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Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics,

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Speaker 1: where we discussed the top political headlines with some of

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Speaker 1: today's best minds, and a new NBC poll has Trump's

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Speaker 1: approval at an all time low of thirty seven percent.

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Speaker 1: We have such a great show for you today. The

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Speaker 1: Lincoln Project's own Rick Wilson joined us to discuss Trump

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Speaker 1: getting thrown out of his own situation room. Who could

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Speaker 1: have seen it? Then we'll talk to the Atlantic scal

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Speaker 1: Beckerman about his new book, How to Be a Dissident.

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Speaker 1: But first the news Smalie.

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Speaker 2: Many people heard the Straight of Her Moves is reopening

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Speaker 2: on Friday. Now not so much so. Now we have

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Speaker 2: Energy Secretary Chris Wright, one of the many people who

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Speaker 2: likes to go on a Sunday show and really fuck

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Speaker 2: things up, saying that gas may stay above three dollars

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Speaker 2: into twenty twenty seven. Great stuff, love it.

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Speaker 1: So here's the story Chris right on CNN. It was

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Speaker 1: a pretty fascinating interview. It was like it just it's

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Speaker 1: worth watching because like these guys cannot defend it, so

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Speaker 1: they're like just trying so hard to defend a vend

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Speaker 1: defend Here's what it is. The ARAP war has driven

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Speaker 1: up prices, as we were told, none of this is

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Speaker 1: a surprise in any which way, and Wright is just

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Speaker 1: trying to defend it. He's adding the gas will go down.

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Speaker 1: He doesn't fucking know. He's adding that the straits will

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Speaker 1: be open. You know, this is all this weird market

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Speaker 1: manipulation stuff that they want to do, and you know,

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Speaker 1: just don't trust them. None of this is real. This

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Speaker 1: is what they do, this is where it is, and

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Speaker 1: none of us should be surprised. So here we are.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. So I opened my phone and I thought to myself,

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Speaker 2: why the fuck am I seeing Joe Rogan with the President.

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Speaker 1: On a Saturday.

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Speaker 2: Yes, and I was quite taken aback, as usual, Joe

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Speaker 2: Rogan was looking very strange.

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Speaker 3: But I found out it's actually.

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Speaker 2: For something that I very much support personally, which is

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Speaker 2: that mister Trump is now going to allow the FDA

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Speaker 2: to do trials for experimental therapies of psychedelics for things

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Speaker 2: like depression and getting both drugs, which I've seen lots

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Speaker 2: of my friends have great success with.

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Speaker 1: Okay, so Trump is not doing this because he cares

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Speaker 1: about psychedelics getting people off drugs. Really, I think that's

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Speaker 1: the top line here. He's doing this because Joe Rogan

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Speaker 1: is really mad at him and has been saying that

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Speaker 1: he doesn't support him on his podcast to eighty million people,

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Speaker 1: and so Donald Trump is desperately trying to win him back,

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Speaker 1: and so he's decided psychedelics are the way, which I

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Speaker 1: think all of this should say quite a lot about Trump,

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Speaker 1: quite a lot about how we got here, quite a

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Speaker 1: lot about Joe Rogan, like if we ever had a

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Speaker 1: window into this. So they all came in on Saturday,

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Speaker 1: and I think that it's just a really good example

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Speaker 1: of how this administration operates. And it's just kind of

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Speaker 1: I don't know, you know, Trump is just desperately trying

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Speaker 1: to get his numbers up, and he will do anything,

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Speaker 1: and if it means occasional doing something that we like.

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Speaker 1: I mean, I don't like it because I'm sober, so

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Speaker 1: I don't like any drugs. But I know somebody's going

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Speaker 1: to be mad at me for saying that.

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Speaker 4: I don't know.

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Speaker 2: I'll be honest with you, I do think you should

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Speaker 2: classify this as all drugs because like things like abu

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Speaker 2: gain or like chemicals are just going to become prescriptions.

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Speaker 2: So I wouldn't personally say that.

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Speaker 1: I'm not going to weigh in on this. I don't

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Speaker 1: know enough, but it is fascinating to watch Donald Trump

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Speaker 1: just go along with something that is very ideologically on

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Speaker 1: the left. But he's got you know, he's just trying

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Speaker 1: to keep Joe Rogan and so here we are.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I see any chance of this being really what

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Speaker 2: people vote on when gas is three dollars at above

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Speaker 2: all through the rest of the year and that's going

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Speaker 2: to make inflation go insane.

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Speaker 1: Mm hmm. That's right. And that's where we are.

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Speaker 2: As usual, Razor sharp focus on affordability.

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Speaker 1: Correct.

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Speaker 2: So Prime Minister Carneia up in Canada, I think had

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Speaker 2: a very telling quote. He said, US ties have become

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Speaker 2: a weakness. We saw a report this week that Las

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Speaker 2: Vegas is in a panic because most of their tourism

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Speaker 2: comes from Canadians and they're not coming here anymore.

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Speaker 1: We lost Canada. Mark Carney is amazing. I am so

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Speaker 1: jealous that they get to help someone smart Canada is.

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Speaker 1: They have put they have done elbows up. They are

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Speaker 1: just done with us. We need them for tourism, we

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Speaker 1: need them for trade, and we're losing them. And it's

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Speaker 1: just it's such a dumb, dumb enforced error. And you know,

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Speaker 1: Donald Trump is dumb. I mean, he's dom and he's

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Speaker 1: bad at being president. And so here we go. We've

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Speaker 1: alienated this country that we definitely need. And by the way,

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Speaker 1: speaking of dumb dumbs, Howard Latnick slammed Canada as a

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Speaker 1: difficult trading partner last week. No Canada, which sends almost

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Speaker 1: seventy percent of its exports in the United States, is

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Speaker 1: this year due to review the trilaurel Us Mexico Canada

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Speaker 1: free trade that was that was NAFTA, which Trump then

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Speaker 1: turned into like Trump Da, well that now is up,

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Speaker 1: and we actually really rely on Canada for a lot

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Speaker 1: of stuff. But we've imposed sees tariffs on Canadian exports,

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Speaker 1: steal aluminum and autos. And Trump has repeatedly used about

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Speaker 1: alex in Canada and turning it into fifty first state.

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Speaker 1: And let me tell you something something about this Canada stuff.

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Speaker 1: It sounds stupid and funny to us, but it's actually

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Speaker 1: like so offensive to them. And there it's like it's

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Speaker 1: basically like I think that it is just a really

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Speaker 1: stupid way to get Canada really mad at us, and

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Speaker 1: it's just it's just so annoying and just stupid. It's

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Speaker 1: all of this is just so pointless. You know. It's

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Speaker 1: like what Vladimir Putin's dream is is how Donald Trump

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Speaker 1: basically does all of his president Yeah, I think that.

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Speaker 2: The Adam Curtis view of the world that Trump takes

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Speaker 2: his cues from Putin's old moves about twenty years ago

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Speaker 2: is very correct. So last week disastrous week for a

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Speaker 2: press for RFK Junior, who had been a little less

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Speaker 2: than the spotlight since all the other members of the

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Speaker 2: Trump administration keeps fucking up so much. Whether it was

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Speaker 2: a terrible terrible performance a congressional hearing onto headlines let's say,

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Speaker 2: raccoon penis.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, the raccoon penis story, that was a great one.

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Speaker 2: One of the things that highlighted those hearings was that

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Speaker 2: they kept saying things back to him that he said

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Speaker 2: them podcasts that were absolutely insane, and then he would

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Speaker 2: deny he said them, even though he obviously said them.

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Speaker 2: And now he's here saying every person who lost health

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Speaker 2: insurance isn't illegal.

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Speaker 1: So on Friday, when he was testifying before the House

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Speaker 1: Education and Workforce Committee, Democratic representative and friend of this podcast,

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Speaker 1: Greg Cizar asked RFKF he had met with any of

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Speaker 1: the one point four million people who had lost their

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Speaker 1: health insurance. That's because remember Obamacare premiums, the tax incentives

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Speaker 1: fell off, and insurance went way way health insurance went way, way,

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Speaker 1: way up for a lot of people, So one point

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Speaker 1: four million people fell off Obamacare. Kennedy was unmoved by

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Speaker 1: the question. He said they were almost all legal immigrants.

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Speaker 1: Kasar pressed further, saying it sounded like Kennedy hadn't met

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Speaker 1: with anyone. Referring to one person in his congressional district

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Speaker 1: who a lost insurance. Kennedy cut in, we've found one

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Speaker 1: point four five million illegal immigrants collecting medicaid. You know

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Speaker 1: the chance of that zero, Kenny said, before Kazar interjected

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Speaker 1: and noted that people in his district had saw their

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Speaker 1: mentally health insurance cost skyrocket by hundreds of dollars. That's

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Speaker 1: what we're talking about with the Medicaid expansion being turned off.

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Speaker 1: This is not true. The idea that illegal immigrants collect

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Speaker 1: medicaid is because the Trump administration believes that people who

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Speaker 1: use these rural hospitals would actually be stealing medicaid right

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Speaker 1: because they'd be using these hospitals that were kept open

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Speaker 1: by medicaid expansion. I mean, it's just a really misuse

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Speaker 1: of the idea Medicaid is not going to people who

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Speaker 1: are not in this country legally. And this is just

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Speaker 1: a completely complete lie from Trump World. And there is

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Speaker 1: no way there were a million and a half Americans

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Speaker 1: that were on Medicaid. And by the way, undocumented immigrants

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Speaker 1: have never been oled too for healthcare coverage under the

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Speaker 1: Affordable Care Act. And you know, this is just like

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Speaker 1: they're just trying to make it harder for people to

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Speaker 1: get services so that they don't have to pay them.

