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 Donald Trump has sent out an
Speaker 1: open invitation to primary Congressman Ship Roy despite the fact
Speaker 1: that the filing deadline was in November. We have such
Speaker 1: a great show today, Congressman and senecndidate Colin Allred stops
Speaker 1: FID to talk about Greg Abbott's horrifying aggression towards Kecox.
Speaker 1: Then we will talk to Congressman Jim Hines from the
Speaker 1: great state of Connecticut about Speaker of the House Mike
Speaker 1: Johnson's incompetent rain over Congress. But first we have legendary
Speaker 1: campaign manager and author of the Conspiracy to and America
Speaker 1: Five Ways my old Party is driving our democracy to autocracy,
Speaker 1: the Lincoln Project, Stuart Stevens. Welcome back to Fast Politics.
Speaker 1: Stuart Staves say for.
Speaker 2: Asking me to the party.
Speaker 1: You're such a talented writer, but also you are so
Speaker 1: incredibly sharp. All right, That's that's it. That's enough nice stuff.
Speaker 2: I'm going to say to you, well, thank you, Molly.
Speaker 1: Let's top campaign here, because you know what the fuck
Speaker 1: is going on? What the fuck is going on? Republican
Speaker 1: primary campaign.
Speaker 2: Is that over Yes, there is I think a question
Speaker 2: that people will ask, you know, in years to come,
Speaker 2: was there a Republican primary. You know what's fascinating when
Speaker 2: you look at these numbers, say, go to the real
Speaker 2: clear politics average. Trump is performing like an incumbent president
Speaker 2: would perform if he was being or she was being
Speaker 2: challenged in a primary. He's not operating like a normal
Speaker 2: candidate in a multi candidate field. A year ago, he
Speaker 2: was operating like that. I mean, there was a Yahoo
Speaker 2: News poll first week of January that had DeSantis and
Speaker 2: Trump basically tied. Desantus is one point bond. He's now
Speaker 2: somewhere in the sixties and Desantus has dropped to twelve
Speaker 2: and falling. So somewhere along the line, Republican voters decided
Speaker 2: that Trump was the incumbent and sort of tuned out
Speaker 2: to the primary. And I don't think there's any question
Speaker 2: Trump's going to win. Usually there's a bump in the.
Speaker 3: Road along the way.
Speaker 2: But when I look at these state numbers, Iowa, in Hampshire,
Speaker 2: South Carolina, I think it looks like Trump is going
Speaker 2: to win all three.
Speaker 1: Do you think that the fundamental problem with these Republican candidates,
Speaker 1: was that they refuse to take on Trump because they
Speaker 1: were scared of members. Is there more? Is it more complicated?
Speaker 2: I think the fundamental problem for these candidates is that
Speaker 2: Donald Trump is giving Republican voters the most undistilled version
Speaker 2: of what they want. Certainly, if you look at DeSantis,
Speaker 2: he's sort of the Margarine Trump's butter. And why Margarine,
Speaker 2: I mean they like the butter. Nikki Haley, you know,
Speaker 2: it's fascinating. If you lead these numbers, you could say
Speaker 2: she's improved her standing. She was at three percent in
Speaker 2: like the Mama poll about five months ago. Now she's
Speaker 2: a twelve percent. The problem is, as she goes up
Speaker 2: in the polls, her favorables ratio to her unfavorables has shifted.
Speaker 2: She was like forty points favorable to the good. She's
Speaker 2: now like ten points. So what's happening is she's coalescing
Speaker 2: the non maga element of the primary. She's not seen
Speaker 2: as a maga candidate, and there's a ceiling to that.
Speaker 2: So I just think it's a case where Trump is
Speaker 2: giving Republican voters what they want in the most fun, vivid,
Speaker 2: powerful way.
Speaker 1: So let's talk about blood and soil. Is that what
Speaker 1: Republican voters want?
Speaker 2: I think the Republican Party has become predominant lee a
Speaker 2: white grievance party, and the essence of that is racism.
Speaker 2: And what Trump has done, I think is not made
Speaker 2: people more racist. I think he has made it more
Speaker 2: socially acceptable to be racist. There's a normalization going on
Speaker 2: here that is extraordinarily troubling and dangerous. As many yourself
Speaker 2: included have rightly noted, it's just staggering to think about it. Alu. So,
Speaker 2: when I was coming up from the Republican Party, the
Speaker 2: icon was ron Arago, right, So think about this. Ronald
Speaker 2: Reagan announced in front of the Statue of Liberty his
Speaker 2: last speech in office was an ode to immigrants. He
Speaker 2: signed a bill that made everyone in the country before
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty three legal. You can go on to you
Speaker 2: Tube if you want your mind blown, and you can
Speaker 2: find still a clip from a debate in the primary
Speaker 2: in nineteen eighty with George Bush in which they are
Speaker 2: arguing who is more liberal on immigration.
Speaker 1: It's a world that doesn't exist anymore, right.
Speaker 2: It's a different universe. And certainly you know, when I
Speaker 2: was working for Bush, people don't really know this because
Speaker 2: it didn't really matter. But the actual first commercial that
Speaker 2: we ever aired in the Bush primary campaign or presidential
Speaker 2: campaign was running from the nomination and nineteen ninety nine
Speaker 2: was in Iowa on Hispanic cable television because we thought
Speaker 2: that it was important to send the signal that this
Speaker 2: campaign was going to be different and there was going
Speaker 2: to be an extraordinary effort to attract Hispanic voters. Now,
Speaker 2: there's not many Hispanic voters who participate in the Iowa
Speaker 2: primary Iowa Caulkish on the Republican's eye any probably not
Speaker 2: in a difference, but we just thought it was it
Speaker 2: meant something to us. I mean, I can remember going
Speaker 2: to Iowa and doing this. We had a little press
Speaker 2: conference saying I mainly remember because I was caught in
Speaker 2: the snowstorm with Mark Melman and he kept talking on
Speaker 2: a cell phone and someone in the back seat reached
Speaker 2: it and grabbed it and threw it out the window
Speaker 2: at which point, at which point Mark didn't really miss
Speaker 2: a beat and just pulled out another phone and kept talking.
Speaker 1: Wait, he had a second cell phone.
Speaker 2: He had a second cell phone. It was a great moment. Yeah,
Speaker 2: but that was how important we thought that it was
Speaker 2: we failed certainly with African American voters. We acknowledged it
Speaker 2: was a failure. And I think that's not unimportant. You know,
Speaker 2: I remember that same Kin Milman went before the NAACP
Speaker 2: in two thousand and five and apologized for the Southern strategy.
Speaker 2: That's the difference now of what has happened in this
Speaker 2: moment is, you know, we've had plenty of hate movements
Speaker 2: in America. We've had candidates of hate. You know, George
Speaker 2: Wallace got unlike Ross Perow when he ran into an independent,
Speaker 2: he actually got one electoral college vats, but they haven't
Speaker 2: been endorsed by major party. You know, Father Coughlin never
Speaker 2: won the republic nomination. Now that's happened, and it's a
Speaker 2: legitimization of it. You know, when Chris Christie goes out
Speaker 2: as he's done the last day or so and attacked
Speaker 2: Nicki Haley for being silent on this, what he's really doing,
Speaker 2: Nikki haleyus is really a sort of stand in for
Speaker 2: the party at large because the party is silent on it.
