WEBVTT - Josh Marshall, Rep. Katherine Clark & Will Sommer 0:00:00.640 --> 0:00:04.160 Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics, 0:00:04.360 --> 0:00:07.120 where we discussed the top political headlines with some of 0:00:07.160 --> 0:00:13.800 today's best minds, and a PBS NPR mayrist Paul shows 0:00:13.840 --> 0:00:18.680 that Trump's support among rural voters is declining. Can't imagine 0:00:18.720 --> 0:00:21.799 why we have such a great show for you today. 0:00:22.040 --> 0:00:26.320 Talking Points Memo's own Josh Marshall stops by to talk 0:00:26.360 --> 0:00:31.040 about how Trump is failing to emulate Victor Orbond's playbook. 0:00:31.240 --> 0:00:35.280 Then we'll talk to Minority Whip Catherine Clark about how 0:00:35.320 --> 0:00:40.200 Dems continue to try and fight back against Trump's agenda. Plus, 0:00:40.200 --> 0:00:43.159 we have a special bonus from our YouTube channel with 0:00:43.400 --> 0:00:48.840 the Bulwarks Great Willsomer on the Mega Media clown Show 0:00:49.520 --> 0:00:52.560 being invited to the White House press room. But first the. 0:00:52.479 --> 0:00:57.000 News Smiley, we got to see Trump's budget. When I 0:00:57.000 --> 0:01:00.760 imagine the stupidity that awaits us each day, just the 0:01:00.800 --> 0:01:05.520 sheer grazing over this thing. The stupidity exceeds my expectations, 0:01:05.520 --> 0:01:06.199 which were are. 0:01:09.040 --> 0:01:11.240 Okay, this is your way of saying, there are five 0:01:11.280 --> 0:01:15.479 ways in which Trump's budget will affect everyday Americans. Now 0:01:15.800 --> 0:01:19.560 disclaimer here, high likelihood this budget will not get passed, 0:01:19.600 --> 0:01:22.040 will not get passed in this way. But if it 0:01:22.200 --> 0:01:25.160 were to get passed, it would fuck a lot of 0:01:25.200 --> 0:01:31.400 the people for whom Trump is their mango tinted god king. 0:01:31.959 --> 0:01:34.880 So I think this is really important that we go 0:01:34.920 --> 0:01:37.959 through this for a minute, and we are going to start. Look, 0:01:38.000 --> 0:01:40.919 this is all Project twenty twenty five. You'll remember Project 0:01:40.959 --> 0:01:46.479 twenty five as them slashing domestic spending, and that's where 0:01:46.480 --> 0:01:50.480 we are Trump enacting twenty twenty six. And so here 0:01:50.520 --> 0:01:53.120 are the ways in which this budget will completely fuck 0:01:53.200 --> 0:01:56.360 over our people, and especially people in red states. Number 0:01:56.360 --> 0:01:59.559 one is education. You'll remember tends to be red states 0:01:59.560 --> 0:02:03.560 have lower state taxes, and that means less money for 0:02:03.680 --> 0:02:06.520 education from the state, which means more money for education 0:02:06.600 --> 0:02:10.399 from the federal government. Well, guess what Trump's budget would 0:02:10.400 --> 0:02:13.840 decrease funding for programs meant to increase equity and education. 0:02:14.320 --> 0:02:17.800 By the way, equity means poor people, right, it doesn't 0:02:17.840 --> 0:02:21.240 mean white people, It means poor people. So that means 0:02:21.240 --> 0:02:24.600 forty nine million from the Education Department's Office of Civil Rights, 0:02:24.639 --> 0:02:29.919 which would be about finding racial quality but also economical quality. 0:02:30.240 --> 0:02:35.240 Funding underfunded schools, four point five billion for K to 0:02:35.360 --> 0:02:37.840 twelve and Title I programs by the way title I 0:02:38.560 --> 0:02:42.520 poor schools, schools where poor kids go, schools in red 0:02:42.560 --> 0:02:45.960 states where poor kids go. I bet you a gazillion 0:02:46.000 --> 0:02:49.399 dollars that many of those schools are in Trump districts. 