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Speaker 1: And that is so much of this Project twenty twenty

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Speaker 1: five agenda, so unsurprising, but very annoying and dear we are.

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Speaker 1: Rick Wilson is the founder and Lincoln Project and the

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Speaker 1: host and Lincoln Project podcast.

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Speaker 3: Rick Wilson, Hello, Molly, how are you.

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Speaker 1: I am better than Donald Trump?

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Speaker 3: Well that doesn't take a lot. Actually work better than

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Speaker 3: Tim on so many axes it would be hard for

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Speaker 3: you to enumerate them all. But yes, let's.

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Speaker 1: Talk about what's going on here. There was this amazing

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Speaker 1: reporting from the Wall Street Journal. Again a team that

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Speaker 1: had been at the Washington Post which I think is

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Speaker 1: always an important and it is the dossy Annie Lynski duo.

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Speaker 1: Both Washington Post.

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Speaker 3: Report cannot go you cannot go wrong with them.

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Speaker 1: And they have a TikTok of what happened with the

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Speaker 1: Good Friday Donald Trump hostage crisis which ended up not

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Speaker 1: being a hostage crisis, right the rescue.

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Speaker 3: The rescue of the down Air Force a weapon system

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Speaker 3: officer from the F fifteen E. But it turned out

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Speaker 3: that there are there are places where even the president

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Speaker 3: doesn't get to go when the military doesn't want him to.

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Speaker 3: What's the word I'm looking for, leak shit from the

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Speaker 3: most classified possible operation they could be conducting, or have

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Speaker 3: him in the room acting like a crazy motherfucker. Those

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Speaker 3: those are why they kept him out of the room.

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Speaker 1: So basically, and this is the thing we keep seeing

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Speaker 1: and why the military is that the military just doesn't

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Speaker 1: trust his administration for any number of reasons. Right, I mean,

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Speaker 1: I think is that what we draw from this Look

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Speaker 1: that is a big part of it.

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Speaker 3: Look, there there is a I want to I want

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Speaker 3: to subdivide it into or bifurcate the problem into two segments.

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Speaker 3: There is the political DC interface part of the military

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Speaker 3: that's having to deal with heg Seth and all his

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Speaker 3: bullshit and firing people because they promoted a black general,

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Speaker 3: and firing people because they're not sufficiently gun ho about

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Speaker 3: the heg Seth Trump you know, Bible study class and

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Speaker 3: all this other crap. Right, then there's the operational guys.

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Speaker 3: And these guys are They're not the four star generals.

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Speaker 3: They're the brigadier generals and the and the senior colonels

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Speaker 3: out of the in the in the in the operational commands. Right,

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Speaker 3: these guys don't play around. They are serious people. They've

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Speaker 3: been given a mission. They're going to execute the mission.

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Speaker 3: They were assigned to rescue this gown weapon system officer,

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Speaker 3: and so they were going to handle it. And they

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Speaker 3: were not going to let even the President of the

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Speaker 3: United States mess it up because there was a real

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Speaker 3: there was a real belief that he would do something

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Speaker 3: to either order them to do something stupid or leak it,

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Speaker 3: and either one of those scenarios would have resulted in

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Speaker 3: that that that F fifteen backseater either being dead or

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Speaker 3: being in a Runnian hostage. And they realized that it

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Speaker 3: should tell you a lot that the people who actually

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Speaker 3: are on the pointy end of the stick with our

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Speaker 3: military do not trust their commander in chief.

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Speaker 1: And also thank god, right, I mean, I think that's

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Speaker 1: the reason why we haven't.

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Speaker 3: Had one hundred percent we we I think there is

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Speaker 3: a it's not it's not mutiny, and it's not defiance

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Speaker 3: of orders. I think there is a careful interpretation of

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Speaker 3: commander's intent in this war. These guys are not going

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Speaker 3: to put their troops in extraordinary danger just for Trump's ego.

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Speaker 1: I want you to talk to us about this because

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Speaker 1: you have like some insight into the Middle East. I'm

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Speaker 1: sorry to do this to you. You have some insight

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Speaker 1: into the Middle East. I love a bit and uh

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Speaker 1: and around. There's a reason that we as a country

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Speaker 1: have not done this before, and it's because it's so

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Speaker 1: I feel like it was. This was such a blip

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Speaker 1: this news cycle where they rescued the downed pilot, but

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Speaker 1: it actually was a huge deal. And yeah, talk us

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Speaker 1: through that.

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Speaker 3: Trump correctly concluded that if they captured this pilot, he

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Speaker 3: would be a symbol of Trump's overall failure that he

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Speaker 3: could not spin away. So he wanted that guy back desperately,

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Speaker 3: as did the military. For a different reason they wanted

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Speaker 3: that guy back because we don't leave people behind anymore.

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Speaker 3: We don't do that shit anymore. It's Vietnam. We will

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Speaker 3: go out and break every door down to get our

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Speaker 3: people back, right. But Trump wanted him back because he

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Speaker 3: didn't want a hostage crisis. Now we've seen that in

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Speaker 3: the coverage as well. Trump is now freaking out about Iran.

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Speaker 3: He feels trapped. He keeps bringing up the Carter hostage situation,

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Speaker 3: which did destroy Jimmy Carter's chances in nineteen eighty. So

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Speaker 3: Trump feels like this is he Trump is worried about

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Speaker 3: the politics implicating him more than the strategic impact of this.

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Speaker 1: I have two things to say. EJ. Dion had to

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Speaker 1: really good column in The Times today about how Democrats

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Speaker 1: could be the Reagan and Trump could be the Carter,

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Speaker 1: which I think is very interesting and worth reading. You know,

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Speaker 1: It's it's just an interesting thought experiment. But the other

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Speaker 1: thing that I want to we talk about Carter because

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Speaker 1: I have like a soft spot in my heart for

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Speaker 1: Jimmy Carter for obvious reasons. But one of the things

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Speaker 1: that you see when you think about Carter is that

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Speaker 1: there was all this really good like reporting after the

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Speaker 1: fact that maybe Reagan world made a deal so that

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Speaker 1: the hostages I'm sorry.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, there are two tiers to this one. There was

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Speaker 3: an expectation by audience that Reagan was loco and would

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Speaker 3: and would would do add things to them. They did

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Speaker 3: not believe that of Carter, because Carter had for four

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Speaker 3: hundred and forty four days not done bad things to them.

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Speaker 3: That helped drive that. There's this sort of weird cuckoo

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Speaker 3: mythos that George hw Bush, my old boss, got a

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Speaker 3: fighter plane and flew to Iran and cut it. It's

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Speaker 3: all horseshit. But what Trump is looking at right now

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Speaker 3: is we now live in a world where it's not

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Speaker 3: just a couple of television networks. It's not just Nightline

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Speaker 3: at eleven o'clock or eleven thirty at night covering what

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Speaker 3: happened during the hostage crisis. If there was one to day,

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Speaker 3: it would be everywhere, everything, all the time.

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Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, that's.

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Speaker 3: Why he's nervous about it. That's why he's freaked out

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Speaker 3: about it.

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Speaker 1: And also gas, well, there is that.

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Speaker 3: And look, we have seen that this war has been lost.

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Speaker 3: We have not won this war. We are not winning

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Speaker 3: this war. There is no set of conditions right now

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Speaker 3: where we will extract a victory in this war. We

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Speaker 3: may negotiate something with Iran. I don't think it's going

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Speaker 3: to end up being anything particularly meaningful. We may try

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Speaker 3: to extract some fig lely from But Steve whit Coffin,

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Speaker 3: Jared Kushner, and Jade Vance are not the team to

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Speaker 3: deliver Iran committing permanently to not have nuclear weapons.

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Speaker 1: It's not gonna happen. No, they are not. They are

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Speaker 1: very much not that.

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Speaker 3: And I was being kind, I mean, I was being

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Speaker 3: very kind.

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Speaker 1: I like though that. But you know, the market manipulation

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Speaker 1: will still go. So Donald Trump will sat still saw.

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Speaker 3: Seven and sixty million dollar bet right on Friday, just

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Speaker 3: before Trump tweeted out the strain is open.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, there's clearly a lot of sleazy shit

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Speaker 1: going on. Speaking of sleezy shit going on, I don't

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Speaker 1: know if you know this, but there is a the

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Speaker 1: head of the FBI. Besides besides spending almost all his

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Speaker 1: time flying around in private jets. They really these people

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Speaker 1: really hate to fly commercial he share. He taking page

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Speaker 1: from the Whiskey Peat playbook Look.

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Speaker 3: Terrific reporting out of the Atlantic from Sarah Fitzpatrick, who

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Speaker 3: is just is a great reporter, found over a dozen

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Speaker 3: sources that said, hey, Pete, heex.

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Speaker 1: Of that's whiskey, Pete.

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Speaker 3: Right, Cash Betel was sex drunk because I call him

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Speaker 3: Cash Battel is increasingly seen inside the FBI and the

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Speaker 3: administration as somebody with a drinking problem. He is not

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Speaker 3: going to win this fight because he has over a

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Speaker 3: dozen sources who said he's drinking. This isn't good.

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Speaker 1: It's funny because it's like you think about cash Battel

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Speaker 1: and you think about you know, his deputy, at least

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Speaker 1: until he went back to his podcast, was Dan Bongno. Right,

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Speaker 1: this has been the most insane, but it's also interesting

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Speaker 1: to me, like this was the worst kid in our minds.

