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 artificial intelligence creation. Senator Katie Britt
Speaker 1: has proposed a database of pregnant people. We're not going
Speaker 1: to regulate guns, but we are going to regulate uteruses.
Speaker 1: We have such a great show for you today the
Speaker 1: Washington Post. Caroline Kitchener, who is a dogged reporter on
Speaker 1: the abortion beat, stops by to talk to us about
Speaker 1: what post row America looks like. Ben, we will talk
Speaker 1: to Democracy Dockets Mark Elias about the GOP's effort to
Speaker 1: stop counting votes before all of them are counted and
Speaker 1: also after. It's amazing stuff. But first we have the
Speaker 1: host of the Enemy's List, the one, the Only, Rick Wilson.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to Fast Politics.
Speaker 2: Rick Wilson, Hello, Molly John Fast. I'm joining you from
Speaker 2: your fair city today as we record this.
Speaker 1: And that's right, Rick is in New York, so let's
Speaker 1: talk about But of course we're not in the same
Speaker 1: room because where would we be, right.
Speaker 2: Why would that even be possible?
Speaker 1: So last night Trump gave a speech bafflingly in New
Speaker 1: Jersey Wildwood, New Jersey, which.
Speaker 2: You know he's swinging state New Jersey.
Speaker 1: I was puzzling through this and I was told by
Speaker 1: someone pretty smart that it is actually the Philly media
Speaker 1: market Wildwood. Yes, so he's trying to get local Philly,
Speaker 1: I think press.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: What struck me about this was it was out at
Speaker 1: the beach and there were a lot of people, like
Speaker 1: a lot, maybe not four hundred thousand like they said
Speaker 1: or whatever crazy made up number they did, but a
Speaker 1: lot of people. And I thought, oh, wow, this is
Speaker 1: probably not so good for Joe Biden. But then those
Speaker 1: people started leaving in droves. And by the time he
Speaker 1: was done, I saw a photograph from a reporter at
Speaker 1: USA Today or video that really looked just like there
Speaker 1: were very few people laughed. So talk to me about that.
Speaker 2: I think you have. As always, the illusion of Trump's
Speaker 2: rallies has some been something that has trick reporters since
Speaker 2: way back in twenty fifteen. And are there places in
Speaker 2: the country where a lot of yeah, who's want to
Speaker 2: get together and go see Donald Trump. And these people
Speaker 2: are like the Juggaloos, only with red hats. They are
Speaker 2: not coming to this thing because you know that they
Speaker 2: want to have political Enlightenment. They're coming because there's no
Speaker 2: monster truck rally. Though I know I'm sounding like a
Speaker 2: really dickish elitist right now, but you may have met
Speaker 2: me by now and know that I have, in fact,
Speaker 2: in dickish elitis when it comes to certain things. But
Speaker 2: the thing, Molly is I think the rally was so
Speaker 2: bizarre of Trump once again, like yes, we did a
Speaker 2: great thing with Arbertrinity Row and we're not done, and
Speaker 2: going on and on and on about it, about doctor
Speaker 2: Hannibal Lecter, the late great doctor Lector, I mean a
Speaker 2: poll wick. I tried to test me once Leva with Saba.
Speaker 2: Oh God, madness.
Speaker 1: It was really interesting to me because the door is open.
Speaker 1: People are mad at Biden for any number of reasons.
Speaker 1: I'm not and you're not. We both really do.
Speaker 2: Like rational adult human beings.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, we just don't think that president is going
Speaker 1: to give us a Christmas list. But I do think
Speaker 1: that the door is open to trump Ism. But the
Speaker 1: thing is, Trump has never been an organized politician. So
Speaker 1: like last night, he did all the things that if
Speaker 1: you were a political strategist you would tell him not
Speaker 1: to do. He bragged about overturning Row. He mused about
Speaker 1: what a good person Hannibal Lecter was, the late great
Speaker 1: you know, he just did a lot of stuff that
Speaker 1: he sort of bragged about his unforced errors. And I
Speaker 1: wondered if ultimately people just got bored and went home.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you can't sit and watch I mean I think
Speaker 2: one cannot, but maybe some people can't. You can't sit
Speaker 2: and watch, you know, monkeys throw their feces all day long.
Speaker 2: It's briefly amusing and then you run, you know, instead
Speaker 2: of everybody lasts about it later. But the Trump Show
Speaker 2: that goes on and on and on and three, and
Speaker 2: it's like these Castro esque linked speeches that are just
Speaker 2: this stream of consciousness rattling, you know, kooky, weird, whatever
Speaker 2: it is. All of it just gets tired. After a while.
Speaker 2: You just get you just get sort of worn down
Speaker 2: by it. And I don't mean by people who just
Speaker 2: people who are critics or antagonists and Trump, I mean everybody.
Speaker 2: I mean people who like the guy eventually go Okay,
Speaker 2: that's enough for one day. I can't do this.
Speaker 1: So that's really my question when we look at this
Speaker 1: from like again, we're six months out from this election.
Speaker 1: So I was chastising a pundit for saying that he
Speaker 1: was sure Joe Biden was going to be a one
Speaker 1: term president. And I said to him, why do you
Speaker 1: say that? And he said because the person asked me,
Speaker 1: and I only say the truth. And I was like,
Speaker 1: but you don't know the truth. I said, you just
Speaker 1: know your.
Speaker 2: Opinion, right, that's an opinion.
Speaker 1: And I said, based on polls. I said, so you
Speaker 1: don't actually know the truth. You just have an opinion
Speaker 1: based on poles. And I don't necessarily think that's true.
Speaker 1: But I also know enough to know that six months
Speaker 1: from the election, none of us really know what's going
Speaker 1: on because most of the country is not paying attention.
Speaker 2: To use a phrase beaten to death over many generations,
Speaker 2: opinions are like the human asshole. Everyone has one. But
Speaker 2: the idea that none of Trump's infirmities, weirdnesses, that the meltdowns,
Speaker 2: the craziness, the self led legal defense efforts are not
Speaker 2: weighing on Americans are just wrong. There are a lot
Speaker 2: of reporters who are incentivized, for a hundred different reasons,
Speaker 2: to make it overse race, to make a competitive to drama, drama,
Speaker 2: drama all day long, and God bless them. Okay, that's
Speaker 2: their work, that's their livelihood. I get a totally and
Speaker 2: a lot of them who are following along on this
Speaker 2: stuff are very amused by Trump doing his trick again
Speaker 2: on America, of Trump doing his act once again of
Speaker 2: making the press incapable of covering him. And right now
Speaker 2: they are, they're once again showing us they're incapable of
Speaker 2: covering Donald Trump. They don't know what to do. They
Speaker 2: they do not know what to do with this guy.
Speaker 2: And I'm sorry. I feel bad for them professionally, and
Speaker 2: I feel bad for the country because too many people
Speaker 2: right now still believe that Donald Trump does not obey
Speaker 2: any political laws of physics. One other things that I
Speaker 2: want to make very clear, there's this idea out there
Speaker 2: that Joe Biden is somehow completely helpless, snake fit and helpless.
Speaker 2: He's running and his campaign is running a good campaign.
Speaker 2: They are running a good campaign.
Speaker 1: With a lot of money.
Speaker 2: And that was my next point. With essentially unlimited resources
Speaker 2: right now, that will start to add up over time.
Speaker 2: I know it's not happening as fast as people want,
Speaker 2: or as deeply and immediately st people want, but it
Speaker 2: will happen. It is underway right now, and Trump is
Speaker 2: getting you know, he's getting out spent one hundred to
Speaker 2: one in a lot of these early states right now.