0:02:49.480 --> 0:02:52.040 So then there's health. The big picture of the proposal 0:02:52.120 --> 0:02:55.280 would add five hundred million to Health and Human Services 0:02:55.400 --> 0:03:00.000 under Robert F. Kennedy Junior, and then three point five 0:03:00.080 --> 0:03:03.000 billion in cuts for the CDC. I'm going to say 0:03:03.040 --> 0:03:05.840 that again because that is fucking humongous. Three point five 0:03:05.919 --> 0:03:10.280 billion cuts to the CDC seventeen billion and cuts the 0:03:10.360 --> 0:03:14.560 National Institute for Health, so twenty five reduction from the 0:03:14.600 --> 0:03:17.919 past year. That means the cancer drug trials getting cut, 0:03:18.120 --> 0:03:23.679 the Alzheimer's drug trials getting cut, the melanoma trials getting cut. 0:03:23.720 --> 0:03:26.200 I mean, this will be huge, mangus. It will mean 0:03:26.240 --> 0:03:29.800 there will be much less scientific research conducted in America, 0:03:29.840 --> 0:03:32.359 and on and on and on. Another thing, which as 0:03:32.680 --> 0:03:36.880 RFK Junior is supposedly sober, he's cutting a billion dollars 0:03:36.880 --> 0:03:40.440 in substance abuse in mental health services. And then the veterans, 0:03:40.480 --> 0:03:43.240 of course get the shaft, and why wouldn't they, and 0:03:43.240 --> 0:03:47.400 Trump three point three billion in funding for veterans healthcare services, 0:03:47.480 --> 0:03:51.320 cut two point one billion to move medical records. Cut, 0:03:51.480 --> 0:03:55.080 cutting state rental assistance which would help poor people, cutting 0:03:55.520 --> 0:03:59.160 low income home energy assistance which helps poor people pay 0:03:59.160 --> 0:04:02.080 for heat, all the things you would think. And remember 0:04:02.440 --> 0:04:05.360 this is being done to pay for Donald Trump's tax 0:04:05.400 --> 0:04:08.640 cuts for very wealthy people. So if you are not enraged, 0:04:08.720 --> 0:04:09.880 you are not paying attention. 0:04:10.280 --> 0:04:14.480 Yeah, speaking of reasons to be enraged, Trump is calling 0:04:14.520 --> 0:04:17.919 for Democrats to be removed from Congress over their calls 0:04:17.960 --> 0:04:18.880 for impeachment of him. 0:04:19.160 --> 0:04:21.920 Yeah, I mean, look, Trump does not like it. He's 0:04:22.000 --> 0:04:25.000 an autocrat, right, He's like Kim Jong, but not as 0:04:25.040 --> 0:04:30.480 good looking, and so that's an incest. Jesus, Kim Jong 0:04:30.560 --> 0:04:32.640 is a young and fit man in the prime of 0:04:32.680 --> 0:04:35.240 his life and happens to be a cousin. This is 0:04:35.320 --> 0:04:37.279 the same as that he doesn't like him. When people 0:04:37.320 --> 0:04:40.440 say stuff he doesn't like, it makes him upset. This 0:04:40.600 --> 0:04:44.080 is a case of that. So there's a Michigan Democrat 0:04:44.240 --> 0:04:47.760 introduced seven articles of impeachment targeting Trump. Now, the reason 0:04:47.800 --> 0:04:51.240 why no one in the Democratic Party in the House 0:04:51.279 --> 0:04:55.040 of Representatives is trying to impeach Trump is because they 0:04:55.040 --> 0:04:57.680 don't have the votes, right, They don't even have the 0:04:57.760 --> 0:05:01.440 votes to make an impeachment go. So the idea of 0:05:01.480 --> 0:05:05.080 doing this, and we've seen Algreen kept doing it in 0:05:05.160 --> 0:05:08.320 Trump's first two years, from twenty sixteen to twenty eighteen, 0:05:08.400 --> 0:05:11.880 he kept introducing articles of impeachment. But until you have 0:05:11.960 --> 0:05:14.480 the numbers to get there, you don't have the numbers 0:05:14.520 --> 0:05:17.960 to get there. So this is sort of a fool's 0:05:18.160 --> 0:05:21.640 errand but Trump is still sensitive. He doesn't like being impeached. 0:05:21.680 --> 0:05:24.760 He doesn't like the poor poll numbers. Maggie Haberman writes 0:05:24.800 --> 0:05:27.400 about this really well this week. She wrote a lot 0:05:27.440 --> 0:05:30.520 about it. You talked about NCN. Trump is bothered by 0:05:30.560 --> 0:05:33.920 this stuff. He's an egomaniac, so he is not happy 0:05:34.480 --> 0:05:37.839 with all of this negative stuff and he would like 0:05:37.920 --> 0:05:41.120 to punish the people who criticize him. Thank god, we 0:05:41.160 --> 0:05:44.240 do have a first Amendment and as much as Trump 0:05:44.279 --> 0:05:45.960 doesn't like it, it still exists. 