Speaker 2: And you know, to me, it goes back to that
Speaker 2: moment in twenty fifteen, almost exactly to this day. I
Speaker 2: think it was December sixteenth where Trump came out for
Speaker 2: a Muslim band, which is a religious test? What is
Speaker 2: a religious test? I mean if I show up at
Speaker 2: JFK and say, well, you know I was a Muslim,
Speaker 2: but now I'm a Quaker, what are they going to do?
Speaker 2: Ask me? Like trivia questions about William Tanny what it's
Speaker 2: a religious test? And once the party accepts that as
Speaker 2: they did, it truly is a straight line to where
Speaker 2: we are now.
Speaker 1: So that blood and soil rad is that just you know,
Speaker 1: he knows that he's never going to win the medal,
Speaker 1: but he's got to get like, you know, people who
Speaker 1: don't vote out there to vote, and this is the
Speaker 1: way he thinks he's going to do it? Or is
Speaker 1: there something I'm missing here?
Speaker 2: You know, it's a fascinating question because you know, in
Speaker 2: the Romney campaign in twenty twelve, you could look at
Speaker 2: poles and see that there was a percentage of low
Speaker 2: frequency white voters who couldn't have cared less about what
Speaker 2: we were talking about, a smaller, smarter government, or Russia
Speaker 2: or the capital gains tax. I mean, they're gonna they
Speaker 2: cared more about like who was finishing first in like
Speaker 2: you know, an Indian polo league. But you could see
Speaker 2: that if you went out there in the wave the
Speaker 2: bloody shirt on immigration or race or any of those
Speaker 2: sort of grievance issues related to race, that this would
Speaker 2: appeal to him. Now, I think people have a much
Speaker 2: better sense of who Mit Romney is now, and you know,
Speaker 2: you know if you're going to the Mitt Romney's officers
Speaker 2: suggested that you would have walked out without a job.
Speaker 2: But I would have bet you at the time that
Speaker 2: whatever you've gained at those low frequency voters, you would
Speaker 2: have lost a greater number of college educated voters, which
Speaker 2: is exactly the question you're asking here, which was happening
Speaker 2: in sixteen right up until the Coming Letter. Once the
Speaker 2: Colly letter came out, he won just enough of those
Speaker 2: and then in twenty those same voters, which are the
Speaker 2: voters that the Lincoln Project was focused on in his
Speaker 2: focus zone, these gown salts Republicans, some moderate Democrats, they
Speaker 2: went back to Boden, which makes sense. Usually the last
Speaker 2: to join a campaign at the first to leave, which
Speaker 2: makes sense. You have the most doubts, you can be
Speaker 2: the most easily persuaded to leave, and that's going to
Speaker 2: be a key factor. Is Boden going to be able
Speaker 2: to hold these voters? I don't know why we don't
Speaker 2: talk about this enough, but you know, you have to
Speaker 2: ask yourself how many Boden twenty voters are there who
Speaker 2: are likely to be Trump twenty four voters. I don't
Speaker 2: think there's many.
Speaker 1: No, I don't think so either. I think the question
Speaker 1: is more like, is it going to suppress the turnout?
Speaker 1: And we don't know yet.
Speaker 2: We don't. I worked in campaigns and people would ask me,
Speaker 2: are you worried about I would just stop them there
Speaker 2: and say, yes, whatever, you're worried.
Speaker 1: About anything everything, Rather turn outity exactly I have worried about.
Speaker 2: But I find it's extraordinary statistic and twenty Biden's best
Speaker 2: group by age was under twenty five voters. He won
Speaker 2: them by eleven points. There are a lot more of
Speaker 2: those voters entering the marketplace than there were before, and
Speaker 2: there's a lot more of older voters leaving the marketplace,
Speaker 2: which are more Trump voters. They are typically more Republican voters.
Speaker 2: I need a lot of ways Trump performed as a
Speaker 2: normal Republican candidate. The only economic group that he won
Speaker 2: in twenty was those who make over one hundred thousand
Speaker 2: dollars a year.
Speaker 3: That's a very.
Speaker 2: Republican number, and I think that there has been a
Speaker 2: conspirac ceo silence with the donor class that would once
Speaker 2: a Republican elected. They don't like Trump. I think they
Speaker 2: don't like Trump more for reasons of class and his crudeness.
Speaker 2: You know, they really don't want to president. The news
Speaker 2: is in public about having sex with his daughter. But
Speaker 2: if that's what it takes to get, you know, other
Speaker 2: things that they want, Okay, fine whatever, I'm not going
Speaker 2: to invite into the House. One ding this primary has
Speaker 2: given us is a market test. I mean, you have
Speaker 2: Chris Christie out there offering a very different view of
Speaker 2: the party with direct criticism of Trump. And that's why
Speaker 2: I think it's important to Christie stay in. I see
Speaker 2: all this, Christie should get out. I think it's really
Speaker 2: important to stay in because at the end of the day,
Speaker 2: you need to be able to look at this and say,
Speaker 2: these voters had an alternative, how many took it? And
Speaker 2: I worked for Chris Christie in both these races. I
Speaker 2: love the guy. I was disappointed, to say the least
Speaker 2: did he endorse Trump, but you know, he's not going
Speaker 2: to be the Revogan nominee. You'll get, at the end
Speaker 2: of the day, close to what Bill Well got former
Speaker 2: got Massachusetts when he primaried Trump and twenty which people
Speaker 2: have even forgotten happened, and he ended up with like
Speaker 2: twelve percent.
Speaker 1: So there's a lot of cooks in the kitchen with
Speaker 1: the Biden administration, with Biden's reelect, because there's a lot
Speaker 1: riding on it right, a lot like this could be
Speaker 1: the do you want to have elections anymore? Election? Yes,
Speaker 1: which seems very likely. You have run a lot of campaigns,
Speaker 1: many have won, some have lost. What do you think
Speaker 1: Joe Biden needs to be doing.
Speaker 2: I am a great admirer of the Biden campaign. I
Speaker 2: think that what they did in twenty is underappreciated. You know,
Speaker 2: not to get too far in the weeds, but after Watergate,
Speaker 2: we went to federal funding of presidential general elections, which
Speaker 2: meant that each candidate got the exact same amount of
Speaker 2: money if they voluntarily opted into the system and agreed
Speaker 2: not to raise or spend more money. And you know,
Speaker 2: it's around eighty million dollars. You literally got it after
Speaker 2: you gave your acceptance speech. And walked off the stage.