Speaker 2: And that's it takes time to add up. It takes
Speaker 2: time to add in, and you know, the economy to
Speaker 2: use bubb a little long. People keep underestimating that, but
Speaker 2: the economy keeps like stubbornly refusing to go into a recession.
Speaker 2: For Donald Trump's.
Speaker 1: Right, and also when we look at this inevitability of
Speaker 1: trump Ism, which I think is largely based on anxiety
Speaker 1: from twenty sixteen. Trump has lost every election since twenty sixteen.
Speaker 1: He lost twenty eighteen, he lost twenty twenty, he lost
Speaker 1: twenty twenty two, he lost twenty twenty three, he lost
Speaker 1: the Virginia State House. And even you see like these
Speaker 1: Republicans are now even trying to not run along with him,
Speaker 1: like you have swing state senatorial candidate. It's saying they're
Speaker 1: not going to lie about the twenty twenty election because
Speaker 1: swing voters don't molly.
Speaker 2: There is something that I think is really important to
Speaker 2: keep in mind that many of our colleagues and friends
Speaker 2: in the journalism world have I think I don't know
Speaker 2: they've deliberately forgotten it, but it's less fun and as
Speaker 2: dramatic the Republican Party. Although the Magam movement is utterly
Speaker 2: dominant inside the Republican Party, the Republican Party is in
Speaker 2: a state of profound, wretched, terrible collapse and crisis. The
Speaker 2: normies are gone, the crazies are largely in charge. When
Speaker 2: Mike Johnson is the bastion right now sanity in the
Speaker 2: Republican Party. You don't operate in a sane universe. You know,
Speaker 2: You've got a party tearing itself apart. And they have
Speaker 2: lost seats again, as you point out, starting in twenty eighteen.
Speaker 2: Nationally speaking, this is at the state House, State Senate,
Speaker 2: gresh always you know, very they've lost around a thousand
Speaker 2: elected offices since Trump got elected in twenty sixteen. Trump
Speaker 2: single handedly did all the work the Republican Party did
Speaker 2: between the year two thousand and the year twenty sixteen,
Speaker 2: because the Republicans were making a lot of gains in
Speaker 2: the states over those years. And now those things are
Speaker 2: being swept away. And that counts things like local school
Speaker 2: boards and all this stuff. And so the GOP is
Speaker 2: at a profound crisis, and I know they want to
Speaker 2: pretend that's not the case, and so oh were you
Speaker 2: know we're going to win this or that. But right
Speaker 2: now they are desperate and a lot of the ones
Speaker 2: that McConnell has out there that he's filled in, these
Speaker 2: billionaires and these rich guys, there's trapped because the Maugus
Speaker 2: don't like them, and the only thing keeping them them
Speaker 2: alive is that they're writing checks with many, many, many zeros.
Speaker 1: Say you're a GOP donor, So I mean, are you
Speaker 1: wouned back? This is something you actually know about because
Speaker 1: you know GOP donors. You talk to GOP donors all
Speaker 1: the time.
Speaker 2: I mean I do.
Speaker 1: So we have Mitch McConnell trying desperately to raise money
Speaker 1: because they are trying to pick up the Senate. You
Speaker 1: have Mike Johnson really behind the eight ball, trying desperately
Speaker 1: to raise money. You've Donald Trump trying desperately to raise money.
Speaker 1: So what do you think their pitches to Republican donors
Speaker 1: and do you think it's working well?
Speaker 2: If you bifurcate the pitch among Johnson versus McConnell, they're
Speaker 2: very different appeals.
Speaker 1: So let's hear them.
Speaker 2: Mitch mcconne was telling big Republican donors. I can still
Speaker 2: save this. I can still be a firewall. We can
Speaker 2: still prevent Trump if he's back in office from doing
Speaker 2: the worst things.
Speaker 1: Or do you think they're worried though, or do you
Speaker 1: think they don't care about the worst things.
Speaker 2: Here's the thing. Republican mega donors believe that Trump is
Speaker 2: a disaster, an immediate threat to American democracy. He could
Speaker 2: plunge the entire world into a billion years of nuclear
Speaker 2: darkness and all that. But they will kill their own
Speaker 2: children with a bloody, rusty butcher knife to get a
Speaker 2: tax cut.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: There's nothing that appeals to them more than that. So
Speaker 2: McConnell's trying to give them the best of both worlds.
Speaker 2: I'm going to get you your tax cuts, and I
Speaker 2: will prevent Trump from plunging the world into nuclear darkness. Right,
Speaker 2: and is adopting a little bit more of a message
Speaker 2: to donors. I actually talked to a donor who Johnson
Speaker 2: pitched recently and failed. But pitched him, and sadly I
Speaker 2: failed when I pitched him too. But the guy's just stubborn.
Speaker 2: But Johnson's argument was, if you let the low Democrats
Speaker 2: take over, they'll destroy your company. I'm not doing this
Speaker 2: for Trumpian reasons. I'm a free market, small government Republican. No,
Speaker 2: not true.
Speaker 1: What did the guys say when he said that?
Speaker 2: He just like, I have trouble taking you seriously about that.
Speaker 2: And then the guy brought up to me, he goes, yeah,
Speaker 2: a guy with the poor An app on his phone.
Speaker 2: I don't think.
Speaker 1: So so right, small government?
Speaker 2: You know, you saw the stories last week where trump
Speaker 2: Is goes to the you know, the energy sector guys
Speaker 2: and says, give me a billion dollars and I'll undo
Speaker 2: every regulation. Joe Biden. Ever, that is some third world
Speaker 2: cuptocracy right there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so let's talk about that for a minute, because
Speaker 1: I think that a lot of us were just horrified
Speaker 1: because of the planet. But I always wonder or who
Speaker 1: is that for? Like how many oil billionaires are there
Speaker 1: who are affected directly by regulation like that? I mean,
Speaker 1: is that ten people? Is that five people?
Speaker 2: I won't say they're all billionaires, but in that energy
Speaker 2: sector there are about sixty or seventy donors right in
Speaker 2: a whole variety of corporate roles. It could be as
Speaker 2: big as a chevron, but it could also be the
Speaker 2: people who are in the infrastructure part of the oil
Speaker 2: and gas industry. The pyramid is very broad of people,
Speaker 2: the guys who build offshore rigs and helicopters to service
Speaker 2: the option. There's a huge it's a gigantic industry.
Speaker 1: But do you think it works. Do you think they
Speaker 1: do that for him?
Speaker 2: Listen, a billion dollars is a lot of money. The
Speaker 2: problem with any gift to Trump of that scale, Okay,
Speaker 2: a problem with that, and they all know it, is
Speaker 2: that Trump is going to demand they go through a
Speaker 2: certain pathway where he gets a skim right, And none
Speaker 2: of these guys are in the business.
Speaker 1: Of being stupid right with money, So it's going to
Speaker 1: be hard for that.
Speaker 2: So it's going to be difficult to do that. Now. Look,
Speaker 2: will be oil and gas industry raised Trump one hundred
Speaker 2: million dollars? Sure? I think they could do that without
Speaker 2: breaking a sweat. Yeah, But I don't think they're going
Speaker 2: to raise him a billion dollars, no matter how much
Speaker 2: he asks for it.
Speaker 1: But it's interesting. He clearly is quite panicked.