0:05:46.440 --> 0:05:46.760 YEP. 0:05:47.120 --> 0:05:50.800 So this week was rattled with the usual competence are 0:05:50.880 --> 0:05:53.400 they in they out that comes with the Trump administration, 0:05:53.960 --> 0:05:56.520 where we thought Mike Waltz was fired for a minute, 0:05:56.520 --> 0:06:00.240 but now he is the investor at the UN It's said, 0:06:00.320 --> 0:06:03.960 but one of the underdiscussed details was that in the 0:06:03.960 --> 0:06:08.440 cabinet meeting. He was using a signaled knockoff. 0:06:08.640 --> 0:06:14.120 In Israeli, a fake signal chat in Israeli company, which 0:06:14.200 --> 0:06:17.599 is easier to spy on. So let us say that 0:06:17.680 --> 0:06:21.240 it seems very likely that Israel is spying on Mike Walls. 0:06:21.279 --> 0:06:26.320 I think that's a fair assessment. Mike Walls is a moron. 0:06:26.720 --> 0:06:29.040 I think we can all agree that he is a moron. 0:06:29.120 --> 0:06:33.159 He accidentally added Jeff Goldberg to a group chat. At 0:06:33.200 --> 0:06:37.080 every point, my man has done the dumbest possible thing. Now, 0:06:37.279 --> 0:06:40.880 Trump does not want to fire people like the last administration. 0:06:41.000 --> 0:06:44.880 This is clearly what's happening here. Right. He keeps, you know, 0:06:44.920 --> 0:06:46.400 saying you're not going to get a scalp. You're not 0:06:46.400 --> 0:06:48.599 going to get his scalp. So now he's decided he's 0:06:48.640 --> 0:06:51.200 just going to move him to the job he was 0:06:51.240 --> 0:06:55.560 going to give to Stevanic. Now here's the thing about 0:06:55.640 --> 0:06:58.880 this United Nations job. Trump doesn't care about it because 0:06:59.080 --> 0:07:01.920 in New York, okay, But he also just doesn't really 0:07:01.960 --> 0:07:05.240 care about how government works. So he's like, we tried 0:07:05.240 --> 0:07:06.960 to give it to Stevonic. We can't give it to 0:07:07.000 --> 0:07:09.279 Stevonic because we need her vote. So let's just put 0:07:09.320 --> 0:07:12.880 walls in there. They're not the same job, right, It's 0:07:12.960 --> 0:07:15.520 just he just doesn't want to fire walls because he 0:07:15.520 --> 0:07:18.080 doesn't want it. He feels like firing walls will give 0:07:18.800 --> 0:07:21.680 his critics his scalp. And so here we go. He's 0:07:21.720 --> 0:07:24.200 going to put walls in this other job, which I 0:07:24.200 --> 0:07:27.520 guess he thinks is less important. Again, I think this 0:07:27.640 --> 0:07:30.160 all says more about Trump. Also, I just want to 0:07:30.160 --> 0:07:33.000 add that he keeps not firing people, and then he 0:07:33.040 --> 0:07:36.600 gave Rubio the job because Rubio seems like he's the 0:07:36.720 --> 0:07:40.119 least incompetent, which could actually be true. 0:07:40.360 --> 0:07:41.680 I think it actually is true. 0:07:41.800 --> 0:07:45.440 Yeah, can Rubio do all the jobs in the federal government? Maybe? 0:07:45.680 --> 0:07:50.040 Uh well, we'll see Health and Human Services secretary is next. 0:07:49.960 --> 0:07:53.360 Mister Trump. He always changes things around Washington. Let me 0:07:53.360 --> 0:07:55.960 tell you, you know, these ambassadorships, they used to be 0:07:56.000 --> 0:07:58.800 for big donors. Now it's like the consolation prize you 0:07:58.840 --> 0:08:02.000 get when they make you lose a congressional district at 0:08:02.040 --> 0:08:03.480 an election to save face. 0:08:03.560 --> 0:08:05.560 It's good, good stuff, good stuff. 