Speaker 2: There was someone there from the Treasury Department that had
Speaker 2: a chip, and we would always go like, well, can
Speaker 2: you wire this? No, we do chicks. We do chips,
Speaker 2: which is why we started having conventions later and later,
Speaker 2: because you're going to get the same amount of money
Speaker 2: and you have a more compact amount of time to
Speaker 2: spend it in. So Barack Obama two thousand and eight
Speaker 2: opted out of that system. McCain stayed in it, so
Speaker 2: you had one candidate in the system. Barack Obama spent
Speaker 2: about three hundred and seventy million in the general McCain
Speaker 2: spent eighty million. Then Romney was the first time both
Speaker 2: candidates had been out of the federal funding system that
Speaker 2: allowed them to raise unlimited money, and they both spent
Speaker 2: over a billion dollars. So it's fair to ask who
Speaker 2: was the last incumbent president who was not in the
Speaker 2: federal funding system which did level the playing field because
Speaker 2: both candidates had the same amount of money. Carter lost
Speaker 2: under that system, Bush lost under that sist But when
Speaker 2: both candidates had unlimited money that they could raise, who
Speaker 2: was the last incumba president to lose? And the answer
Speaker 2: to Herbert Hoover and he had a bad year. So
Speaker 2: say what you will about Donald Trump, it was an
Speaker 2: incumbent president with the ability to raise unlimited money in
Speaker 2: the bod campaign became the first campaign to beat somebody
Speaker 2: like that's Interbret Hoove. Yeah, and I think that's pretty
Speaker 2: damn impressive. They reinvented the convention with their virtual convention.
Speaker 1: I want you to come along with me on something
Speaker 1: I'm obsessed with. You're going to play along with me here?
Speaker 1: What if poles are all wrong?
Speaker 2: Well, I think the polls are all wrong in the
Speaker 2: sense that if you're looking at them as predictive, I mean,
Speaker 2: I think basically these poles are asking would you like
Speaker 2: a different alternative? And who in the world is going
Speaker 2: to say noted that? I you know, when's the last
Speaker 2: time they sold cars with Look, nothing's changed since last year.
Speaker 2: It's just as good. It's always new. We're addicted to
Speaker 2: new news, the most powerful word in advertising. My prediction
Speaker 2: is Biden's going to win by larger margin than he
Speaker 2: gave in twenty and it's going to be an easier
Speaker 2: can't that Yeah?
Speaker 1: I think that too. We might both be wrong, but
Speaker 1: luckily we will if we're both wrong. We'll make Jesse
Speaker 1: pull this episode. Jesse note this episode, so then we're
Speaker 1: both wrong.
Speaker 2: We can pull this when we're applying for asylum.
Speaker 1: Right when we're applying for I'll bring this with me.
Speaker 2: I agree the recordity.
Speaker 4: Thank you, Jes. You for sure when.
Speaker 1: We're trying to get into Portugal, we will, Stuart Stevens
Speaker 1: and I will be like, we were not right.
Speaker 2: You must understand, Molly Donvich. It's a huge audience, so
Speaker 2: we went out and said this.
Speaker 1: Stuh, one of them will feel bad for us. Stuart Stevens,
Speaker 1: you are the best. I really appreciate you. I hope
Speaker 1: you'll come back.
Speaker 2: Thank you. I'm like the crazy uncle of Thanksgiving dinner.
Speaker 2: Don't don't invite me if you don't want me to come,
Speaker 2: because I will.
Speaker 1: Congressman Colin Alred represents Texas's thirty second district and is
Speaker 1: a candidate for the United States Senate in the Great
Speaker 1: State of Texas. He is running against Ted Cruz, who
Speaker 1: no one likes. Welcome back to fast politics, Colin.
Speaker 3: Yeah, thanks so much for having me. I appreciate it.
Speaker 1: You running against Ted Cruz for the Senate, Great State
Speaker 1: of Texas. Shit's going down. In Texas. Yeah, talk to
Speaker 1: me about the Kate Cox case. She was nineteen weeks
Speaker 1: pregnant when she filed. She just had all of the
Speaker 1: things that Republicans claimed would work for an exception in
Speaker 1: the state of Texas, an abortion exception, except none of
Speaker 1: those things worked.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's right. Well, it's an incredibly tragic story, really,
Speaker 3: and it's one that you know, for me is I
Speaker 3: guess personal. You know, my wife and I have a
Speaker 3: four or two year old. We have a lot of
Speaker 3: friends who have young children. We can all imagine a
Speaker 3: scenario where, you know, mother or two has a wanted
Speaker 3: third pregnancy that has something go terribly wrong, and her
Speaker 3: doctor says that she needs a medically necessary abortion. She's
Speaker 3: had to go to the emergency four times, and she's
Speaker 3: had to petition her state for the right to get
Speaker 3: access to care close to home, probably so that she
Speaker 3: can be near her one in three year old. And
Speaker 3: instead of having an attorney general in a state that
Speaker 3: actually tries to help her through this crisis, as she's
Speaker 3: forced to flee the state. It's tragic for us as
Speaker 3: a state because it hammers hold it. This is what
Speaker 3: a total ban on abortion looks like. Is that it
Speaker 3: sweeps in stories like this, and the impact for us
Speaker 3: is going to be have so many ripple effects if
Speaker 3: we can't do something about it. The good news is
Speaker 3: we can at the federal level. We can restore Roe v.
Speaker 3: Wade through legislation. Texas is not going to change the
Speaker 3: state government is not going to repeal their or change
Speaker 3: their abortion law. The Supreme Court made that clear. But
Speaker 3: we can at the federal level restore the same rights
Speaker 3: that we've had for the last fifty years. If we
Speaker 3: can have a Senate that's going to do it, I've
Speaker 3: got to to pass it in the House. When I'm
Speaker 3: in the Senate, we'll get it done.
Speaker 1: But you could see a world where a normal senator
Speaker 1: goes in there and tells Ken paxt to shut the
Speaker 1: fuck up, excuse my French. The story with Ken Paxson
Speaker 1: is his power is completely unchecked at the state level.
Speaker 3: It is, but also he's politically allies with Ted Cruz.
Speaker 3: They are in this effort together to push these extreme
Speaker 3: policies and to push our state into this extreme place.
Speaker 3: Cruz supported him recently in his impeachment hearings when he
Speaker 3: should have been removed by the state Senate. I think
Speaker 3: the State House, on a bipartisan basis, led by Republicans,
Speaker 3: brought forward a number of incredibly troubling charges. The state
Speaker 3: Senate decided basically along for political reasons, to keep him,
Speaker 3: and now he feels empowered. This is this kind of
Speaker 3: a cabal of extremist leadership that has put our state
Speaker 3: in this incredibly warped reality where women in our state
Speaker 3: have fewer rights where you have counties and cities. Today
Speaker 3: Amarello City Council is sitting down to decide whether or
Speaker 3: not to ban travel through Amarillo if it's for access
Speaker 3: to an abortion, if counties that have already ban that,
Speaker 3: and saying that you know you can't travel through our
Speaker 3: county if you're going to try and use it for
Speaker 3: access to abortion. So when you combine this total ban
Speaker 3: with these laws, you start to turn Texas women into
Speaker 3: prisoners in their own state. And I can tell you this, Molly, Texas,
Speaker 3: that's not who Texans are. We are we want to
Speaker 3: be left alone. We have a long history of that
Speaker 3: of being kind of leave me alone state. I let
Speaker 3: me chase, you know, my version of the American dream,
Speaker 3: and get out of my way. But this extreme situation
Speaker 3: that we're in is that the result of decades of
Speaker 3: folks like Ted Cruz have been pushing for this, and
Speaker 3: that's why we have to beat him in the next election.
