Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics,
Speaker 1: where we discussed the top political headlines with some of
Speaker 1: today's best minds and Trump envoy Steve Wickoff watches Netflix
Speaker 1: documentaries to study world affairs. We have such a great
Speaker 1: show for you today. To the Contrary Newsletter author Charlie
Speaker 1: Sikes stops by to talk to us about Trump's Middle
Speaker 1: East trip and all its chaos. Then we'll talk to
Speaker 1: Congressman Greg Kazar about how Democrats can win back voters.
Speaker 2: But first the news Sabali James Coombe, You and I
Speaker 2: are not two of those people on the Democrats side
Speaker 2: of things who think he's are homie. But now he's
Speaker 2: the victim of a Trump conspiracy theory, which makes me
Speaker 2: almost want to pour out a beer for him. But
Speaker 2: also I'm really having trouble feeling sorry for him.
Speaker 1: James, call me. I don't feel sorry for him at all.
Speaker 1: This is another fake scandal. Well basically he saw an
Speaker 1: Instagram post on the beach. Maybe again. I want to
Speaker 1: point out that James Comy is writing trashy books and
Speaker 1: profiting off of the resistance like being a resistance hero.
Speaker 1: No single person has made more money off of fucking
Speaker 1: up the twenty sixteen election than James Comy. Okay, he
Speaker 1: drops the letter which loses the election for Hillary Clinton. Okay,
Speaker 1: the letter that says we don't know private server might
Speaker 1: open investigation. That letter twenty days or fifteen days before
Speaker 1: the election, completely fucks up the election. Goes on to
Speaker 1: do nothing but get fired, feel disappointed, give long interviews,
Speaker 1: sell his story to CBS where it is made into
Speaker 1: a movie, write numerous best selling books that no one,
Speaker 1: not even him, have read. He should be locked up
Speaker 1: just for that. Okay, So again, fake outrage. They're very
Speaker 1: mad because he said eighty six forty seven, and all
Speaker 1: of the right is saying he was making a threat
Speaker 1: of violence. There's a piece in the Washington Post which
Speaker 1: lists all the times Donald Trump has done the same thing. Whatever.
Speaker 1: The point here is that do not buy James Comy's books.
Speaker 1: Send James Comy to the Hague. You're welcome.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And just to put a fire point on this,
Speaker 2: like I can remember working in bars in the nineties
Speaker 2: and we would eighty six people meaning throw them out,
Speaker 2: Like this is not a new term here, like I
Speaker 2: was saying this thirty years ago.
Speaker 1: Look, this is a fake outrage thing. But there should
Speaker 1: be real outrage because this person is not a real writer.
Speaker 1: Buy books by real writers. Don't buy books by James Comy.
Speaker 1: And by the way, FBI, those guys were always very
Speaker 1: right leaning. It's possible he's threw the entire election to Trump. Well,
Speaker 1: that James call me is why we're all here. So
Speaker 1: let us not even for a minute just say anything
Speaker 1: nice about that guy. The best thing about him is
Speaker 1: that he's tall. You're welcome.
Speaker 2: First they came for James Kobe and I set this
Speaker 2: one up because yeah, yeah, first.
Speaker 1: They came for James Koby, and I was like, send.
Speaker 3: Him to the Hague. Uh.
Speaker 2: So Elon Musk's AI bought Grock very cursed, very very cursed.
Speaker 2: It's now telling everybody about white genocide and that everybody
Speaker 2: thinks they know the province of how this happens.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think I know the province of how this happened,
Speaker 1: all right. So Elon Musk has underwritten a large part
Speaker 1: of this presidency. Right, he gave Trump a gazillion dollars.
Speaker 1: He's the bank roller, he's you know, he was the
Speaker 1: one who was able to pass the cr by saying
Speaker 1: he would primary other Democrats, other Republicans or whatever fund
Speaker 1: primary challenges. My man is very obsessed with South Africa
Speaker 1: and protecting white people in South Africa because he grew
Speaker 1: up in South Africa as a fancy white person. So
Speaker 1: he's trying to program GROC to do things like say
Speaker 1: there is white genocide in South Africa. There isn't white
Speaker 1: genocide South Africa. But again, what is important about this
Speaker 1: is not that it's about white genocide. It's like with
Speaker 1: the birthright citizenship. This is the Canarian the coal mine right.
Speaker 1: I mean, obviously birthright citizens will get into that later.
Speaker 1: I hope that's on the topics. Should we just go
Speaker 1: into birthright citizenship right now?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Okay. So the point is Grock is if you start
Speaker 1: messing with what is true and what is not true
Speaker 1: when you open the door to AI, I think you're
Speaker 1: gonna have a lot of problems, right, because some things
Speaker 1: are objectively true. And even if we live in this
Speaker 1: sort of post truth era where you have people you know,
Speaker 1: you have Trump saying that the guy was a gang
Speaker 1: member that had MS thirteen tattoos, even though they were
Speaker 1: clearly photoshop. Even if you are in a post truth era,
Speaker 1: even then you feed AI post truth, you're going to
Speaker 1: get AI filled with lies. And since there is no
Speaker 1: fact check on the internet, because why would there be,
Speaker 1: we are really like on our way down the rabbit
Speaker 1: hole of like a post post post truth, where it's
Speaker 1: impossible to know what is real and what is fake.
Speaker 3: Yeah, speaking of this very cursed.
Speaker 1: Trial of birthright citizenship.
Speaker 3: Yes, the discourse around it, you'll be shocked to hear,
Speaker 3: is not good.
Speaker 1: They're mad at what amy Cony Barrett said during this
Speaker 1: birthright citizenship oral argument, which was not about birthright citizenship.
Speaker 1: It was actually about a president being able to overrule
Speaker 1: judicial decisions. So again you think it's about birthright citizenship,
Speaker 1: but it's really about who has more power than judiciary
Speaker 1: or the president. And Emy Barrett, I guess she was
Speaker 1: indifficiently maga.
Speaker 2: She seemed to be to I roll one of the
Speaker 2: lawyer's arguments, and even just as Cavadol was like, dude,
Speaker 2: you gotta help me more if you want to overturn this,
Speaker 2: like he really seemed like come on, man. Yeah, So
Speaker 2: the discourse around this has been extremely cursed. As per usual,
Speaker 2: one Raphael ted Cruise has weight in You will remember
Speaker 2: him as someone who was not born in America, and
Speaker 2: as usual with him, it's do as he says, not
Speaker 2: as he's done.