0:08:05.680 --> 0:08:09.240 I'm sure he learned this on the Apprentice. Anyway, So Trump, 0:08:09.560 --> 0:08:13.400 another feature of his presidency is total lawless and stupid 0:08:13.480 --> 0:08:17.480 executive orders that are crossing borders that he's not supposed 0:08:17.480 --> 0:08:20.120 to cross. And here we have that with him saying 0:08:20.160 --> 0:08:22.880 to cease federal funding to PBS and NPR. 0:08:23.320 --> 0:08:27.680 All these executive orders are the dumbest use of anyone's 0:08:27.680 --> 0:08:31.080 time because they keep getting overturned in court. You'll remember 0:08:31.160 --> 0:08:35.199 Chris Krebs has been targeted by one Mark Elias. If 0:08:35.200 --> 0:08:38.160 you're on this podcast, you basically get targeted by a 0:08:38.200 --> 0:08:41.559 Trump executive order. It's kind of the present, no, I mean, 0:08:41.640 --> 0:08:44.120 so here's one where he and again this goes back 0:08:44.160 --> 0:08:47.840 to Trump not liking being criticized. Right, He's seen pieces 0:08:47.880 --> 0:08:50.680 in NPR and PBS which tell the truth. He doesn't 0:08:50.800 --> 0:08:54.000 like that, and so he wants to defund them. But again, 0:08:54.240 --> 0:08:56.800 this is why, in a world filled with Columbia you 0:08:56.840 --> 0:08:59.720 want to be at Harvard, is that this is not 0:08:59.760 --> 0:09:02.280 going to work. Right, There's no world in which he's 0:09:02.320 --> 0:09:03.720 going to be able to do this the way he 0:09:03.760 --> 0:09:05.680 wants to do it, and it's going to be in 0:09:05.720 --> 0:09:08.360 court forever, and by the time it gets through the court, 0:09:08.880 --> 0:09:11.760 he'll have lost the House and Democrats will be impeaching him. 0:09:11.840 --> 0:09:15.240 So again, like, I see that what he's trying to 0:09:15.280 --> 0:09:21.200 do here, but it's not going to work. Josh Marshall 0:09:21.360 --> 0:09:25.439 is the editor of Talking Points Memo. Welcome to Fast Politics, Josh. 0:09:25.200 --> 0:09:27.720 Marshall, thank you, thanks for having me here. 0:09:27.760 --> 0:09:33.800 We are day ten billion of Trump's second term discuss I. 0:09:33.720 --> 0:09:36.440 Feel like sort of the fates are going to come 0:09:36.480 --> 0:09:38.680 down on me, or at least a lot of my 0:09:38.920 --> 0:09:41.240 readers or doomers are going to come down on me. 0:09:41.360 --> 0:09:44.520 But I think we've actually seen some positive developments over 0:09:44.559 --> 0:09:47.480 the last ten days or so. I did a post 0:09:47.520 --> 0:09:50.280 just kind of sharing with readers my sense of the situation, 0:09:50.480 --> 0:09:55.400 and I think that Trump is kind of already lost. Frankly, 0:09:55.640 --> 0:09:58.040 Now that doesn't mean that like this is over. I 0:09:58.080 --> 0:09:59.480 think it's going to get a lot worse. 0:10:00.240 --> 0:10:03.400 Crashing the economy has maybe not. 0:10:04.200 --> 0:10:07.160 On so many other things, on so many, so many things. 0:10:07.360 --> 0:10:11.120 I mean it simply in this sense that Trump's plan 0:10:11.760 --> 0:10:16.000 in this second season of the series is basically to 0:10:16.040 --> 0:10:21.160 impose a Victor Orbon system on the United States. Victor 0:10:21.280 --> 0:10:25.200 Orbon the longtime prime minister of Hungary. And I think 0:10:25.440 --> 0:10:28.160 in that effort to impose that kind of system, or 0:10:28.160 --> 0:10:33.000 even an Orbon like system, something not Batriconian Orbonic as 0:10:33.000 --> 0:10:36.560 we see orbonic. Yes, yes, I think that game may 0:10:36.760 --> 0:10:40.160 already be over. That's not to say again that it 0:10:40.200 --> 0:10:42.000 won't get a lot worse, that there won't be a 0:10:42.040 --> 0:10:44.920 lot more damage. But I don't think he's going to 0:10:44.960 --> 0:10:48.920 succeed at that aim. So that is a positive thing 0:10:48.960 --> 0:10:49.679 in my mind. 0:10:49.880 --> 0:10:52.000 So let's talk through this because this is a very 0:10:52.160 --> 0:10:54.680 good thing that I actually want to talk about. So 0:10:55.160 --> 0:10:58.920 Republicans decide of Victor Orbon was a genius to be emulated. 0:10:58.960 --> 0:11:02.720 There's a book called Erica First, all about how much 0:11:02.800 --> 0:11:06.960 Republicans love dictators and how this has actually been like 0:11:07.440 --> 0:11:10.760 that they've always loved dictators, and that like you can 0:11:10.840 --> 0:11:14.560 trace their Republicans who loved Franco. You know that at 0:11:14.600 --> 0:11:17.880 every point they've been like, these guys have great ideas. 