Speaker 1: What do you say about people who you know are like,
Speaker 1: he doesn't have a shot.
Speaker 3: Well, it's just not true. Yeah, I understand that, you know,
Speaker 3: sort of the skepticism. I guess you could say. Number one,
Speaker 3: As a state, we are incredibly diverse, dynamic. We've been
Speaker 3: growing so rapidly. We are in a place where we're
Speaker 3: ready for to get rid of some of these extreme
Speaker 3: politicians like Ted Cruz. But also just our recent elections
Speaker 3: have shown that we're right basically in the same position
Speaker 3: as Arizona and Georgia Ward before they got breakthroughs now
Speaker 3: it happened at Our challenge in Texas has been that
Speaker 3: we had over nine million textams that didn't vote in
Speaker 3: the last selection. You know, as a voting rights lawyer
Speaker 3: before I came to Congress, that's something that's always been
Speaker 3: near and dear to my heart. It is difficult to
Speaker 3: vote in our sabe, but that's not the only reason
Speaker 3: that the number is where it is. It's also that
Speaker 3: too many folks have decided that it's nothing that can
Speaker 3: change in their lives. We're not going to be a
Speaker 3: part of make our voice heard in this democracy. And
Speaker 3: we have to make sure in the selection that we
Speaker 3: empower those folks to make sure that they understand that
Speaker 3: I'll be a senator for them too and for our state.
Speaker 3: We really are at a tipping point if we can
Speaker 3: continue down this extreme path. I'm already hearing from business leaders,
Speaker 3: from university leaders who are concerned that's harder for us
Speaker 3: as a state to recruit and retain top talent when
Speaker 3: folks feel like they're going to have fewer rights, or
Speaker 3: when they feel like if they have a complication in
Speaker 3: their pregnancy that the Texas Supreme Court is going to
Speaker 3: tell them that there's nothing they can do.
Speaker 1: You also are losing doctors. Will you talk about that
Speaker 1: a little bit?
Speaker 3: Well, this is a real problem for us. We already
Speaker 3: have serious issues around maternal mortality and internal health. We
Speaker 3: have huge health deserts in parts of our say, with
Speaker 3: a number of rural hospitals that have been closing in
Speaker 3: recent years because of our extremely high uninsured rate. We
Speaker 3: have the heist and insured rate in the country. We
Speaker 3: are already seeing that this is going to have an
Speaker 3: impact on particularly obgyns who may choose to practice somewhere
Speaker 3: else or to not bring their practice to Texas, or
Speaker 3: do not study medicine in Texas, and the long term
Speaker 3: impacts for us could be incredibly impactful. And we have
Speaker 3: to make sure that we go back to this Saturday
Speaker 3: we've had for the last fifty years because my wife
Speaker 3: and I have had two babies in Sexus in the
Speaker 3: last five years. Robi who delivered in both of our boys.
Speaker 3: You know, she's a friend and feels like part of
Speaker 3: the family in some ways. You know, these are deeply
Speaker 3: personal decisions that doctors need to be making in consultation
Speaker 3: with their the women who are actually going to be
Speaker 3: doing this. And you know, I can't imagine if at
Speaker 3: one of our appointments if the doctor had come in
Speaker 3: and said, you know, there's a problem with the baby,
Speaker 3: but there's a problem with the pregnancy, but there's nothing
Speaker 3: I can do to help you. You're going have to
Speaker 3: go somewhere else and maybe find someone else to care
Speaker 3: for you. That would have been so difficult to deal
Speaker 3: with when you're already dealing with so many other things
Speaker 3: going through a pregnancy, especially if you're already a parent,
Speaker 3: and it's just heartbreaking. And this is what the reality
Speaker 3: is that we're facing now in Texas is that there
Speaker 3: are lots of physicians who are looking at our state
Speaker 3: or here now, or who maybe you're training in our
Speaker 3: excellent medical schools like at eut Southwestern in my area
Speaker 3: or Bail or Baylor, who are deciding whether or not
Speaker 3: this is where they want to be, whether or not
Speaker 3: they want to have the potential liability of a felony,
Speaker 3: prison time, civil penalties if they do what they think
Speaker 3: is necessary.
Speaker 1: Texas is such a big state, it's not so easy
Speaker 1: just to leave. I mean, New Mexico has abortion. But
Speaker 1: also there is some question about whether or not I
Speaker 1: mean SBA does have a bounty system in it right.
Speaker 3: Well, we have a total abortion ban that was a
Speaker 3: trigger band that went in place, and then the bounty
Speaker 3: that you're referring to is civil penalties that basically any
Speaker 3: person can bring litigation against anyone who aids in a
Speaker 3: bets or is a part of someone getting access to
Speaker 3: an abortion and it's created effectively bounty on Texas women.
Speaker 3: And when you combine that with the criminal penalties that
Speaker 3: have been put in place, that the Attorney General was
Speaker 3: threatening the hospitals involved in Kate Cox's situation with then
Speaker 3: you create an overlapping system of both criminal and civil
Speaker 3: penalties that would basically let us to have abortion band
Speaker 3: in all cases, almost no exceptions for rape, incest, the
Speaker 3: extremely narrow exception of the life of the mother, which
Speaker 3: the Texas Supreme Court just said apparently didn't apply to
Speaker 3: Kate even though she had to go to the emergency
Speaker 3: room four times and her doctor said this was medically
Speaker 3: necessary for her to do. And it's created an atmosphere
Speaker 3: of fear. It's created an atmosphere in which Texas women
Speaker 3: are honestly targets in our state, and which activists may
Speaker 3: try and find someone to make an example of. And
Speaker 3: it's deeply un American. It is such government overreach. It's
Speaker 3: almost like blows your mind even think about that. It's
Speaker 3: reality in the state of Texas right now. You have
Speaker 3: politicians and lawyers, not doctors, determining what's the best path
Speaker 3: way forward for women's health and their fellow Texans can
Speaker 3: use the civil law to basically target them if they
Speaker 3: do somehow get access to the care that they need.
Speaker 3: With huge finds and so you turn the state into
Speaker 3: a state of informants potentially, and we've seen that before
Speaker 3: in history and other countries, but never really in our country.
Speaker 3: We have to have a response to it, and the
Speaker 3: only response that we can have that I can see
Speaker 3: is that at the federal level, because as I said,
Speaker 3: our state is not going to change this law. We
Speaker 3: have to restore ro vway through legislation. We've passed it
Speaker 3: in the House, and in my time in the House,
Speaker 3: we couldn't get it through the Senate when I beat
Speaker 3: ted Cruz, and I'm in the United States Senate. We
Speaker 3: will restore row and go back to the statard that
Speaker 3: we've had for the last fifty years, and that will
Speaker 3: supersede what's going on in Texas.
Speaker 1: Here you are, in Texas. You have a governor who
Speaker 1: has such a complicated relationship with the law right and
Speaker 1: then he gets away with it. Do you think he
Speaker 1: is involved on from us?