Speaker 2: Oh, no question, no doubt about it. He is nervous
Speaker 2: that the world is fluid in a way that he's
Speaker 2: not as quick and agile enough to keep up with
Speaker 2: as he might have been in twenty sixteen.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: I think the guy we're seeing in court, the cranky,
Speaker 2: you know, tired, exhausted, drawn, bitter, nasty, old man, I
Speaker 2: think that's the real Trump. I think that he knows
Speaker 2: that all of the posturing in the world about the
Speaker 2: crooked judges and blah blah blah isn't true. He knows that.
Speaker 2: I think he's starting a sense that there is a Again,
Speaker 2: and I've said this one hundred times, I'll say it again.
Speaker 2: I do not believe that Donald Trump is going to
Speaker 2: have any of these trials meaningfully affect whether he goes
Speaker 2: to prison before November. Would I like it, of course
Speaker 2: it would. But I don't think he's happy. There's no
Speaker 2: joy with Trump right now. And look he enjoyed twenty sixteen.
Speaker 1: He also had to spend one hundred million dollars to
Speaker 1: keep from going into trials, so like his legal fees.
Speaker 1: I had an argument with someone about this because some
Speaker 1: of his lawyers, Alena Habba is a disaster. But like
Speaker 1: some of these lawyers are quite good. Now they have
Speaker 1: a client who tells them what to do, and that's
Speaker 1: not good.
Speaker 2: Todd Blande is well regarded as a defense attorney. I
Speaker 2: know Chris Kuyse, I was friends with Chris Kuyz years
Speaker 2: and years ago.
Speaker 1: And Susan Necklace. I mean, these are mo stupid people now.
Speaker 1: Luckily for US an American democracy.
Speaker 2: What lay life is left a terrible coin.
Speaker 1: They have a terrible client who won't let them actually
Speaker 1: do law stuff, which is the good news. But I
Speaker 1: do think, I absolutely think that we are seeing these lawyers.
Speaker 1: He's gonna need another I mean, will he need another
Speaker 1: one hundred million dollars to keep kicking the can before
Speaker 1: the election? I think so.
Speaker 2: You know, I'm absolutely certain that the burn rate of
Speaker 2: Trump's legal herald will be the thing in the end
Speaker 2: of the day, because Joe Biden pulls this thing off.
Speaker 2: We're going to look back and go, you know what,
Speaker 2: if Donald Trump had spent seventy million dollars in in
Speaker 2: the early States or in the Keys wedding States early,
Speaker 2: he might might have beaten Biden. But right now it's
Speaker 2: Joe Biden and Biden's allies that are on the air
Speaker 2: in places like Arizona and Wisconsin, in Michigan and Pennsylvania.
Speaker 2: And while Trump is still able to raise that small
Speaker 2: dollar money. The hesitation level among most people is increasing.
Speaker 2: They're dropping off the big dollar guys. They're taking a
Speaker 2: lot of beating and seduction at phone calls and Susie
Speaker 2: Wilds holding their hands to get them to write those
Speaker 2: million dollar checks. It's not like twenty six even now,
Speaker 2: it's not like twenty sixteen. I think there's just such
Speaker 2: a unscored amount of legal peril that has hurt him
Speaker 2: in ways that I certainly can tell you reporters have
Speaker 2: not calculated it fully and adequately. I don't think most
Speaker 2: people in the political environment right now have correctly.
Speaker 1: There's no president for like, your candidate is in criminal
Speaker 1: trials at one hundred Center Street while the adult film
Speaker 1: actress that he paid hush money to is testifying about
Speaker 1: having almost non consensual sex with him.
Speaker 2: Right I was writing something this morning when I was
Speaker 2: on the plane coming up to New York House. I
Speaker 2: was writing something about the bizarre nature of a world
Speaker 2: where a former president is in court with the with
Speaker 2: the adult film star who he threatened, abused, and continues
Speaker 2: to abuse even after he's already been adjudicated as a
Speaker 2: sexual assaulter with the aging care case and has been
Speaker 2: forced to pay defamation for attacking her over and over again,
Speaker 2: that we still live in a world where people don't
Speaker 2: think about Trump as a form of political pornography enjoyed
Speaker 2: by a few Americans, but that like tentacle porn or
Speaker 2: something else, it's going to become an increasingly sort of
Speaker 2: specialized taste. You can't look at this guy anymore. I go,
Speaker 2: that's a regular guy. I can have a beer with
Speaker 2: that guy. He's the normal He's the normal guy in
Speaker 2: the room. I mean, Joe Biden may suffer from being
Speaker 2: too much normal and too basic in the minds of
Speaker 2: the press, not colorful enough or whatever, not young and
Speaker 2: vibrant enough. People at the end of the day make
Speaker 2: a lot of political decisions based on fear, and I
Speaker 2: think Trump every day gives you more to fear and
Speaker 2: more to load and more to be, more to be
Speaker 2: disturbed about. And people who are disturbed by the behavior
Speaker 2: of a Trump, I don't think there's any way where
Speaker 2: they reverse their decision and go, you know what. I
Speaker 2: know it's August now, and I've been thinking about vote
Speaker 2: for Joe Biden, But suddenly Trump's going to be more
Speaker 2: sane and cogent and not talking about imaginary serial killers
Speaker 2: and not pretending he's a martyr on the same level
Speaker 2: as Gandhi and Martin Luther King at Smith dell.
Speaker 1: Rick Wilson, Thank you.
Speaker 2: You are welcome.
Speaker 1: Spring us here, and I bet you are trying to
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Speaker 1: Caroline Kitchener is a national reporter doggedly covering abortion at
Speaker 1: the Washington Post. Welcome back to Fast Politics, Carolyne Kitchener.
Speaker 3: Thank you.
Speaker 1: You have this beat, which is abortion. It is in
Speaker 1: post row America. Just every piece is just an incredible
Speaker 1: shit show. So I want you first to talk to
Speaker 1: us about Florida. Let's talk about Florida first and then
Speaker 1: we'll get to I mean, every abortion story in this country,
Speaker 1: of which in post or America there are now millions
Speaker 1: you cover basically, But let's talk about Florida first, because Florida,
Speaker 1: it just happened last week, right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I would love to talk about Florida. I think
Speaker 3: that people are not really yet realizing how big of
Speaker 3: an impact Florida is going to have on abortion access
Speaker 3: through the entire country.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so set this stage here.
Speaker 3: I went last week. I was there for like twenty
Speaker 3: four hours. I was there on the day before the
Speaker 3: band took effect.
Speaker 1: And this is a six week band enacted by DeSantis.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he find it. So it's a ban on most
Speaker 3: abortions and it's going down. Florida had a fifteen week
Speaker 3: ban in place, and so this replaces that now. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I mean so I was there on Tuesday, and it
Speaker 3: was a wrenching day for these women because it was
Speaker 3: the last day that they could provide abortions. But because
Speaker 3: Florida also has a twenty four hour waiting period.
Speaker 1: So what does that mean? A twenty four hour waiting.
Speaker 3: Period, So that means that they have to come in
Speaker 3: for their first appointment and have an ultrasound and a
Speaker 3: consultation twenty four hours before they get the actual abortion.
Speaker 3: So the tuesday that I was there, you were having
Speaker 3: first people turn away because they came for their consultation
Speaker 3: and they were told that they were farther than six
Speaker 3: weeks along, because most people are by the time that
Speaker 3: they get in, and they were turned away and well,
Speaker 3: it was one of the most emotional settings that I
Speaker 3: have been in this reporting maybe ever, because I was
Speaker 3: just sitting there. I mean I sat there as these women,
Speaker 3: one after the other, was turned away, and I saw them,
Speaker 3: you know, I saw them learning this, learning that they
Speaker 3: were eight weeks or ten weeks and that they couldn't
Speaker 3: get an abortion, and just one after the other, they're
Speaker 3: just sobbing, just breaking down because they knew, they knew
Speaker 3: what this meant. The advocate that the clinic director who
Speaker 3: was there, was trying to assure them, you know, there
Speaker 3: are resources, there's funds, you can go out of state.