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Speaker 1: This was the worst case scenario. Sure, bunch of write

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Speaker 1: pod bros. Give them the biggest job. I mean, the

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Speaker 1: FBI has stuff they can do, stuff that you and

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Speaker 1: I would make us not be able to sleep at night.

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Speaker 3: As one d that is one hundred percent correct. And

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Speaker 3: I will say this the scope of the powers of

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Speaker 3: the FBI and the scope of their responsibilities.

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Speaker 4: M H.

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Speaker 3: If I were somehow made FBI director, I couldn't drink

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Speaker 3: for the entire term. I'd barely sleep. They are in

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Speaker 3: charge of counter terrorism, foreign counter intelligence, major crimes, serial killers,

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Speaker 3: I mean everything across. You know when we used to

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Speaker 3: prosecute corporate crimes. Yeah, they were in charge of that too,

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Speaker 3: all these things that this agency is reposed with enormous

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Speaker 3: powers and cash. Ptel's security detail needs to get the

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Speaker 3: jaws of life to pry open his hotel room door

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Speaker 3: so they can get him because he won't respond otherwise.

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Speaker 3: Then the guy spends weekend nights at a place called

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Speaker 3: the Poodle Lounge in Las Vegas getting lit get on.

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Speaker 1: My favorite was that he thought he had gotten locked

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Speaker 1: out of his staff.

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Speaker 3: Fired right, he thought he was fired. He was calling

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Speaker 3: people like they fired me, I'm locked out of my computer?

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Speaker 3: What it was when the dipshit had forgotten his password.

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Speaker 1: But yeah, it is really the gang that doesn't shoot

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Speaker 1: to it. But I want to draw a line between

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Speaker 1: that and the first story that we talked about just now,

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Speaker 1: this story about Trump not being allied in the situation room,

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Speaker 1: because in both cases we see a lower a lower

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Speaker 1: part of the organization siloing the top of the organizationization

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Speaker 1: so they don't kill the organization.

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Speaker 3: Well, look, eventually, in these circumstances, you can't. I guess

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Speaker 3: what it is is you can't if you're in the military,

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Speaker 3: or if you're in the FBI, or you're in the

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Speaker 3: White House. You cannot hope that you can mediate every

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Speaker 3: fuck up by the leadership. Through social media and with

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Speaker 3: Patel he has he has a sort of online fan

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Speaker 3: base of people defending him no matter what. But at

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Speaker 3: some point the institution says, no, no, one not going

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Speaker 3: to do it. And you know, and you immediately had

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Speaker 3: him threatening to sue everybody.

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Speaker 1: Right, I saw that which I which.

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Speaker 3: You know it's Jesse Banal, the guy that runs all

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Speaker 3: these fake bs unsuccessful defamation suits for the Trump Universe suit.

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Speaker 3: He's the guy that sued me for Mike Flynn. Now

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Speaker 3: he's going to sue the Atlanta. It's never going to happen, folks.

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Speaker 3: They're never going to put cash motel in for Discovery, right,

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Speaker 3: It's never going to.

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Speaker 1: Happen because we'll see a hundred bar tabs and we.

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Speaker 3: Will see we will see bar tabs, we will see

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Speaker 3: travel manifests, we will see phone logs, and it will

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Speaker 3: never happen. Never going to happen. In the in the

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Speaker 3: history of never, we'll.

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Speaker 1: See some of the stuff that we've seen about Eric Swallwell,

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Speaker 1: you know the number of charges to the you know

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Speaker 1: with Eric Swall what we have seen leaked a number

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Speaker 1: of charges to a drink a service that where you

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Speaker 1: can get alcohol, you know that kind of thing, and

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Speaker 1: it will just drip and drip and drip and drip

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Speaker 1: and will absolutely destroy him.

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Speaker 3: For cash matel in this story, the only easy day

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Speaker 3: was yesterday. This story is going to go on, and

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Speaker 3: I will say this, there's also a part of this

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Speaker 3: that I really love because Cash Ptel has gutted the

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Speaker 3: FBI of incredibly well regarded, incredibly competent, incredibly smart, incredibly

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Speaker 3: dedicated patriots. He has screwed these people over in unbelievable ways.

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Speaker 3: It has been ugly from the start. If they had

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Speaker 3: even like a passing acquaintance with Jim Comey, they got fired.

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Speaker 3: If they knew anything about the mar Alago plus five dogs,

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Speaker 3: they got fired. If they had been anywhere near a

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Speaker 3: January sixth inves station, they got fired. But you can't

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Speaker 3: fire everybody in the entire FBI, and enough people have

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Speaker 3: stayed behind that are left behind, where Cash Ptel will

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Speaker 3: never ever ever have a moment where if he is

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Speaker 3: not if he ever makes it, puts a foot wrong,

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Speaker 3: They're going to know it. This is an organization that

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Speaker 3: is professional investigators. They're going to know it Cash, and

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Speaker 3: they're going to humiliate him and run him out of

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Speaker 3: this job. That is That's what's gonna happen. Now, They're

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Speaker 3: going to run him out of this job. And I

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Speaker 3: did here over the weekend that Susie Wilds is very

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Speaker 3: unhappy with Cash Bettel. And the drinking started started with

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Speaker 3: the Olympics, the public drinking at the Olympics, and she

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Speaker 3: does not like the drinkers.

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Speaker 1: It's because she has a she has.

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Speaker 3: That is correct. She came from that world.

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Speaker 1: Yes, yes, as did I. Okay, so now we shall

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Speaker 1: move fast forward to yet another rogue in our rogues gallery. Yes,

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Speaker 1: Elderson of one Tucker calls and yes, poor Buck he worked,

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Speaker 1: he staffed up a GOP congressman. He was working at

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Speaker 1: jd Vance's office.

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Speaker 3: And now no, you're being fired from jd Vance's office.

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Speaker 3: And Molly we were talking about just before we came

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Speaker 3: on the air. There is a reason for this, folks.

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Speaker 3: Jd Vance is running for president in twenty twenty eight.

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Speaker 3: And I don't think he tired fired Buckley just because

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Speaker 3: Tucker saying shit about Donald Trump. I think he fired

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Speaker 3: Buckley because he recognizes that when he wants to run

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Speaker 3: for president, Tucker is one of those people, as crazy

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Speaker 3: as you think it sounds right now, and we're saying

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Speaker 3: it in broad daylight, Tucker is one of those people

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Speaker 3: who could be a potential candidate in a primary against jd.

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Speaker 2: Vance.

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Speaker 3: And that makes jd Vance extremely nobuno he ain't had.

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Speaker 1: And I think it's important what we saw last week

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Speaker 1: is there was a big face off between Tucker and Trump,

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Speaker 1: and Tucker said Trump is a maniac and Trump said

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Speaker 1: Tucker is loi Q. But the point of this is

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Speaker 1: that Tucker his polling went way down. Trump won that one.

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Speaker 1: And so now, right, but you still have Tucker is

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Speaker 1: a sort of opposition leader.

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Speaker 3: I would maget, Yeah, I would not underestimate Tucker's ability

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Speaker 3: to still reach a lie lot of the MAGA audience

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Speaker 3: and a lot of the MAGA bass and a lot

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Speaker 3: of the people that that Tucker. There are some people

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Speaker 3: right now watching Tucker for the for hate, watching right

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Speaker 3: because they're mad at him. Okay, but there are some

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Speaker 3: people who still watch Tucker because they're deeply committed to

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Speaker 3: Tucker Carlson and they really like the guy. Yeah, they

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Speaker 3: really like the guy.

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Speaker 1: And I think also, I would add, and again, nobody

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Speaker 1: is complimenting Tucker here. We all know how what a

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Speaker 1: dangerous guy is, but he's quite smart.

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Speaker 3: Do not underestimate Tucker Carlson's intelligence, people, It is not

436
00:23:36,200 --> 00:23:39,640
Speaker 3: that is that is a that is a fundamental error

437
00:23:40,400 --> 00:23:41,680
Speaker 3: to say, oh, Tucker's doom.

438
00:23:42,480 --> 00:23:43,040
Speaker 4: He's not Tucker.

439
00:23:43,119 --> 00:23:43,880
Speaker 3: Tucker's not dumb.

440
00:23:43,960 --> 00:23:44,560
Speaker 1: He's not dumb.

441
00:23:44,640 --> 00:23:46,080
Speaker 3: He knows exactly what he's doing.

442
00:23:46,480 --> 00:23:48,840
Speaker 1: Yeah, and he's really got a good handle on how

443
00:23:48,880 --> 00:23:52,200
Speaker 1: to manipulate people and how to manipulate this electorate which

444
00:23:52,280 --> 00:23:56,520
Speaker 1: has been really manipulated by Trump. So I do think

445
00:23:56,920 --> 00:24:00,640
Speaker 1: that the Buckley Carlson firing, even though they told TMZ

446
00:24:01,480 --> 00:24:04,840
Speaker 1: that he had resigned earlier in December.

447
00:24:05,000 --> 00:24:05,560
Speaker 3: Not buying it.

448
00:24:06,200 --> 00:24:10,480
Speaker 1: TMZ major political outlet where we now get, hey, you.

449
00:24:10,520 --> 00:24:12,240
Speaker 3: Know what, TMZ is doing a lot of work.

450
00:24:12,760 --> 00:24:15,359
Speaker 1: I mean, I saw them. They were in I mean,

451
00:24:15,400 --> 00:24:17,959
Speaker 1: it's funny, but they were. I watched them. They were

452
00:24:18,520 --> 00:24:21,040
Speaker 1: there was the guy was with a Republican congressman, a

453
00:24:21,119 --> 00:24:26,920
Speaker 1: backbencher and he was asking him, uh if he he

454
00:24:27,040 --> 00:24:29,200
Speaker 1: was just asking him some question about Trump and he

455
00:24:29,800 --> 00:24:31,320
Speaker 1: and the guy couldn't answer it.

