscape and also just
Speaker 1: in around may more important life.
Speaker 3: I think that part of it's a media story. And
Speaker 3: I think part of it is that it's no longer
Speaker 3: the economy stupid, it's the tribal politics stupid. You know.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's funny. Biden was citing an op ed
Speaker 3: from The Times about the price of Snickers bar, saying
Speaker 3: that you know, people recognize that as inflation because they
Speaker 3: buy more Snickers bar. And then the RNC, you know,
Speaker 3: tweets that out as you know, he's talking about Snickers bar,
Speaker 3: it's evidence of dementia. So right, in a sense, it's like, okay,
Speaker 3: that's what we're talking about here. Is they've you know,
Speaker 3: you know, they've convinced their voters that you know, this poor, druling,
Speaker 3: dodteran guy is running the country. So you know, they're
Speaker 3: not exactly focused on that. So I think the usual
Speaker 3: economic laws don't necessarily apply. And part of it is
Speaker 3: we in the media, Number one, we have allowed it
Speaker 3: to happen. We haven't adapted to the new landscape. And
Speaker 3: the other part is we're just marginalized, those of us,
Speaker 3: you know, and what you would call the painstream media,
Speaker 3: we just don't get through to, you know, a huge
Speaker 3: swath of the population.
Speaker 1: Let me ask you about this thing that I think
Speaker 1: we don't talk about quite enough, but is something that
Speaker 1: Trump did the last time he did it in twenty twenty,
Speaker 1: and it backfired on him then too. So his whole
Speaker 1: thing is that Biden is demented and that there's something
Speaker 1: wrong with Biden and that he's not really doing it.
Speaker 1: That really Kamala is the president and this is a
Speaker 1: you know, and Marxist Kamala and Marxist and whoever else
Speaker 1: you can think of his wrong also fascist. But I
Speaker 1: don't know if you've seen Donald Trump speak lately, he
Speaker 1: has definitely lost a step, right, Like we could debate
Speaker 1: whether or not Biden whatever, he tripped on a sandbag, whatever,
Speaker 1: But Trump was convinced that Nancy Pelosi was NICKI Haley
Speaker 1: he was. You know, he thinks he beat Obama. I
Speaker 1: mean he cannot. He seems like he's really lost his step.
Speaker 3: Yeah I did. This is my column last week from
Speaker 3: New Hampshire. Yeah, the things you've cited about Haley and
Speaker 3: Pelosi confusing Obama and Biden. But I just like, I
Speaker 3: sat through one hundred minute speech which I should get
Speaker 3: combat paid for or something.
Speaker 1: I've sat through one of those before.
Speaker 3: And then just like did a transcript of it, just
Speaker 3: went through over and he's just like he tells the
Speaker 3: same stories over and over again, with the exact same
Speaker 3: lines over and over again, you know. And sometimes he's
Speaker 3: you know, talking about, you know, we're going to get
Speaker 3: into World War two when he means world War three,
Speaker 3: you know, or he just starts reading random words off teleprompter.
Speaker 1: I feel like you should know that one any.
Speaker 3: Of which if Biden had done, it would be national news.
Speaker 3: The guy is, you know, affirmed that the guy has
Speaker 3: lost his mind, you know. And I think part of
Speaker 3: it is the you know, sort of the media's designated
Speaker 3: flaw about Biden is he's a senile, Like they've sort
Speaker 3: of embraced that, you know. The designated flaw of Donald
Speaker 3: Trump is he's an authoritarian an a racist, which I mean,
Speaker 3: it's not like that's wrong, that designated flaw. So I
Speaker 3: think we tend to give him a pass because that's
Speaker 3: not his designated flaw. If Biden suddenly said something authoritarian,
Speaker 3: well we probably wouldn't take that much notice because that's
Speaker 3: not his thing. So, you know, I think it's just
Speaker 3: a natural in our shorthand, and we don't necessarily say Hey,
Speaker 3: wait a second. This guy, whether it's you know, age
Speaker 3: or stress or running around to a lot of different
Speaker 3: courtrooms all the time, either also in addition to Biden,
Speaker 3: or perhaps even worse than Biden, seems to be changing
Speaker 3: because we forget that. Yeah, yeah, Biden's stiffer and all
Speaker 3: that now, but the guy never, you know, sort of
Speaker 3: completed a full coherent sentence. And that's when I was
Speaker 3: covering him in the Senate back in the nineteen nineties.
Speaker 1: You know, I have this theory about Biden, which I
Speaker 1: feel like it is going to get everyone mad at me,
Speaker 1: which is and actually I said this to a straight
Speaker 1: reporter and he was like, you're wrong, But I actually
Speaker 1: think I'm right, which is this Biden is actually more
Speaker 1: coherent Biden Molly.
Speaker 3: I would just say that's a low bar, right.
Speaker 1: But I mean, he's sort of he can stick to things.
Speaker 1: You know, he was never a gifted orator, like that's
Speaker 1: not who he is.
Speaker 3: Not at all. Well, first of all, just because he
Speaker 3: has a stutter, so he has trouble giving speeches, which
Speaker 3: is kind of Chris when Chi sideries the president of
Speaker 3: the United.
Speaker 1: States, right, that's the job.
Speaker 3: And he was always just sort of rambling, and just
Speaker 3: I remember listening to him in the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Speaker 3: You know, he gave like a thirty minute speech, you
Speaker 3: know before one of these nominees. They said, all right,
Speaker 3: and now I'd like to get to my speech. It's
Speaker 3: just it was, Yeah, I think what I think part
Speaker 3: of would you say is true that I mean, people
Speaker 3: would say, yeah, he's more scripted now and his staff's
Speaker 3: doing the work. But it's also a matter of more discipline.