Speaker 3: But it's like I think for a lot of these women,
Speaker 3: like they have kids at home, they have like a
Speaker 3: very little money, So they were being told to go
Speaker 3: to d C because that's just how far away Florida is,
Speaker 3: and that you might as well have been telling them
Speaker 3: that they could go to the moon.
Speaker 1: You talk about that in the story that one of
Speaker 1: these women, they say, well, you can go to DC
Speaker 1: and will help you pay, and the woman is like,
Speaker 1: I have two kids and no mine.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that opposition just felt like insane for her, Like
Speaker 3: what I go to d C right now, Like I
Speaker 3: have my life, I have my kids, Like you know,
Speaker 3: it was really like she was being told that she
Speaker 3: had to have a third child.
Speaker 1: Right because she was basically being told she had to
Speaker 1: have a third child that she can't afford. So explain
Speaker 1: to me Florida. What I think about when I think
Speaker 1: about Florida. That's interesting is this is a state with
Speaker 1: real libertarian leanings, which for a long time was sort
Speaker 1: of a place where you could safely get an abortion
Speaker 1: in this house.
Speaker 3: Yeah, a lot of people don't realize that. I mean,
Speaker 3: Florida has been a sort of like abortion haven for
Speaker 3: lack of a better term, for a really long time
Speaker 3: because of this provision in the state constitution in Florida,
Speaker 3: this very very strong privaca clause in the Florida Constitution
Speaker 3: that was passed by voters in the nineteen eighties that
Speaker 3: has long long been interpreted to protect abortion rights. So well,
Speaker 3: when you had all these other even you know, long
Speaker 3: before the DABS decision, when you had all of these
Speaker 3: other states in the South passing all of these restrictions,
Speaker 3: Florida often resisted those restrictions because of this privacy clause
Speaker 3: in the state constitution. What changed recently is you had
Speaker 3: the State Supreme Court, which was totally remade by Ron Desanthos.
Speaker 3: You had them say that, actually, no, this privacy provision
Speaker 3: does not protect abortion rights, and therefore this six week
Speaker 3: man that the legislature has passed can take effect.
Speaker 1: So one of the things I'm hoping that we could
Speaker 1: just talk about for one more minute is your DeSantis.
Speaker 1: I think knew this was a bad this was a
Speaker 1: bad law, or knew that it would be unpopular with
Speaker 1: voters because he signed it into law, not in a
Speaker 1: big ceremony, but actually in the middle of the ninety
Speaker 1: Can you sort of talk about that, because my theory
Speaker 1: of the case is that he did it because he
Speaker 1: thought it would help his presidential run, because when he
Speaker 1: signed it in it was still when he thought he
Speaker 1: might have a shot.
Speaker 3: Right. Well, it was very striking the contrast because I covered,
Speaker 3: you know, one year before he signed six week Lack,
Speaker 3: he signed in the fifteen week law. The contrast between
Speaker 3: how he did each of those laws was like day
Speaker 3: and night. Because the fifteen week law he stayed like
Speaker 3: a massive event in the middle of the day. He
Speaker 3: invited everybody. It was like a real dog and Plenty show.
Speaker 3: And then like you said the other one he's signed
Speaker 3: late at night. I think it was in his office.
Speaker 3: It was not you know, there might have been like
Speaker 3: one picture taken, but it was very quiet. And then
Speaker 3: if I'm remembering right, I think it was like the
Speaker 3: next day or the day after, he actually spoke at
Speaker 3: Liberty University and he didn't talk about this, which, like
Speaker 3: I thought, was like very striking because obviously that's like
Speaker 3: the setting, right that is, like, if you're ever going
Speaker 3: to talk about your like anti abortion achievement, that's going
Speaker 3: to be the setting that you're going to do it in.
Speaker 3: And so his like, his silence was very striking. And
Speaker 3: I don't know, I mean, I think, like, you know,
Speaker 3: that theory that you black positive like certainly sounds plausible.
Speaker 2: I don't.
Speaker 3: I mean, I think he was certainly getting an enormous
Speaker 3: amount of pressure from the base and from you know,
Speaker 3: anti abortion activists in the state that have really helped
Speaker 3: him in a lot of ways to do this. He's
Speaker 3: never spoken about why.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it seems like it has political calculus written all
Speaker 1: over it. So let's go to this Texas story you
Speaker 1: wrote about. Power is such a central here and it
Speaker 1: brings up the architect of SB eight, which was the
Speaker 1: law that ultimately Republicans used to overturn Row. It's the
Speaker 1: State Bill eight. I want you to do two seconds
Speaker 1: on Jonathan Mitchell and then I want you to talk
Speaker 1: about SBA.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So Jonathan Mitchell is I would say, the most
Speaker 3: well known anti abortion attorney in the country. He is
Speaker 3: known for kind of coming up with new and extremely
Speaker 3: aggressive and like I mean, I would say creative, like
Speaker 3: very like out of the box ways to crack down
Speaker 3: on abortion. He has a real reputation for that and
Speaker 3: he's trying a lot of different things and he has
Speaker 3: been for several.
Speaker 1: Years, including like a fugitive slave law basically that had
Speaker 1: bounties on women who went and got abortion. So if
Speaker 1: you were a taxi driver who drove a woman to
Speaker 1: get an abortion, you could theoretically be charged.
Speaker 3: Well, so with Senate Bill A, the way that this
Speaker 3: law got around Roe v. Wait, it's all about private
Speaker 3: civil enforcement. So basically what that means is that any
Speaker 3: person in Texas can you know, file a lawsuit against
Speaker 3: anyone that they spec might have helped somebody to get
Speaker 3: that abortion. And that was a really I mean, we've
Speaker 3: now seen several states sort of refashion that, but at
Speaker 3: the time that was really really novel and nobody had
Speaker 3: had really done anything like that before. I that was
Speaker 3: Jonathan Mitchell's idea.
Speaker 1: So crazy. Explained to us a little bit about what
Speaker 1: it looks like with Texas now is woman wants to
Speaker 1: get an abortion and the father of the fetus is
Speaker 1: able to explain this to us.
Speaker 3: Yeah, anytime it's Texas, there's a lot of like weird
Speaker 3: legal things. I just find that if they're reporting. But
Speaker 3: there's something in Texas called the Rule two O two
Speaker 3: petition that allows you to basically petition a court to
Speaker 3: allow you to investigate before even a lawsuit is filed.
Speaker 3: So when there's like if you say, you know, look,
Speaker 3: I'm like suspecting that there's some illegal activity happening here,
Speaker 3: and you know, I want to investigate, you can like
Speaker 3: petition a court to allow you to do that. So
Speaker 3: there's a big if no lawsuit filed. But basically what
Speaker 3: has happened is this man, represented by Jonathan Mitchell, has
Speaker 3: gone to a court and said, look, my former partner
Speaker 3: got into abortion against my wishes and I want to
Speaker 3: investigate that. Now, what is like particularly striking about this case?
Speaker 3: I think is that it's very clear from the records
Speaker 3: that she went out of state. She went to Colorado
Speaker 3: where abortion is still legal, and there's nothing illegal about that.