0:11:18.559 --> 0:11:21.800 So it makes sense. And they did bring Orbon to 0:11:21.960 --> 0:11:25.320 sea pack they had him do little talks. But what 0:11:25.480 --> 0:11:29.320 I think they didn't realize was that Orbon was ruling 0:11:29.400 --> 0:11:31.520 over a country the size of New Jersey. 0:11:33.360 --> 0:11:36.760 Yes, and that is a very big deal. And he's 0:11:36.800 --> 0:11:41.440 also ruling over a country that has had a couple 0:11:41.679 --> 0:11:46.920 brief periods of democratic governance, not lasting more than a 0:11:47.000 --> 0:11:50.240 decade or two, and that's different. Now there's an argument 0:11:50.280 --> 0:11:52.520 that you hear with some people saying, hey, we've been 0:11:52.520 --> 0:11:54.800 at this for almost two hundred and fifty years. The 0:11:54.920 --> 0:11:57.280 roots of democracy are super deep here. It's not like 0:11:57.360 --> 0:12:00.880 other countries. And that's true, but that doesn't mean things 0:12:00.920 --> 0:12:03.960 can happen. But that is a factor I think what 0:12:04.160 --> 0:12:07.640 people don't think enough about. And again I'm not saying 0:12:07.640 --> 0:12:10.240 it's a guarantee by any means. It's not that it 0:12:10.280 --> 0:12:14.200 can't happen here. It can, but you need to understand 0:12:14.280 --> 0:12:17.240 some of the reasons. And it's not just a matter 0:12:17.320 --> 0:12:20.600 of that, oh, people follow the Constitution, because obviously you've 0:12:20.640 --> 0:12:23.960 seen that doesn't necessarily apply anymore. And it's certainly not 0:12:24.120 --> 0:12:26.760 like the norms of government. But something I've been thinking 0:12:26.760 --> 0:12:29.840 a lot about recently is that they're One of the 0:12:29.880 --> 0:12:35.480 things about American political culture is there's something really deeply rooted, 0:12:35.640 --> 0:12:39.080 which is a basic I can say what I want, yeah, right, 0:12:39.160 --> 0:12:42.400 And that is something you see across the political spectrum, 0:12:42.800 --> 0:12:45.840 and you see it at what political scientists referred to 0:12:45.880 --> 0:12:49.480 as articulate communities, and that we're not talking here about 0:12:49.520 --> 0:12:52.000 like you know, what kind of the vernacular you use, 0:12:52.360 --> 0:12:55.080 but people who speak in big speak right and talk 0:12:55.080 --> 0:12:57.880 about the First Amendment and all this kind of stuff. 0:12:57.920 --> 0:13:00.920 And it also applies to just people like, hey, no 0:13:00.920 --> 0:13:02.720 one's going to tell me what to say. I can 0:13:02.760 --> 0:13:04.520 say what I want and I can show up at 0:13:04.520 --> 0:13:06.880 a town hall. And if you're right wing left wing, 0:13:07.200 --> 0:13:11.880 that makes all of this more difficult. And paradoxically, it 0:13:12.040 --> 0:13:15.239 tends to be elites that are a little more cowable. 0:13:15.679 --> 0:13:15.839 Right. 0:13:15.960 --> 0:13:18.080 That's sort of the big law firm that brings in 0:13:18.120 --> 0:13:20.959 billions of dollars and they're all kind of plugged into 0:13:20.960 --> 0:13:23.800 the state apparatus and stuff that they've got a lot 0:13:23.840 --> 0:13:27.319 on the line, and they can be calible. But average 0:13:27.360 --> 0:13:32.000 people tend not to be as cowable. Now, everybody's different, 0:13:32.000 --> 0:13:36.239 people have different places in society, but that basic impulse 0:13:36.400 --> 0:13:41.120 and that basic unfamiliarity with the idea that you might 0:13:41.200 --> 0:13:43.480 not be able to kind of sound off about what 0:13:43.520 --> 0:13:46.440 you think is something that is pretty deeply rooted in 0:13:46.480 --> 0:13:50.160 American political culture. And at a basic level, what Trump 0:13:50.280 --> 0:13:53.000 is trying to do is to say, Okay, here's some 0:13:53.080 --> 0:13:55.800 new red lines. You can go out to what restaurants 0:13:55.800 --> 0:13:58.000 you want, You can do this, you can do that, 0:13:58.360 --> 0:14:02.520 you can say I'm awesome, can root for different baseball 0:14:02.559 --> 0:14:06.240 and football teams, but in the political sphere, aside from 0:14:06.240 --> 0:14:09.360 saying I'm awesome, no, right, and that's a hard sell 0:14:09.440 --> 0:14:10.200 in this country. 