Speaker 4: Let's listen are the argument is here, that is the
Speaker 4: absolute heart of the argument, and I think birthright citizenship
Speaker 4: is terrible policy. It is right now current US law
Speaker 4: before the Trump executive order, that if an illegal alien
Speaker 4: is here and she gives birth to a child, that
Speaker 4: baby is instantaneously a US citizen. The problem is that's
Speaker 4: an incredible magnet for illegal immigration. You see people crossing
Speaker 4: the Southern border. You see pregnant women crossing the Southern
Speaker 4: border explicitly to give birth in America. So there baby
Speaker 4: can be an American citizen. We also have this phenomenon
Speaker 4: called birth tourism.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is very stupid. First of all, again this
Speaker 1: is not about birthright citizenship. I mean there are two
Speaker 1: things going on here. One is ken Donald Trump edit
Speaker 1: the Constitution with executive orders. He cannot, So that is
Speaker 1: not how any of this is supposed to work, number one.
Speaker 1: And then number two is can he overrule judicial orders?
Speaker 1: And he can't. So this is like one of these
Speaker 1: things where I think you get Alito and Thomas because
Speaker 1: they are basically Fox News hosts, so you'll have the
Speaker 1: two of them be like, yes, Orange Man, good retweet
Speaker 1: if truth. But everyone else who has a working cerebral
Speaker 1: cortex is going to be like no, no, no, you
Speaker 1: can't edit the constitution. So again, lion, Ted is going
Speaker 1: to birthright citizenship being a terrible policy, doesn't matter, right,
Speaker 1: It's in the Constitution. I don't think the Second Amendment
Speaker 1: is great, but it's not how any of this works.
Speaker 1: So sorry, buddy, you don't get to do that. And also,
Speaker 1: by the way, just to point out, we are like
Speaker 1: in the middle of a population crisis. Nobody is coming here.
Speaker 1: The southern border is pretty quiet. I mean it just
Speaker 1: this is like a made up crisis and a made
Speaker 1: up this and a made up that, and no one
Speaker 1: should be surprised because this is just they have one
Speaker 1: sort of thing that they're excited about and this is
Speaker 1: what they keep doing. So you know, I mean, I
Speaker 1: just all I can say is I'm very impressed with
Speaker 1: Ted Cruz's facial. Charlie Sykes is the author of To
Speaker 1: the Contrary and the book How the Right Lost Its Mind.
Speaker 1: Welcome Charlie Sykes, Welcome, Welcome.
Speaker 5: Well, I just want to come along with this journey, Molly,
Speaker 5: I mean, what are we going to talk about this week?
Speaker 5: I feel like, you know, everything that could possibly be
Speaker 5: said has been said, but I'm willing to do it anyway.
Speaker 1: Yes and yes, and it is an exhausting moment for
Speaker 1: American punditry.
Speaker 3: Do you think so?
Speaker 1: I think so. But you know, here's the thing. The
Speaker 1: one bright spot in my mind is Planegate.
Speaker 5: Oh I can't get enough of that. I can't get
Speaker 5: an I actually did a podcast with David from and
Speaker 5: we walked through, you know what a total scam. The
Speaker 5: whole thing is how Donald Trump has basically been duped
Speaker 5: because the Guitaris had to off load this white Altin
Speaker 5: that's been sitting around since twenty twelve. They've been trying
Speaker 5: to spell this thing. Nobody's gonna buy it. They couldn't
Speaker 5: sell the other plane, so they had to give it
Speaker 5: away to the President of Turkey, and people like five
Speaker 5: years ago were speculating, what are they gonna do with
Speaker 5: this thing? They're probably gonna have to find somebody else
Speaker 5: to give it to. Sure enough, who comes along, Donald Trump?
Speaker 5: You know you get I get a gaudy plane for free,
Speaker 5: which is not for free, obviously.
Speaker 1: I'm telling you that is so Erdawan has the other one.
Speaker 5: Yeah, that's right. He apparently got the gaudy plus one.
Speaker 5: So Trump's gonna have to, like, you know, find a
Speaker 5: way to make this you know, Vegas in the sky
Speaker 5: even more tasteless than Ertiwan's plane.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, but the fact that Erduwan got the better
Speaker 1: plane and that Trump is getting the less good version
Speaker 1: of the President of Turkey. It's not even like the
Speaker 1: President of China, where it's like, Okay, this is an
Speaker 1: economy that's like America, humongas whatever. But Turkey, I mean,
Speaker 1: it's a sad footnote and what is otherwise a preposterous,
Speaker 1: completely self created scandal.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's it's preposterous and it's incredibly brazen, particularly when
Speaker 5: people start to realize that the free plane will probably
Speaker 5: cost American taxpayers a billion dollars to retro fit to
Speaker 5: Air Force one, and then Donald Trump takes it with
Speaker 5: him when he leaves the presidency, which means we're going
Speaker 5: to need more air Force ones. We're going to have
Speaker 5: to pay not only the retro fit the fancy white
Speaker 5: Elephant air Force one, the Katari Air Force one. We're
Speaker 5: going to have to have other Air Force one. This
Speaker 5: thing is going to be one of the biggest boondoggles
Speaker 5: white elephants in American history. And Donald Trump just owns
Speaker 5: it from Stem distern.
Speaker 1: And again, like if you look back, So we're like
Speaker 1: one hundred and twenty five days into this second presidency
Speaker 1: of Donald J. Trump, it's been a sort of slow
Speaker 1: roll again of self created crisis, is right. We had
Speaker 1: trade war with China, which is still bubbling under the surface.
Speaker 1: We have the plane we have I think the I
Speaker 1: think the crisis that is right around the corner. Besides
Speaker 1: the China tariffs, we saw Walmart as planning to raise prices.
Speaker 1: Walmart is everywhere. If you live in America, you shop
Speaker 1: at Walmart. It's something like some huge percentage of American
Speaker 1: shop at Walmart. So everyone in the world is going
Speaker 1: to feel this. American people hate inflation. They were biden
Speaker 1: because of eggs. Think about how mad they're going to
Speaker 1: be when they go to Walmart and everything is twenty
Speaker 1: percent thirty I mean the tariff is thirty percent right now.
Speaker 5: Could be problematic, could.
Speaker 1: Yes, But I think that what's coming down the pike
Speaker 1: is one big beautiful bill.
Speaker 5: Well yeah, I mean there's some other crises coming, like
Speaker 5: maybe the measles epidemic and planes falling out of the
Speaker 5: air because the Secretary of Transportation is too dumb to
Speaker 5: know what to do about it. But yes, the big
Speaker 5: beautiful bill, which really, when you think about it, is
Speaker 5: you know, if you really wanted to put together a
Speaker 5: tax package and you wanted to come up with the
Speaker 5: worst possible way of doing it, They've nailed it. They
Speaker 5: really have. With all the fiscal cliffs, all the favors,
Speaker 5: all the things that expire, the fact that it's going
Speaker 5: to blow up the deficit. And yet look, let's not
Speaker 5: engage in irrational exuberance. He's going to get the thing passed.