Speaker 3: Well? I think that they are embolden at the moment.
Speaker 3: But I also think that they've overreached dramatically and that
Speaker 3: they have sown the seeds of their own downfall. This
Speaker 3: is not who Texas is. I'm a four generation Texan.
Speaker 3: I was born and raised in Dallas by a single mother.
Speaker 3: I went to Baylor. I was captain the football team there.
Speaker 3: My family's from Brownsville. My mom and my aunt and
Speaker 3: uncle went to school at ut University of Texas in Austin.
Speaker 3: I think I know who we are, and this is
Speaker 3: not who we are. We're not a state where we
Speaker 3: believe that you should have your neighbors telling you what
Speaker 3: you can and can't do with your body, or that
Speaker 3: politicians know better than your doctor does. And I think
Speaker 3: we're going to respond to this, but we have to
Speaker 3: do it as a state, and we need anyone out
Speaker 3: there who thinks that this is not who we are
Speaker 3: as Americans as well to get involved. And I ask
Speaker 3: you to go to Colin Allread dot com and help
Speaker 3: us make sure that we can beat ted Cruz. He
Speaker 3: is the most vulnerable Republican senator in the country. We
Speaker 3: can and should beat them here and we will.
Speaker 1: You guys, registering voters, I mean, I feel like that's
Speaker 1: such a crucial part of this.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, I think that this is an ongoing
Speaker 3: project for us in Texas and it's part of our campaign.
Speaker 3: It's part of a number of efforts to register voters yes,
Speaker 3: but we have a lot of voters who are registered
Speaker 3: to aren't turning out. We have to help them overcome
Speaker 3: those kind of initial hurdles. And I was in my
Speaker 3: voting rights practice in Texas. I would often come across
Speaker 3: people who wanted to vote, but who just it just
Speaker 3: seemed kind of daunting because so many overlapping laws that
Speaker 3: make it seem like if you do something wrong that
Speaker 3: you might get caught up in the criminal justice system.
Speaker 3: And you're already trying to avoid that because if some
Speaker 3: man of the other things going on in your life
Speaker 3: and so you decide just, you know what, I'm just
Speaker 3: not going to vote, like honestly, I just don't want
Speaker 3: to deal with the whole problem. It's that voter who
Speaker 3: we can help and who our volunteers can help, and
Speaker 3: who honestly, the resources that our campaign is going to
Speaker 3: pull together can help, because it's that voter who wants
Speaker 3: to be involved in in their democracy but just needs
Speaker 3: a little bit of help that we can we can
Speaker 3: get out in this election, and it's already a close election.
Speaker 3: Our margin is going to come from folks who you
Speaker 3: are Republicans, but who say, you know, I'm Republican, but
Speaker 3: I'm not that kind of Republican and this is not
Speaker 3: who I am. I certainly was elected by folks like
Speaker 3: that in Dallas. That's up the seat that have been
Speaker 3: held for twenty two years by a Republican congressman who
Speaker 3: was thought to be unbeatable. A lot of George W.
Speaker 3: Bush voters voted for me, but also for those folks who,
Speaker 3: as I said, who just need a little bit of
Speaker 3: help to overcome what seems like a daunting system that's
Speaker 3: not set up for them. And that's our project in Texas,
Speaker 3: not only in this election but over the coming decades.
Speaker 3: But we can do it here, and when we have
Speaker 3: this breakthrough, I think it will lead to many others.
Speaker 1: Such an important point is there a chance to get
Speaker 1: abortion on the ballot here? I mean, you know, when
Speaker 1: you're going from district to district, what are you seeing?
Speaker 1: I mean, what are Texans telling you?
Speaker 3: Number One, Unfortunately, we can't have a ballid initiative directly
Speaker 3: in Texas, so only the legislature can do that, and
Speaker 3: that's not going to be lots yeah in this election. Yeah,
Speaker 3: but you know, as I said, that's why it's so
Speaker 3: important that we win here in this center race. Because
Speaker 3: I do believe that we'll have pro choice majority. And
Speaker 3: what I mean by that is I include folks like
Speaker 3: Susan Collins and Lisa Rokowski who say that you know
Speaker 3: their pro choice well, you know, let's give them some
Speaker 3: more votes in the Senate for to restore the system
Speaker 3: that we had for the last half century. And at
Speaker 3: the federal level, we can in this kind of balkanization
Speaker 3: of rights that's going on in our country right now.
Speaker 3: We're in some states you have many fewer rights, especially
Speaker 3: if you're a woman, than you do in others, based
Speaker 3: on whatever the legislature in that state says. That's what
Speaker 3: we have to do, I think, is to go back
Speaker 3: to the center that we had before the Supreme Court,
Speaker 3: you know, a returned a row and set off this
Speaker 3: cycle of you know, really cruelty in states like Texas.
Speaker 3: And so that's the message. We have to make sure
Speaker 3: folks understand that this is the direct way to do this,
Speaker 3: that this is the direct way for us to restore
Speaker 3: reproductive rights in Texas and across the country. It's for
Speaker 3: us to have a pority of folks in the kigrists
Speaker 3: who will vote to really just go back to what
Speaker 3: was basically the Americans that is quote for the last
Speaker 3: half century, and to end this kind of competition that
Speaker 3: somebody states are having to see who could be the
Speaker 3: most cruel, who can go the farthest, And that will
Speaker 3: help Texans, it will help Americans all across the country
Speaker 3: or in states that are pursuing this.
Speaker 1: Such a good point. Do you think that voters are
Speaker 1: tired of Republicans fighting with each other because we're seeing
Speaker 1: so much of that in the Texas State House, but
Speaker 1: also with Trump trying to primary Chip Roy.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I think this has become an ongoing
Speaker 3: this theme in Texas, you know, kind of the saga
Speaker 3: of Republicans fighting each other in many ways. It kind
Speaker 3: of came to a head with the impeachment of the
Speaker 3: attorney general, who was impeached on completely defensible and you know,
Speaker 3: I think incredibly solid grounds impeachments that were led by Republicans,
Speaker 3: a bout the Republican attorney general about his abuse of power,
Speaker 3: about his abuse of the public trust, and because of
Speaker 3: political reasons, the state Senate decide not to do the
Speaker 3: right thing. And I think Texans are tired of being embarrassed.
Speaker 3: I think they're tired of being embarrassed by these extreme
Speaker 3: politicians who are making us look like a state that
Speaker 3: is as extreme as they are at the national level,
Speaker 3: and we're not. But also, you know, this is a
Speaker 3: state of thirty million people, with four of the largest
Speaker 3: metro areas and the fastest growing metro areas in the
Speaker 3: country in Dallas, Fort Worth, Houston Metro, San Antonio, and Austin.