0:14:10.440 --> 0:14:13.560 Yeah, I mean, I would say, like, if we're just 0:14:13.760 --> 0:14:17.080 looking at where we are in this moment, it strikes 0:14:17.120 --> 0:14:22.360 me law firms really did shit the bad in a 0:14:22.400 --> 0:14:26.560 way that almost no one else did. That Law firms Columbia. 0:14:27.200 --> 0:14:31.800 Those guys every day look like bigger and bigger cowards. 0:14:32.000 --> 0:14:34.800 That's my take. People who've left the country because they're 0:14:34.840 --> 0:14:38.720 scared this is Trump is a we can push back 0:14:38.880 --> 0:14:42.120 in a peaceful way against it. And also these people 0:14:42.160 --> 0:14:43.760 are morons. 0:14:44.200 --> 0:14:46.920 I have always been on the skeptical end of the 0:14:47.040 --> 0:14:50.960 spectrum about whether Trump can pull this off from before 0:14:51.120 --> 0:14:54.560 the election and everything, but skeptical not saying it couldn't 0:14:54.600 --> 0:14:57.800 happen by any means. And what has kind of pushed 0:14:57.800 --> 0:15:00.760 me into this camp is, you know, to peace about this. 0:15:01.080 --> 0:15:03.080 A few days ago, kind of making the point that 0:15:03.120 --> 0:15:04.800 I've just made before that I think he's kind of 0:15:04.840 --> 0:15:08.800 already lost that fight. And a reader wrote back to 0:15:08.880 --> 0:15:10.640 me and was sort of saying, Oh, I've been thinking 0:15:10.640 --> 0:15:13.760 along the same lines, and the reader managed to summarize 0:15:13.760 --> 0:15:16.760 what I had said much more concisely than I had 0:15:16.800 --> 0:15:19.640 which is that there's a way you could turn this 0:15:19.760 --> 0:15:22.560 country into an autocracy. This ain't it. This is not 0:15:22.720 --> 0:15:25.000 how you do it. You don't crash the economy. At 0:15:25.000 --> 0:15:29.320 the same time, that's really basic. One other point, everybody 0:15:29.360 --> 0:15:34.800 talks about the authoritarian playbook, right and how it gets imposed. 0:15:35.160 --> 0:15:36.960 This is a thing that is out there in our 0:15:37.000 --> 0:15:41.240 political discourse now, that playbook that exists, and it does exist. 0:15:41.440 --> 0:15:43.800 But what doesn't get talked about a lot is there's 0:15:43.960 --> 0:15:47.200 one chapter that clearly Trump didn't read, but also a 0:15:47.200 --> 0:15:49.840 lot of the anti trumpers didn't read, and that is 0:15:50.440 --> 0:15:53.880 you got to keep the economy moving nicely during the transition, 0:15:54.240 --> 0:15:57.840 and you have to keep key constituencies onside. And those 0:15:57.880 --> 0:16:00.840 constituencies are I mean as they as they used to 0:16:00.880 --> 0:16:05.320 saying kind of in Eastern European or like Soviet Russian terms. 0:16:05.520 --> 0:16:09.800 You keep the pensioners and the power ministries on side, right, 0:16:09.840 --> 0:16:12.400 the old people who need to get their checks, and 0:16:12.600 --> 0:16:16.200 the military and the security services. He's doing that with Ice, 0:16:16.680 --> 0:16:20.160 but he's even antagonized what you know, our version of 0:16:20.680 --> 0:16:25.040 the security services and the military, and he certainly antagonized 0:16:25.080 --> 0:16:27.880 old people by like trying to blow up social Security. 0:16:27.960 --> 0:16:30.520 So there's an aspect of this. You can't go to 0:16:30.680 --> 0:16:33.760 war with everyone at once, right, you have to be 0:16:33.840 --> 0:16:39.920 strategic about it. And so paradoxically he's actually doing domestically 0:16:40.200 --> 0:16:43.600 what we are seeing is not working internationally, which is 0:16:43.640 --> 0:16:46.160 that you might say, oh, okay, we're going to really, 0:16:46.640 --> 0:16:49.640 you know, crack down on you folks in China, We're 0:16:49.640 --> 0:16:51.960 going to put big tariffs and blah blah blah blah blah. 0:16:51.960 --> 0:16:54.760 But you need to have get other countries to go 0:16:54.840 --> 0:16:56.480 along with that. And if you're doing it to every 0:16:56.520 --> 0:16:58.680 other country at the same time, it's all going to 0:16:58.720 --> 0:17:01.440 fall apart. And in a way, that's what he's doing domestically. 