Speaker 5: All these all these stories about the hard liners are,
Speaker 5: you know, taking a stand. You know what, what Republican
Speaker 5: hardliners do, the same thing as republic Can moderates do.
Speaker 5: They always fucking cave in the end. Always he is
Speaker 5: going to get it passed.
Speaker 1: I don't know what that looks like. And remember, it'll
Speaker 1: be a totally different bill when it comes out of
Speaker 1: the Senate. But I would like to talk about one
Speaker 1: Chip Roy. You will remember Chip Roy as being impossibly woke.
Speaker 1: Chip Roy said, and again, like out of the mouths
Speaker 1: of Chip Roy. I'm going to give you this one
Speaker 1: because I feel like this is an important bit. This
Speaker 1: is something he tweeted yesterday. Spending cuts that don't cut
Speaker 1: in for four years seems awfully specific.
Speaker 5: Of course, it's very specific. It's very cynical. It's like
Speaker 5: they're basically trying to set it up for twenty twenty
Speaker 5: eight so that JD. Vans or whoever is running, can
Speaker 5: go to his buddies and say, you know, if I
Speaker 5: don't get elected, all these sweet deals, all these tax
Speaker 5: cuts just go away. Yeah, these socialist Democrats are going
Speaker 5: to take away all your goodies. So they've set it up.
Speaker 5: The problem is create all these fiscal cliffs, all of
Speaker 5: this uncertainty. But these guys are looking No nobody's ever
Speaker 5: confused them with rocket scientists.
Speaker 1: But again, nobody's ever confused them with rocket scientists. They
Speaker 1: are taking away stuff from the American people. And yet,
Speaker 1: and I say this, as you know, what's side of
Speaker 1: the aisle I'm on, Democrats are having a very tough
Speaker 1: time messaging this. How is this possible?
Speaker 5: I can't believe that I'm going to be on the
Speaker 5: opposite side of this question, because the fact is that,
Speaker 5: And I agree with Karen Tummlety from the Washington Post
Speaker 5: who describes the way they both like a lot, Yeah,
Speaker 5: very much. You know, I've been around a long time,
Speaker 5: and she calls it a masterclass of resistance. The way
Speaker 5: the Democrats in fact are handling the Medicaid cuts. They
Speaker 5: keep putting up amendments, they keep getting Republicans on the
Speaker 5: record on this issue. They've been pounding it. So this
Speaker 5: is one of those rare moments where I think that
Speaker 5: they're doing probably what they should be doing. And of
Speaker 5: course all of the is kind of the preseason because
Speaker 5: once they pass this bill, once they in fact do
Speaker 5: you know, slash Medicaid, then they own it. They have
Speaker 5: to live with it, and we see the consequences. And
Speaker 5: one of the things we've seen is the fact that
Speaker 5: a lot of these policies may poll well until they
Speaker 5: become specific, until we put a human face on them,
Speaker 5: until we see all the downstream effects. And there will
Speaker 5: be downstream effects when you toss millions of people off
Speaker 5: of their healthcare. So well, I mean, I'll agree with
Speaker 5: you to this point that if the Democrats can't message
Speaker 5: all of this stuff, they really ought to find a
Speaker 5: different line of work. They all ought to become Walmart greeters,
Speaker 5: starting with Chuck Schumber.
Speaker 1: It's too expensive. I think that's a really good point.
Speaker 1: What you're saying though about Medicaid. Medicare these cuts what
Speaker 1: they will mean? And again, they don't pall well. Cutting
Speaker 1: them doesn't pall well. It polls well, but it doesn't.
Speaker 1: It's not popular. And then what is going to happen
Speaker 1: is you're going to see rural hospitals close and nursing homes.
Speaker 1: So Grandma comes to live with you because the nursing
Speaker 1: home closed. You have a car accident and you have
Speaker 1: to drive three hours to a hospital. I mean, you're
Speaker 1: going to have story after story for that. Now here's
Speaker 1: the question. Donald Trump with the tariffs. Okay, so had
Speaker 1: these huge traffs with China. The TikTok the Wall Street Journal,
Speaker 1: there was a really good TikTok about this. Maybe was
Speaker 1: the Washington Post. I think it was a Wall Street Journal, right,
Speaker 1: really good TikTok of how they got him to back down,
Speaker 1: which was basically they were like, you're hurting your people.
Speaker 1: Now it's the tariffs with China are still the highest
Speaker 1: they've been since World War two or some crazy I
Speaker 1: mean they're not They're humendously high. They don't shut off China, right,
Speaker 1: they just make China more expensive. And they're going to
Speaker 1: have huge inflationary effects because they will, there's no way,
Speaker 1: and I think those effects are coming down the pike.
Speaker 1: We haven't seen it yet, clearly because the markets are rallying,
Speaker 1: so we haven't seen it. But we did see consumer
Speaker 1: confidence today way down big right, and consumer confidence like
Speaker 1: that in itself can get you into recession. So the
Speaker 1: question is, really, as we are walking through this, is
Speaker 1: there a world in which he's medicaid cuts. These are
Speaker 1: cuts to red states. A lot of Red states are
Speaker 1: going to feel the hospitals and nursing homes. So do
Speaker 1: these members vote for this anyway? And does Donald Trump
Speaker 1: sign it anyway knowing because remember he cares about his people,
Speaker 1: So does he sign it anyway or does he? I mean,
Speaker 1: this will be a straight line between Trump your rural
Speaker 1: hospital closing.
Speaker 5: Yeah, they will vote for and he will sign it,
Speaker 5: and then he will come out and say this is
Speaker 5: a big, beautiful bill and it's a huge win and
Speaker 5: everybody is going to be better off because Donald Trump
Speaker 5: doesn't care about the substance of a policy. He only
Speaker 5: cares about how he can market it, and he feels
Speaker 5: that he can sell any shits in which is Filet
Speaker 5: Mignon understand that the superpower. Also, I'm not sure this
Speaker 5: is directly in response to this, but sometimes I feel
Speaker 5: like we're watching the wrong movie. We think that Donald
Speaker 5: Trump is doing one thing, when in fact he's doing another.
Speaker 5: So I start trying to write a piece about about,
Speaker 5: you know, Elon Musk and what a complete fraud Doge was.
Speaker 5: We're finding out now that you know, despite all the chainsaw,
Speaker 5: all the performative slashing and cutting and frankly, you know
Speaker 5: a lot of the damage that he's done, and it
Speaker 5: is in fact dangerous, but it didn't actually cut much
Speaker 5: government spending. And I mentioned this to some smarter person
Speaker 5: than me, and he said, yeah, but that you know,
Speaker 5: why do you think that that's what Doge was really
Speaker 5: all about? Assume that Elon Musk is still a savvy guy.