Speaker 3: That Trump makes fun of him for giving two or
Speaker 3: three minute speeches. I would take that over the hour
Speaker 3: and forty minute speech in which we have to keep
Speaker 3: hearing the same things over.
Speaker 1: I remember at Seapac sitting through those speeches and being like.
Speaker 3: Oh, yes, I feel the pain you felt ill and
Speaker 3: we're in this and the campaign is just beginning.
Speaker 4: It is bad.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Dana Bay. Harry Litman is a former US
Speaker 1: attorney and host of the podcast Talking Fads.
Speaker 4: I just want to say, welcome to another law politics
Speaker 4: mashup with Molly john Fast and I'm Harry Litman, where
Speaker 4: we kind of have very few rules, but I try
Speaker 4: to shoot a political question at Mollie that's been on
Speaker 4: my mind, and she reciprocates with a legal question that's
Speaker 4: been on hers and it's a yes.
Speaker 1: So I want to ask you first because there are
Speaker 1: all these core cases, the civil fraud case we're waiting
Speaker 1: for the number right that Trump is going to owe.
Speaker 1: Talk us through exactly what that is and why it
Speaker 1: hasn't happened yet.
Speaker 4: Well, okay, I mean what he said. It's funny because
Speaker 4: we're waiting on two and one. We're really starting to
Speaker 4: get nervous. That's the immunity payd of d C circuit
Speaker 4: with the one you're talking about.
Speaker 1: Talk about the immunity for a second on the DC
Speaker 1: circuit because I know Andrew Weisman has been expressing some
Speaker 1: irritation about that too.
Speaker 4: Yeah, or consternation. So look back when it was argued,
Speaker 4: everybody tuned in because the question first you wanted to know,
Speaker 4: as always, which way are they going to go? And
Speaker 4: I thought, and I think every observer thought, they're going
Speaker 4: to reject his claim of immunity. I hold to that view,
Speaker 4: but it's always within the substance game and the delay game,
Speaker 4: and the thing about there's two potential sources for delay,
Speaker 4: and as the time time goes on, they get more
Speaker 4: likely because the DC Circuit was out of the gate
Speaker 4: with a really fast briefing schedule. And when they've done
Speaker 4: that in the past, they've issued opinions within a week
Speaker 4: or two. They've clearly been writing before even the oral argument,
Speaker 4: and that hasn't happened. Why not two possibilities? And first
Speaker 4: is the presiding judge, Florence Henderson, may not Florence Heenderson.
Speaker 1: I was gonna say, what are the odds?
Speaker 4: Yeah, may not be buying the same theory, even though
Speaker 4: I think she's not going to give him immunity. And
Speaker 4: the two of them, the other two childs in pan
Speaker 4: state some like different nuance theory of why no immunity.
Speaker 4: Here's why it matters, not just for the days that
Speaker 4: are elapsing. But if Henderson says something that's different, it
Speaker 4: could be that the Supreme Court would be interested in
Speaker 4: taking that. You know, the six Conservatives would like their view.
Speaker 1: This is the president is and be king theory right,
Speaker 1: whenever the president does anything, it's fine.
Speaker 4: The one they articulated in oral argument was he can
Speaker 4: command the Navy seals to gun down an opponent, and
Speaker 4: unless there's an impeachment and conviction, he can't be prosecuted.
Speaker 4: That's how for cocked it is. But the worry is
Speaker 4: that even though if they reject it, they'll do it
Speaker 4: in a way that gives him yet more time. One
Speaker 4: of two ways Supreme Court decides to take the case
Speaker 4: that could really drag on, or they state some theory
Speaker 4: that then goes back down to chuck In who applies it,
Speaker 4: you know, easy, easiest, pissed that's happened before. But then
Speaker 4: would there be another round of appeal from the Remand
Speaker 4: so what's what's irritating Andrew and consternating me or both
Speaker 4: is the possibility that this delay augurs yet more delay
Speaker 4: after they issue the opinion. We've lost a month. We
Speaker 4: were at April. We can handle a month, but what
Speaker 4: if it turns into two or three? It gets really
Speaker 4: dicey when you're in the heat of the campaign, you know,
Speaker 4: a national campaign.
Speaker 1: The central tension here really is that legally Donald Trump
Speaker 1: has sort of two defenses he uses. One is to
Speaker 1: run out the clock and just to keep trying to
Speaker 1: kick things up to hire and higher courts because he
Speaker 1: knows it'll get him time. Right, That's really his biggest
Speaker 1: way that he sort of solves his legal problems, right.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, what's the other that is the way
Speaker 4: when you look over the whole landscape, he can't you know,
Speaker 4: if he's not elected president. Let's just put it that way,
Speaker 4: he can't escape serious damage to liberty or pocketbook or both.
Speaker 4: His really only kind of you know, play here is
Speaker 4: to somehow win the presidency and then take it from there.
Speaker 4: Shut down the FEDS, investigate Fonnie Willis, etc. So all
Speaker 4: of these, all of these, you know, he has some
Speaker 4: claims that don't stink, but not very many, but doesn't matter.
Speaker 4: When you look at the whole panorama, you know he's
Speaker 4: in deep, deep peril unless he can win. Obviously, that
Speaker 4: keeps you up night thinking I'm sure you too, can
Speaker 4: he win? And so what I you know, I try
Speaker 4: to conceptualize in my mind, who is the voter who
Speaker 4: went for Biden in twenty twenty and will say, Okay,
Speaker 4: I think I'm for Trump this time around because he
Speaker 4: has to not just consolidate and keep the base. He's
Speaker 4: losing a little bit in the middle, but he has
Speaker 4: to gain. And I thought there is no such person,
Speaker 4: But it seems like there are some cohorts Mollie that
Speaker 4: are like actually expanding a bit for him. It I'm
Speaker 4: thinking of college educated males that was you know, it
Speaker 4: was always that line that wasn't there as hispanics. Maybe
Speaker 4: what the hell is causing his base to actually grow
Speaker 4: a bit?