456
00:24:32,359 --> 00:24:35,080
Speaker 3: Well, no one can. Yeah, that's the That's one of

457
00:24:35,119 --> 00:24:37,920
Speaker 3: the problems here for the Republicans is is there is

458
00:24:38,040 --> 00:24:41,680
Speaker 3: no way in a rational universe to say, you know,

459
00:24:42,040 --> 00:24:45,080
Speaker 3: I'm a Republican congressman, I represent the tenth District of Indiana,

460
00:24:45,720 --> 00:24:49,919
Speaker 3: and I think Donald Trump's doing a terrific job, right right,

461
00:24:50,520 --> 00:24:54,960
Speaker 3: Even Republicans don't buy that. No nobody buys that. It's

462
00:24:55,040 --> 00:25:00,320
Speaker 3: all broken. It's like fundamentally broken inside their Caucasus. I

463
00:25:00,440 --> 00:25:02,240
Speaker 3: kind of love the TMZ is out there doing this

464
00:25:02,359 --> 00:25:02,800
Speaker 3: work now.

465
00:25:03,119 --> 00:25:05,600
Speaker 1: I think it's worth Like, you know, the polling this

466
00:25:05,840 --> 00:25:10,720
Speaker 1: weekend was just as bad. Yeahow on another two. I

467
00:25:10,760 --> 00:25:13,480
Speaker 1: mean basically every week he loses two percentage points.

468
00:25:13,560 --> 00:25:16,639
Speaker 3: Yeah. Look the the you know, my son is a

469
00:25:16,680 --> 00:25:19,000
Speaker 3: Polster and we've been we talk about this every damn

470
00:25:19,040 --> 00:25:21,960
Speaker 3: Friday when we do our polling wrap up, and this

471
00:25:22,400 --> 00:25:25,760
Speaker 3: is it has now reached the point where no Republican

472
00:25:26,280 --> 00:25:29,520
Speaker 3: in the country can feel safe in safe seats with

473
00:25:29,680 --> 00:25:33,520
Speaker 3: a plus twenty. Now, maybe you feel safe, but you know,

474
00:25:33,600 --> 00:25:35,600
Speaker 3: we used to find safe seats as we r plus

475
00:25:35,680 --> 00:25:37,800
Speaker 3: five that ain't even that's not even in the ballpark

476
00:25:37,880 --> 00:25:38,600
Speaker 3: was safe anymore.

477
00:25:39,160 --> 00:25:42,719
Speaker 1: And that means that a lot of those gerrymandered seats

478
00:25:43,480 --> 00:25:49,119
Speaker 1: where they seemed to be easy pickups for Republicans may

479
00:25:49,280 --> 00:25:51,920
Speaker 1: actually end up really dumbymandering them.

480
00:25:52,040 --> 00:25:54,760
Speaker 3: Well we are, we're we're looking at those Texas seats

481
00:25:54,800 --> 00:25:57,639
Speaker 3: in particular. And that was that is now going to

482
00:25:57,680 --> 00:26:02,760
Speaker 3: come down as a definitional dumbymander. They thought, oh, everything

483
00:26:02,800 --> 00:26:04,600
Speaker 3: will stay just like it was in twenty twenty four

484
00:26:04,720 --> 00:26:07,800
Speaker 3: for Trump, and that'll and that'll transfer to republic to

485
00:26:07,880 --> 00:26:10,800
Speaker 3: the other Republicans, and that was that that turns out

486
00:26:10,840 --> 00:26:14,639
Speaker 3: that that that that idea was completely batshit. It's not

487
00:26:14,800 --> 00:26:17,719
Speaker 3: even close right now in the polling. Yeah, are they

488
00:26:17,720 --> 00:26:19,480
Speaker 3: going to keep, you know, there some of their some

489
00:26:19,600 --> 00:26:21,800
Speaker 3: of their seats, of course they are. But are they

490
00:26:22,200 --> 00:26:22,879
Speaker 3: are they sleeping?

491
00:26:22,960 --> 00:26:29,080
Speaker 1: Well no, Rick Wilson, will you come back, you well

492
00:26:29,160 --> 00:26:33,440
Speaker 1: know I will. Gal Beckerman is a writer of The

493
00:26:33,480 --> 00:26:36,719
Speaker 1: Atlant again, the author of How to Be a Dissident. Welcome, Welcome,

494
00:26:36,840 --> 00:26:40,440
Speaker 1: gaw perfect. You are a staff writer of the Atlantic,

495
00:26:40,560 --> 00:26:44,399
Speaker 1: but you also edited book coverage, so you read a

496
00:26:44,560 --> 00:26:48,360
Speaker 1: lot of books, right, and you you came up through

497
00:26:48,440 --> 00:26:51,560
Speaker 1: that and now you have a book, yes, and I

498
00:26:51,680 --> 00:26:55,359
Speaker 1: want you to explain to us the title, what it's about,

499
00:26:55,680 --> 00:26:57,680
Speaker 1: and a little bit about how you got here.

500
00:26:58,000 --> 00:26:58,440
Speaker 4: Of course.

501
00:26:58,680 --> 00:27:02,000
Speaker 5: Well it's called How to Be At And I began

502
00:27:02,359 --> 00:27:04,560
Speaker 5: thinking about this book about a year ago, you know,

503
00:27:04,680 --> 00:27:07,359
Speaker 5: so it's been a very quick process, and it was

504
00:27:07,440 --> 00:27:09,840
Speaker 5: a response to something that I think we all were

505
00:27:09,960 --> 00:27:12,399
Speaker 5: seeing and were a little bit sort of mystified and

506
00:27:12,520 --> 00:27:16,240
Speaker 5: shocked by, which was, you know, how quickly people were folding,

507
00:27:16,520 --> 00:27:22,120
Speaker 5: how quickly people were refusing to refuse in this kind

508
00:27:22,160 --> 00:27:26,000
Speaker 5: of new pseudo authoritarian reality that we were finding ourselves.

509
00:27:26,040 --> 00:27:28,760
Speaker 5: And so, you know, I'm talking about the law firms

510
00:27:28,840 --> 00:27:32,199
Speaker 5: and academia, and you know, people in the federal government

511
00:27:32,280 --> 00:27:35,240
Speaker 5: who were put in positions where they're I believe their

512
00:27:35,320 --> 00:27:39,320
Speaker 5: sort of moral conscience was pricked, but they didn't say no.

513
00:27:39,640 --> 00:27:40,960
Speaker 4: They went along with it.

514
00:27:41,119 --> 00:27:43,879
Speaker 5: And it felt like a very new thing for us

515
00:27:43,920 --> 00:27:46,760
Speaker 5: to be confronting in America, at least for my generation.

516
00:27:46,960 --> 00:27:49,480
Speaker 5: I mean, I'd read about the Macarthy era and I

517
00:27:49,560 --> 00:27:53,040
Speaker 5: could imagine people during the Civil rights moment, you know,

518
00:27:53,520 --> 00:27:56,000
Speaker 5: needing to know how they would respond to the moment,

519
00:27:56,359 --> 00:27:58,960
Speaker 5: and further back I could imagine something like abolition. I

520
00:27:59,040 --> 00:28:01,480
Speaker 5: didn't hadn't really experienced anything like this, and so I

521
00:28:01,600 --> 00:28:04,240
Speaker 5: sort of sat with myself personally and said, well, what

522
00:28:04,320 --> 00:28:06,159
Speaker 5: would I do, Like, what would I do in one

523
00:28:06,200 --> 00:28:09,119
Speaker 5: of these situations? Because you can imagine, you know, it's

524
00:28:09,160 --> 00:28:10,760
Speaker 5: easy to say, well, of course, I know I would

525
00:28:10,800 --> 00:28:13,840
Speaker 5: do the right thing, but there are there's always two sites.

526
00:28:14,000 --> 00:28:16,239
Speaker 5: You know, there's your thinking about your family, about your

527
00:28:16,280 --> 00:28:19,320
Speaker 5: economic well being, about your children, about you know, and

528
00:28:19,400 --> 00:28:21,640
Speaker 5: then you have your sort of conscience on the other

529
00:28:21,760 --> 00:28:24,119
Speaker 5: side of it. So I really felt like this was

530
00:28:24,160 --> 00:28:27,639
Speaker 5: a moment to look at the dissidence because distance is

531
00:28:27,680 --> 00:28:29,680
Speaker 5: a kind of a category of person that I've thought

532
00:28:29,680 --> 00:28:33,120
Speaker 5: about a lot in my writing life, even before this book,

533
00:28:33,520 --> 00:28:35,239
Speaker 5: but I thought I needed to understand them at an

534
00:28:35,280 --> 00:28:38,720
Speaker 5: individual level and really sort of try to dissect, like,

535
00:28:38,800 --> 00:28:40,880
Speaker 5: what are the qualities that makes up such a person?

536
00:28:41,000 --> 00:28:43,719
Speaker 4: Both historically but also right now.

537
00:28:43,800 --> 00:28:45,800
Speaker 5: I mean, all over the world, in other countries and

538
00:28:45,880 --> 00:28:48,840
Speaker 5: situations much worse than our own, there are people who

539
00:28:49,280 --> 00:28:50,719
Speaker 5: have resisted.

540
00:28:50,600 --> 00:28:53,360
Speaker 1: So interesting, So who did you write about and how?