Speaker 5: So while we're all focused on these cuts and these layoffs,
Speaker 5: what Elon Musk was doing was gutting all the regulatory
Speaker 5: agencies that might have held him accountable, the SEC, any
Speaker 5: of these other organizations. He's basically feathering his nests. And
Speaker 5: the same thing with Donald Trump. You know, we think
Speaker 5: that Donald Trump is focused on the big beautiful bill. Look,
Speaker 5: donald Trump was in the Middle East last week, basically
Speaker 5: just coining money, you know, taking care of, as David
Speaker 5: Frum says, taking care of his retirement fund. So the
Speaker 5: mistake with Donald Trump is ever to think that he's
Speaker 5: serious about public policy. Now, what you're saying is that
Speaker 5: he might think that the optics were so terrible that
Speaker 5: he wouldn't sign. He's definitely going to sign that big
Speaker 5: beautiful bill because he has to. Failure is not an
Speaker 5: option for him. But right now I think that what
Speaker 5: Donald Trump is doing is, you know, Donald Trump is
Speaker 5: rigging the government and the world economy for the benefit
Speaker 5: of Donald Trump. He is not lying awaken night worrying
Speaker 5: about grandma in a rural hospital. He give a shit
Speaker 5: about that. So the movie here is not Donald Trump's
Speaker 5: economic plans. It's Donald Trump really doing his business the
Speaker 5: way he thinks it should be done. For Trump, it's
Speaker 5: just a matter of being able to declare a win.
Speaker 5: So say, let's take this China thing that we're talking about.
Speaker 5: Thirty percent tariffs are stunningly high. The only reason the
Speaker 5: markets are going, oh my god, what a relief is
Speaker 5: because they're not high compared to one hundred and forty
Speaker 5: five percent, right.
Speaker 1: Which is really no more in China.
Speaker 5: So Donald Trump lit this, you know, the entire forest
Speaker 5: on fire, came in, put out a portion of it.
Speaker 5: The woods are still on fire. But people are going, well, okay,
Speaker 5: that's not so bad. But it is going to be inflationary.
Speaker 5: It is going to happen effect. But Donald Trump believes
Speaker 5: that all he has to do is say CI won.
Speaker 5: He loses to China, right, he blinks. But as long
Speaker 5: as he can declare to win, he's going to be
Speaker 5: happy and just take that, you know, one after another.
Speaker 5: It doesn't matter what actually happens in the real world.
Speaker 5: Donald Trump believes that he can sell it.
Speaker 1: So is that post truth?
Speaker 5: Yeah, oh very much. It's post truth. It's post shame,
Speaker 5: it's post accountability, it's post rule of law, it's post ethics,
Speaker 5: it's post every one of those things.
Speaker 1: So the bill passes, they start kicking people off, you know,
Speaker 1: rural hospitals. This kind of stuff happens. We cruise into
Speaker 1: the mid term with Democrats poise to win. What happens.
Speaker 1: I mean, I mean, do you think that's just how
Speaker 1: it goes, or do you think that.
Speaker 5: There is Yeah, probably, Yeah.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about Elon Musk and Doge. So clearly Doge
Speaker 1: has done something because now we're starting to have really
Speaker 1: bad problems with our faa.
Speaker 5: Oh my god, it's terrifying.
Speaker 1: But again, like this is the thing about Doge, which
Speaker 1: I think is so brilliant, is that no one really
Speaker 1: knows what the fuck they did in there right.
Speaker 5: Right, except that it didn't actually shrink the size of
Speaker 5: government or deficit or any of those things. No, there
Speaker 5: are really still potentials for terrible things. I mean, going
Speaker 5: to the summer that if the national parks are a disaster,
Speaker 5: that has consequences, If planes start falling out of the sky,
Speaker 5: that has consequences, And there are all sorts of other
Speaker 5: things that we don't fully understand because he didn't care
Speaker 5: about them. So yeah, that's all a possibility. But Elon Musk,
Speaker 5: I think has generally gotten what he wanted out of
Speaker 5: all of this. He's continuing to I mean, the fact
Speaker 5: that they just this may seem so small, but what's
Speaker 5: going on at the Library of Congress is so bizarre.
Speaker 5: They fired the Librarian of Congress and then the head
Speaker 5: of the Copyright Office.
Speaker 1: Why because she was black?
Speaker 5: Well yes, well okay, but the Copyright Office firing takes
Speaker 5: place like the week after they issue this detailed report
Speaker 5: that pushes back on Elon Musk's position on AI. So,
Speaker 5: I mean, he has his own agenda and he's making
Speaker 5: sure that he's taken out everybody is doing it. So,
Speaker 5: but by the way, can we talk about this as
Speaker 5: the weirdest story of the day. I mean, there are
Speaker 5: so many weird stories of the day.
Speaker 1: Yes, please, I want a weird story. Let's go.
Speaker 5: When I first heard this, I thought, okay, this is
Speaker 5: a misunderstanding. It's a misreport. It's a parody of some guy.
Speaker 5: Christy Nome actually wants to have a Hunger Games type
Speaker 5: TV show where migrants compete on the air for citizenship.
Speaker 5: And it's one of those where you have to read
Speaker 5: it a couple of times and go, Okay, this cannot
Speaker 5: be true, right, Can Homeland Security Barbie actually have come
Speaker 5: up with something like this? At this point, nothing is
Speaker 5: beyond parody. If she was proposing a TV show where
Speaker 5: people competed with who can shoot the puppy, you know,
Speaker 5: in the face of the first I no longer would
Speaker 5: be genuinely shocked by it. But this is a real story.
Speaker 5: So these people, honestly, for all the problems they've been having,
Speaker 5: there's no sense whatsoever that they're back on their heel
Speaker 5: or that they think that they've gone too far, or
Speaker 5: that perhaps they ought to rain things. And you know,
Speaker 5: people like, why.
Speaker 1: Do you think that is? I mean, clearly, Christy nom
Speaker 1: wants to be famous and that's it, right, don't stop.
Speaker 1: She doesn't care why she's famous, just wants me famous,
Speaker 1: wants to make money. I mean obviously that you don't
Speaker 1: have a fifty four page deck for a reality show
Speaker 1: or a thirty seven page deck for reality show. Hell,
Speaker 1: if you're not pretty convincing you want to So she
Speaker 1: wants me famous. But what's the end goal? I mean,
Speaker 1: I think a lot of these people just want to
Speaker 1: make money and be famous, right.
Speaker 5: Yeah, right, and then and be powerful and be influential. Now,
Speaker 5: Stephen Miller does have an end goal, which is which
Speaker 5: is deeply ugly. I just have the sense that the
Speaker 5: hubris in this administration is getting more and more intense.