Speaker 1: Right, states rights. They pretend to care about states.
Speaker 3: Right, there's nothing illegal about that. I mean, we have
Speaker 3: seen anti abortion activists really go after this, like really
Speaker 3: clearly wanting to stop this, but there's nothing illegal about that.
Speaker 3: So that for a lot of people ring a lot
Speaker 3: of alarm bells in a lot of ways.
Speaker 1: Yeah, explain to us a little bit about what is
Speaker 1: there anything that Jonathan Mitchell can do or is it
Speaker 1: just to sort of make people afraid?
Speaker 3: Well, I mean, I think the vast majority of certainly
Speaker 3: of abortion rights activists see this as a chilling mechanism,
Speaker 3: you know, something to do that people will hear about this,
Speaker 3: you know, and then they will be afraid. But basically,
Speaker 3: what he is arguing in this petition is that, you know,
Speaker 3: even though like the woman herself could not be charged
Speaker 3: or could not be you know, punished in any way,
Speaker 3: the people who like aided her in getting out of
Speaker 3: state could be. Now, abortion rights attorneys vehemently disagree with
Speaker 3: that statement. They said, say that nobody involved could be charged,
Speaker 3: but that's what he's arguing.
Speaker 1: So crazy. So we have this Florida six week ban now,
Speaker 1: and then Arizona has a pretty interesting situation. Can you
Speaker 1: talk about.
Speaker 3: That Arizona's law has now been repealed, but that doesn't
Speaker 3: necessarily mean that it's not going to take effect. And
Speaker 3: it's very confusing what's happening in this area. But the
Speaker 3: leadest that I heard is that it cannot. The earliest
Speaker 3: that it could take effect is mid to end of June.
Speaker 3: I mean, I think because Arizona has a democratic attorney general, like,
Speaker 3: there's a lot in a democratic governor, there's a lot
Speaker 3: that you know, obviously, those are extremely powerful leadership positions,
Speaker 3: and they're sort of trying to do whatever they can
Speaker 3: to stop this from taking effects. But we're sort of
Speaker 3: in uncharted toiratory and nobody really knows what's going to happen.
Speaker 1: Okay, so we don't know, because I thought for sure
Speaker 1: that the eighteen sixty law had to go into effect
Speaker 1: at some point. Even though they were able to ultimately overturn.
Speaker 3: It, they're still using conditional language like the governor and
Speaker 3: the attorney general. I mean, my impression is that they're
Speaker 3: still trying to figure out a way to stop this
Speaker 3: from happening, because initially they had said the earliest was
Speaker 3: June eighth, and now they're saying the leadst that I
Speaker 3: that I saw on I do think that this is
Speaker 3: a this is kind of evolving. But then the latest
Speaker 3: that I saw was meddle to to end of June,
Speaker 3: So I think we don't know for sure yet.
Speaker 1: But right now the landscape is there's likely to be
Speaker 1: a sixteen week ban, maybe worse, but something to that
Speaker 1: effect in Arizona, which is also another state with real
Speaker 1: libertarian leanings.
Speaker 3: Talk to me about that there is a fifteen week ban.
Speaker 1: That's the Doug Doocey right.
Speaker 3: For over a year like that has been alot on
Speaker 3: the land in Arizona. But you know, they like Florida,
Speaker 3: are almost certainly going to have abortion on the ballot
Speaker 3: in November. You know a lot of this is going
Speaker 3: to come down to the election.
Speaker 1: You are seeing these women and you're really seeing those firsthand.
Speaker 1: I mean, so I read this like amazing report from
Speaker 1: Lyft to Louisiana which talked about how Louisiana they're seeing
Speaker 1: doctors unable or unwilling to treat pregnant women in the
Speaker 1: first trimester because of the anxiety about miscarriage is an abortion?
Speaker 1: What do you think about that?
Speaker 3: I mean, it's certainly happening. I thought that maybe by
Speaker 3: now things like that would have sort of settled out
Speaker 3: and you know, people would realize that, Like, you know,
Speaker 3: cases are cases like this, as far as we know,
Speaker 3: are not being filed against doctors. We have not seen
Speaker 3: that against any sort of like medical emergency or anything
Speaker 3: like that. But it really it hasn't. Like I mean,
Speaker 3: people in emergency situations are still being turned away. It
Speaker 3: seems like every day, and you know, I think that
Speaker 3: just speaks to doctors have a lot to lose. Obviously,
Speaker 3: they're you know, in most of these places, they're facing
Speaker 3: jail time, they could lose their licenses, and that's a
Speaker 3: lot paraska of a doctor, right And there are certainly
Speaker 3: some that are willing to kind of put it on
Speaker 3: the line like that, but many more I think that aren't.
Speaker 1: So there's an Mdollar case right now at the Supreme Court.
Speaker 1: MDALA is this emergency medicine federal statute which says you
Speaker 1: can't leave people to die. Very American that we had
Speaker 1: to pass that the Biden administration is doing I hope,
Speaker 1: because you have these women who are being menevacked out
Speaker 1: of the state because doctors are refusing to formal life
Speaker 1: saving abortions on them. Are you seeing that? I feel
Speaker 1: like you're on the ground, so you're and you're traveling
Speaker 1: around and you're talking to people. Are you seeing that
Speaker 1: other places? And also what do you think the downstream
Speaker 1: effect of that is.
Speaker 3: I'm definitely hearing about this in multiple different states, and
Speaker 3: I would wager to guess that it's happening everywhere because
Speaker 3: the laws are very similar and the fear is the same.
Speaker 3: Something that hasn't been talked about as much is the
Speaker 3: role that the hospitals have to play. I mean, doctors
Speaker 3: that I'm talking to are extremely grateful when their hospitals
Speaker 3: give them guidance about how to interpret these laws, because
Speaker 3: what happens sometimes is that like some of these common
Speaker 3: difficult conditions that women come in with, pregnancy complications that
Speaker 3: women come in with, sometimes hospitals will say that one
Speaker 3: is okay. You know, we have looked at the law
Speaker 3: and we have sided together that that one is okay,
Speaker 3: And that is so important for the doctor to hear.
Speaker 3: But you have a lot more hospitals in my know
Speaker 3: that I found in my reporting that they aren't say anything,
Speaker 3: they're not giving any kind of guidance, So it's like
Speaker 3: totally just the doctor out there on their own, you know,
Speaker 3: encountering these emergency situations and having to figure out what
Speaker 3: to do.
Speaker 1: You don't feel like in these states with the bands,
Speaker 1: the life of the mother protection is being focused on
Speaker 1: or being respected. I mean, that's what it sounds like
Speaker 1: from what you're hearing anecdotally.
Speaker 3: They all phrase these exceptions in different ways. I would say,
Speaker 3: I think the most common one that we hear is
Speaker 3: medical emergency, like there is a there is an exception
Speaker 3: for medical emergency. Now, the problem is that that's extremely vague,
Speaker 3: Like any any doctor that you talk to will say like,
Speaker 3: I don't know what medical emergency means, like, and I
Speaker 3: don't want to risk, you know, acting in a situation
Speaker 3: that then other people say, is not a medical emergency.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 3: A lot of these conditions that they're really reckoning with
Speaker 3: are you know, and not all of them. Some of
Speaker 3: them are like, you know, there is an urgent situation
Speaker 3: and still somebody is being turned away. But a lot
Speaker 3: of these situations are like you know, well, if she's like,
Speaker 3: if the pregnancy is allowed to continue, she's at a
Speaker 3: high risk for sepsis, she's at a high risk for hemorrhaging,
Speaker 3: but it's not like immediately she could die now. And
Speaker 3: so those are the sort of situations. It's sort of
Speaker 3: like gray area situations that doctors are reckoning with. And
Speaker 3: sometimes I'll step in and say, you know, you can
Speaker 3: treat them in that situation, but yeah, more often they don't.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Wow, thank you, thank you, thank you. I hope
Speaker 1: you'll come back.