541
00:28:53,880 --> 00:28:56,560
Speaker 5: So I started by thinking about, you know, what are

542
00:28:56,680 --> 00:28:59,040
Speaker 5: the qualities that make of a dissident, and I came

543
00:28:59,160 --> 00:29:02,040
Speaker 5: up with a neat ten of them, and each chapter

544
00:29:02,240 --> 00:29:05,720
Speaker 5: is sort of explores one of these dimensions or facets

545
00:29:05,760 --> 00:29:10,160
Speaker 5: of the dissident, using people or drawing on people from

546
00:29:10,240 --> 00:29:13,080
Speaker 5: a vast range, you know. So I go all the

547
00:29:13,120 --> 00:29:15,600
Speaker 5: way to you know, I have a chapter on humor,

548
00:29:16,000 --> 00:29:17,960
Speaker 5: on the on you know, how a dissident needs to

549
00:29:18,000 --> 00:29:21,520
Speaker 5: be funny and irreverend, and I talk about Diogenes is

550
00:29:21,520 --> 00:29:24,680
Speaker 5: an ancient Greek philosopher who we know less about than

551
00:29:24,800 --> 00:29:27,600
Speaker 5: let's say Plato or Socrates, but basically was like a

552
00:29:27,680 --> 00:29:31,480
Speaker 5: performance artist, forcing people to question aspects of their reality

553
00:29:31,520 --> 00:29:32,920
Speaker 5: that they had taken for granted.

554
00:29:33,320 --> 00:29:34,200
Speaker 4: But I also talk.

555
00:29:34,080 --> 00:29:36,560
Speaker 5: About, you know, a young woman in Tehran who's in

556
00:29:36,640 --> 00:29:41,200
Speaker 5: jail right now, Seppi de Golion, who was challenging authority there,

557
00:29:41,360 --> 00:29:45,400
Speaker 5: challenging the rules around wearing headscarves, and found herself in prison.

558
00:29:45,720 --> 00:29:48,040
Speaker 4: And so I tried to really look at at a

559
00:29:48,120 --> 00:29:48,920
Speaker 4: lot of different people.

560
00:29:48,960 --> 00:29:49,440
Speaker 3: I wanted this.

561
00:29:49,640 --> 00:29:52,160
Speaker 5: I wanted the qualities that I came up with to

562
00:29:52,320 --> 00:29:55,400
Speaker 5: be to feel a little universal. And in order to

563
00:29:55,520 --> 00:29:58,160
Speaker 5: do that, I had to really feel like I was

564
00:29:58,240 --> 00:30:03,160
Speaker 5: dipping into all kinds of different both historical and geographical moments.

565
00:30:03,600 --> 00:30:06,720
Speaker 1: When you wrote this book, you were in that moment,

566
00:30:06,920 --> 00:30:10,600
Speaker 1: that terrible moment, where we were all just shocked at

567
00:30:10,680 --> 00:30:15,040
Speaker 1: how much everyone terrible had caved in ways that were

568
00:30:15,880 --> 00:30:20,120
Speaker 1: almost incomprehensible. We're now a little bit past that, and

569
00:30:20,240 --> 00:30:25,520
Speaker 1: we've seen that, like the elites may be very self protective,

570
00:30:25,640 --> 00:30:30,480
Speaker 1: but the American people are still largely not. They don't

571
00:30:30,560 --> 00:30:34,400
Speaker 1: operate from the same playbook. Make that make sense, Yeah.

572
00:30:34,320 --> 00:30:36,640
Speaker 4: No, absolutely, And I've been really heartened.

573
00:30:36,680 --> 00:30:39,160
Speaker 5: I mean, I've seen what I would call dissident action

574
00:30:39,520 --> 00:30:41,760
Speaker 5: in America, and I would call it dissident just to

575
00:30:41,960 --> 00:30:44,880
Speaker 5: like define what I like when I use the.

576
00:30:44,880 --> 00:30:46,840
Speaker 4: Word dissident when I'm talking about I have a good

577
00:30:47,320 --> 00:30:48,240
Speaker 4: metaphor that I like.

578
00:30:48,400 --> 00:30:50,320
Speaker 5: When I started working on the book, I was sort

579
00:30:50,320 --> 00:30:52,840
Speaker 5: of thinking about, like how to really hit home the

580
00:30:52,920 --> 00:30:55,400
Speaker 5: idea of dissident as I understand it, and it'll connect

581
00:30:55,440 --> 00:30:57,560
Speaker 5: in a minute to like Minneapolis, for example.

582
00:30:57,680 --> 00:30:59,880
Speaker 4: But just to take a step back from.

583
00:30:59,720 --> 00:31:02,120
Speaker 5: A minute, you know that like that image of the

584
00:31:02,240 --> 00:31:05,640
Speaker 5: guy you know in nineteen eighty nine with the tanks

585
00:31:05,680 --> 00:31:08,600
Speaker 5: headed to Tianeman Square and he's standing in front of

586
00:31:08,640 --> 00:31:11,880
Speaker 5: the tanks, so you know, the kind of standard understanding

587
00:31:11,960 --> 00:31:13,960
Speaker 5: of what's going on in that photo is, here is

588
00:31:14,040 --> 00:31:17,200
Speaker 5: a guy who's using his body to block the tanks

589
00:31:17,600 --> 00:31:21,400
Speaker 5: from shutting down the pro democracy protests. But when I

590
00:31:21,440 --> 00:31:23,560
Speaker 5: looked at the photo, I started sort of thinking about

591
00:31:23,600 --> 00:31:26,400
Speaker 5: it differently, and I actually saw a guy who was

592
00:31:26,520 --> 00:31:28,200
Speaker 5: just like on his way home. You know, He's got

593
00:31:28,280 --> 00:31:31,320
Speaker 5: like two grocery bags in his hands. He's on his

594
00:31:31,440 --> 00:31:34,040
Speaker 5: way home from work. He's thinking always going to cook

595
00:31:34,040 --> 00:31:36,280
Speaker 5: for dinner, what music he's going to listen to when

596
00:31:36,320 --> 00:31:38,120
Speaker 5: he gets home, a conversation he's.

597
00:31:38,000 --> 00:31:38,800
Speaker 4: Having with his wife.

598
00:31:39,080 --> 00:31:41,560
Speaker 5: He's just living his life or wanting to live his

599
00:31:41,640 --> 00:31:44,360
Speaker 5: life in a normal way and in his way, or

600
00:31:44,400 --> 00:31:47,800
Speaker 5: suddenly these four tanks, Right, So who is the dissident.

601
00:31:47,920 --> 00:31:50,640
Speaker 5: The dissident is the person who says, I'm not moving.

602
00:31:50,920 --> 00:31:53,640
Speaker 5: You're you're in the way of me living my normal life.

603
00:31:53,960 --> 00:31:55,880
Speaker 4: Right, You're going to have to move.

604
00:31:56,240 --> 00:31:58,680
Speaker 5: I'm not moving out of the way. So, you know,

605
00:31:58,880 --> 00:32:01,920
Speaker 5: to connect that to Menneapolis and what I've seen in America,

606
00:32:02,480 --> 00:32:04,480
Speaker 5: you know, in the last you know, just seven or

607
00:32:04,520 --> 00:32:07,520
Speaker 5: eight months, really remarkable sort of series of events is

608
00:32:07,920 --> 00:32:10,240
Speaker 5: you know, these are people in Minneapolis who were seeing

609
00:32:10,360 --> 00:32:13,400
Speaker 5: things happening to their neighbors who were seeing children who

610
00:32:13,440 --> 00:32:15,680
Speaker 5: were afraid to go to school, People were afraid to

611
00:32:15,760 --> 00:32:18,840
Speaker 5: leave their house, you know, and it felt not normal

612
00:32:18,960 --> 00:32:21,960
Speaker 5: to them. It was political is another way of putting,

613
00:32:22,520 --> 00:32:26,160
Speaker 5: you know, bucklob hovel Bucklob Hovelle the Czech dissident. He

614
00:32:26,320 --> 00:32:29,440
Speaker 5: talks about dissidents starting with the pre political and the

615
00:32:29,480 --> 00:32:32,280
Speaker 5: pre political are all of these sort of conditions of

616
00:32:32,400 --> 00:32:34,440
Speaker 5: life that we take to be sort of normal, Like

617
00:32:34,840 --> 00:32:37,320
Speaker 5: you want to be it's not political to want to

618
00:32:37,360 --> 00:32:41,840
Speaker 5: be a good neighbor. To see somebody being rights thing violated,

619
00:32:41,920 --> 00:32:45,760
Speaker 5: being scared, being abused in some way, that feels wrong.

620
00:32:46,320 --> 00:32:48,800
Speaker 5: And so I think what happened, you know, kind of

621
00:32:48,840 --> 00:32:53,200
Speaker 5: gloriously is that people began acting in dissident ways. They

622
00:32:53,360 --> 00:32:56,560
Speaker 5: began connecting with each other in networks, they began helping

623
00:32:56,600 --> 00:33:01,000
Speaker 5: one another out. These were not like performative signaling, you know,

624
00:33:01,160 --> 00:33:05,000
Speaker 5: big spotlight protest. These were just like a community coming

625
00:33:05,080 --> 00:33:07,600
Speaker 5: together to do the thing that they felt was right

626
00:33:07,760 --> 00:33:10,240
Speaker 5: and actually taking great risks, you know, like the people

627
00:33:10,560 --> 00:33:11,920
Speaker 5: paid with their lives for.

628
00:33:12,040 --> 00:33:13,760
Speaker 4: Doing some of the stuff that was going on there.