Speaker 1: I don't think his base has grown. I think the
Speaker 1: problem and the reason why we have so much trouble
Speaker 1: with polling now is that there's a shifting electorate. So
Speaker 1: in twenty sixteen, the people who made Trump president were
Speaker 1: impossible to anticipate because a lot of them had never voted.
Speaker 1: Not a lot of them, but a certain percent. You know,
Speaker 1: it was a shifting electorate, a group that posters didn't
Speaker 1: know to look for. And since then they have been
Speaker 1: shifting the elector to try and predict these sort of
Speaker 1: ghost voters that might come back. Because ultimately, right, we're
Speaker 1: only working on polls, right, I mean, what else are
Speaker 1: we working on? What other information do we have?
Speaker 5: Right?
Speaker 1: I mean, Sarah Longwell does these really good focus groups,
Speaker 1: But that's twenty people, you know, or so we're really
Speaker 1: working in polls. And like, I think there are some
Speaker 1: things that are like voter registration, for sure, you can
Speaker 1: work on that, right. You can see where people are
Speaker 1: registering but even that, it's not a science. One of
Speaker 1: the things that is like you could look at is
Speaker 1: primary voter turnout. Right, So like Iowa is a very religious,
Speaker 1: tend to be very white and religious. They had very
Speaker 1: small turnout for Trump that was like he did really well,
Speaker 1: but it was you know, half of what it had
Speaker 1: been four years ago. So I think that's a question.
Speaker 4: So your answer is that it isn't really like it's
Speaker 4: another foible with the polls. Maybe I would.
Speaker 1: Say until the summer, we're not going to know who
Speaker 1: the likely voters are, so we really don't know. Does
Speaker 1: it seem to me I think there are people who
Speaker 1: will vote Republican no matter what.
Speaker 4: I think did four years ago.
Speaker 1: Yes, I don't think that those are people who voted
Speaker 1: for Biden who are leaving Biden. But I also think
Speaker 1: there are like these X factors, right, like a third
Speaker 1: party candidate. Also, like how information is getting to the
Speaker 1: electorate is a real problem too. I would say, like
Speaker 1: are people not getting news we've all heard the story
Speaker 1: of like the person who is like Biden is not
Speaker 1: pro choice because there are all these abortion bands that
Speaker 1: are happening while he's president. So I mean there are
Speaker 1: unknown unknowns there fair enough?
Speaker 4: Okay, your turk, because I want to try to get
Speaker 4: to three. I know your producer is tough.
Speaker 3: Here.
Speaker 1: My question for you is, okay, So the presidential immunitay
Speaker 1: again should happen sooner rather than later.
Speaker 4: It should have happened a couple weeks ago, and that's
Speaker 4: that's why everyone's biting their nails.
Speaker 1: Then there's this fraud number. What's the timetable on that?
Speaker 4: Very very soon because the guy said, I'm aiming to
Speaker 4: do it by the thirty first. Now you know they
Speaker 4: don't subtract half a grade. Every day is late, but
Speaker 4: there's very big public focus. So I think the most
Speaker 4: likely day is today. The second we're on February first. Second,
Speaker 4: most likely tomorrow. And if you ask for the number,
Speaker 4: you know she started the ag James at two fifty
Speaker 4: then went to three seventy. I think he'll probably go
Speaker 4: under what she's asking for because he's thinking about view
Speaker 4: on appeal. There's already a lot of chunky issues there,
Speaker 4: but still this is drawing real blood, even if they
Speaker 4: don't see it for a while. Egene Carroll and Leticia James.
Speaker 4: He's got to pony it up in order to appeal,
Speaker 4: and if he has even the kind of liquidity he
Speaker 4: says he's got, it still seems to be almost wipe. Yeah,
Speaker 4: it feels to me like it really has sort of
Speaker 4: brought him a bit to his knees. And that's a
Speaker 4: that's a big deal because his voters seem to count
Speaker 4: on his not just doing whatever he wants but get
Speaker 4: away with it.
Speaker 1: Can his donors donate to the settlement?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 4: There, I mean there's some complicated election rules, but that's
Speaker 4: been that's been the weeks the Achilles seal. Right, he
Speaker 4: just you know, we know he paid all these legal
Speaker 4: fees et cetera.
Speaker 1: I mean we've seen the filings for the legal fees
Speaker 1: that they're humong those, right, I mean.
Speaker 4: Fifty million over the last year, and he uses it
Speaker 4: as a sort of uh what you know, toolover his
Speaker 4: co defendants to keep them close to pay their fees
Speaker 4: or not. Okay, I was really interested. That was a
Speaker 4: great article on Vanny Fair that you wrote, but it
Speaker 4: put me in mind, have you seen this finding really
Speaker 4: striking that young voters there's a really seems to be
Speaker 4: a pronounced division between men and women, not just on
Speaker 4: abortion or me too or whatever, but across the board.
Speaker 4: You have significantly more progressive women in this young cohort
Speaker 4: twenty two to thirty or whatever. Do you buy that?
Speaker 4: And man, what is it augur for going forward?
Speaker 1: That's from this data journalist called John Burns, Murdoch and
Speaker 1: the Ft, who we actually had on the podcast. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think it's a number of things, but I think
Speaker 1: Roe is the big one. I mean, well, you have
Speaker 1: one group of people where bodily autonomy, they used to
Speaker 1: have the right to have an abortion, federal right to
Speaker 1: have an abortion. They don't have anymore.
Speaker 4: But no, that mays them more progressive across the board apparently.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because they're furious you have the right to abortion gone.