Speaker 5: Now that's the bad news is that they are you
Speaker 5: know at ramming speed. The good news is the story
Speaker 5: of Hubris seldom ends well when you fly too close
Speaker 5: to the sum When Stephen Miller comes rolling out last
Speaker 5: weekend and say we're thinking of yeah exactly, it's like
Speaker 5: he thinks and all these stories now saying he's the
Speaker 5: President's ID, that nobody else has as much cloud as
Speaker 5: he does. I don't know how Donald Trump, you know,
Speaker 5: reacts to that that.
Speaker 1: He's running the DOJ. Did you see that story?
Speaker 6: Yes?
Speaker 5: And you know, isn't that isn't that remarkable? But not
Speaker 5: a total shock that the Fox News hosts chosen by
Speaker 5: Trump are merely figureheads, right, They're the people there's the
Speaker 5: talking head you put on TV. They don't actually like
Speaker 5: do shit? So who does shit? I mean some of
Speaker 5: these evil humunculuses, like Stephen Miller.
Speaker 1: But it is amazing to me that there was some
Speaker 1: report in the reporting of the James Comy eighty six
Speaker 1: forty seven, that whole crisis that they got cash Fatel,
Speaker 1: because like cash Fattel has been curiously absent from the discourse.
Speaker 5: Yes, but not the discothechts, So I'm certainly not doing that. Well, Okay,
Speaker 5: what's hilarious about this whole you know, eighty six forty
Speaker 5: seven thing is now people are coming up with all
Speaker 5: sorts of times when Maga folks were saying, you know,
Speaker 5: eighty six forty six, or they were actually marketing merch,
Speaker 5: you know, with eighty six, because as many people know,
Speaker 5: eighty six does not necessarily mean kill them. It means,
Speaker 5: you know, to get rid of them, or means take
Speaker 5: it off the menu or whatever. So some of the
Speaker 5: delicious stuff on social media will be actually putting tweets
Speaker 5: side by side of a Maga folk, somebody in Maga saying,
Speaker 5: you know, we should eighty six Biden, and then right
Speaker 5: next to it, oh my god, Jim Comy is calling
Speaker 5: for the assassination of Donald Trump for saying the exact same.
Speaker 5: I mean, you know, it's just it's all performative bullshit
Speaker 5: at this point.
Speaker 1: Charlie Sikes, thank you for joining us.
Speaker 5: Thank you. I cannot wait to read your book, Molly,
Speaker 5: I cannot wait to read your book.
Speaker 1: Congressman Greg Kazar represents Texas's thirty fifth congressional district. Welcome
Speaker 1: to Fast Politics, Representative Kazar, thanks so much for having
Speaker 1: me a new Ish member of Congress.
Speaker 6: That's right here, a few months into my second term.
Speaker 1: You have already sort of emerged as a star. You're
Speaker 1: the head of the Progressive Caucus, and you have been
Speaker 1: going around with AOC and Bernie, but also with other people.
Speaker 1: So I want you to talk to me about how
Speaker 1: you've found it since you've been in Congress, and how
Speaker 1: you've kind of found your voice.
Speaker 6: Well, what's happening in the world and what's happening in
Speaker 6: the country is crazy. It's just awful if you really
Speaker 6: take in what the Trump administration is doing to our
Speaker 6: government and to people in our country any given day.
Speaker 6: But when you ask me how I've found Congress, you know,
Speaker 6: I go into these committee meetings and people aren't really
Speaker 6: debating policy or how to make the country better. It's
Speaker 6: not like I'm having a reasoned debate with my Republican colleagues.
Speaker 6: They're just they're ramming through healthcare cuts. They're just there
Speaker 6: ramming through billionaire tax cuts, and then they say whatever
Speaker 6: words it is they have to say around it. And
Speaker 6: so I've recognized how important it is for us to
Speaker 6: go out there and speak to the country and organize
Speaker 6: the country and mobilize people if we want to stop
Speaker 6: what's happening in Congress. The horrible thing's happening in Congress.
Speaker 6: And so you know, I can go to a committee
Speaker 6: meeting and argue with chairwomen of my subcommittee, Marjorie Taylor Green,
Speaker 6: till I'm blue in the face.
Speaker 1: Is that doj Is that this committee we're talking about?
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 6: But you know when the report came out whatever that
Speaker 6: was a week and a half ago, that the Republican
Speaker 6: plan was going to kick nearly ten million people off
Speaker 6: of their healthcare and just one with just one vote
Speaker 6: from the Republicans. Chairwoman of the Committee on DOGE, Marjorie
Speaker 6: Taylor Green called a hearing on trans fencing, not like
Speaker 6: the fences around a building, but like the sport with
Speaker 6: the swords. And while I'm sure fencing is a great sport,
Speaker 6: I've never met a fencer. You know, there's less than
Speaker 6: one thousands collegiate fencers in America. There's less than ten
Speaker 6: trans collegiate athletes in all of American college sports. And
Speaker 6: so while I'm in Congress, that's what Marjorie Taylor Green
Speaker 6: wants to have hearings about. That's what she wants headlines about.
Speaker 6: And if we want to beat that, it's so important
Speaker 6: to go out into public and go and do rallies
Speaker 6: with AOC and Bernie, but also I'm on Fox News
Speaker 6: and on Univision with the exact same message, which is,
Speaker 6: we want to make your life better. We want to
Speaker 6: not just protect healthcare but expand it. And we could
Speaker 6: do that if we're willing to stand up to the
Speaker 6: billionaires that are stealing your taxpayer dollars and screwing you
Speaker 6: over every single day here in the government. And that
Speaker 6: kind of message I think should be at the heart
Speaker 6: of a new progressive message of the Democratic Party's new
Speaker 6: message to people to say, look, this is crazy, and
Speaker 6: we can unite more people if against this, if we
Speaker 6: go and get folks stirred up, because the vast majority
Speaker 6: of Republican voters and Trump voters don't believe that we
Speaker 6: should be kicking millions of people off their healthcare all
Speaker 6: to give some Republican billionaire donors a bigger tax cut.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so I'm like very agitated. My new hobby horse
Speaker 1: come with me is Democrats who speak like thep you know,
Speaker 1: like from the show Weep Right. They speak in this
Speaker 1: sort of like you gotta bring the amer and the
Speaker 1: CA and then you have America right where they say
Speaker 1: stuff that doesn't mean anything, and you think, I'm so
Speaker 1: bored that I will do anything to get off of
Speaker 1: this interview. You don't talk like that. Do you see
Speaker 1: that people actually respond to it? And can you talk
Speaker 1: to other Democrats and make them talk normally.
Speaker 6: I'm new to Congress, and so it means that there
Speaker 6: are things that I don't know right because I'm new here.
Speaker 6: But it also means that when I see something weird
Speaker 6: that everybody treats as normal, I'm like, that's really weird.