629
00:33:14,120 --> 00:33:16,320
Speaker 5: You know, I think similarly of stories i've read of

630
00:33:16,760 --> 00:33:21,320
Speaker 5: people in Springfield, Ohio, like hiding Haitian refugees, you know,

631
00:33:21,400 --> 00:33:22,800
Speaker 5: because they were afraid there was going to be an

632
00:33:22,840 --> 00:33:25,920
Speaker 5: ice crack down there. Even those people have protective status,

633
00:33:26,400 --> 00:33:29,120
Speaker 5: you know, again taking a risk acting in ways that

634
00:33:29,240 --> 00:33:32,560
Speaker 5: I don't remember reading about in America since like you know,

635
00:33:32,600 --> 00:33:35,040
Speaker 5: the underground railroad to you know, to kind of bring

636
00:33:35,120 --> 00:33:37,720
Speaker 5: it back. Like, I think we all have that impulse,

637
00:33:37,800 --> 00:33:40,480
Speaker 5: the impulse that the guy you know, standing in front

638
00:33:40,480 --> 00:33:42,360
Speaker 5: of the tanks had to say, like I'm going to

639
00:33:42,400 --> 00:33:44,880
Speaker 5: live my life and and do what I think is normal,

640
00:33:44,960 --> 00:33:46,640
Speaker 5: and you're getting in my way and I'm not going

641
00:33:46,720 --> 00:33:47,000
Speaker 5: to move.

642
00:33:47,280 --> 00:33:50,360
Speaker 4: But it's a rare few people who actually, you know,

643
00:33:50,520 --> 00:33:51,320
Speaker 4: take that stance.

644
00:33:51,760 --> 00:33:54,360
Speaker 1: Yes, I just want to like do another minute on

645
00:33:54,480 --> 00:33:57,400
Speaker 1: this because I think it's, yeah, so important. Is that,

646
00:33:57,840 --> 00:34:01,880
Speaker 1: like the elites have been so shitty? Is there a

647
00:34:02,000 --> 00:34:02,720
Speaker 1: precedent for that?

648
00:34:03,440 --> 00:34:06,160
Speaker 5: Well, I think the more sort of power and comfort

649
00:34:06,240 --> 00:34:09,400
Speaker 5: you have, the more scared you are of giving up

650
00:34:09,440 --> 00:34:11,320
Speaker 5: power and comfort, right, I mean it's sort of obvious,

651
00:34:11,440 --> 00:34:13,799
Speaker 5: but you know, they I think those folks have a lot,

652
00:34:13,960 --> 00:34:16,799
Speaker 5: they feel they have a lot to lose, right, So.

653
00:34:17,440 --> 00:34:18,759
Speaker 4: I mean we all have a lot to lose when

654
00:34:18,760 --> 00:34:20,440
Speaker 4: we take when you challenge power.

655
00:34:20,600 --> 00:34:20,759
Speaker 3: Right.

656
00:34:20,880 --> 00:34:23,040
Speaker 5: But I think when you're in this position where you

657
00:34:23,160 --> 00:34:27,280
Speaker 5: feel like you I can imagine some of the justifications

658
00:34:27,320 --> 00:34:30,080
Speaker 5: I remember, you know, we've heard them all throughout the

659
00:34:30,160 --> 00:34:33,440
Speaker 5: Trump years. You know, people who are very close and

660
00:34:33,560 --> 00:34:35,680
Speaker 5: even if they have criticisms, they go, well, it's better

661
00:34:35,760 --> 00:34:38,680
Speaker 5: that I be close to the process. Maybe I can

662
00:34:38,880 --> 00:34:40,880
Speaker 5: you know, do something good or make sure that it

663
00:34:40,920 --> 00:34:43,040
Speaker 5: doesn't go even worse than it could go.

664
00:34:43,239 --> 00:34:46,919
Speaker 4: Right, Like, people justify to themselves in all kinds of ways.

665
00:34:46,960 --> 00:34:50,400
Speaker 5: And I think the sort of impulse to conform is

666
00:34:50,440 --> 00:34:52,399
Speaker 5: something that I explore in the book too, because it's

667
00:34:52,400 --> 00:34:53,400
Speaker 5: sort of the backdrop to.

668
00:34:53,440 --> 00:34:54,640
Speaker 4: What it means to be a dissident.

669
00:34:54,880 --> 00:34:58,360
Speaker 5: It's extremely human impulse, right, I mean, like we're not

670
00:34:58,560 --> 00:35:02,000
Speaker 5: really hardwired to to, you know, go against the grain.

671
00:35:02,480 --> 00:35:05,719
Speaker 5: We're we're you know, we're social animals who have species

672
00:35:05,760 --> 00:35:09,279
Speaker 5: have survived because we've sort of been able to get

673
00:35:09,360 --> 00:35:12,440
Speaker 5: along for the most part within our tribes. So you know,

674
00:35:12,520 --> 00:35:14,360
Speaker 5: the decision to say, you know what, I'm going to

675
00:35:14,400 --> 00:35:18,200
Speaker 5: sit apart. The word dissident comes from Latin diysidary, which

676
00:35:18,239 --> 00:35:21,120
Speaker 5: means to sit apart. So I'm going to sit apart.

677
00:35:21,239 --> 00:35:24,520
Speaker 5: I'm going to like make myself alone essentially in some

678
00:35:24,640 --> 00:35:27,799
Speaker 5: of these circumstances and pay the price, you know, because

679
00:35:27,800 --> 00:35:30,040
Speaker 5: they're I mean, there have been consequences for a lot

680
00:35:30,080 --> 00:35:32,359
Speaker 5: of those elites who have done this, right, I mean,

681
00:35:32,960 --> 00:35:35,839
Speaker 5: they've lost their position. Think about senators who have come

682
00:35:35,880 --> 00:35:38,440
Speaker 5: out against Trump, you know, or people who you know

683
00:35:38,680 --> 00:35:41,640
Speaker 5: running in elections who have taken a critical line, you know,

684
00:35:41,760 --> 00:35:44,480
Speaker 5: and been sort of bombarded. You know, there's that there

685
00:35:44,640 --> 00:35:47,680
Speaker 5: are there are consequences, but it's the question of whether

686
00:35:47,760 --> 00:35:50,799
Speaker 5: or not you sort of how you weigh your your

687
00:35:50,880 --> 00:35:53,600
Speaker 5: conscience and the need to listen to your conscious against

688
00:35:53,760 --> 00:35:55,239
Speaker 5: those consequences.

689
00:35:55,640 --> 00:35:58,160
Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, it's just I think so much about

690
00:35:58,239 --> 00:36:02,120
Speaker 1: like my grandfather, Howard Fast, who did in fact that

691
00:36:03,120 --> 00:36:06,360
Speaker 1: was called in front of the House on an American

692
00:36:06,400 --> 00:36:09,759
Speaker 1: Activities and refused to name names. And like with that

693
00:36:09,920 --> 00:36:13,719
Speaker 1: experience with McCarthy, we saw a group get together and

694
00:36:13,840 --> 00:36:18,080
Speaker 1: there were powerful people in that group, and eventually that

695
00:36:18,200 --> 00:36:21,560
Speaker 1: group splintered as the pressure became so much for them.

696
00:36:21,680 --> 00:36:23,920
Speaker 1: And but people like my grandfather went to jail and

697
00:36:24,440 --> 00:36:26,880
Speaker 1: you know the Hollywood ten they went to jail. Yeah,

698
00:36:27,239 --> 00:36:29,759
Speaker 1: And I guess there was that same kind of thing.

699
00:36:30,120 --> 00:36:33,400
Speaker 1: I just wonder if it's worse now. I guess it

700
00:36:33,480 --> 00:36:35,480
Speaker 1: may be the same, because there were a lot of

701
00:36:35,600 --> 00:36:38,839
Speaker 1: people who did that same kind of thing back then.

702
00:36:39,040 --> 00:36:39,680
Speaker 1: I just wonder.

703
00:36:39,920 --> 00:36:42,880
Speaker 5: I'm curious, Molly, when you think about what he did, Like,

704
00:36:43,080 --> 00:36:46,920
Speaker 5: how do you understand his decision to take that stand?

705
00:36:47,200 --> 00:36:50,400
Speaker 1: I think when you read his book, and it like

706
00:36:50,600 --> 00:36:54,160
Speaker 1: jibs from how I remember him as being the patron

707
00:36:54,239 --> 00:36:57,440
Speaker 1: saint of lost causes, and so I think he always

708
00:36:57,480 --> 00:36:59,719
Speaker 1: thought of himself as a person who did that kind

709
00:36:59,719 --> 00:37:02,880
Speaker 1: of thing. So I think that was part of it.

710
00:37:03,040 --> 00:37:05,960
Speaker 1: It's funny because like I think now about the kind

711
00:37:06,000 --> 00:37:10,160
Speaker 1: of position I've had to stake in my own life, Like,

712
00:37:10,320 --> 00:37:12,120
Speaker 1: I don't know. The thing I'm struck by is like

713
00:37:12,200 --> 00:37:14,600
Speaker 1: the period when you wrote this book. Yeah, was that

714
00:37:14,760 --> 00:37:16,920
Speaker 1: period where I mean, not that things are going to

715
00:37:16,960 --> 00:37:19,520
Speaker 1: be okay by these starts of imagination, but like it

716
00:37:19,640 --> 00:37:23,000
Speaker 1: definitely seemed like that during that year that there was

717
00:37:23,280 --> 00:37:26,040
Speaker 1: no it was very hard to see a way out.