Speaker 3: One of the fastest growing, biggest cities in the country,
Speaker 3: drawing in the biggest companies in the world, and that
Speaker 3: you know, trying to recruit and bring in the top
Speaker 3: talent from around the world to stay here and to
Speaker 3: help us grow our economy here. And this is a
Speaker 3: direct threat to all of that. When you are one
Speaker 3: of those companies, whether you're if you're match dot com,
Speaker 3: which is headquartered in Dallas and was in my district,
Speaker 3: and you're trying to bring in the top programmers and
Speaker 3: coders from around the world so that you can continue
Speaker 3: to lead the way in like you know, basically the
Speaker 3: online you know space. It's harder to do that when
Speaker 3: you have a law like this in place, and so
Speaker 3: this has so many other ripple effects from you know, yes,
Speaker 3: Kate Conx and her family also to the OBGS at Baylor,
Speaker 3: where my wife and I delivered our two boys out
Speaker 3: to you know, the biggest companies you know in our
Speaker 3: country basically that are now saying, well, always Texas the
Speaker 3: right place for us to be. How are we going
Speaker 3: to continue to have the workforce and the talent that
Speaker 3: we need to our university system, which is one of
Speaker 3: the best in the country. The eut system is a
Speaker 3: crown jewel here in our state, and a lot of
Speaker 3: professors are looking to leave. We've had articles written about how,
Speaker 3: you know, anonymous surveys have shown them many of them
Speaker 3: are considering leaving. You know, this has so many ripple effects,
Speaker 3: so we have to have a response as a state
Speaker 3: of who we actually are. And our problem is that
Speaker 3: our electorate hasn't always been what our state is, and
Speaker 3: that's what we have to try and address.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much, Colin. I hope you'll come back.
Speaker 3: Yeah, thank you, Mali. Thanks for covering it for folks
Speaker 3: out there. Please go to Colin Allread dot com and
Speaker 3: get involved with US.
Speaker 1: Congressman Jim Has represents Connecticut's fourth congressional district. Welcome back
Speaker 1: to Fast Politics, Congressman Jim Mind.
Speaker 4: Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: So you guys are out, the Senate is in. There
Speaker 1: is supposedly a border security Ukraine, Taiwan Israel aid package
Speaker 1: being negotiated in the Senate, but it's probably not being
Speaker 1: I mean, is this disarray.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean it's worth unpacking all of that stuff. Right.
Speaker 4: Israel aid would get done very easily as a standalone.
Speaker 4: I mean, the only reason they got hiccuped in the
Speaker 4: House was because the speaker, being too cute by half,
Speaker 4: decided that he would pair the fifteen billion aid package
Speaker 4: to Israel with that money coming from President Biden's initiative
Speaker 4: to fund the IRS to go after tax chiefs, so
Speaker 4: the Israel piece would sail on the other extreme half.
Speaker 4: The Republicans in the House don't want to continue to
Speaker 4: assist Ukraine, so they have a whole bunch of protextual
Speaker 4: objections and their total pretext, which is, oh, we want
Speaker 4: to audit this stuff, we want to know what the
Speaker 4: strategy is. That's all baloney. They're cow twing to Donald Trump,
Speaker 4: at least most of them are, and therefore they've paired it.
Speaker 4: You know, the possibility of Ukraine aid with the single
Speaker 4: hardest thing that the Congress could try to do, which
Speaker 4: is immigration policy. I know whereof I speak right, because
Speaker 4: we haven't passed an immigration bill in decades.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you are in Congress, you have been in the
Speaker 1: House for a long time. I think of you as
Speaker 1: sort of someone who knows what's going on. You have
Speaker 1: this speaker. He is was, you know, number four or
Speaker 1: five in leadership. He got this job after nine years
Speaker 1: in the House, like he had a lot of goodwill
Speaker 1: for about a week. How do you solve a problem
Speaker 1: like the Freedom Caucus.
Speaker 4: I think I know the answer to that question. The
Speaker 4: problem is it's never been tried, right. So Bayner goes down,
Speaker 4: Paul Ryan goes down, Kevin McCarthy goes down, and Nowson
Speaker 4: is facing exactly the same pressures, which is the Freedom
Speaker 4: Caucus want everything done their way and they want the
Speaker 4: outcomes their way. We saw this last week, and when
Speaker 4: they don't get that, it's the classic my way or
Speaker 4: the highway. So I think I know the answer to
Speaker 4: your question. And I'm super intrigued that Kevin McCarthy never
Speaker 4: sort of went down this path. And the reason I
Speaker 4: think I know what the answer the question is because
Speaker 4: look at the National Defense Authorization Act that we passed
Speaker 4: last week massive bill funding the Pentagon and lots of
Speaker 4: other stuff. And look at the budget deals that got done,
Speaker 4: they continue your resolutions. They all get done with more
Speaker 4: Democratic votes than with Republican votes in a Republican majority Congress.
Speaker 4: And so the answer to your question, Molly, is that
Speaker 4: you build a structure that isolates the Freedom Caucus. You know,
Speaker 4: you do a deal with Hakeem Jefferies and just do
Speaker 4: it up front instead of waiting for the vote to
Speaker 4: come up. And you say, look, I need forty or
Speaker 4: fifty of your guys to protect me from a motion
Speaker 4: to vacate, which is really easy to do. And we're
Speaker 4: going to negotiate these bills so that the inevitable outcome
Speaker 4: is sort of dealt with upfront, which is lots of
Speaker 4: Democrats will help me isolate the Freedom Caucus. And what
Speaker 4: that results in, Molly, I think is a functional bipartisan
Speaker 4: Congress in which the speaker lasts to the end of
Speaker 4: the Congress, not to beyond, but to the end of
Speaker 4: the Congress.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the defense bill was really interesting. I mean, were
Speaker 1: you guys able to get the transit bill pass?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 1: So does that run out on December thirty, first.
Speaker 4: Yeah, the Senate's working away at it now, and I
Speaker 4: forget the exact sequence.
Speaker 1: Won't that have to come up to the House.
Speaker 4: So I think that's right. Yeah, I mean we did
Speaker 4: pass the bills. I honestly, I've sort of forgotten the
Speaker 4: sequence here. We did pass a bill gosh months ago now,
Speaker 4: and I think the Senate's working out so I think
Speaker 4: we'll be okay there. Look, they're the issue FAA, right,
Speaker 4: the Freedom Caucus, they don't weigh in.
Speaker 1: Well, they would if they could. I mean, don't you
Speaker 1: think the fundamental problem here with the Freedom Caucus is
Speaker 1: that they want desperately to end the federal government, and
Speaker 1: so any kind of legislation is infuriating to them.
Speaker 2: Exactly.
Speaker 4: They have a vision of the federal government that is
Speaker 4: sort of an eighteen forty vision, you know, guard the borders,
Speaker 4: collects and customs fees, and that's it. And it's part
Speaker 4: of the Republican Party problem, writ Lar inasmuch as today's
Speaker 4: Republican Party has an ideology and it doesn't really right.
Speaker 4: It's whatever Trump wants. We know that because in the
Speaker 4: last you know, Republican convention to nominate Trump, they said,
Speaker 4: you know, whatever he wants we're not doing a platform.
Speaker 4: The problem that they face is inasmuch as American Republicans
Speaker 4: have an ideology, it's deeply unpopular, right, I mean, case
Speaker 4: in point, they spent fifty years trying to reverse Roe v.