Speaker 1: You have Republicans sessed with your body, right, like these
Speaker 1: stories about they're tracking your cycles. You have that woman
Speaker 1: in Ohio who had to face a grand jury for
Speaker 1: the disposal of a corpse because she had a miscarriage
Speaker 1: in the toilet, right. You have the woman in Texas.
Speaker 1: You have these horror stories. And then I would add,
Speaker 1: you have Republicans fighting with Taylor Swift, right, so you
Speaker 1: have this sense in which they're saying the women we
Speaker 1: want are Kimberly Gilfoyle. That's a good woman, right, But
Speaker 1: Taylor Swift, the self made billionaire musician, that's not okay.
Speaker 1: And so I think people bristle when you tell them
Speaker 1: what to do. And remember so much of America is
Speaker 1: about this, like weird and I'm not even sure it's good,
Speaker 1: but this kind of freedom, you know, to have guns
Speaker 1: and be crazy, I think women, I think there's a
Speaker 1: reaction towards that. And it's twenty twenty four. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's crazy. Everything else he can kick the can on
Speaker 1: except the Newer case. Is that right?
Speaker 4: Not quite yet, but it's But that's the bad trend.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 4: Eileen Cannon is really slow walking at the big mess
Speaker 4: in Fulton County with Fannie Willis and Wade et cetera.
Speaker 4: I think works to make it much harder to do
Speaker 4: that one on time. The big Hope always has been
Speaker 4: the most important and the most likely to move with
Speaker 4: dispatch the Chuck in January sixth case. And that's precisely
Speaker 4: why this delay in the immunity opinion is so worrisome,
Speaker 4: because that's really the focus. I think the New York
Speaker 4: case will happen conduct before he was president. They it's
Speaker 4: somehow already I think been absorbed by the electorate. I
Speaker 4: see that as the least likely to be a serious
Speaker 4: game change it. It's Stormy Daniel's case, you know, right, No, no,
Speaker 4: I know.
Speaker 1: It's a state that goes to a federal It's a
Speaker 1: weird statue that there's not a huge president for. But
Speaker 1: I wonder how much you know, Trump has this whole thing,
Speaker 1: and this is where he uses these him in all
Speaker 1: trials or civil trials as a kind of campaign event.
Speaker 1: So he says to his people, you know, he gets
Speaker 1: up there, he speechifies, this is America. He does all
Speaker 1: of his political stuff.
Speaker 4: I'm your martyr. Yeah right, I'm your martyr.
Speaker 1: But when he does it, it tends to backfire. These
Speaker 1: two things were not made to work together. So, like,
Speaker 1: you know, he brags about how rich he is, and
Speaker 1: then he gets his huge judgment. Right like if he
Speaker 1: had said, I have no cash, you know, that's what
Speaker 1: you're supposed to say when you're a defendant. He's in
Speaker 1: this situation where he just can't you know, he's sort
Speaker 1: of stuck in this hamster wheel. Even if New York
Speaker 1: is not the best case. Having the adult film star
Speaker 1: back in court testifying that just doesn't seem like it
Speaker 1: helps grow the electorate.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I agree, but he said ninety one counts against him,
Speaker 4: and it really doesn't seem to move the needle the polling,
Speaker 4: and you point out there's a lot to be still
Speaker 4: learned about the weaknesses and polling suggest if he's actually convicted,
Speaker 4: that would move the needle. Well, but this one seems like,
Speaker 4: you know, it's it's disgusting, and it was definitely done
Speaker 4: to corrupt an election, and you would think it has
Speaker 4: a real but it was already before the election, and
Speaker 4: it seems like the least likely for that reason. It's
Speaker 4: all like in a parade of horribles. We've been fooled
Speaker 4: so many times. But it seems like I am confident
Speaker 4: in saying that it doesn't have the same you know, sledgehammer.
Speaker 4: It doesn't get to what's really wicked about him as
Speaker 4: president or what he did as president, et cetera, just
Speaker 4: him as a consummate, you know, jerk.
Speaker 1: The question of like, does it necessarily matter what the
Speaker 1: case is in this low information ecosystem, him just being
Speaker 1: dragged in and out of court. I mean, there have
Speaker 1: got to be people who see that and are like
Speaker 1: I don't know that I want that on my next president.
Speaker 4: I think that's part of Nikki Hailey. This would be
Speaker 4: more your value Wick again, but that's sort of we
Speaker 4: don't need the chaos and uncertainty. You don't have to
Speaker 4: hate Trump, but man, don't you want to put him
Speaker 4: behind you? And so and a jury standing up and
Speaker 4: saying conviction and you know his having some accountability? Is
Speaker 4: that it or is it the nature of the conduct?
Speaker 4: And you're right, it's a low informed electorate. And that
Speaker 4: actually goes to my last question for you, which is
Speaker 4: for lawyers watching him, you know, in the Eugene Carol
Speaker 4: case has been mind boggling. You know, I feel like
Speaker 4: I'm reading a nineteenth century novel and he didn't stand
Speaker 4: for the jury, oh mine, but it does seem to
Speaker 4: be I really like no other litigan I've ever seen
Speaker 4: what an asshole that said. It's whether he just can't
Speaker 4: help himself or it's a calculation. I've heard political analysts
Speaker 4: like you saying, you know, it actually helps him, that's
Speaker 4: his political strategy. So and my question is is it
Speaker 4: really the being a sort of fairal child or does
Speaker 4: everything but shoot spitballs at the judge? Is that actually
Speaker 4: a plus for his political supporters, and you know, is
Speaker 4: it something they ignore or is it truly like add
Speaker 4: to his political luster that you know, he can throw
Speaker 4: whoopee cushions all over the courtroom and be astonishingly, you know,
Speaker 4: violating of all the rules of decor.