718
00:37:26,440 --> 00:37:28,640
Speaker 5: Yeah, I think most of people were overwhelmed. They were

719
00:37:28,680 --> 00:37:32,040
Speaker 5: surprised by the onslaught, right. I think that's a little

720
00:37:32,080 --> 00:37:34,080
Speaker 5: bit like was my impetus with the book, I was like,

721
00:37:34,200 --> 00:37:37,120
Speaker 5: we're not prepared for this, We're not prepared for a moment,

722
00:37:37,280 --> 00:37:39,719
Speaker 5: like we're very far away from your you know, from

723
00:37:39,719 --> 00:37:43,480
Speaker 5: the Blacklist, Like it's we haven't really experienced.

724
00:37:42,840 --> 00:37:43,560
Speaker 4: Anything like this.

725
00:37:43,800 --> 00:37:45,680
Speaker 5: And so I think for a lot of those people,

726
00:37:45,760 --> 00:37:48,840
Speaker 5: they were like scrambling, and their first and their first instinct,

727
00:37:49,000 --> 00:37:50,280
Speaker 5: which was interesting.

728
00:37:50,360 --> 00:37:53,560
Speaker 4: Was to conform, you know, because like that was easier.

729
00:37:53,800 --> 00:37:55,960
Speaker 5: I do think, you know, to your point, like there

730
00:37:56,040 --> 00:37:57,879
Speaker 5: is a kind of a slight tension in my book,

731
00:37:57,920 --> 00:37:59,719
Speaker 5: which is that like I do think that there are

732
00:37:59,719 --> 00:38:02,719
Speaker 5: people who are just kind of like naturally inclined to

733
00:38:02,840 --> 00:38:05,120
Speaker 5: be like this. There are very few, but I quote

734
00:38:05,160 --> 00:38:08,960
Speaker 5: from a Hannah Rent, you know, had this great sort

735
00:38:09,040 --> 00:38:11,719
Speaker 5: of way of understanding, like it was very simple. She

736
00:38:11,880 --> 00:38:14,840
Speaker 5: was like the people in Nazi Germany, who you know,

737
00:38:14,920 --> 00:38:17,920
Speaker 5: the Germans who resisted the Nazis, they asked themselves like

738
00:38:18,000 --> 00:38:19,040
Speaker 5: a very simple question.

739
00:38:19,200 --> 00:38:21,719
Speaker 4: They said can I live with myself? And it wasn't

740
00:38:21,719 --> 00:38:22,200
Speaker 4: about like.

741
00:38:22,480 --> 00:38:24,879
Speaker 5: A set of morals or they were just like can't

742
00:38:24,960 --> 00:38:27,560
Speaker 5: live with myself? Like can I live with a murderer?

743
00:38:27,840 --> 00:38:29,560
Speaker 4: You know? And if the answer is no, they just

744
00:38:29,600 --> 00:38:31,840
Speaker 4: didn't do it. I imagine that for some people.

745
00:38:32,239 --> 00:38:35,760
Speaker 5: It's that simple, and they're willing to face the consequences,

746
00:38:35,800 --> 00:38:38,080
Speaker 5: even a kind of Mark Drum. I mean, think about

747
00:38:38,120 --> 00:38:40,359
Speaker 5: like Alexey Navalny, you know I write about in the book,

748
00:38:40,480 --> 00:38:43,239
Speaker 5: like you know, going back to Russia after he knew

749
00:38:43,280 --> 00:38:45,400
Speaker 5: he was going to be killed. You know, when you

750
00:38:45,480 --> 00:38:47,680
Speaker 5: read his memoir, He's just like what else am I

751
00:38:47,719 --> 00:38:48,360
Speaker 5: supposed to do?

752
00:38:48,640 --> 00:38:48,680
Speaker 1: Like?

753
00:38:49,040 --> 00:38:51,239
Speaker 5: How could I live with myself if I don't go

754
00:38:51,440 --> 00:38:53,680
Speaker 5: back and be with the people who I'm encouraging to

755
00:38:53,840 --> 00:38:54,239
Speaker 5: rise up?

756
00:38:54,400 --> 00:38:56,680
Speaker 4: Like what would that? What kind of person would I?

757
00:38:56,960 --> 00:38:59,000
Speaker 4: So that's sort of but the tension is that, like,

758
00:38:59,200 --> 00:39:00,920
Speaker 4: I know that we're not all like that. I mean

759
00:39:01,000 --> 00:39:03,160
Speaker 4: I'm not like that, you know, like like I would

760
00:39:03,239 --> 00:39:04,960
Speaker 4: like to believe that I could be like that.

761
00:39:05,160 --> 00:39:07,880
Speaker 5: But part of the reason why I wanted to explore

762
00:39:07,960 --> 00:39:10,960
Speaker 5: these people is because they are extremes, Like they are

763
00:39:11,120 --> 00:39:13,960
Speaker 5: these sort of rare extremes that we need to look

764
00:39:14,000 --> 00:39:16,800
Speaker 5: at because I do think moments will come up like

765
00:39:16,920 --> 00:39:19,040
Speaker 5: they did back, you know, a year ago.

766
00:39:19,239 --> 00:39:21,520
Speaker 4: Where we will need to ask ourselves these questions.

767
00:39:21,560 --> 00:39:24,480
Speaker 5: And if we're not sort of trained to decide what

768
00:39:24,600 --> 00:39:27,520
Speaker 5: we do or think about what we might do at

769
00:39:27,520 --> 00:39:30,279
Speaker 5: a certain kind of crossroads or how much willing to

770
00:39:30,320 --> 00:39:33,120
Speaker 5: give up. Then I think our default for most of

771
00:39:33,239 --> 00:39:35,640
Speaker 5: us is going to be, well, let me just save

772
00:39:35,719 --> 00:39:38,880
Speaker 5: my family, let me save myself, let me not make waves,

773
00:39:39,000 --> 00:39:40,560
Speaker 5: let me make sure that I have my job.

774
00:39:41,040 --> 00:39:43,640
Speaker 4: You know, I just think that that is sort of

775
00:39:43,760 --> 00:39:45,600
Speaker 4: what we're more hardwired to do.

776
00:39:46,120 --> 00:39:50,919
Speaker 1: It's funny because it's like I think about how it's

777
00:39:51,040 --> 00:39:54,520
Speaker 1: so much less like you think about Nazi Germany. They

778
00:39:54,560 --> 00:39:58,719
Speaker 1: will literally have death camps where they're killing Jews. I mean,

779
00:39:58,880 --> 00:40:01,319
Speaker 1: I'm doish, so I think, you know, my family came

780
00:40:01,400 --> 00:40:03,839
Speaker 1: over before then, but like I think a lot about

781
00:40:03,880 --> 00:40:08,719
Speaker 1: the camps. And even in the fifties, there was a

782
00:40:08,840 --> 00:40:11,600
Speaker 1: sense that America had been at war. You know, we

783
00:40:11,680 --> 00:40:15,479
Speaker 1: were twenty years from in turning the Japanese, like maybe

784
00:40:15,600 --> 00:40:19,120
Speaker 1: ten years. I mean, we had so much history of

785
00:40:19,320 --> 00:40:23,920
Speaker 1: like oppression and violence, and you know this stuff was

786
00:40:24,000 --> 00:40:27,600
Speaker 1: all like right in the rear view bastward. We are

787
00:40:27,960 --> 00:40:32,040
Speaker 1: many many, many many decades from like a country that

788
00:40:32,320 --> 00:40:35,719
Speaker 1: like jails Japanese people and takes all their stuff. And

789
00:40:36,640 --> 00:40:40,160
Speaker 1: people were still just so hot to give up everything

790
00:40:40,840 --> 00:40:44,440
Speaker 1: because they might like lose a book deal, you know

791
00:40:44,480 --> 00:40:48,279
Speaker 1: what I mean, like just the completely the cravenness of it.

792
00:40:48,400 --> 00:40:51,800
Speaker 1: I think so much about like what we saw with

793
00:40:51,960 --> 00:40:57,560
Speaker 1: the Paramount deal, where we saw like executives just cancel

794
00:40:57,719 --> 00:41:00,080
Speaker 1: shows because they thought it might offend.

795
00:40:59,840 --> 00:41:01,640
Speaker 4: The monarch preemptively.

796
00:41:02,239 --> 00:41:04,759
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's just sort of I mean that it

797
00:41:04,960 --> 00:41:07,000
Speaker 1: just is so embarrassing.

798
00:41:08,680 --> 00:41:09,600
Speaker 4: I mean it is.

799
00:41:09,800 --> 00:41:13,440
Speaker 5: I try to have like a generosity of spirit and

800
00:41:13,680 --> 00:41:17,800
Speaker 5: think like it's embarrassing, but I sadly it happens so often.

801
00:41:18,200 --> 00:41:22,359
Speaker 5: It's so much the like first response in these situations

802
00:41:22,400 --> 00:41:24,480
Speaker 5: that I have to believe that there's something actually deeply

803
00:41:24,640 --> 00:41:27,800
Speaker 5: human about it. But I also think it's deeply human

804
00:41:28,320 --> 00:41:32,000
Speaker 5: to have a conscience and to have these moments of

805
00:41:32,400 --> 00:41:35,239
Speaker 5: what I call sort of moral nausea. You know, where

806
00:41:35,719 --> 00:41:39,040
Speaker 5: you are, you find yourself being forced to do something.