Speaker 4: Wade because they had to put it back in the
Speaker 4: question of abortion. What they thought was this massively controversial question,
Speaker 4: we need to put it back in the hands of
Speaker 4: the people. Well, look at what happens when you put
Speaker 4: it back in the hands.
Speaker 3: Of the people.
Speaker 4: Ohio and Kansas, two of the red estates on the planet,
Speaker 4: past constitutional amendments, you know, allowing for abortion. And I
Speaker 4: don't even need to get into the policy of you know,
Speaker 4: cutting the taxes of the enormously wealthy. You know, they
Speaker 4: they want deeply, deeply unpopular things, which is why more
Speaker 4: and more they're getting away from a democracy that listens
Speaker 4: to the voices of people in favor of deeply non majoritarian,
Speaker 4: not to say undemocratic things like the United States Senate,
Speaker 4: like the Supreme Court, you know, like legislatures overwriting you know,
Speaker 4: the votes of the people, et cetera.
Speaker 1: Right, there's a headline today in Politico about how what
Speaker 1: they're doing now is trying to keep abortion off the
Speaker 1: ballot because they know that that is a thing that
Speaker 1: galvanizes voters, just like Karl Rove did with gay marriage
Speaker 1: in two thousand and three. This is sort of a
Speaker 1: they know what they're into is unpopular. So I'm curious
Speaker 1: now we're you're in the house. You have have a
Speaker 1: vibes based impeachment going. Let's talk about this vibes based impeachment.
Speaker 1: There's no incident right the ideas. There's sort of a
Speaker 1: vague feeling that they are mad about Hunter Biden's Carlan.
Speaker 1: What is happening with impeachment.
Speaker 4: Well, it's one more example of a syndrome. And I
Speaker 4: mentioned this before, which is Donald Trump controlling the puppet strings.
Speaker 4: Donald Trump said there will be an impeachment, so lo
Speaker 4: and behold, there will be an impeachment. Donald Trump said,
Speaker 4: cut Ukraine off, and so low and behold. They're doing
Speaker 4: everything they can to cut Ukraine off. And I see
Speaker 4: this dynamic every day, Molly, and it's fascinating. It takes
Speaker 4: me back to a line from the West Wing. I
Speaker 4: think it was where some French revolutionary says to another
Speaker 4: French revolutionary, we must go see where the people are going.
Speaker 4: So that we may lead them. And Republicans in Congress
Speaker 4: today are hostage to their MAGA base because Donald Trump
Speaker 4: goes on Oan or Fox News and says Ukraine is
Speaker 4: a corrupt country full of Nazis. Don't fund them, and
Speaker 4: reasonable and unreasonable Republicans go back to their districts and
Speaker 4: face people who say with, you know, the utter fantasies
Speaker 4: of Donald Trump. And instead of being leaders, instead of
Speaker 4: saying what John McCain said when that woman in the
Speaker 4: debates said Barack Obama is a Muslim and John McCain said, no, man,
Speaker 4: he's you know, he's not, He's a good man. Not
Speaker 4: one Republican will do that in the face of Donald
Speaker 4: Trump today. And so what happens is they sort of
Speaker 4: urge it along. They urge along the lies like maybe
Speaker 4: that twenty twenty election was subject to all sorts of irregularities,
Speaker 4: and then they come back to DC and have the
Speaker 4: gall to say, my constituents have concerned. That should be
Speaker 4: the bumper sticker motto of House Republicans. My constituents have concerned.
Speaker 4: Of course they do, because you don't tell them that
Speaker 4: they're you know, that they are in a fever dream
Speaker 4: fantasy about the twenty twenty election. You know, you name
Speaker 4: it right.
Speaker 1: So there are eighteen Republicans who are in Biden districts,
Speaker 1: many from New York because New York Democratic Party absolutely
Speaker 1: shit the bed during the twenty twenty two election cycle
Speaker 1: and fucked up and lost five seeds. And that happening
Speaker 1: in California too. So there are these sixteen Republicans who
Speaker 1: really are not in safe seats. They have all had
Speaker 1: to vote to impeach Biden to start an impeachment inquiry
Speaker 1: on vibes. Do you think that this wins Democrats back
Speaker 1: the House or do you think that we're just so
Speaker 1: in the post truth world that nobody ever knows.
Speaker 4: You hit the dynamic on the head there. You know,
Speaker 4: those eighteen Republicans in Biden districts who have been forced
Speaker 4: to go along with the Freedom Caucus. They're in a
Speaker 4: very tenuous position. And again they had this whole song
Speaker 4: and dance about how, oh well, this is just an
Speaker 4: impeachment inquiry. This just gives us the powers to get
Speaker 4: the subpoenas that we need to get at the facts.
Speaker 4: And you're absolutely right. Before remember when we when Donald
Speaker 4: Trump first got impeached before the impeachment inquiry began. We
Speaker 4: had the transcript of a phone call in which Donald
Speaker 4: Trump tells the president Zelenski, give me dirt on Biden.
Speaker 2: Or I will not send you eight.
Speaker 4: I mean, right out of a mafia movie. Right. We
Speaker 4: add that, We add that, and of course, you know,
Speaker 4: unless you are a high priest in the cult of
Speaker 4: Donald Trump, you know what many Republican House members and
Speaker 4: even more senators are saying, which is, you've encovered no
Speaker 4: evidence yet.
Speaker 1: Right. When you think about the idea of an impeachment,
Speaker 1: you had times where was the offense impeachable? Impeachable? Was
Speaker 1: the question? Right? Like with Clinton? Is lying about Saxon?
Speaker 1: Impeachable offense? Right? And and the answer was, if you're
Speaker 1: a nut Gangridge, yes, except when it's actually new cankereage,
Speaker 1: in which case it's now. But he was never president.
Speaker 1: But this is a case in which there is no offense, right,
Speaker 1: So it's a question of can you and teach someone
Speaker 1: just because the former president told you to exactly?
Speaker 4: And again that's the underlying dynamic, and we all get confused.
Speaker 4: Sixty court cases turned back when the Trump people and
Speaker 4: Giuliani tried to overturn the election in court. You know,
Speaker 4: without exception, courts laughed them out of court. Zero evidence
Speaker 4: for Joe Biden, you know, having in any corrupt way
Speaker 4: been involved with Hunter Biden. But those facts don't matter.
Speaker 4: It's liturgical, right, It's liturgical in MAGA that Biden is
Speaker 4: the head of a massive crime family that makes the
Speaker 4: Sopranos look like a priesthood. Whatever Donald Trump says. And
Speaker 4: you and I both know that ninety five percent of
Speaker 4: what Donald Trump says is made up out of whole cloth.
Speaker 4: But that becomes liturgical truth. And so most Republicans in
Speaker 4: the House, because that magabase, though it is percentage wise small,
Speaker 4: is how you lose a primary. They need to bow
Speaker 4: and cow tew and shuffle and oh well, my constituents
Speaker 4: have concerns, etc.
Speaker 1: Because I listened to the c SPAN podcast, I've become
Speaker 1: one of the more boring people on this earth. But
Speaker 1: I did hear Mike Johnson saying, when he was trying
Speaker 1: to convince other Republicans to vote for this insanity, that
Speaker 1: it was their constitutional duty to open this impeachment inquiry.