Speaker 6: And I'm in some of these rooms and have been here,
Speaker 6: you know, as a newer member where we get sat
Speaker 6: down dozens and dozens of members of Congress on the
Speaker 6: Democratic side, and we're showing a slideshow and it says
Speaker 6: things like say these specific words defend social security. Just
Speaker 6: say it, and ninety percent of voters agree, But nobody
Speaker 6: asks themselves, like you just said, Molly, what if nobody
Speaker 6: hears you? What if you're totally tuned out? What if
Speaker 6: that tree falls in the forest and nobody cares? Who
Speaker 6: are so focused on saying the magic words instead of
Speaker 6: actually connecting with people and saying, isn't it freaking nuts?
Speaker 6: That they're talking about game years off of Social Security,
Speaker 6: taking your mom, your grandmother off of Social Security while
Speaker 6: they get a bigger tax gut And isn't it crazy.
Speaker 6: I didn't even know this fully until I was in
Speaker 6: Congress that if you're Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos, you
Speaker 6: don't pay into Social Security every paycheck they pay in
Speaker 6: like three days and then they're done because there's like
Speaker 6: a special carve out for gajillionaires on Social Security. What like,
Speaker 6: we could pull every senior in the country out of poverty.
Speaker 6: You could have every young person that has to support
Speaker 6: some of their just tax the res if you just literally,
Speaker 6: if we just tax Jeff Bezos, Yeah, you could make
Speaker 6: it so that tons more folks could just support themselves
Speaker 6: and pay their own ment or mortgage instead of having
Speaker 6: to support themselves and their parents who work their entire lives.
Speaker 6: And just connecting with people a little more authentically in
Speaker 6: that way has big results. But I think it also
Speaker 6: requires that we're willing to call out a villain so
Speaker 6: that people are interested in our story instead of sounding
Speaker 6: like we're just policy wonks and like Harvard moot court,
Speaker 6: because like, yeah, that turns people off.
Speaker 1: I have a friend who's a member of Congress who
Speaker 1: I love, and I saw this person. I'm not going
Speaker 1: to say what gender they are because I don't want
Speaker 1: to give it away. I saw this person the other
Speaker 1: day and I said, how you doing? And this person
Speaker 1: was like, I am not fucking getting what I deserve
Speaker 1: in leadership world because the older people are keeping me
Speaker 1: out of it. Are you seeing that? And why is
Speaker 1: that happening?
Speaker 6: Well, you know, there's this long established seniority system in Congress,
Speaker 6: and it exists for a variety of reasons, and I
Speaker 6: think that it's kind of served out. It's most of
Speaker 6: its usefulness where people just like anybody else, and folks
Speaker 6: have been like when I came in, the rule was
Speaker 6: once I've been here twenty years, then I get a
Speaker 6: certain amount of influence. And now I've been here eighteen
Speaker 6: years and you're changing the rules on me last minute.
Speaker 6: And the answer is kind of that's what's happening, and
Speaker 6: it's going to be better for everybody. And there are
Speaker 6: some folks that have been here twenty and thirty years
Speaker 6: that are much older than me, that are actually bought
Speaker 6: on and have more energy than I do.
Speaker 1: On Nancy Pelosi, she could run circles around me, you know.
Speaker 6: So, Look, it isn't that we should pick it by
Speaker 6: age one way or the other. I just think, as
Speaker 6: we've seen on some committees, like the Oversight Committee that
Speaker 6: I'm on, that there is a lot of new talent,
Speaker 6: and that we have chosen our leaders oftentimes by who
Speaker 6: makes the best pitch. So Jamie Raskin, who led Oversight
Speaker 6: and now leads Judiciary, an incredible leader. He was not
Speaker 6: the most senior person on either of those committees, and
Speaker 6: we picked him, and I think everybody benefits, and so
Speaker 6: I look, if the most senior person is the best person,
Speaker 6: then I think we go all in. I'm of the
Speaker 6: mindset that we should bring people in, interview them, and
Speaker 6: vote for the best person. And I think the Democratic
Speaker 6: Caucus is starting to get there. We're not fully there,
Speaker 6: and I respect why folks feel like it's not fair
Speaker 6: to change the roles at the last minute. But my
Speaker 6: main focus is on Look, we're on the verge of
Speaker 6: nearly fourteen million people losing their healthcare for a billionaire
Speaker 6: tech cut, Like, let's fight that with everything we got.
Speaker 1: So I'm hoping you could tell me where you guys
Speaker 1: are with Oversight so.
Speaker 6: I'm on the Oversight Committee. So for folks listening in,
Speaker 6: this is supposed to be the committee that investigates when
Speaker 6: big corporations or the administration are doing corrupt things. Right,
Speaker 6: like if you just said, the last few days, Trump
Speaker 6: was given a four hundred million dollar jet, He's being
Speaker 6: offered a four hundred million dollar jet for free from
Speaker 6: the Katari government, which is like illegal in so many
Speaker 6: different ways, and it violates the Constitution in so many
Speaker 6: different ways. This is supposed to be the committee that's
Speaker 6: supposed to investigate things like that, but it's currently led
Speaker 6: by Republicans whose job it is to apologize and cover
Speaker 6: up for things like that. So Jamie Raskin used to
Speaker 6: lead us on that committee. Jerry Connelly was elected after
Speaker 6: mister Raskin was he is suffering from a re emergency
Speaker 6: of cancer and our thoughts are so deeply with him. Look,
Speaker 6: everybody listen, They themselves or something of their close family
Speaker 6: have dealt with the answer that you think goes away
Speaker 6: and then comes back. It's just these are real people
Speaker 6: we work with, and so truly like this is a
Speaker 6: practices to speak. We are with Jerry on this. At
Speaker 6: some point soon, he said, he will step back and
Speaker 6: then there will be an election. And they've been all
Speaker 6: sorts of folks that have thrown their names out there.
Speaker 6: Three members of my Progressive Caucus, mister Imfume, who has
Speaker 6: Elijah Cummings Oldti he used to run the committee, Jasmine
Speaker 6: Crockett from my state of Texas. Robert Garcia, who's been
Speaker 6: an incredible leader on this. You've probably see them all
Speaker 6: over the news ripping the administration apart from Long Beach, California.