Speaker 1: So when I talked to Robbie Kaplan on my podcast,
Speaker 1: I asked her, I said, like, well, because I had
Speaker 1: heard the deposition was really harry, but she actually said
Speaker 1: the worst part of the whole trial was watching Alina
Speaker 1: Hobba and Donald Trump behave so badly in front of
Speaker 1: this judge Kaplan, who's like a very formal judge, And
Speaker 1: she said, you know, when you get in front of
Speaker 1: judges like this, you can't behave like that. It's just
Speaker 1: not how any of this is done. And you know,
Speaker 1: Alena Hobbit was like fighting with him because this is
Speaker 1: reality television lawyering here. So his people believe that like
Speaker 1: this was a deep state conspiracy against him, but a
Speaker 1: lot of them don't understand how things work right, like
Speaker 1: how courts work, and so I don't know is the answer.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think that it seems very embarrassing, but
Speaker 1: you know, this is the fuck your feelings crowd.
Speaker 4: Right, yeah, okay, I'm thinking what, well, what it'll look
Speaker 4: like next time we talk. Will Haley still be there?
Speaker 4: Will there actually be a case about to go? So
Speaker 4: it'll be fine as always.
Speaker 1: I hope there'll be a case about to go. Yes,
Speaker 1: thank you.
Speaker 4: Great to see you, all right, thank you, hang in there,
Speaker 4: all right.
Speaker 1: You two, Gina Orkeis Jones and Laura Miller are the
Speaker 1: founders of find Out Pas. Welcome to Fast Politics. Now
Speaker 1: I'm going to have you both introduced yourselves, but I'm
Speaker 1: going to call you the ladies of the find Out Pack.
Speaker 2: Okay, well first.
Speaker 1: Why don't you introduce yourself Gina.
Speaker 5: Yeah, so Gena Artiez Jones, I am the founder of
Speaker 5: find Out Pack and for those that are wondering, yes,
Speaker 5: it is based on a scientific concept of f around
Speaker 5: and find out. Previously, a longtime public servant ran for Congress.
Speaker 5: I was not successful, but look, everything happens for a reason,
Speaker 5: and I was honored to serve as the twenty seventh
Speaker 5: Under Secretary of the Air Force. And am now I
Speaker 5: just mentioned the founder of this.
Speaker 1: Pack, right, and Lauren Miller tell us how you got here?
Speaker 4: I'm Lauren Miller.
Speaker 2: I am read that in Texas, and in October of
Speaker 2: twenty twenty two, I had to travel to Colorado for
Speaker 2: an abortion because I had an unviable twin and I
Speaker 2: had to save the life of myself and the healthy
Speaker 2: twin that I was carrying.
Speaker 1: Oh Jesus Christ. You know, as a mother of twins,
Speaker 1: who've known a lot of people who've had to have
Speaker 1: a selective reductions. Nobody does that because they're lazy. You
Speaker 1: do that because you want to save the other, your
Speaker 1: other fetus exactly. Yeah, I'm so sorry that you had
Speaker 1: to do that.
Speaker 2: Thank you. We were just trying to do what was
Speaker 2: best for our healthy twin and it was shocking that
Speaker 2: we couldn't do that in Texas.
Speaker 1: So will you tell us a little bit about that story?
Speaker 1: Can you talk about it a little bit more like
Speaker 1: how many weeks were you, what was the circumstances, and
Speaker 1: also what did your doctor tell you?
Speaker 2: So I'll start with the last part of that in
Speaker 2: terms of what did my doctor tell me? So at
Speaker 2: the time, because it was so soon after Rogue fell,
Speaker 2: there was that there still is this huge culture of
Speaker 2: fear around reproductive health in Texas, and I would be
Speaker 2: talking to doctors, nurses, genetic counselors. They get halfway through
Speaker 2: a sentence and then just breeze, just scared to say
Speaker 2: the word abortion out loud. I mean, it was like
Speaker 2: you had impacts then, or you know, the Texas Supreme
Speaker 2: Court just sitting there in the room with you, like
Speaker 2: they could have just been taking notes in the corner.
Speaker 2: And that's what it felt like. And all that any
Speaker 2: of these medical professionals could say was that every day
Speaker 2: that I continued this twin pregnancy, my unviable twin, put
Speaker 2: his twin and myself at greater risk. And so it
Speaker 2: wasn't it really just wasn't even a decision. I was
Speaker 2: right out about fifteen weeks when I went to Colorado
Speaker 2: and got the abortion.
Speaker 1: Jesus, Jesus. Did anyone ever say, is doctors, we know
Speaker 1: this is wrong. But I mean, like, was there ever
Speaker 1: sort of a moment where they were able to sort
Speaker 1: of explain to you there's no clarity in the law.
Speaker 1: So talk about that a little bit.
Speaker 2: There's so little clarity in the law, and that's that's intentional,
Speaker 2: Like that is completely intentional. I stood, you know, about
Speaker 2: a year ago now in front of the Texas capital
Speaker 2: and called on legislators to add clarity and noted, they
Speaker 2: are killing us and they haven't done anything. They kind
Speaker 2: of did a little pass, a little something that really
Speaker 2: didn't do anything, and so this is intentional to have
Speaker 2: this lack of clarity, and you in the situation where
Speaker 2: every's just apologizing to us. They were just I'm so sorry,
Speaker 2: I can't say more and just saying I'm so sorry,
Speaker 2: I can't do anything. I was in the er two
Speaker 2: different times, and I remember the second time it was
Speaker 2: after this diagnosis or tries me eighteen. Our son had
Speaker 2: just this list of issues, all of which were fatal,
Speaker 2: like half of his brain was fluid. And I'm with
Speaker 2: the er doctor just standing there holding the chart and
Speaker 2: just kind of shaking her head and saying, I'm so
Speaker 2: sorry because she couldn't do anything. And I was in
Speaker 2: there throwing up so much that I thought the placenta
Speaker 2: was going to detach, and she couldn't do anything.