0:17:01.920 --> 0:17:04.320 Oh yeah, if you were going to say there's one 0:17:04.400 --> 0:17:06.879 moment where he really fucked himself, I think it's the 0:17:06.960 --> 0:17:12.120 tariffs because you have people like Ken Griffin, right, Ken 0:17:12.160 --> 0:17:17.040 Griffin the largest donor to Republican politics that isn't a 0:17:17.080 --> 0:17:21.199 Trump donor, and he's on there going he's ruining the 0:17:21.240 --> 0:17:24.879 American brand. Now, is he doing it because he's disappearing 0:17:24.960 --> 0:17:28.880 grad students? I think so. But why Griffin is saying 0:17:28.880 --> 0:17:31.840 that is because he's killing the economy. I mean, so 0:17:32.040 --> 0:17:35.000 I do think he is on the fast track to 0:17:35.040 --> 0:17:37.240 alienating many of his allies. 0:17:37.520 --> 0:17:38.399 Yeah, he is. 0:17:38.520 --> 0:17:41.439 And there's another kind of allies. And this goes to 0:17:41.560 --> 0:17:43.400 kind of like don't tell me what I can say 0:17:43.840 --> 0:17:47.240 kind of stuff that when you have people in parts 0:17:47.240 --> 0:17:50.520 of the country who are very red parts of the country, 0:17:50.640 --> 0:17:54.040 and they are very red sectors of society, rural America, 0:17:54.600 --> 0:17:58.760 a lot of what remains of you know, manufacturing, you know, 0:17:58.800 --> 0:18:02.280 the kind of the more male parts of the manufacturing economy, 0:18:02.720 --> 0:18:06.679 fairly trumpy, in some cases, extremely trumpy. When when you 0:18:06.760 --> 0:18:09.680 start kind of breaking those parts of the economy, you're 0:18:09.720 --> 0:18:12.680 gonna quickly get down to that true true believers. And 0:18:12.720 --> 0:18:16.280 there aren't that many true true believers. It's interesting you 0:18:16.320 --> 0:18:17.920 see this as some of the Wall Street people, and 0:18:17.960 --> 0:18:20.480 in some ways these are the most telling that you 0:18:20.560 --> 0:18:24.679 get people saying, man, I do love Trump, but this 0:18:24.960 --> 0:18:27.600 seems kind of messed up. But we sure about this, 0:18:28.200 --> 0:18:29.919 you know, you see it in the sort of the 0:18:29.920 --> 0:18:32.320 acman types. I mean, that guy is so all in 0:18:33.160 --> 0:18:36.080 yet and he's like, uh, I love Trump and Trump 0:18:36.119 --> 0:18:38.080 is a genius, but I feel like someone must be 0:18:38.080 --> 0:18:42.160 giving him bad advice because you know, like, okay, good good, 0:18:42.240 --> 0:18:43.160 good job Bill. 0:18:43.480 --> 0:18:47.640 Are you ever sort of surprised at how were they 0:18:47.720 --> 0:18:50.520 just a sleep for the last time he was president? 0:18:50.520 --> 0:18:53.840 Because I seem to remember like Bill Ackman being like 0:18:54.400 --> 0:18:58.840 what the fuck? Like, we've lived through twenty sixteen to 0:18:58.880 --> 0:19:01.680 twenty twenty and it every point there'd be moments where 0:19:01.720 --> 0:19:04.919 we'd be like, nah, he's not gonna do that, that 0:19:04.960 --> 0:19:09.560 would just be stupid, And at every point he has 0:19:09.880 --> 0:19:11.760 in fact done that very thing. 0:19:12.240 --> 0:19:15.960 I think if you were paying attention to politics in 0:19:16.000 --> 0:19:20.480 the first term, and you were paying attention to things that, well, 0:19:20.520 --> 0:19:22.679 if you're paying attention to politics at all, you know that. 0:19:23.200 --> 0:19:26.680 But you've got a lot of these two things. You've 0:19:26.680 --> 0:19:28.960 got a lot of these guys, like the whole kind 0:19:29.000 --> 0:19:32.320 of crew around Elon Musk and guy or what is 0:19:32.359 --> 0:19:32.680 his name? 0:19:32.680 --> 0:19:36.400 It sucks, right, it sucks, But we can pretty much 0:19:36.400 --> 0:19:39.240 say socks because a fucking guy. One thing you see, 0:19:39.280 --> 0:19:41.440 is it not all venture capitalists are smart. 