Speaker 6: And then mister Lynch, who's not a Progressive Caucus member
Speaker 6: but you know also currently is like leading the committee
Speaker 6: in the interim. So my way of thinking about this,
Speaker 6: because I kind of lead this team of progresses right
Speaker 6: over ninety members of Congress or a part of my caucus,
Speaker 6: is instead of us all going our own separate ways
Speaker 6: and picking who we like, I think that everybody that's
Speaker 6: running once mister Connolly steps back and there's an actual race,
Speaker 6: come in present to ninety members of Congress, and then
Speaker 6: we should vote as progressives to get behind somebody whoever
Speaker 6: the best person is that we think can push back
Speaker 6: against these Trump musk abuses. And this is going to
Speaker 6: be really important because for folks listening at home. If
Speaker 6: Democrats regain the majority, even if we don't have the
Speaker 6: White House, we get subpoena power, and in the Oversight Committee,
Speaker 6: that means we could bring folks like Elon Muskin under
Speaker 6: oath to talk about all the stuff they did and
Speaker 6: to root out, in my view, probably many things that
Speaker 6: were against the law, because I've been talking about firing
Speaker 6: you On Musk. But I think for folks that we
Speaker 6: find out violate criminal laws, commit real acts of corruption, like,
Speaker 6: the consequences for that are worse. And I think the
Speaker 6: only way that we prevent people from unaccountability, stealing from
Speaker 6: the taxpayers to benefit from themselves is if those folks
Speaker 6: have a feeling that maybe in a year and a
Speaker 6: half Democrats could have the majority and you can actually
Speaker 6: get held accountable for it. Because right now they are
Speaker 6: so emboldened they arrested a mayor in Newark and threatened
Speaker 6: to arrest members of Congress for following the law and
Speaker 6: going and checking in on an ice facility just this weekend.
Speaker 6: They are so emboldened they think that they'll never get
Speaker 6: held accountable, and the Oversight Committee is the place to
Speaker 6: do that. And so part of my job. It's probably
Speaker 6: weird for folks at home downe to fully, you know,
Speaker 6: hear how all the insides of this work. But my
Speaker 6: job as Progressive Caucus chair is to kind of corral
Speaker 6: my team of ninety something progressives and be like, who's
Speaker 6: the best who's our best pick that we can align
Speaker 6: behind for this very important position, which will be investigating
Speaker 6: the Trump administration, dealing with Marjorie Tayler Green and folks
Speaker 6: like that for now, but eventually, if the demost when
Speaker 6: the House, it can actually go investigate all the stuff
Speaker 6: that's happened. And if they know we're going to investigate
Speaker 6: it hard, that actually might be a way of preventing
Speaker 6: some of the horrible things that they're trying to do
Speaker 6: right now.
Speaker 1: I think the idea of voting as a block too
Speaker 1: is much better than as someone who lives in New York,
Speaker 1: where we are under the mayoral curse. What we have
Speaker 1: found is that progressives in New York tend not to
Speaker 1: put it together as a group, and just everybody runs
Speaker 1: against each other and then everyone loses.
Speaker 6: We have to get organized, and I was a labor
Speaker 6: organizer before I was an elected official, and so it
Speaker 6: makes my job a little different. Here in Congress. I
Speaker 6: can say what it is that I think, and that's important,
Speaker 6: but I you know, I can have a bigger impact
Speaker 6: as of one of four hundred and thirty five members
Speaker 6: of Congress if I can get eighty or ninety people together.
Speaker 6: And that's how I think we pushed our agenda beyond
Speaker 6: just defending against stuff. We get ninety one hundred and
Speaker 6: one hundred and fifty members of Congress to say, yeah,
Speaker 6: we're going to defend Medicaid and Medicare from these Republican attacks,
Speaker 6: but also put us in office and we'll expand it.
Speaker 6: We'll pull every senior in this country out of poverty
Speaker 6: by expanding social security. Maybe we I'm for a Medicare
Speaker 6: for all system, But man, if we could even just
Speaker 6: get the age of Medicare down fifty five or sixty
Speaker 6: years old, we can help so many seniors get the
Speaker 6: healthcare that they need. Maybe we can pass universal childcare
Speaker 6: so that your childcare expenses are never more than seven
Speaker 6: percent of your budget. Those are the sorts of things
Speaker 6: that if we actually really got done, then I think
Speaker 6: people could believe in us again, not just as the
Speaker 6: anti Trump people, but as the people who really did
Speaker 6: something for me because in places like Texas, I'll tell you,
Speaker 6: we are at the bottom of the list of voter turnout,
Speaker 6: and a lot of the folks that don't try out
Speaker 6: to vote, they're like, it doesn't really make that much
Speaker 6: a difference. I know it makes a difference, but I
Speaker 6: want to show them the huge positive difference we can make.
Speaker 6: And that's part of what I'm trying to rally members
Speaker 6: of Congress around, is let's defend against the bad stuff,
Speaker 6: but also put out a vision for how we can
Speaker 6: make people's lives better.
Speaker 1: Who are you seeing that you where you feel that
Speaker 1: they're good? In Congress and in the Senate where for example,
Speaker 1: here's a question that I often am asked, which.
Speaker 6: Is like, who are the leader of the Democrats right now,
Speaker 6: right all the time? Yeah, And I know people feel
Speaker 6: that way.
Speaker 1: It doesn't have to be the leader, but more just
Speaker 1: people where you're like, oh, this is impressed by what
Speaker 1: this person is doing.
Speaker 6: Oh, these people are good right now. I understand how
Speaker 6: a lot of folks at home are feeling where they're like,
Speaker 6: who is the person driving this for us? My first
Speaker 6: election was Obama's first election. We had that, you know,
Speaker 6: in President Obama, both as a candidate and as president.
Speaker 6: And right now we're in a place where Republicans have
Speaker 6: Speaker of the House, the Republicans have majority leader, they
Speaker 6: have Trump and the White House, and so there's like
Speaker 6: this competition for who the biggest voices should be, and
Speaker 6: that can be uncomfortable, and folks are like, well, who's good,
Speaker 6: who's emerging? But right now is the time for that
Speaker 6: to happen, for everybody to go out there and do
Speaker 6: their thing. Like I feel like AOC is like our
Speaker 6: number one draft pick. As young Democrats have been amazing
Speaker 6: this year, going across the country, put her voice out there.
Speaker 6: You know, that's amazing and alongside burning it. But then
Speaker 6: there's also folks that have some of these tough Trump
Speaker 6: to Biden districts that are kind of close, and folks
Speaker 6: like Chris Deluzio has been amazing. You know, he's a progressive.
Speaker 6: But somebody who can talk to voters that maybe weren't
Speaker 6: ready to vote for Joe Biden, We're ready to vote
Speaker 6: for him. And so there's you know, there's these emerging
Speaker 6: voices I think that are rallying the country. But I'd
Speaker 6: say to the folks what I say to people all
Speaker 6: the time is right now. I think the leaders of
Speaker 6: the party right now are like the folks flooding these
Speaker 6: town halls, the people organizing these hands off marches, because
Speaker 6: I want the people to really lead in this moment,
Speaker 6: because what I've seen in DC is, look, the way
Speaker 6: that should work is people lead and the politicians follow.