Speaker 3: Thank you for having me on. I really love talking
Speaker 3: to you.
Speaker 1: Mark Elias is the founder of Democracy Docket. Welcome back
Speaker 1: to Fast Politics.
Speaker 2: Mark, thanks for having me again.
Speaker 1: I'm such a fan of yours. But also, more importantly,
Speaker 1: like I feel like this story because there's so much
Speaker 1: other news. We're sort of sleepwalking through it and there's
Speaker 1: so much I mean, I was listening to Laura Trump
Speaker 1: on television the other day basically telling Republicans to practice
Speaker 1: voter intimidation. So what is happening?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm outside. I do you started there?
Speaker 4: Because I don't want people to walk away thinking I
Speaker 4: don't think you should follow the Trump trials because obviously
Speaker 4: it's important that you follow the Trump trials, but there
Speaker 4: is this crowding out of what is happening to democracy
Speaker 4: that I fear people are going to wake up in
Speaker 4: September October and be shocked at what is befollowing them.
Speaker 4: The Republican Party is openly saying it wants to engage
Speaker 4: in voter suppression and election subversion. You know, you have
Speaker 4: the Laura Trump, the vice share of the Republican Party,
Speaker 4: you know, using language that you know is at best
Speaker 4: coded around violence. You also have her saying that they
Speaker 4: believe they can get the R and C can get
Speaker 4: partisan people touching ballots, remember that, and that kind of means.
Speaker 4: And then you have I think her saying what I
Speaker 4: think you were referring to, which is that they want
Speaker 4: to stop you know, Donald Trump tweeted in twenty twenty
Speaker 4: stop the count She basically said, they're going to litigate
Speaker 4: to try to prevent ballots from being counted after election day.
Speaker 4: And you know at the same time that by the way,
Speaker 4: Republicans prevent states from counting ballots before collection day. They're
Speaker 4: being pretty out in the open about what they are
Speaker 4: planning to do. Donald Trump, you know, gave an interview
Speaker 4: that said he won't necessarily abide by the outcome of
Speaker 4: the election, and then Tim Scott, who is supposed to
Speaker 4: be one of the moderates in the Senate, refuses say
Speaker 4: he would. So I think we need to be careful
Speaker 4: at not letting ourselves be distracted from all of the
Speaker 4: really bad authoritarian commentary and the voter suppression activity that
Speaker 4: is going on while the trials take place.
Speaker 1: What's happening behind the scenes in the courts, Because you
Speaker 1: are in these courts trying to preserve our right to democracy,
Speaker 1: So what's happening there?
Speaker 4: Yeah, So, as we sit here today, there are one
Speaker 4: hundred and forty two separate lawsuits in various states of
Speaker 4: the courts in thirty seven states. The majority of them,
Speaker 4: about eighty of them, are pro democracy lawsuits, but it's
Speaker 4: important to understaid the other sixty some odd are actually
Speaker 4: brought by votes pressers and election deniers. These are lawsuits
Speaker 4: to make it harder of an easier cheat in the
Speaker 4: twenty twenty four election. And the macro trend is that
Speaker 4: we are seeing more and more of those lawsuits being
Speaker 4: filed every day. The trend is towards the election deniers,
Speaker 4: bringing more and more litigation, including the Republican National Committee
Speaker 4: that is doing so. So that is kind of the
Speaker 4: very macro trend. I would say underneath that, there are
Speaker 4: a couple of notable things. The first is the Republicans
Speaker 4: and their allies have brought three separate lawsuits around the country,
Speaker 4: one in Arizona, one in Nevada, one in Minnesota for
Speaker 4: the right to harass election officials. I want you to
Speaker 4: take that yet, like you wake up one day and
Speaker 4: you say, you know what law needs a challenge.
Speaker 2: There's a law that says I cannot harass or intimidate
Speaker 2: an election official. Let's challenge that law.
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 4: Wow, right, So what does that tell you, Molly about
Speaker 4: what we're going to see this fall?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 4: I mean, if they're willing to spend money on lawyers
Speaker 4: to litigate to be able to harass election officials, one
Speaker 4: can assume that harassing election officials is on their dance card.
Speaker 2: When we get to a.
Speaker 1: Too, do you think the courts will protect these people?
Speaker 4: I mean no, I doubt they've already lost the case Nevada.
Speaker 4: I believe they're going to lose the cases in Arizona
Speaker 4: and Minnesota. But I also don't think that they're done
Speaker 4: bringing that litigation elsewhere.
Speaker 1: Okay, so this litigation is like kind of just trying
Speaker 1: to move the goalposts, but not necessarily going to succeed.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I think it's trying to do two things.
Speaker 4: And I think as we get closer to the election,
Speaker 4: and hopefully this won't be the last time I talked
Speaker 4: to you, I think we should keep this in mind
Speaker 4: that there are goals that these that this litigation has.
Speaker 4: One is to win the lawsuit. The second is to
Speaker 4: shift the Overton window of what is.
Speaker 1: Except that's always these great right So.
Speaker 4: Even if they lose these lawsuits, they have sort of
Speaker 4: put into play the idea that there may be there's
Speaker 4: some first amount of right to harass election. I like
Speaker 4: you and I will know they lost the case, but
Speaker 4: like the gestalt that is the national sense of what's
Speaker 4: going on in elections, they will have shifted what is
Speaker 4: considered normal.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's like the trumpmmunity, right, he needs blanket immunity.
Speaker 1: But they didn't really know. They knew they weren't going
Speaker 1: to get blanket immunity. They just wanted to buy some
Speaker 1: time and maybe get a little immunity.
Speaker 4: That's absolutely right, and that's actually there's probably no better
Speaker 4: case that illustrates the danger to democracy and frankly, in
Speaker 4: my view, the failure of the courts to protect democracy
Speaker 4: than that case.
Speaker 2: Because here's the thing. After that argument, which you know,
Speaker 2: everyone agreed, went off.
Speaker 4: The rails, you know, with the justices at this point,
Speaker 4: if they came back and said, there's not total immunity, right,
Speaker 4: you can't kill your political opponents.
Speaker 2: People would be like, oh, wow, well that this reword
Speaker 2: did something reasonable, even if what they're doing is less
Speaker 2: reasonable than we thought they should be doing at the beginning.
Speaker 2: And and Molly, I know you comment a lot on
Speaker 2: the you know, the trial in New York. I want
Speaker 2: to be frankly somewhat critical of the judge there. I
Speaker 2: can't imagine a criminal defendant being held in contend ten
Speaker 2: times before a judge lets them in jail.
Speaker 4: They have shifted. What the behavior is that Donald Trump?
Speaker 4: Donald Trump has ten times now been contemptuous of the court.
Speaker 4: Ten times he has violated a court order knowingly and intentionally,
Speaker 4: and yet we're still in this like, well, let's give
Speaker 4: him another future.
Speaker 2: Let's give him another fut chance.