Speaker 1: Right, And you were one of the blucky ones, right
Speaker 1: because you were able to go and have this treatment
Speaker 1: and save your surviving child.
Speaker 2: I'm the best case scenario. I had every resource at
Speaker 2: my disposal, I had the money to travel, I had
Speaker 2: the time to travel, my husband can take off work,
Speaker 2: My work was flexible. I mean, we truly had everything
Speaker 2: at our disposal. I was texting with a doctor in
Speaker 2: Colorado because he was a friend of a friend, and
Speaker 2: that's not the reality for most people, and especially in Texas,
Speaker 2: where we've got one hundred and forty seven callies without
Speaker 2: an OB. I mean, think of the population of Phoenix
Speaker 2: not having an OB. That's what we're dealing with in
Speaker 2: rural Texas.
Speaker 1: I mean, and someone who had three children too pregnancy
Speaker 1: is I know how heartbreaking it is because I, you know,
Speaker 1: I had a number of abnormalities and stuff that when
Speaker 1: you have to have an abortion of children that you
Speaker 1: desperately fucking want, it's so heartbreaking. And then you're not
Speaker 1: even in your own home. I mean, it's just so
Speaker 1: incredibly dehumanizing and horrendous. Gina, will you explain your thinking
Speaker 1: behind this?
Speaker 3: Pack.
Speaker 5: So I grew up on the far west side of
Speaker 5: San Antonio, and I went to Jean Jay High School.
Speaker 5: And if you're from San Antonio that means something. And
Speaker 5: so I say that because my visceral reaction to read
Speaker 5: the seven page opinion in December, Now, this was specific
Speaker 5: to the Kate Cox case. But really, after I read that,
Speaker 5: what those justices essentially said is that this pregnant mother
Speaker 5: of two was not close enough to losing her life
Speaker 5: or close enough to losing her fertility, and therefore she
Speaker 5: did not qualify for the medical exception. And so obviously
Speaker 5: that begs a lot of questions, right, Well, one, how
Speaker 5: close is close enough? Right?
Speaker 2: How are we defining that? In two?
Speaker 5: You know, who are these artisan justices? And they are partisan?
Speaker 5: We elect our judges and justices here in Texas. Who
Speaker 5: are these partisan extremist justices to say they know better
Speaker 5: than this woman's doctor, or frankly, any woman's doctor. It
Speaker 5: was really just infuriating for me to read that opinion,
Speaker 5: as nonsensical.
Speaker 2: As it was. And so the visceral.
Speaker 5: Reaction was, you know, f around, I'm going to find out.
Speaker 5: And so shortly after I started reaching out to some
Speaker 5: folks well and thinking about how how would we approve this? Right,
Speaker 5: We're not going to have a statewide initiative like you
Speaker 5: see in other states, but we could have actually something
Speaker 5: on par right, because these folks are elected, that means
Speaker 5: they can be unelected, right, And so we've got three
Speaker 5: folks that are on the ballot in November, and it's Jimmy,
Speaker 5: John and Jane and that's really their names, Jimmy Blacklog,
Speaker 5: John Devine, and Jane Bland. And we've got the opportunity
Speaker 5: to unseat those folks.
Speaker 1: So explain. They are Supreme Court judges.
Speaker 5: They're justices. The justices here again are elected through partisan elections.
Speaker 5: They serve six year terms. There is no term limit.
Speaker 5: I think what's also important to understand is the Texas
Speaker 5: of pre Court has traditionally been a stepping stone for
Speaker 5: higher office for folks here right, look at Greg Abbott,
Speaker 5: he served on the court. You also look at somebody
Speaker 5: like John Cornyn, and so this has been a stepping stone.
Speaker 5: But again, we can hold these folks accountable. This is
Speaker 5: you know, it's a little bit of a different ballot initiative,
Speaker 5: but this is absolutely an accountability measure because you know,
Speaker 5: this is not just about you know, what happened to
Speaker 5: to Kate Cox, but obviously, as Lauren mentioned, is happening
Speaker 5: to many many women. And you know, I'd be remiss
Speaker 5: if I didn't say on the very first day of
Speaker 5: Black History Month that we know that the effects of
Speaker 5: these all laws disproportionately a flag effects. Excuse me, your
Speaker 5: black and brown Texans. Lauren mentioned earlier, she had every resource.
Speaker 5: You know, there are so many Texans that don't have
Speaker 5: the resources because we're that hasn't expanded Medicaid, right, just
Speaker 5: these basic things that we could have in our state,
Speaker 5: let alone access to reproductive care is affordable healthcare, and
Speaker 5: we don't.
Speaker 2: We don't have those things.
Speaker 5: So this pack is going to work to unseat these
Speaker 5: these three folks in.
Speaker 1: November, and so there are other people running for those
Speaker 1: seats too.
Speaker 5: The primary for the Democrats, that'll I mean, the primary
Speaker 5: in general is the first streak of March here in Texas.
Speaker 5: But Jimmy, John and Jane are the incumbents, and so
Speaker 5: those folks, I mean, I think John has a him
Speaker 5: Mary feel very likely be signed there. I should just
Speaker 5: mention the other thing that I thought about when I
Speaker 5: thought about how do we get, you know, obviously, to
Speaker 5: a better place, is looking into the backgrounds of these folks.
Speaker 5: So let me just give you just a little bit
Speaker 5: of a snippet right of who these folks are. So
Speaker 5: I mentioned the first one, Jimmy Blacklock. All you've got
Speaker 5: to know about this guy is essentially what Governor Abbott
Speaker 5: said about him at a twenty eighteen Texas rally for Life.