0:19:41.760 --> 0:19:43.680 Yes, One thing you see is a lot of these 0:19:43.720 --> 0:19:48.040 guys they found out about politics in like twenty twenty two. 0:19:48.240 --> 0:19:51.679 And beyond what you and I may think about bad 0:19:51.800 --> 0:19:56.479 views are wrong views. They're really ignorant about politics. They 0:19:56.520 --> 0:19:58.520 don't know things that happened even a few years ago. 0:19:58.560 --> 0:20:00.720 So that's one part of it. The other part of 0:20:00.760 --> 0:20:02.920 it is, and I think this is something that liberals 0:20:02.960 --> 0:20:06.359 and anti Trump people have not been cognizant enough of, 0:20:06.800 --> 0:20:10.520 is that if you looked at the economy, Trump inherited 0:20:10.640 --> 0:20:14.520 a good economy. He juiced it with a big tax cut. 0:20:14.560 --> 0:20:16.680 Tax cuts have other bad things, but they do kind 0:20:16.680 --> 0:20:20.760 of rev the economy. He didn't really interfere much in 0:20:20.800 --> 0:20:23.320 the economy. I mean, he did do some things, but 0:20:23.400 --> 0:20:26.639 nothing like this. And so I think if you're really 0:20:26.800 --> 0:20:31.280 kind of on Wall Street and that's your world and 0:20:31.320 --> 0:20:34.000 your view of politics is just are they in our 0:20:34.080 --> 0:20:34.760 hair at all? 0:20:35.280 --> 0:20:36.320 Didn't seem so bad. 0:20:36.480 --> 0:20:39.320 Kind of like he basically just let the economy move along. 0:20:39.560 --> 0:20:44.080 He did a lot of deregulations, formal and informal deregulation stuff. 0:20:44.160 --> 0:20:46.600 And you know, there's a broader permutation of this, and 0:20:46.640 --> 0:20:49.560 that is if you just turned off the news in 0:20:49.680 --> 0:20:53.320 term one before COVID, right, if you just literally didn't 0:20:53.359 --> 0:20:55.480 listen to the news, people like you or I might 0:20:55.520 --> 0:20:57.360 be saying, oh my god, this is happening, Oh my god, 0:20:57.400 --> 0:20:59.760 that's happening. But like if you were just living your 0:20:59.800 --> 0:21:03.880 life absent the news, most things seem fine, right. I mean, 0:21:04.040 --> 0:21:07.240 there are some sectors of the economy where things we 0:21:07.520 --> 0:21:10.960 are of the country or communities we're thinks. But for 0:21:11.160 --> 0:21:14.000 most people you could just sort of kind of yeah, 0:21:14.000 --> 0:21:16.520 he's this kind of weird dude, and like whatever, not 0:21:16.640 --> 0:21:19.880 my problem. That is different this time. I mean, things 0:21:19.960 --> 0:21:23.760 are happening that you may never listen to the news, 0:21:24.240 --> 0:21:27.760 but you know, you see the most striking thing you 0:21:27.880 --> 0:21:31.640 see and it is a reality regardless of what happens 0:21:31.680 --> 0:21:35.600 to the real economy. People are really worried about losing 0:21:35.640 --> 0:21:39.600 their jobs right now, really worried about the economy, And 0:21:39.680 --> 0:21:42.000 those are the kind of things when you get people 0:21:42.160 --> 0:21:45.440 that worried, that takes on a reality of its own. 0:21:45.680 --> 0:21:47.879 If everybody gets worried and stop spending money, that's a 0:21:47.880 --> 0:21:51.320 recession right there, kind of regardless of what got you there. 0:21:51.880 --> 0:21:56.080 That's political. People don't like being worried, and whoever they 0:21:56.119 --> 0:21:59.080 blame for it can be in in you know, in 0:21:59.119 --> 0:21:59.760 real trouble. 0:22:00.160 --> 0:22:03.440 No, I know, and I think that's a real question. 0:22:04.480 --> 0:22:07.919 We are out of time, unfortunately, but I hope you 0:22:08.040 --> 0:22:10.639 will come back because this went by so fast. 0:22:11.200 --> 0:22:13.480 I always love coming back. It's so much fun. 0:22:15.119 --> 0:22:19.119 Catherine Clark is the Minority whip and represents Massachusetts fifth 0:22:19.119 --> 0:22:23.480