Speaker 1: Trump benefits from law expectations, right, you know, at every
Speaker 1: point they say, well, if we hold him accountable, then
Speaker 1: da da da. You know, they've gamed it out, which
Speaker 1: is not how any of us do criminal law, you know,
Speaker 1: in this country. But I do think that Mershon in
Speaker 1: his I think is mostly focused on, like, you know,
Speaker 1: just trying to get this thing done. Now, that's not
Speaker 1: a defense, but it's more of just that Trump had
Speaker 1: so primed the pomp for special legal treatment that Mershon
Speaker 1: has sort of found himself in this look.
Speaker 2: I'm not singling him.
Speaker 4: I would say the same thing about the trial judge
Speaker 4: in Georgia who let a side issue sort of derail
Speaker 4: the trial. I honestly would say even the same thing
Speaker 4: about the trial judge in DC who has had her
Speaker 4: case put on hold. But she also frankly, if you
Speaker 4: look back, he's just a criminal defendant, Like he's a
Speaker 4: candidate who is a criminal defendant.
Speaker 2: That's all. He is, nothing else than that.
Speaker 1: Also, I would add that he decided to become a
Speaker 1: candidate because he thought it would help him with these
Speaker 1: criminal cases.
Speaker 2: And that's a really good point, which.
Speaker 1: I feel like is just been lost in the United
Speaker 1: States of amnesia. I feel like there's a lot of
Speaker 1: voter role purging stuff going on. That's really scary.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: So I've talked before about voter mass voter challenges, which
Speaker 4: is when private citizens tried to get large numbers of
Speaker 4: people removed from the roles. When the government does it,
Speaker 4: it is referred to as a purge. Right, So this
Speaker 4: is what I. Purge is when the state or the
Speaker 4: county decides to remove large numbers of people in violation
Speaker 4: of the protections against them being disenfranchised. And what we
Speaker 4: have right now is the Republican Party in some instances
Speaker 4: their allies in many instances are suing states to force urges,
Speaker 4: to force the state eight to remove voters, some of
Speaker 4: whom are lawfully on the rolls, being from being able
Speaker 4: to vote. And you know this is at the same
Speaker 4: time or shortly after, many of those same states or
Speaker 4: Republicans advocated those states leave ERIC, which is an interstate
Speaker 4: compact to keep voter rolls clean. So I want everyone
Speaker 4: to understand how what this two step meant. Step number one,
Speaker 4: you have an agreement between states to share information to
Speaker 4: make sure you don't have dead people and people who
Speaker 4: have moved and other other people on your voter rolls
Speaker 4: and that they're cleaned So step one is, if you're
Speaker 4: a Republican, you get your state to leave that compact,
Speaker 4: so now you have fewer ways to remove those people
Speaker 4: who should be removed. You wait a few months, then
Speaker 4: you file a lawsuit against those states saying, look at
Speaker 4: all the people on your voter roles who shouldn't be
Speaker 4: on the voter roles, we think you need to purge,
Speaker 4: not just those voters, but other voters.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 4: So it so the first serves as an excuse as
Speaker 4: a reason why you now need to engage in a purge.
Speaker 4: And yes, we are seeing an unprecedented level of voter
Speaker 4: purge litigation. Mike Firm and I are involved in fighting
Speaker 4: it back in a number of states, as are other people.
Speaker 4: I don't think this will succeed, but again, what it does,
Speaker 4: even if they lose Molly, they get to then say
Speaker 4: on Fox News and in their other you know, Donald
Speaker 4: Trump on the stop, look at these states. Their voter
Speaker 4: rules are purge and these Obama judges or these liberal
Speaker 4: judges or the Democrats are fighting to have illegal voters. Right,
Speaker 4: they win either legally or they win by creating you know,
Speaker 4: disinformation and rallying, you know, lying to their base.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that's this trumpy thing of you fight this
Speaker 1: case in court and out of court. That's what it's about.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about what this election is going to look like.
Speaker 1: One of the things that Republicans are furious about was
Speaker 1: the expanded ballot access mail in voting. You know, it
Speaker 1: was a once in a lifetime pandemic. It's not the
Speaker 1: same setup. So certain things will go back to normal,
Speaker 1: but will they be able to sort of take back
Speaker 1: some of the more kind of like early voting. I mean,
Speaker 1: how worried are you about that?
Speaker 2: I'm very worried.
Speaker 4: I'm worried about early voting, but I'm particularly worried about
Speaker 4: vote by mail because that has become even more than
Speaker 4: early voting. You know, pre pandemic, if you were looking
Speaker 4: for the partisan split, it actually would have been early voting.
Speaker 4: You know, a lot of Democrats did a lot of
Speaker 4: emphasis on early voting souls to the polls among black voters,
Speaker 4: for example. With the pandemic, you really saw a very
Speaker 4: sharp partisan split around vote by mail. And yes, there'll
Speaker 4: be less vote by mail in twenty twenty four, and
Speaker 4: there wasn't twenty twenty, but it, you know, it is
Speaker 4: still people actually started doing it and they found it
Speaker 4: convene and they like it, and it does have a
Speaker 4: it continues to have a strong partisan divide. So we
Speaker 4: are continuing to see laws and litigation. Sometimes we're bringing
Speaker 4: litigation over vote by mail. In fact, vote by mail
Speaker 4: is the most litigated topic right now. In that one
Speaker 4: hundred and forty two cases, there are more cases involving
Speaker 4: vote by mail than any other. There's going to be
Speaker 4: a case argued in the next few days in the
Speaker 4: Wisconsin Supreme Court over whether dropboxes are legal. So my
Speaker 4: firm has sued to restore dropboxes.
Speaker 2: To be legal.
Speaker 4: They were legal in twenty twenty, the conservative state courts
Speaker 4: struck them down said no drop boxes in twenty twenty two.
Speaker 4: We are now suing and I think will succeed in
Speaker 4: there being dropboxes. But we're seeing this around a whole
Speaker 4: range of issues involving vote by mail. Whether it is
Speaker 4: the Republican Party is suing in Nevada to try to
Speaker 4: throw out ballots that are casked in postmarked before election day,
Speaker 4: but which come in say the day after election day. That'll,
Speaker 4: by the way, to also disenfranchise our military servicemen and
Speaker 4: women oversee, there's no question, Molly, that the fight over
Speaker 4: vote by mail, the whole naked ballots, misdated ballots in
Speaker 4: Pennsylvania that you remember from twenty twenty, All of those
Speaker 4: things are coming roaring back into the forefront.
Speaker 1: What is there any good news? Give us a little
Speaker 1: bit of good news.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so, look, the good news is that they're not succeeding.
Speaker 4: Here is the way I think your audience should think
Speaker 4: about politics. Joe Biden's going to win the popular vote
Speaker 4: in a landslide. Just pause for a moment and think
Speaker 4: about that. Okay, it is simply not true when people
Speaker 4: say that we are an equally divided country. Hillary Clinton
Speaker 4: won the popular vote by three million votes. Joe Biden
Speaker 4: won the popular vote last time by seven million votes.
Speaker 4: If you put a gun to my head, I said,
Speaker 4: Joe Biden wins the popular vote next time by nine
Speaker 4: and a half million votes. But he will win the
Speaker 4: popular vote by millions of votes. So what that means
Speaker 4: is that the only way Republicans can win at this point,
Speaker 4: because they're running out of runway to know count on
Speaker 4: the electoral College. The only way they can win is
Speaker 4: about making it harder to vote, easier to cheat.
Speaker 2: And right now we are in.