807
00:41:39,440 --> 00:41:41,720
Speaker 5: You know, whether you're an executive at a media company,

808
00:41:42,320 --> 00:41:45,040
Speaker 5: or you know somebody who's a low level person who's

809
00:41:45,120 --> 00:41:47,840
Speaker 5: asked to carry out an action that you don't agree with,

810
00:41:48,400 --> 00:41:50,880
Speaker 5: or somebody who's just opening the newspaper and seeing like

811
00:41:51,160 --> 00:41:53,960
Speaker 5: dead children somewhere, and you know that it's you're somehow

812
00:41:54,360 --> 00:41:57,160
Speaker 5: supporting it with your tax dollars. You know, like you

813
00:41:57,200 --> 00:42:00,680
Speaker 5: you have moral nausea. I speak personally like I wrote

814
00:42:00,680 --> 00:42:03,040
Speaker 5: this book in order to grapple with this idea. Is

815
00:42:03,080 --> 00:42:05,759
Speaker 5: that I think my first impulse, our first impulse, is

816
00:42:05,800 --> 00:42:08,040
Speaker 5: to be like, shove it away, shove it away, like

817
00:42:08,200 --> 00:42:09,520
Speaker 5: I don't want to think about it, because it's going

818
00:42:09,560 --> 00:42:11,480
Speaker 5: to mean I have to do something. And I think

819
00:42:11,960 --> 00:42:14,680
Speaker 5: if I came away from the book with some kind

820
00:42:14,719 --> 00:42:17,200
Speaker 5: of bigger feeling, it wasn't like, oh, now I know

821
00:42:17,320 --> 00:42:19,560
Speaker 5: what to do in every one of these circumstances.

822
00:42:19,680 --> 00:42:20,320
Speaker 3: I know what to do.

823
00:42:20,640 --> 00:42:23,440
Speaker 4: I really don't. But think what it left me with

824
00:42:23,680 --> 00:42:26,840
Speaker 4: was a sense of, like I need to really understand.

825
00:42:26,440 --> 00:42:30,600
Speaker 5: That I have like moral agency, that I have choices

826
00:42:30,719 --> 00:42:33,880
Speaker 5: that I can make, and those choices feel burdensome often

827
00:42:34,360 --> 00:42:35,759
Speaker 5: like what the hell do you do when you see

828
00:42:35,760 --> 00:42:37,120
Speaker 5: those dead children in the newspaper?

829
00:42:37,280 --> 00:42:39,640
Speaker 4: Like how do you respond? But like I need to

830
00:42:39,680 --> 00:42:41,200
Speaker 4: actually lay out the choices.

831
00:42:40,960 --> 00:42:43,279
Speaker 5: In front of me, like even to understand that like

832
00:42:43,480 --> 00:42:45,560
Speaker 5: not choosing is a kind of choice, but to really

833
00:42:45,680 --> 00:42:49,000
Speaker 5: understand that it is in my power. And also, and

834
00:42:49,120 --> 00:42:51,719
Speaker 5: this is sort of a happier thought because this is

835
00:42:51,840 --> 00:42:54,320
Speaker 5: mostly like heavy you know, is that it's not just

836
00:42:54,400 --> 00:42:57,320
Speaker 5: a burden, but it's almost like a there's a creative act.

837
00:42:57,400 --> 00:42:59,920
Speaker 5: I stole this from Jean Paul Sartre the French law.

838
00:43:00,840 --> 00:43:03,080
Speaker 5: It's a creative act to have mo all choice, to

839
00:43:03,200 --> 00:43:07,040
Speaker 5: like build your life through the decisions that you make, right,

840
00:43:07,360 --> 00:43:09,440
Speaker 5: I mean to me, that's the substance from which like

841
00:43:09,560 --> 00:43:11,600
Speaker 5: a meaningful life is made. You know, when you look

842
00:43:11,680 --> 00:43:13,360
Speaker 5: back at your life and you think, like I was

843
00:43:13,400 --> 00:43:15,960
Speaker 5: at that crossroads and I decided to just like keep

844
00:43:16,080 --> 00:43:18,400
Speaker 5: my head down and not do anything because I was

845
00:43:18,480 --> 00:43:20,839
Speaker 5: afraid that I wasn't going to get the book deal.

846
00:43:21,040 --> 00:43:22,600
Speaker 4: Are you going to feel good about the kind of

847
00:43:22,680 --> 00:43:23,479
Speaker 4: life that you lived?

848
00:43:24,000 --> 00:43:27,200
Speaker 1: Yeah, thank you, thank you, thank you all, thank you.

849
00:43:29,920 --> 00:43:29,960
Speaker 4: No.

850
00:43:30,400 --> 00:43:36,239
Speaker 1: No. Rick Wilson, Hey Molly, it is that time. Do

851
00:43:36,280 --> 00:43:37,920
Speaker 1: you know what time? It is the time of fuckery,

852
00:43:38,200 --> 00:43:40,520
Speaker 1: And I'm gonna let you do this fuckery because of

853
00:43:40,760 --> 00:43:46,239
Speaker 1: this is the craziest MAGA who has now become the I.

854
00:43:46,239 --> 00:43:51,400
Speaker 3: Don't know that the late Alex Jones would become a

855
00:43:51,560 --> 00:43:56,480
Speaker 3: woke progressive libtard shill for sword. Are we doing, Matt Listen,

856
00:43:56,600 --> 00:43:58,239
Speaker 3: I don't know, but I thought we could get a

857
00:43:58,320 --> 00:44:02,359
Speaker 3: better grade of ex Maga. But but you know, look,

858
00:44:02,680 --> 00:44:05,040
Speaker 3: this is the clone that replaced Alex Jones after the

859
00:44:05,080 --> 00:44:06,840
Speaker 3: autoerotic asphyxiation accident.

860
00:44:06,920 --> 00:44:08,120
Speaker 1: But that's what the does.

861
00:44:09,040 --> 00:44:13,279
Speaker 3: But Alex Jones is not like completely fireballing Trump now

862
00:44:13,800 --> 00:44:16,719
Speaker 3: and says that Americans should hang their flags upside down,

863
00:44:16,719 --> 00:44:20,480
Speaker 3: which is the universal symbol of distress. I'm like, Alex Jones,

864
00:44:20,840 --> 00:44:23,240
Speaker 3: gay frog, Alex Jones, I'm like Pete.

865
00:44:23,280 --> 00:44:26,640
Speaker 1: Really, this must mean that Alex Jones is getting so

866
00:44:26,960 --> 00:44:31,200
Speaker 1: many messages from people who are like, what the fuck?

867
00:44:31,239 --> 00:44:34,080
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, gases, oh yeah.

868
00:44:34,320 --> 00:44:37,400
Speaker 3: And remember, Jones is a guy. He has that populist

869
00:44:37,600 --> 00:44:40,560
Speaker 3: instinct to listen to people at the grocery store, at

870
00:44:40,560 --> 00:44:42,840
Speaker 3: the gas station, the diner, that kind of thing. And

871
00:44:42,880 --> 00:44:45,040
Speaker 3: I don't think Trump knows or cares any of those

872
00:44:45,080 --> 00:44:47,560
Speaker 3: about what any of those people think. But it's interesting

873
00:44:47,640 --> 00:44:50,680
Speaker 3: how passionate Jones has gotten an absolutely fist to the

874
00:44:50,719 --> 00:44:51,359
Speaker 3: face of Trump.

875
00:44:51,719 --> 00:44:51,919
Speaker 2: Yeah.

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00:44:52,160 --> 00:44:54,920
Speaker 1: Remember, Alex Jones does not operate in a vacuum. He

877
00:44:55,120 --> 00:44:58,800
Speaker 1: is talking to people on the streets. He's getting comments,

878
00:44:58,880 --> 00:45:02,359
Speaker 1: he's getting phone call and he's reflecting those phone calls,

879
00:45:02,440 --> 00:45:05,920
Speaker 1: those emails. The people in Texas near him are saying

880
00:45:06,000 --> 00:45:08,759
Speaker 1: to him, this guy's out of his mind, what the

881
00:45:08,840 --> 00:45:11,800
Speaker 1: fuck is going on because this is not Alex Jones

882
00:45:12,120 --> 00:45:14,800
Speaker 1: talking to the deep State. This is Alex Jones talking

883
00:45:14,920 --> 00:45:16,640
Speaker 1: to Maga bas I.

884
00:45:16,640 --> 00:45:19,440
Speaker 3: Mean, Molly. Let's think about it. In twenty sixteen, Alex

885
00:45:19,560 --> 00:45:22,359
Speaker 3: Jones was the Joe Rogan of twenty sixteen. That's baby

886
00:45:22,560 --> 00:45:25,120
Speaker 3: opened up a lot of people for Trump in sixteen,

887
00:45:25,360 --> 00:45:27,279
Speaker 3: just like Joe Rogan did in twenty four I think

888
00:45:27,360 --> 00:45:29,200
Speaker 3: this betrayal is among the biggest.

889
00:45:29,200 --> 00:45:33,400
Speaker 1: It's bigger than Tucker in my mind, it's so big. Yes, correct,

890
00:45:33,840 --> 00:45:36,719
Speaker 1: it is. It's a seismic shift and it continues on

891
00:45:37,280 --> 00:45:38,680
Speaker 1: lunacy lunacy.

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Speaker 3: All right, my friend, We'll see you next time.

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Speaker 1: Thank you all. That's it for this episode of Fast Politics.

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Speaker 1: Tune in every Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday to hear

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00:45:51,840 --> 00:45:56,000
Speaker 1: the best minds and politics make sense of all this chaos.

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00:45:56,480 --> 00:45:59,279
Speaker 1: If you enjoy this podcast, please send it to a

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00:45:59,400 --> 00:46:03,360
Speaker 1: friend and keep the conversation going. Thanks for listening.