Speaker 5: And I'm going to say this, it's I'm reading a
Speaker 5: verbatim Governor rabbitts, and I don't have to guess or
Speaker 5: wonder how Justice Blacklock is going to decide cases because
Speaker 5: of his proven record of fighting for pro life causes.
Speaker 5: All right, that's John, Now, John divine. This guy is
Speaker 5: real special. He has campaigned actually on his wife's his
Speaker 5: own wife's high risk pregnancy. She lived, the child, you know,
Speaker 5: lived for an hour. He also campaigned on being arrested
Speaker 5: several times for protesting in front of abortion clinics.
Speaker 1: So she had a baby that she knew was going
Speaker 1: to die.
Speaker 2: It was a high risk.
Speaker 1: Yeah, somehow having this baby that died is somehow more
Speaker 1: pro life than avoiding all of this.
Speaker 5: I cannot speak to his intentions. What I can only
Speaker 5: speak to, and frankfully probly Laura can speak to this
Speaker 5: even better is if you are seeking justice and somebody
Speaker 5: has campaigned on this, has been very full about this, Like,
Speaker 5: what does that instill in you in any level of
Speaker 5: confidence about impartiality or like looking at the facts of
Speaker 5: the case, versus them just bringing in their personal biases
Speaker 5: on risk saying Lauren, please, Yeah, I.
Speaker 2: Was just gonna say. It's always really mind boggling to
Speaker 2: me because and you'll hear people who say that that's
Speaker 2: cathartic and then at least they had a chance a light.
Speaker 2: That is just not light. I mean, in looking at
Speaker 2: my sign, it would have been torture.
Speaker 1: And it might have killed your other twin.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I wouldn't have either of my voice. And that's
Speaker 2: just the reality of it. And I don't think that
Speaker 2: it's fair to force people to risk their health and
Speaker 2: in my case, again like the health of a healthy
Speaker 2: twin for one that is not viable. That is an
Speaker 2: unrealistic demand.
Speaker 1: It's insane that the thinking here is that you should
Speaker 1: have a baby that's going to die because somehow that
Speaker 1: is more pro I mean, it's just one of the
Speaker 1: craziest things I've ever heard. It just is so anti
Speaker 1: science and anti everything.
Speaker 2: Yeah, why have science, why have ultrasounds? If none of
Speaker 2: it matters? And that's the thing. And you can just
Speaker 2: tell who has never seen somebody live in tremendous amount
Speaker 2: of pain that they would say, oh, yeah, let's put
Speaker 2: an infant through that like that is not for a life?
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 5: Can I just bring up the rear on this last justice? Yeah,
Speaker 5: Aane Bland. So she authored the opinion in a Little
Speaker 5: of Fun for Reproductive Equity versus Dickinson, a separate case,
Speaker 5: but in that the Texas Supreme Court ruled that anti
Speaker 5: abortion groups could not be held liable for defamation for
Speaker 5: equating abortion to murder. Like she wrote that opinion, so
Speaker 5: again like when you look at these three folks, can
Speaker 5: you can you imagine again?
Speaker 2: Just I cannot imagine.
Speaker 5: But I just going into the courtroom trying to seek
Speaker 5: justice when you've already been through a very traumatic experience
Speaker 5: and knowing that you really don't have a fair shot
Speaker 5: here with these folks. And that's why we're going to
Speaker 5: work to unseat them.
Speaker 1: Gods have a lot of anxiety about Texas as a state.
Speaker 1: Why is your quest and winning this?
Speaker 5: We have anxiety to I've got okay, We've got hope then,
Speaker 5: and that's honestly what this is about. We are not
Speaker 5: hopeless and not helpless, And honestly, that's why I am
Speaker 5: very optimistic about this. When you had initiatives put on
Speaker 5: the ballot in Kansas, when you had initiatives put on
Speaker 5: the ballot in Kentucky, again, compositions very similar to our
Speaker 5: own state. Folks overwhelmingly voted to protect reproductive freedoms, right,
Speaker 5: and so this is again a little bit different, but
Speaker 5: this is a statewide These are statewide races, and we
Speaker 5: are closer in the state to flipping the state statewide.
Speaker 2: Than we are.
Speaker 5: You know, they've just gerrymanagered so many of these districts,
Speaker 5: so it's really going to be hard to flip the
Speaker 5: House or the Senate. But again, or elect folks that
Speaker 5: are going to product reproductive freedom. And that's why very
Speaker 5: optimistic about the ability to flip these seats and elect
Speaker 5: folks that are going to protect reproductive freedoms.
Speaker 1: These state Supreme Court justices, they will hear a lot
Speaker 1: of these cases, right, they could create exceptions if there
Speaker 1: were Democrats in them. Right.
Speaker 2: They have acted.
Speaker 5: Several legislators, even the author of Senate Bill eight, actually
Speaker 5: has asked the Texas Medical Board to issue guidance on
Speaker 5: what counts as a medical exception to the states abortion laws.
Speaker 2: I mean, I think what.
Speaker 5: We have the opportunity to do is not have people
Speaker 5: in these seats that have campaigned on protesting abortion clinics,
Speaker 5: and right, we can have people that have at least
Speaker 5: some shred of in frankly, integrity when looking at these cases.
Speaker 5: And that's just not what we have in these three
Speaker 5: folks right now.
Speaker 1: Right, that makes sense? You know, working on the judiciary
Speaker 1: is something that Democrats really are late on. Right there
Speaker 1: is no democratic version of the federal society, so it's
Speaker 1: such an important way to target these abortion restrictions.
Speaker 5: Frankly, people have not paid just a whole lot of
Speaker 5: attention to the Texas Supreme Court, but now in the
Speaker 5: rulings of these cases and seeing the everyday impact in
Speaker 5: their lives, I mean, they are coming to certainly know
Speaker 5: the importance of the court and we will work to
Speaker 5: educate them on that continually, as well as the backgrounds
Speaker 5: of these individuals and why it certainly would serve better.