Speaker 4: The harder to vote phase, and we will get to
Speaker 4: the easier to cheat phase as we did after twenty twenty,
Speaker 4: you know, sometime in October November. But the good news
Speaker 4: is they didn't succeed in twenty twenty and so far
Speaker 4: they're not succeeding in twenty twenty four. So it's a
Speaker 4: serious threat. It's something we need to take seriously. But
Speaker 4: if you ask me, do I think they will succeed,
Speaker 4: the answer is no, I don't think they'll succeed. What
Speaker 4: makes me pessimistic, Molly, is not the outcome of the
Speaker 4: twenty twenty four election or these cases. What makes me
Speaker 4: pessimistic is that we are now perpetually in a place
Speaker 4: in which only one party can win or else our
Speaker 4: democracy decip.
Speaker 1: No, I know, that is the thing. I mean, there
Speaker 1: are many things that keep me up at night, but
Speaker 1: that is like top three, I mean, the only thing
Speaker 1: that makes me feel a little better. And again, the
Speaker 1: vibes right now are bad. The Acela cord Or vibes
Speaker 1: are bad. But the one thing that I do think
Speaker 1: could happen is Nikki Hlly is still getting tons of votes.
Speaker 1: She's getting you know, she's got one hundred and thirty
Speaker 1: thousand votes in the Republican primary that happened on Tuesday,
Speaker 1: Mike Brown, So whatever state that is Indiana, Indiana. So like,
Speaker 1: clearly never Trump is still never Trump.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and he is historically unpopular. Again, I come back
Speaker 4: to how I think about our elections, which is more
Speaker 4: people want the Democrats. The question is whether or not
Speaker 4: between gerrymandering and the House, between the natural situation with
Speaker 4: the Senate being divided by states by the electoral college,
Speaker 4: will that be enough for Republicans to keep control. I
Speaker 4: think that they don't think that that's enough. I think
Speaker 4: that the Republicans don't think that's enough. I think Donald
Speaker 4: Trump doesn't think that's enough, and that they need to
Speaker 4: suppress voters and they need to cheat on the outcome.
Speaker 4: So our job, my job as a lawyer, and you know,
Speaker 4: all of our jobs as citizens, it's to be vigilant
Speaker 4: and not let that happen. You know, make sure you know.
Speaker 4: The thing I always say to the average folks is that, Molly,
Speaker 4: you have an enormous town square. You are in any
Speaker 4: given week, millions of people literally millions of people hear you,
Speaker 4: they see you, or they'd read you like in some
Speaker 4: form of fashion. They are influenced by what you're saying.
Speaker 4: But that doesn't mean that for Molly Jones right now,
Speaker 4: who is sitting in Scarsdale, New York, that she doesn't
Speaker 4: also have a town square. Her town square may be different,
Speaker 4: maybe the local coffee shop, or her workplace, or her Facebook.
Speaker 4: And I think if we all project the importance of
Speaker 4: protecting democracy and frankly voting for President Biden and Democrats
Speaker 4: like I think the election will actually take care of itself.
Speaker 1: Mark, I hope you'll come back. We have to keep
Speaker 1: following this. It's like one of the many places where
Speaker 1: being vigilant is so important.
Speaker 2: Look, here's the thing, Molly, I am like the guy
Speaker 2: who is like hanging outside your favorite coffee shop, just
Speaker 2: waiting for you to say a lot. So you tell
Speaker 2: me where you want to be dot dot and I
Speaker 2: will be here. No moment, fucker requisi my moment of thuckery.
Speaker 2: Molly John's fast. He has my favorite moment of fuckery.
Speaker 2: As you know, and you and I've known each other
Speaker 2: a long time now, As far back as twenty fifteen,
Speaker 2: I would tell people, Nope, leave Baron out of it.
Speaker 2: Kid's innocent. The kid is a kid. Let it be
Speaker 2: a kid. They attacked my kids, but I said to people,
Speaker 2: don't attack Baron Trump. Here's my moment of thuckery though.
Speaker 2: That article in the Daily Mail last week about Baron
Speaker 2: Trump's political com out how he's a brilliant athlete like
Speaker 2: his father and he's so strong like his political genius.
Speaker 2: That was obviously Donald Trump going to the Daily Mail
Speaker 2: and planting a story about his own teenage son entering politics,
Speaker 2: and no one seems to have picked up on that.
Speaker 2: This wasn't some random source. This was like, you know,
Speaker 2: Donald Trump pulling a classic I'm gonna call Maggie at
Speaker 2: three in the morning. That was so obvious that Donald
Speaker 2: Trump was trying to make bear in the next inheritor,
Speaker 2: And the fuckery of it was Trump doing the John
Speaker 2: Baron routine and calling a news outlet and planning a story.
Speaker 2: The second part that was amazing about the fuckery was
Speaker 2: that Milagnia cock blocket in the worst way last week.
Speaker 2: He says, no, then they'll not be going to a convention.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he won't be Benjon.
Speaker 2: Two Slovakia with me to work on Far is Better lifestyle.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that wasn't amazing. He got the children jobs as delegates,
Speaker 1: and then Milania is like nope, and honestly, like, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm no fan of Mlania's because I think she's just
Speaker 1: as trumpy as everybody else. But you know, good for her.
Speaker 1: Protecting your kids is always good. My moment of fuckery is,
Speaker 1: ma is this Steve Bennon thing that is.
Speaker 2: So going to jail?
Speaker 1: So he is he like, is just stuck, right, He's
Speaker 1: basically going to jail. And so now he's going to
Speaker 1: try to have them here at en banc, which is
Speaker 1: not going to happen. And he's going to try to
Speaker 1: go up to the Supreme Court, which maybe, I mean, look,
Speaker 1: never bet against the brainworms of one Justice Alito and
Speaker 1: Justice Thomas. But if they're willing to put the whole
Speaker 1: organization in jeopardy to appeal to Steve benn and then,
Speaker 1: you know, respect, but I think Steve Bennon, it's going
Speaker 1: to jail.
Speaker 2: If they're willing to burn down a reputation that.
Speaker 1: Is allfctly good lifetime appointment.
Speaker 2: And they've already spread enough gas around the place and
Speaker 2: stacked up enough kindling around the place exactly. But if
Speaker 2: they think that bailing Steve Bannon out of a And basically,
Speaker 2: here's the thing. Bannon did this for clicks and they
Speaker 2: know it. This is not some deeper legal question of
Speaker 2: Steve Bannon being a bold resistor to some sort of
Speaker 2: certainly whatever. Just classic. But you know what, you only
Speaker 2: get one shirt in prison.
Speaker 1: Yes, Steve Mannon going to jail for four months? Are
Speaker 1: mentus four months? Who cares? Four months? Right before this election.
Speaker 1: He is one of the primary sources of trumpy propaganda. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it's like the death of Rush Limbaugh.
Speaker 2: It's a bigger deal than people think. Yeah, that's right,
Speaker 2: it's not just trumpy propaganda. Yes, the war room, all
Speaker 2: this stuff is a lot. It feeds the MAGA base.
Speaker 2: But folks, you would be shocked how many mainstream reporters
Speaker 2: take Steve Bannon's bullshit without a single grain of.
Speaker 1: Salt, right to everybody in the world.
Speaker 2: And by the way, yeah, don't think Steve Bannon like
Speaker 2: he may mock the New York Times. He's on the
Speaker 2: phone with reporters and the Times of Political the watch
Speaker 2: of us every single day for our wors working then,
Speaker 2: So don't anybody fool you about that.
Speaker 1: Yep, I think that's right.
Speaker 2: Okay, thank you, see you later.
Speaker 1: That's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in
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Speaker 1: in politics makes sense of all this chaos. If you
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