Speaker 1: Did you hear this? And what do you think about
Speaker 1: this idea of sort of using then of confusing other
Speaker 1: Republicans about what the Constitution says as a possible play
Speaker 1: for Mike Johnson.
Speaker 4: It's all, you know, rationalization, right, I mean, two hundred
Speaker 4: and forty years of history, we've never had an impeachment inquiry,
Speaker 4: you know, opened with absolutely no evidence. And by the way,
Speaker 4: I mean, shoot, it was all of what five years
Speaker 4: ago that Nancy Pelosi, then Speaker of the House, was
Speaker 4: under immense pressure to start an impeachment inquiry for Donald
Speaker 4: Trump on Russia, remember.
Speaker 1: That, right, And she really didn't want to do it.
Speaker 4: I had plenty of constituents who were lighting me up
Speaker 4: and saying, you know, Russia, Russia, Russia, and of course
Speaker 4: the Muller investigation is going on, there's a congression event,
Speaker 4: and Nancy Pelosi said, hell no, hell.
Speaker 1: No, because of Clinton, right, because of the Clinton impeachment
Speaker 1: and how badly it did for Republicans or another reason.
Speaker 4: No, I think Nancy Pelosi realized that, you know that
Speaker 4: weaponizing impeachment, you know that is to say, starting one
Speaker 4: with no evidence and Muller's out there gathering evidence was
Speaker 4: a bad place to go. It was only when the
Speaker 4: quote perfect phone call of incredible extortion came out that
Speaker 4: Pelosi pulled the trigger.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I remember watching that because it was five years ago,
Speaker 1: though it feels like fifty, thinking to myself, like, she
Speaker 1: has so much anxiety about starting this impeachment. One of
Speaker 1: the things that Nancy Pelos, who was famous for, was
Speaker 1: trying to protect her vulnerable Democrats, right, the people like
Speaker 1: those Sixteenublicans who are you know exactly?
Speaker 4: I watched her do it again and again and again.
Speaker 2: You know, Nancy.
Speaker 4: Pelosi really understood how you built and expanded a majority.
Speaker 4: The Republicans have been throwing their eighteen most vulnerable members
Speaker 4: under the bus again and again and again.
Speaker 1: So I'm wondering as we're in this, do you think
Speaker 1: that the George Santos uzzerally surprised that Republicans kicked George
Speaker 1: Santos out of the House at the last minute leadership
Speaker 1: decided to vote to keep him. That was sort of incredible.
Speaker 1: What do you think about that? And were you surprised
Speaker 1: that they ultimately did it and that that leadership then
Speaker 1: seized defeat from the jaws of victory because I feel
Speaker 1: like at the last minute they were like, oh my god.
Speaker 4: Math, Yeah, I think that's what happened. And by the way,
Speaker 4: the first time before the Ethics report came out, I
Speaker 4: voted against expelling George Santos because though I'd read the
Speaker 4: press and though it was pretty clear this was a
Speaker 4: slimy guy, there had been no process whatsoever, no reports,
Speaker 4: no investigation. And then, of course the famous fifty six
Speaker 4: page report from the Ethics Committee comes out, replete with
Speaker 4: spending of campaign funds on OnlyFans and botox and lie
Speaker 4: after lie after lie by the way written by a
Speaker 4: Republican chairman.
Speaker 1: And stealing money from Max Miller's.
Speaker 4: Mom, and nowhere, nowhere, nowhere does it say that a
Speaker 4: member must be convicted of a crime. We're an Article
Speaker 4: one authority. We decide, and that was obviously enough process.
Speaker 4: But you hit the nail on the head. Mike Johnson,
Speaker 4: as some of his more operationally inclined people were like,
Speaker 4: oh my gosh, our majority is going down to three
Speaker 4: and down to two, you know, so so yeah, they.
Speaker 1: Tried to keep them incredible. So so what do you
Speaker 1: think now we got the Swazi election, Santos's seat is
Speaker 1: now going into a special that's New York eleven. Then
Speaker 1: we're gonna go. So that could mean their majority would
Speaker 1: be down by another.
Speaker 4: One, right, Yeah, Frankly, it doesn't matter if it's a
Speaker 4: three seat majory, a four seat or a seven seat majority.
Speaker 4: I mean, you know, think of who populates the margin there, right, Bobart,
Speaker 4: Bob Good, Paul Ghosts.
Speaker 2: Are you know?
Speaker 4: I mean these are this is the Star Wars canteena
Speaker 4: of the far right, and so it doesn't really matter
Speaker 4: who you know whether. Now, by the way, dare I
Speaker 4: say if somehow the majority somebody does a surprise retirement
Speaker 4: it gets down to one person. Now you start thinking about,
Speaker 4: you know, Arlen Spector who changed parties and flipped control
Speaker 4: of the Senate, or Jim Jefferts back in the day, right.
Speaker 4: I mean, I'm not even gonna tease that because I
Speaker 4: don't think it's very likely. But yeah, when you're down
Speaker 4: to a one person majority, it's no more manageable for
Speaker 4: them than a ten person majority. But it gets intriguing.
Speaker 1: It does get intriguing, and I mean there is some
Speaker 1: West wing fanfit about a Republican going over to the
Speaker 1: other side, though it seems very unlikely in this world
Speaker 1: of hyperpartisanship. Thank you so much, Jim. I hope you'll
Speaker 1: come back.
Speaker 4: Absolutely, Thank you for having me.
Speaker 2: No mo.
Speaker 1: Jesse Cannon my junk fast.
Speaker 3: I hear you're really excited about polls, because I know
Speaker 3: you love polls so much.
Speaker 1: One thousand people answering their fucking phones does not necessarily
Speaker 1: tell you how the rest of the country feels. But
Speaker 1: even more annoying than that, we have these slate of
Speaker 1: New York Times polls. They come out. There was one
Speaker 1: that showed Trump ahead and all the swing districts all right. Again,
Speaker 1: based on that was two three hundred people talked to
Speaker 1: on the phone. This poll actually showed by up forty
Speaker 1: seven to forty five would look likely voters, and they
Speaker 1: buried that headline. So I'm going to say this real
Speaker 1: slow polls are not real. They are called pseudo events
Speaker 1: because they are like press conferences, things created by campaigns
Speaker 1: and politicians and pundits to give something to talk to,
Speaker 1: and they give you a false sense of knowing what's happening.
Speaker 1: Certainly people are mad at Biden. Certainly the economy is bad,
Speaker 1: Certainly the vibes are bad. But I'm not going to
Speaker 1: start freaking out about these insane pouls that are posted
Speaker 1: in such a way. So, yes, guess why this is
Speaker 1: bad for Biden. Throw out all the polls, make sure
Speaker 1: to vote. That's it for this episode of Fast Politics.
Speaker 1: Tune in every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday to hear the
Speaker 1: best minds in politics make sense of all this chaos.
Speaker 1: If you enjoyed what you've heard, please send it to
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Speaker 1: for listening.