Speaker 5: I should mention to your point, this is the first
Speaker 5: time in our state that we have had a concerted
Speaker 5: effort to change the makeup of the court. So again,
Speaker 5: I think based on what we've seen in two other states,
Speaker 5: Kansas and Kentucky on this issue, Frankly, as people are
Speaker 5: recognizing that you know, could happen within their own families,
Speaker 5: and Lauren doesn't know this because it literally just happened
Speaker 5: last night. But we launched the pack yesterday and one
Speaker 5: by a friend of mine that I haven't been in
Speaker 5: contact with for a little bit, reached out. It essentially
Speaker 5: had like the exact same case as Lauren. And so
Speaker 5: I just don't think folks are aware of how common
Speaker 5: this is, and frankly, how many people in our community
Speaker 5: and our families and you know, in our in our
Speaker 5: groups of friends, this can easily be an issue for
Speaker 5: and this is a non partisan issue.
Speaker 2: I mean, I'm not sure, you know, Molly.
Speaker 5: If you're going to take maybe ninety seconds to play
Speaker 5: folks the ad for folks, But this is a non
Speaker 5: partisan issue. It now, obviously the two main parties have
Speaker 5: different stances on this issue, but I think that's probably
Speaker 5: more reflective of their values. There's nothing inherent about you know,
Speaker 5: somebody being able to listen to their doctor, or having
Speaker 5: a say in their own fertility or you know, having
Speaker 5: a seine when they're going to.
Speaker 2: Have more kids. There's nothing partisan about that.
Speaker 5: So you know, we'll continue to talk about the issue
Speaker 5: because I think that's how we reached to most non folks.
Speaker 2: And that's what I think is really shocking about where
Speaker 2: we are, is that it has become controversial to speak
Speaker 2: with your doctor and get the best advice for your
Speaker 2: situation and to get medical care for your situation across
Speaker 2: both parties. It doesn't matter because there's a one in
Speaker 2: four miscarriage bodies don't care about your party. That's just
Speaker 2: going to be what the math is. And these types
Speaker 2: of bands and these types of rulings impact miscarriage care too,
Speaker 2: and so this hurts everybody. And you see this, you
Speaker 2: know in the case, it went from the you know,
Speaker 2: the doctors saying this is what we need. I just
Speaker 2: want to have permission, and then you saw that just
Speaker 2: get overturned.
Speaker 5: And we should also say that like this, on the
Speaker 5: issue of medical exceptions, Texans are with us on this issue,
Speaker 5: right And I mean so the University of Houstons Hobby
Speaker 5: School of Public Affairs, they did a survey, they published
Speaker 5: it in the February of last year, and in that survey,
Speaker 5: eighty two percent of those that responded supported medical exceptions.
Speaker 5: It's not even close. The other thing is that I
Speaker 5: think we sh be very clear about the point that
Speaker 5: Lauren just made, which is the impact that this is
Speaker 5: already having on our inadequate level of one healthcare period.
Speaker 5: But obgyns in our state, the number of folks that
Speaker 5: are not coming here after their training, the number of
Speaker 5: obgyns that are preferring to not practice here now as
Speaker 5: a result, I mean, that does not bode well again
Speaker 5: in our state. One in ten kids in this country
Speaker 5: lives in Texas. As goes Texas, so goes this country.
Speaker 5: And that's why this effort is also important because we
Speaker 5: see that many of the most frankly extremist policies, extremist
Speaker 5: laws are sometimes tested in Texas before they're exported, right,
Speaker 5: And so I think we've got a real opportunity to
Speaker 5: send a message serbly to these justices as well as
Speaker 5: every justice in this state, as well as those other
Speaker 5: states who are thinking about brankly playing around with these
Speaker 5: women's lives in a way that it frankly just makes
Speaker 5: it more dangerous to be a woman.
Speaker 2: Just to show real quick what a horror show it is.
Speaker 2: One of my friends is that Iobi and Austin, and
Speaker 2: she said just last week she's never seen this many
Speaker 2: pregnant fourteen and fifteen year olds. So that's where we
Speaker 2: are heading if things don't start changing Jesus.
Speaker 5: So if folks would visit, you know, find out pack
Speaker 5: dot com, please donate, you know, please share the launch video.
Speaker 5: And you know we look forward to to making sure
Speaker 5: that we've got Supreme Court justices are that are worthy.
Speaker 2: Of our state.
Speaker 1: Thank you, thank you, Thanks Sally.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 1: A moment pecto Jesse Cannon my jump fast.
Speaker 3: You know, as much as I'm amused by Kristen Cinema's outfits,
Speaker 3: I'm not going to miss her if she goes.
Speaker 1: What are you seeing here? So it seems like Kirsten Cinema,
Speaker 1: Arizona's senior senator, may not be running again. And the
Speaker 1: reason why we think this comes from the Daily Beast.
Speaker 1: Perhaps you've heard of it that she spent two hundred
Speaker 1: and ten thousand dollars in private air travel private air travel.
Speaker 1: You'll remember that this is a woman who wasally part
Speaker 1: of the Green Party. She is now part of the
Speaker 1: I don't fly commercial party. Either way, it's good news
Speaker 1: for Reuben Diego. For that it is our moment of fuckery.
Speaker 1: Do not fly private, do not waste taxpayer money. And
Speaker 1: for that that is our moment of fuckery. That's it
Speaker 1: for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in every Monday, Wednesday,
Speaker 1: and Friday to hear the best minds in politics makes
Speaker 1: sense of all this chaos. If you enjoyed what you've heard,
Speaker 1: please send it to a friend and keep the conversation going.
Speaker 1: And again, thanks for listening.