Speaker 6: When folks come and ask me like, hey, what should
Speaker 6: I do? I give them some ideas. But it's even better.
Speaker 6: Like when I was a labor organizer, we weren't asking
Speaker 6: members of Congress for permission or big companies for permission.
Speaker 6: Like we were out there pushing. And I think if
Speaker 6: people go out there and push, it's what gives our
Speaker 6: democratic leaders, like a little bit of stepping their step.
Speaker 6: Courage inspires courage. And so look, I encourage people to
Speaker 6: call to march, to call all of our offices.
Speaker 1: All right, tell me who You're not telling me what
Speaker 1: I want? Give me who? Well, yeah, I mean if
Speaker 1: you want a list of my faves, yes, go who
Speaker 1: win leadership? Do you feel like is really doing the
Speaker 1: work in the House or the Senate?
Speaker 6: Okay, I know you're in New York and that this
Speaker 6: gets strictly, but I frankly was very very supportive and
Speaker 6: am very supportive of Leader Jeffrey saying we need to
Speaker 6: vote know the Trump budget. You know, I just thought
Speaker 6: that that was a powerful move. He aligned the Democratic
Speaker 6: House members and we did a hard thing now say look,
Speaker 6: we're not going to vote for your budget. And I
Speaker 6: do think it was a devastating move by Leader Schumer
Speaker 6: to not just vote for the but Trump budget, but
Speaker 6: in many ways help get it across the finish line.
Speaker 6: And I just think those are two different styles of leadership,
Speaker 6: and in my view, in this moment, we need that
Speaker 6: style of leadership that we saw from Leader Jefferies where
Speaker 6: he said we're going to take a bold stand on
Speaker 6: somewhere where it really makes a difference. And I think
Speaker 6: that we're suffering from those repercussions of Leader Schumer's decision today.
Speaker 6: So if if you want me to give you a
Speaker 6: little bit of it, of the of the t you know,
Speaker 6: like that's that to me, that's the real difference right now.
Speaker 1: But here's a question for you that because I don't disagree,
Speaker 1: and I think most people agree with you, But the
Speaker 1: question is, wasn't it by the time that bill got
Speaker 1: out of the House like, nobody thought Donald Trump would
Speaker 1: whip the votes on that, right, Nobody saw it coming
Speaker 1: that Donald Trump and Elon Musk would literally call people
Speaker 1: and be like, if you don't vote for it, we're
Speaker 1: got in primary. There was no precedent for that or
Speaker 1: whatever happened that was like that, but clearly something to
Speaker 1: that effect happened. But once it got out of the house,
Speaker 1: and again I'm not defending anyone, I'm more just once
Speaker 1: it got out of the house, it was the Democrats
Speaker 1: were going to own the shutdown.
Speaker 6: That's the important question. So look real quick on precedents
Speaker 6: and unprecedented Trump Musk stuff. These guys do crazy stuff crazy.
Speaker 6: We have to understand that everybody you're going to do
Speaker 6: is unprecedented. There is everybody listening is like, oh, I
Speaker 6: knew they were going to do bad stuff, but I
Speaker 6: didn't know this. That's how we should be handling into
Speaker 6: the house. You know, like he's going to pull every
Speaker 6: trick in the book. So we just we can't rely
Speaker 6: on that. In my view, right, that's how we got
Speaker 6: Speaker Johnson reelected even though people opposed him, because he
Speaker 6: went in and you know, made the phone calls. So look,
Speaker 6: here's here's my disagreement with Leaderschuomer is that if we
Speaker 6: go in assuming that we're going to get blamed for fighting,
Speaker 6: then the only path is to play dead, you know.
Speaker 6: And I think that we need to pick tough fights,
Speaker 6: ones where we're at risk of losing, where we could
Speaker 6: get blamed for their not being a budget, but where
Speaker 6: we could actually go out there and explain to people
Speaker 6: why we aren't going to be a cheap date and
Speaker 6: help them and the Social Security Administration as we know it,
Speaker 6: and the FAA and safe flights as we know it
Speaker 6: and inspection of your food as we know it. I mean,
Speaker 6: give me a break. And I believe that we need
Speaker 6: the kinds of fighters and communicators who say I'm willing
Speaker 6: to take a risk and taking a risk involved maybe
Speaker 6: we get blamed, but maybe we don't if we go
Speaker 6: out there and work it. But to your point, Yeah,
Speaker 6: if we have a bunch of folks that aren't willing
Speaker 6: to go communicate all over the country, then we might
Speaker 6: lose the fight and it's not worth picking it. But
Speaker 6: I think we need folks that are willing to pick
Speaker 6: the fight. And if you show up in poker and
Speaker 6: everybody knows you're going to fold. We're never going to win,
Speaker 6: so we have to be willing for people to know, yeah,
Speaker 6: that we're willing to take a risk.
Speaker 1: Yeah, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. That
Speaker 1: was great.
Speaker 5: Thank you.
Speaker 1: It's really nice to meet you.
Speaker 2: No, Jesse Cannon boy, I think you and I are
Speaker 2: the biggest reality TV show watchers. But I know one
Speaker 2: show I would not fucking watch, which is the most
Speaker 2: dystopian bullshit I've ever heard, which is Christy Nomes's little
Speaker 2: Hunger Games for Immigrants show.
Speaker 1: Look, the Wall Street Journal is reporting DHS is considering
Speaker 1: a reality show where immigrants compete for a citizenship. This
Speaker 1: is unbelievably insane. I think we should all be pretty
Speaker 1: I mean, even for this administration. That is wow. I
Speaker 1: mean I am rarely speechless, but Hunger Games for Immigrants
Speaker 1: may have done it. Wow. And there's a thirty six
Speaker 1: page slide deck, which you do when you're trying to
Speaker 1: sell a show, and it envisions the show is beginning
Speaker 1: with contestants sailing to All Ellis Island, where they are
Speaker 1: greeted by the show's host, a famously naturalized citizen, maybe
Speaker 1: someone like Sophia Vergus Ryan Reynolds by the way.
Speaker 3: None of these people are doing this.
Speaker 1: No, no one is doing this. And yeah, I am
Speaker 1: almost without words, but I can find some. What the fuck? Man,
Speaker 1: what the fuck?
Speaker 2: How much do you want to bet that it's like
Speaker 2: studio ghibli pictures of like an immigrant outrunning another immigrant
Speaker 2: because it's this white house.
Speaker 1: There are no words, There are no words. Words fail
Speaker 1: may words do in fact fail me. That's it for
Speaker 1: this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in every Monday, Wednesday,
Speaker 1: Thursday and Saturday to hear the best minds and politics
Speaker 1: make sense of all this chaos. If you enjoy this podcast,
Speaker 1: please send it to a friend and keep the conversation going.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening.