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 recently obtained email show that Donald
Speaker 1: Trump was always planning.
Speaker 2: To say the election was stolen.
Speaker 1: I am shocked. I'm totally shocked. We have such a
Speaker 1: great show for you today. White House communications director the
Speaker 1: One the Only Ben Lebolt talks to us about the
Speaker 1: state of the Union and what lies ahead for the president.
Speaker 2: Then we're going to play you a.
Speaker 1: Clip from our Soldown City Winery show featuring the One
Speaker 1: the Only Rick Wilson and surprise guest George Conway. But
Speaker 1: first we have The Washington Post's own Dana Milbank.
Speaker 2: Welcome back, Too Fast Politics.
Speaker 3: Dana Milbank, Molly, it's a thrill as always to be
Speaker 3: with you a thrill.
Speaker 1: So I love you and love having you on the podcast.
Speaker 1: I was excited to have you. Oh, I'm very like
Speaker 1: not DC because I like hug people and tell them
Speaker 1: that I like them.
Speaker 2: That's like not I feel like that's not the culture.
Speaker 3: It's my culture in DC. You can hang with me anytime.
Speaker 1: But I wanted to talk to you about this PC
Speaker 1: for The Washington Post, where it's so crazy. I mean,
Speaker 1: I don't know if it is, like it's not that crazy,
Speaker 1: but it is also that crazy my month of living
Speaker 1: the republicanly. So you I want you to. I'm not
Speaker 1: going to steal your.
Speaker 2: Thunder here because it's so hilarious. So explain to us
Speaker 2: what you did.
Speaker 3: Well, you know that it is possible and throughout the country.
Speaker 3: Really the laws vary by state to vote in whatever
Speaker 3: primary you want to it just as long as you
Speaker 3: register is that party a certain number of days before
Speaker 3: the election. And in DC it's very easy. You just
Speaker 3: got to become a Republican three weeks before the primary.
Speaker 3: So it is a friend's suggestion that is exactly what
Speaker 3: I did. I've always been independent and registered independent, you know,
Speaker 3: because I'm scrupulously neutral in all things political, and also
Speaker 3: I just don't like messing around, you know, voting for
Speaker 3: local primaries I don't really know about.
Speaker 2: Let's be honest. You live in the district.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so my vote is a total throwaway anyway, and
Speaker 3: it doesn't really count. But here was a chance for
Speaker 3: my vote to count because in twenty sixteen, Marco Rubio
Speaker 3: and John Kasik actually beat Trump, who came in a
Speaker 3: distant third. So I was like, you know, I could
Speaker 3: be part of Trump's only defeat in the entire primary season.
Speaker 3: It turns out indeed, he did lose in the district
Speaker 3: of Columbia. He also lost in Vermont, so we don't
Speaker 3: have the sole distinction. But you know, there were only
Speaker 3: I think twelve hundred and fifty votes for Nikki Haley.
Speaker 3: That's how big the Republican Party is in all of DC.
Speaker 3: So she won with sixty three percent, which means all
Speaker 3: of two thousand people voted in this primary. But I
Speaker 3: was one of them. So I feel like I had
Speaker 3: a measurable effect on dealing this devastating defeat to Donald Trump.
Speaker 1: What I love about this story is that Trump has
Speaker 1: done a lot of I wanted to say, tweets, but
Speaker 1: we know they are truths, a lot of truths. The
Speaker 1: iron A too rich on how these radical leftist democrats
Speaker 1: are voting in the primary and denying him of his coronation.
Speaker 2: So you are one of those radical leftist democrats.
Speaker 3: Well, except I was more of a radical leftist and
Speaker 3: Hendon technically, but yeah, in fact, I hadn't yet become
Speaker 3: a Republican when he was railing about them doing it
Speaker 3: to him in New Hampshire, and there, in fact, you
Speaker 3: had to do it months in advance of the primaries.
Speaker 3: I was like, all right, this really gets under his skin.
Speaker 3: So it was all the better reason to do it.
Speaker 3: And you know, he's been all about how you vote
Speaker 3: for Nikki Haley, you're banished permanently from MAGA, and of
Speaker 3: course it's thrilled a lot of Haley supporters. Idea absolutely
Speaker 3: thrilled me, you know, and I've always sort of, you know,
Speaker 3: styled myself sort of you know, rhino, lowercase rhino, just
Speaker 3: you know, never quite a real Republican, and that's that's
Speaker 3: what I was officially.
Speaker 1: So one of the things that you did was you
Speaker 1: just embraced all of the stupid cultural war stuff that
Speaker 1: Republicans have that have been a sort of a hallmark
Speaker 1: of trumpsm you ate a Chick fil A, You tell
Speaker 1: us the other things like that that you did.
Speaker 3: Right, And that's why I called it my Month of
Speaker 3: living republicanly because you know, it just seemed really cheap
Speaker 3: to really just be a rhino. So I thought I'd
Speaker 3: really do the stereotypical Republican thing. So I ate at
Speaker 3: Chick fil a. I shopped at hobby Lobby. I got
Speaker 3: to back the blue placard that I can have up
Speaker 3: on my table. I didn't know if I could sleep
Speaker 3: easy at night, so I bought my pillow from Mike Lindell.
Speaker 3: It's one with He's screened on to the cover of
Speaker 3: the pillow holding a flag and the Constitution. I have
Speaker 3: that for sleeping. My how is the pillow. It's very
Speaker 3: lumpy and flimsy. I compare it to Donald Trump's legal arguments.
Speaker 3: I used the Sean Hannity special and it only cost
Speaker 3: me fifteen bucks. And anyway, my cat likes it, like
Speaker 3: you know, is sleeping on it right now, no doubt.
Speaker 3: So I you know, I got my Mike Lindell pillow
Speaker 3: trying to help him out of debt. I shopped at
Speaker 3: Hobby Lobby. I went to the Museum of the Bible,
Speaker 3: you know where Mike Johnson's clare.
Speaker 2: I've been there.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I was a little disappointed because you know, he went
Speaker 3: there and said, how God you know, made him into
Speaker 3: the new Moses at the red seat moment. But it
Speaker 3: was like totally non partisan. It was like sort of
Speaker 3: a Disney version of the Bible. So I was I
Speaker 3: was kind of disappointed because I wanted to have more
Speaker 3: of a maga justification.
Speaker 1: It doesn't have a real magas my eldest son, yeah
Speaker 1: me there.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Bobby Lobby was more maga than that. But it
Speaker 3: was tiring, and so after that I went to a
Speaker 3: sports bar and watched NASCAR. There was a pile up
Speaker 3: at the beginning of the race, there was a photo finish,
Speaker 3: and there were all these you know, hair dye for
Speaker 3: men and copd ads. So I really felt right at
Speaker 3: home with that. And then I drove three hours out
Speaker 3: into Virginia to go to a gun show and that
Speaker 3: was really I mean that those were my mag of
Speaker 3: people right there.
Speaker 1: Did they have disgusting t shirts that say like racist
Speaker 1: and over sexualized things about our vice president.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there was the Confederate flags and the three percenters
Speaker 3: and Trader Joe. I bought one that said I support
Speaker 3: Donald Trump, I drink beer, I eat meat, I have
Speaker 3: guns to protect my family and if you don't like it,
Speaker 3: move or something to that effect. It was very very pithy.
Speaker 1: The lack of pithiness with the trumpy accessories are because
Speaker 1: you don't have a lot of writers writing that kind
Speaker 1: of thing.
Speaker 3: This is true. They had some great targets that I
Speaker 3: could shoot at with my guns. There was one with
Speaker 3: a cowboy with a red dot on his chest and
Speaker 3: read fart and then he had actual sort of you know,
Speaker 3: life looking genitals in blue that you could shoot at. Yeah,
Speaker 3: you know. And there's the survival food, the freeze dried food,
Speaker 3: and first aid stuff. They were the patriots there, the
Speaker 3: Massa Newton patriots having their election integrity meeting geese. So
Speaker 3: you know, these were I felt that these were my
Speaker 3: people as well. So I think that really rounded out
Speaker 3: the experience. And it's not that I would want to
Speaker 3: necessarily be part of that cultural I have to say.
Speaker 3: I switched, you know, after I voted, I switched my
Speaker 3: party back to Independent. And then I was passing a
Speaker 3: Chick fil A and I was thinking, I can still
Speaker 3: eat there. It's good.
Speaker 1: I thought, Chick fil A stopped giving money to anti
Speaker 1: LGBT causes, Well.
Speaker 3: Then I'm not going to eat there anymore.
Speaker 1: Did you have the fried oreos at Chick fil A?
Speaker 5: No?
Speaker 3: I didn't even know about this. You see, you are
Speaker 3: a better Republican than I am.
Speaker 2: Molly, Ah, I'm sure that's not true.
Speaker 3: I should have checked with you first on this. No,
Speaker 3: I just got the fried chicken sandwich and the milkshake.
Speaker 2: But was it good.
Speaker 3: It was really good, and I think I'm I'm just
Speaker 3: going to stick with it. I you know, whatever, whatever
Speaker 3: their politics are, it's good.
Speaker 1: So let's talk about what else is happening in the
Speaker 1: Beltway besides your weird and hilarious story. We are sort
Speaker 1: of at the end of primary season.
Speaker 2: Would you say that's fair?
Speaker 3: I would say it's over, yes.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and now we have eight months of limping along
Speaker 1: until this election.
Speaker 3: That is a very dreary thought. And I feel it
Speaker 3: personally as well. I've sort of been following. You know,
Speaker 3: I was going to cover the primary, but there's no
Speaker 3: primary to cover, so I've basically been slumming it covering
Speaker 3: the House Republicans, who it's sort of cheap fun, but
Speaker 3: they never really disappoint, you know, they're always going to
Speaker 3: do something wacky. But you know, after this week, I
Speaker 3: was like, all right, I'm going to finally have to
Speaker 3: graduate and start covering this interminable presidential campaign. And I'm
Speaker 3: really not looking forward to it. I can already since
Speaker 3: the procrastination.
Speaker 2: Let's have two seconds on cheap fun. We got to
Speaker 2: go back because.
Speaker 1: Oh please, Yes, I think this is the stupidest group
Speaker 1: of Republicans that the House has ever seen.
Speaker 3: Well, and that's a high bar, but I think, I mean, objectively,
Speaker 3: we have to say they cleared it this week. What
Speaker 3: did we do? We spent the last year getting rid
Speaker 3: of the speaker, having all these showdowns and everything.
Speaker 6: And then.
Speaker 3: And they're basically passing the same, you know, the same
Speaker 3: spending bill that Kevin McCarthy agreed to a year ago.
Speaker 3: So we just wasted the last year having all of
Speaker 3: these fights that amounted to nothing.
Speaker 1: Basically, this entire thing is because Matt Gates was mad
Speaker 1: at McCarthy for allowing an ethics investigation into.
Speaker 3: Him, yes, which is still proceeding.
Speaker 2: I mean, so like, think about how stupid that is.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's hard to sort of overstate the stupidity. But
Speaker 3: you know, it's not like they've done nothing. They've they've
Speaker 3: impeached majorcas without any impeachable offenses. They've they're very close
Speaker 3: to impeaching Biden, even though it turns out the whole
Speaker 3: case is you know, imploded, because they're relying on a
Speaker 3: whole bunch of felons the main witness is in jail
Speaker 3: and the ones in jail. The other one is on
Speaker 3: the lamb.
Speaker 1: For his own protection, likely because they worry about the
Speaker 1: Russians killing him.
Speaker 3: And they want to have a hunter Biden hearing with
Speaker 3: various of his accusers. But they're all going to have
Speaker 3: to come in orange jumpsuits. Now.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: The maiorci Ist impeachment, though, is my favorite of the
Speaker 1: two failed impeachments, because now they've realized they can't bring
Speaker 1: it to the Senate.
Speaker 3: Right after all that and saying it's really an emergency
Speaker 3: and our national security depends on getting this guy out
Speaker 3: of office, They're like, all right, we're just going to
Speaker 3: sit on this for a while. Yes, that's particularly delightful.
Speaker 3: I mean, I guess they're hoping that they can draw
Speaker 3: a maximum attention to it if they pull back for
Speaker 3: a while. But it does sort of undermine the whole
Speaker 3: profess need to get rid of the man in the
Speaker 3: first place.
Speaker 1: My favorite stupid moment of the stupidest Congress is actually
Speaker 1: the moment that they decide that they're going to get
Speaker 1: rid of Santos, and then over the weekend leadership realizes
Speaker 1: they actually really need his vote. Because they spend the
Speaker 1: weekend doing the math that two is less than three,
Speaker 1: and they somehow on Monday morning they figure that out
Speaker 1: and they start to try to get people to vote
Speaker 1: against expelling Santo's but.
Speaker 3: It's too late, right, the ship had sailed, and they
Speaker 3: narrowly do and they are correct that they can't govern
Speaker 3: without Santos, but I mean they couldn't really govern with him,
Speaker 3: so it's not a huge difference. But yeah, I mean,
Speaker 3: like when the majorcas impeachment went down the first time,
Speaker 3: it was by one vote and Santos tweeting do you
Speaker 3: miss me now? And Gate says, yes, I miss him already.
Speaker 3: In fairness, they couldn't really govern before. And you've seen it,
Speaker 3: I think now six before this congress they had a
Speaker 3: single rule. You know how the procedural what you started
Speaker 3: to make had not failed in twenty years, and now
Speaker 3: they've done it six times over the last year. It
Speaker 3: would take one hundred and twenty years to have gotten
Speaker 3: to that under normal proceedings, but they were able to
Speaker 3: do it all.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, you got to respect the incompetence. So
Speaker 1: you know, this is just the stuff. You know, if
Speaker 1: you watch c SPAN, it's not like the mainstream media
Speaker 1: is picking up the really crazy stuff, there is still
Speaker 1: more crazy stuff.
Speaker 3: Well, I am trying to fill that vacuum. I've been
Speaker 3: trying to list every little bit of crazy and I
Speaker 3: don't know if you know, I have a whole book
Speaker 3: coming out. I think it's looking like September. It's going
Speaker 3: to be called The Fools on the Hill. It's just
Speaker 3: a compendium of crazy. And you know, I'm just going
Speaker 3: to keep hitting you over the head with all the
Speaker 3: craziness lest you forget any one delicious nugget of it.
Speaker 1: One of the things that I'm struck by was actually,
Speaker 1: you know, so it looks like they're going to be
Speaker 1: able to pass this the first tranche.
Speaker 2: Of spending bilts. Right, these are the bills that we
Speaker 2: were just talking about.
Speaker 1: But on the floor, Chip Roy is furious and gives
Speaker 1: this insane speech yesterday where it was like, we didn't
Speaker 1: do nearly enough. We should be cutting the FBI buy more.
Speaker 1: I mean, what is happening.
Speaker 3: Well, so one third of the House Republicans oppose this,
Speaker 3: so it just sort of shows you and that's roughly
Speaker 3: the crazy quotient in the House. And I mean, but
Speaker 3: that's more than enough to you know, screw up the
Speaker 3: entire operations of the place, and they have. But you know,
Speaker 3: it does show you that if Mike Johnson or if
Speaker 3: McCarthy before I'm actually wanted to try to govern, you
Speaker 3: could do it with Democratic votes. They would stand up
Speaker 3: to the crazy. So the option has always been there.
Speaker 3: It's just like they needed to exhaust every other option
Speaker 3: before they could do the most sensible thing. So, yeah,
Speaker 3: the spending wheel. They got rid of all the or
Speaker 3: virtually all of the crazy riders about abortion, the trans
Speaker 3: at gay rights, at DEI, and you know, all the
Speaker 3: other cultural war issues. So they just tossed all of those.
Speaker 3: They stuck to the spending agreement that McCarthy had Biden
Speaker 3: reached a year ago alone. Behold, it sails through with
Speaker 3: i think all Democrats but two or something like that
Speaker 3: and two thirds of the Republic. So it's not so hard,
Speaker 3: is it.
Speaker 1: So let's talk for a minute about even though this
Speaker 1: is the rematch presidential race that nobody wanted, where the
Speaker 1: stakes are impossibly high, yet again, there are some really
Speaker 1: strange congressional races that are percolating. Magan really continues to
Speaker 1: pick some of the most incredibly bad candidates I've ever
Speaker 1: seen in my life.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, it'd be tough to exceed what they
Speaker 3: did the last time around.
Speaker 2: They may have done it, though.
Speaker 3: They might have. I mean you got to you know,
Speaker 3: if you look at North Carolina the gubernatorial nominee, I mean,
Speaker 3: that's something they did get rid of that. I think
Speaker 3: it's Sandy Smith was the name. She's the one who's
Speaker 3: sort of been accused by her ex husband of trying
Speaker 3: to run car and throwing an alarm clock at him.
Speaker 3: She lost in the general election last time. This time
Speaker 3: they were able to bump her out the way in
Speaker 3: the in the primary. But yeah, I mean, I think
Speaker 3: for everyone that, you know, what's left of the party
Speaker 3: established is able to knock down a couple of the
Speaker 3: crazies still get through. They've just sort of lost control
Speaker 3: of the process. So it's what Tom Massey said a
Speaker 3: few years ago that you know, he was confused as
Speaker 3: to what the ideology was of the Republican primary voters,
Speaker 3: like are they you know, libertarian? What are they? And
Speaker 3: he finally realized they just want the craziest son of
Speaker 3: a bitch in the race.
Speaker 1: Thomas Massey was happy to oblige. I mean this is
Speaker 1: a guy who went to ID and now he says.
Speaker 3: Crazy, right, and now he walks around with his pocket
Speaker 3: protector debt counter. So truth is he's one of the
Speaker 3: more sane ones in that in the house right now.
Speaker 1: One of the things that I was struck by was
Speaker 1: Nikki Haley this week dropped out of the race.
Speaker 2: She goes, this is like my favorite thing.
Speaker 1: Like she's so quaint, She's like, what our biggest problem
Speaker 1: is our national Dad. I was like, I haven't heard
Speaker 1: this since what is this two thousand.
Speaker 3: And th right right? Which is like no child left
Speaker 3: behind the flight right? No, it's it was a great throwback.
Speaker 3: It's not wrong. It's just there's been a universal decision
Speaker 3: to just ignore this, not worry about entitlements. Just right
Speaker 3: off into the sunset.
Speaker 1: Do you think that being fiscally sane will come back?
Speaker 3: There are so many things we wonder about. Will that,
Speaker 3: you know, we'll just general sanity and the belief in
Speaker 3: a strong America leading overseas. Will that come back? Will
Speaker 3: democracy come back? Well? I would think that you would
Speaker 3: reach a debt crisis at some point and then that
Speaker 3: would force a reckoning. But it's you know, it never
Speaker 3: actually seems to happen. It has not. Injured are standing
Speaker 3: in the world. So you know all the people who
Speaker 3: are saying, you know, social Security is going bankrupt, that
Speaker 3: it cares going bankrupt and we won't be able to
Speaker 3: issue you dead as the United States, it just hasn't happened.
Speaker 3: Maybe it just hasn't happened yet, but I've sort of
Speaker 3: given up on any sort of prudence.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much, Dana Milbank, Molly.
Speaker 3: It's been a pleasure as always.
Speaker 1: Ben Lebolt is the White House Communications Director. Welcome to
Speaker 1: Fast Politics. Wait, what is your fancy title, Ben.
Speaker 4: Lebalt, white House Communications Director.
Speaker 2: That seems very fancy.
Speaker 4: I can search for a new title if it's too much.
Speaker 5: Now it's good.
Speaker 2: We like a fancy title here at Fast Politics. Since
Speaker 2: you are in the admin, I now first.
Speaker 1: Want to talk to you about things that happened to
Speaker 1: me on television last night at one o'clock in the morning.
Speaker 1: You may not be used to having questions phrase quite
Speaker 1: like this, but this is where we are. So last
Speaker 1: night on television at one o'clock in the morning, I'm
Speaker 1: with Tim Miller.
Speaker 2: He's quite wonderful. I love him.
Speaker 1: But we were talking about it and he was saying
Speaker 1: that out of the New Yorker magazine profile.
Speaker 2: He said, Well, he said, I'm worried that the White
Speaker 2: House doesn't think the polls are right and isn't reactive
Speaker 2: enough and might be complacent. Just for a minute, since
Speaker 2: you work there, Yeah, tell us why that is not
Speaker 2: something that necessarily people have to worry about.
Speaker 4: Yeah. Look, well, I think entering this year, you know,
Speaker 4: everybody should know what's at stake. We're quite clear that
Speaker 4: American democracy is on the line, that rights and freedoms
Speaker 4: for Americans across the country, or on the line if
Speaker 4: you're a woman who wants to make their own healthcare decisions,
Speaker 4: if you're a parent who believes they should decide what
Speaker 4: books your kids have access to rather than an ideological governor,
Speaker 4: if you believe that Jane Ray sixth was an insurrection,
Speaker 4: not a celebration of patriots, I think pretty clear driven
Speaker 4: by the president, are quite clear on what the stakes
Speaker 4: are of the president's success on behalf of the American people.
Speaker 4: In some ways, this year reminds me a little bit
Speaker 4: of twenty twelve, when I served as the press secretary
Speaker 4: for the Obama by re election campaign at that time
Speaker 4: and We went into the year knowing that the country
Speaker 4: was divided and that the race was essentially tied, and
Speaker 4: I think we find ourselves in that same position today.
Speaker 4: And so you know, we're now entering the portion of
Speaker 4: the year where you know, we're moving closer towards the
Speaker 4: end of the primaries and the two candidates entering the
Speaker 4: general election. I think the State of the Union speech
Speaker 4: is sort of the president's first appeal to the country
Speaker 4: as a whole, the highest viewership we'll expect the president
Speaker 4: to see all year, and really to start to reach
Speaker 4: people with his me She then follow that with travel
Speaker 4: to key states across the country and make sure that
Speaker 4: people hear the contrast version of that message and the choice.
Speaker 4: And so everybody here from the President down is up
Speaker 4: night and day, recognizing the stakes, doing everything we can
Speaker 4: to communicate both about the President's record and what's at
Speaker 4: stake this year.
Speaker 2: I want to talk to you about this speech.
Speaker 1: This is the State of the Union is an incredible
Speaker 1: opportunity to talk about some of this stuff that I
Speaker 1: feel like the Biden administration has accomplished that they haven't
Speaker 1: gotten credit for in the very narrow and likely wrong polling.
Speaker 1: So to talk about sort of the accomplishments that you
Speaker 1: highlighted in this speech.
Speaker 4: Well, if you, Molly, I mean, I think the State
Speaker 4: of the Union offered a few things that offered a
Speaker 4: chance for the President to look back for the largest
Speaker 4: audience that he'll face in a long time, and talk
Speaker 4: through the fact that we overcame the pandemic that was
Speaker 4: killing so many Americans, that we've collectively built the strongest
Speaker 4: economy in the world. We've brought inflation down more than
Speaker 4: any other country, that wages are significantly outpacing inflation, that
Speaker 4: the racial wealth gap is the lowest it's been in
Speaker 4: twenty years. That more jobs have been created fifteen million
Speaker 4: under this administration than any presidential administration in history.
Speaker 6: So those are.
Speaker 4: Things that people may have heard bits and pieces of before,
Speaker 4: but they didn't collectively hear it until Thursdaying weren't a
Speaker 4: lot different situation this year, coming out of the supply chain,
Speaker 4: inflation coming down than we were last, So that was
Speaker 4: an important part of the case to be made. The
Speaker 4: President also looked forward about what must be done now
Speaker 4: you know, some of these accomplishments could be significantly expanded
Speaker 4: to impact many more Americans. So you know, with insulin
Speaker 4: capped at fifteen dollars per seniors, while the President's proposed
Speaker 4: we should be able to do that for all Americans
Speaker 4: who require in camping prescription drug costs a two thousand
Speaker 4: dollars out of pocket a year for seniors. Let's offer
Speaker 4: that to all Americans. Housing costs. This is something that
Speaker 4: has been a persistent problem facing Americans up and down
Speaker 4: the economic scale. The President has proposed some tax breaks
Speaker 4: to provide mortgage reliefs and building more housing to keep
Speaker 4: the price of rent down. He recommitted to things like
Speaker 4: making sure that IVF is available to every single American
Speaker 4: and that the rollback of grow that we stopped that
Speaker 4: that we were sore row and you know, all these
Speaker 4: implications for women and families across the country. So that's
Speaker 4: a chance to look forward and then also to just
Speaker 4: talk about what's on the line and what the contrast
Speaker 4: is against you know, MAGA Republicans and the President is
Speaker 4: a defender of democracy. This is a very significant moment
Speaker 4: in US history that will come to it for this November.
Speaker 4: He stood up for democracy at home and abroad. He's
Speaker 4: standing up for individual rights and freedoms. Republicans used to
Speaker 4: be say that they were for freedoms, but they've passed
Speaker 4: hundreds of bills and state legislatures to take freedoms away
Speaker 4: and certainly are responsible for the fall of Roe versus
Speaker 4: Wade at the Supreme Court. And look, their economic approach
Speaker 4: hasn't worked. You know, the president's predecessor showered billionaires and
Speaker 4: corporations with two trillion dollars in tax cuts. It exploded
Speaker 4: the deficit, and the middle class had to pay for it,
Speaker 4: and they didn't see any benefits out of it. And
Speaker 4: so you know, the present that laid out the stakes
Speaker 4: and laid out the contrast in a really compel a way.
Speaker 5: Right.
Speaker 1: So, one of the many arguments that I have with
Speaker 1: people in the pundon industrial complex, by the way, I
Speaker 1: think they're going to kick me out, is that Joe
Speaker 1: Biden is not a president for you. He is a
Speaker 1: president for more working class Americans in a way that
Speaker 1: is I think really sort of like a thing that
Speaker 1: the Democratic Party sort of lost sight of. And one
Speaker 1: of the things that makes me think about that is
Speaker 1: like Biden has had this quest against fees. It's small,
Speaker 1: it's very un sexy, but I actually think it's something
Speaker 1: voters really do care about can you talk about that
Speaker 1: and other things like it.
Speaker 4: I think the President's tests is always is this something
Speaker 4: that your family would talk about around the Thanksgiving table?
Speaker 4: And people like us, Molly, obviously, we've been hyper political
Speaker 4: for a big portion of our lives. But you know
Speaker 4: that the average America and the average family isn't like that.
Speaker 4: And you know, when I get together with my extended
Speaker 4: family over Thanksgiving, there's still a lot of people who say,
Speaker 4: you know, I'm just not interested in politics. It doesn't
Speaker 4: have that big of an impact on my life, which
Speaker 4: I've argued to various extents over the years, but I
Speaker 4: got to tell you it's stuck. Like jug fees where
Speaker 4: it took a trip, they were loaded up with all
Speaker 4: these resort fees that didn't even stayed a resort, you know,
Speaker 4: doubled the cost threat or you know, they want to
Speaker 4: go see a concert or a game, and you know
Speaker 4: the ticket company is doubling the fee for that and
Speaker 4: not disclosing it. I mean, the presence Lens has always
Speaker 4: been the family million household he grew up with and
Speaker 4: around in Scranton, Pennsylvania and Claymont, Delaware. You know, working
Speaker 4: families who struggle to make ends and meet who aren't
Speaker 4: one hundred percent sure that they'll have job security or
Speaker 4: financial security and have to strap things together every couple
Speaker 4: of weeks. And he has kept those Americans, those hardworking Americans,
Speaker 4: at the heart of his presidency. He's made sure that
Speaker 4: the earners on the bottom of the wave scale have
Speaker 4: actually seen the biggest gains under this administration as wages
Speaker 4: have gone up. He's made sure that the racial wealth
Speaker 4: gap has closed. His address areas like student debt relief,
Speaker 4: which had really burdened families and prevented them from you know,
Speaker 4: putting down at the down payment on a house or
Speaker 4: having another kid. He's focused on things like the child
Speaker 4: tax care credit and the economy to make sure that
Speaker 4: this is just the lenses. Does it impact the daily
Speaker 4: life of hardworking Americans, and if so, then he's got
Speaker 4: time to focus on.
Speaker 1: So I think that's important point about the junk fees
Speaker 1: and the sort of smaller pieces of legislation that may
Speaker 1: not be mass deportation squads but will actually help people's lives.
Speaker 1: So talk to us about some of the top lines
Speaker 1: from the speech, and also just some like IVF abortion.
Speaker 1: I would love you to talk about like sort of
Speaker 1: the health freedom aspect.
Speaker 4: The President believes that this is a significant moment in
Speaker 4: history that we're living through where democracy is on the
Speaker 4: line abroad, and and he draws a connection between what's
Speaker 4: happening abroad in Ukraine and in Europe where Putin's on
Speaker 4: the march. He's waving a war of aggression against Ukraine.
Speaker 4: He won't stop there. We know that when dictators and
Speaker 4: authoritarians are on the march that they'll go into other countries.
Speaker 4: He's signified that he would like to do so, it
Speaker 4: least into the Baltics, and that if we don't stop
Speaker 4: them there, it'll continue and our native alliance, the strongest
Speaker 4: alliance in history, will be threatened. And by the way,
Speaker 4: if he enters into a European country that's part of
Speaker 4: the NATO alliance, we're at war. So we've got to
Speaker 4: stop Putin in Ukraine, and we've got to stop you know,
Speaker 4: bowing down to Putin and his government and imply that
Speaker 4: it's just okay for authoritarians like Putin to seize territory
Speaker 4: that's not theirs. Well, we're also facing a really significant
Speaker 4: moment at home and a significant risk to our democracy
Speaker 4: became very clear on January sixth, where thousands of insurrectionists
Speaker 4: stormed the Capitol and tried to overturn the results of
Speaker 4: a free and fair election, and Maga Republicans have embraced
Speaker 4: and the president's predecessor embraced those people not as insurrectionists,
Speaker 4: not as criminals, but as patriots. Well, that's a very
Speaker 4: dangerous moment for our country that has not been fully alleviated,
Speaker 4: and the present believes we need to confront that directly.
Speaker 3: So that's one.
Speaker 4: Secondly, there's been a rollback of rights and freedoms. The
Speaker 4: rights and freedoms of Americans across the country are under assault.
Speaker 4: If you're a gay person that believes their identity should
Speaker 4: be recognized, if you're a woman who wants to make
Speaker 4: their own healthcare decisions, if you're worried about what's happening
Speaker 4: in schools where entire programs and chapters of history are
Speaker 4: just being torn out of books, Well, this is a
Speaker 4: moment where we need to fight back for our freedoms
Speaker 4: and to defend our individual liberties. And the present beliefs
Speaker 4: that this is a year where we'll make big decisions
Speaker 4: on that front. And at the art of things, as
Speaker 4: we talked about earlier, is the present believes we need
Speaker 4: to continue to build the economy from the bottom up,
Speaker 4: in middle out instead of the top down. We know
Speaker 4: what the results have been, record job creation, the strongest
Speaker 4: economy in the world, record contracts for workers, Unions are expanding,
Speaker 4: wages are rising. The policies that the President has put
Speaker 4: into place, which by the way, some people said were
Speaker 4: too aggressive when he did so, has led those things.
Speaker 4: He believes we need to can continue our progress. And
Speaker 4: the MAGA Republicans all they want to do is the
Speaker 4: same trickle down economic expansion of tax breaks for billionaires
Speaker 4: and corporations. Well, guess what the President thinks tax fairness
Speaker 4: should mean. It should mean charging billionaires and corporations their
Speaker 4: fair share, that we should actually have a minimum tax
Speaker 4: on billionaires, that we should raise the minimum tax on corporations,
Speaker 4: that we can actually do things like fund a child
Speaker 4: tax scar rented in this country for working America.
Speaker 2: So let me ask you two questions.
Speaker 1: So, one of the things that you guys are going
Speaker 1: to get into trouble with in this election, and you're
Speaker 1: already seeing it in some of the exit poll line
Speaker 1: is progressives who you know in some ways they don't
Speaker 1: understand just how much the Supreme Court sucks.
Speaker 2: And so I want to talk to you about like
Speaker 2: student debt.
Speaker 1: One of the things I think has been really amazing
Speaker 1: is that the buy An administration has been quietly working
Speaker 1: around the clock to try to cancel student debt, but
Speaker 1: not so easy. You guys have canceled certain tranches. Talk
Speaker 1: to me about where you are and what's happening with that,
Speaker 1: And also do you think people can understand that the
Speaker 1: Supreme Court really is just going around trying to undermine
Speaker 1: legislation at every point.
Speaker 4: Well, the good news is you can see from a
Speaker 4: public pulling that Americans more Americans know about the work
Speaker 4: that the president's doing on student deck belief than the
Speaker 4: progress are making out a lot of other issues. So
Speaker 4: this is one area that's broken through. I think it's
Speaker 4: broken through in part because the Supreme Court overturned what
Speaker 4: the President was trying to do in terms of canceling
Speaker 4: student debt for millions in America. But he didn't allow
Speaker 4: the Supreme Court decision to stop is canceled student debt
Speaker 4: for four million Americans to the tune of the one
Speaker 4: hundred and thirty eight billion dollars in debt relief through
Speaker 4: every executive lever that he has available to do that,
Speaker 4: and every couple of weeks every month, there are thousands
Speaker 4: of new borrowers getting a letter and email from the
Speaker 4: President saying that their debt is canceled or that their
Speaker 4: payments are reduced. So he's attacking this from every single angle,
Speaker 4: and I think it shows the type of work he's
Speaker 4: done throughout the presidency. You know, he doesn't believe this
Speaker 4: is a country that should have crumbling infrastructures, So he
Speaker 4: passed legislation to get forty six thousand infrastructure projects off
Speaker 4: the ground modernists across the country. He doesn't think Europe
Speaker 4: and China should lead the world on that.
Speaker 3: He thinks the.
Speaker 4: United States should. He dug into the supply chain crisis
Speaker 4: that was causing inflation into individual issues to look at
Speaker 4: things like semiconductors, which power refrigerators in cars. We invented
Speaker 4: those in America, but they were being built overseas in Asia,
Speaker 4: and the present pass bipartisan legislation to make sure we're
Speaker 4: building those in America again. Factories are getting off the
Speaker 4: ground in places from New York to Arizona. To make
Speaker 4: sure that those chips are built here in the United States.
Speaker 4: I mean, he really took and looked at the pandemic
Speaker 4: and the financial crisis that came out of it, to say,
Speaker 4: what do we need to do to build our enomy
Speaker 4: in a way it's helping working families, that's bringing prices down,
Speaker 4: and that's addressing the cost issue that Americans are facing
Speaker 4: at home. And so that's really been the heart of
Speaker 4: his domestic policy agenda.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: One of the things that I've been impressed with that
Speaker 1: you guys have done is we have this attention economy.
Speaker 1: The goal here is to get in front of voters
Speaker 1: and also to inspire young people. How is the Biden
Speaker 1: Biden administration talking to constituents in ways that are a
Speaker 1: little bit creative and not necessarily traditional because I think
Speaker 1: that you guys are doing interesting stuff.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Well, look, you know, from a purch of my job,
Speaker 4: there's nothing more important than that, and it's what I
Speaker 4: spend every day on is figuring out how we reach
Speaker 4: the average person across the country. And you have to
Speaker 4: realize the average person is not consuming political news right
Speaker 4: They're going about the day. They may have you know,
Speaker 4: a morning show or day side TV on to you know,
Speaker 4: catching bits and pieces of it as they're you know,
Speaker 4: making lunch or a family member or heading to a job.
Speaker 4: At night, you know, after dinner, people are watching The Bachelor,
Speaker 4: you know, more than they're watching the evening news and so.
Speaker 2: And some people don't have cable, like anyone under.
Speaker 4: Fifty exactly, there's lots of cord cutters now. Streamings increasingly important,
Speaker 4: and so the media has just become more fractured. People
Speaker 4: have added new channels to their diet, but they haven't
Speaker 4: removed the old channels, and so there's diminishing returns on
Speaker 4: any interview or news event. And so what we have
Speaker 4: to do is figure out how to reach people everywhere
Speaker 4: throughout their day on their smartphone, on consumer media that
Speaker 4: doesn't tend to cover political neviws, on digital media, through
Speaker 4: every social media platform available. We produced our on content.
Speaker 4: We talked to the media, We talked to the media
Speaker 4: at the White House, we talked to the media in
Speaker 4: the States. We brief influencers who have large reach with
Speaker 4: their own audiences. We need to reach people across ages
Speaker 4: and demographics wherever they get their news. So look like
Speaker 4: we've got you know, talking to you right now. We've
Speaker 4: got a podcast strategy then my dads didn't have four
Speaker 4: years ago, So we look at information consumption and we
Speaker 4: work backwards from that to make sure we're reaching people.
Speaker 2: Ben Lebault, thank you so much for joining us. I
Speaker 2: hope you'll come back.
Speaker 4: It was great to talk to you and would love
Speaker 4: to Thanks Molly, and.
Speaker 1: Now we have a special clip from our sold out
Speaker 1: show at City Winery in New York City with Rick
Speaker 1: Wilson and George Conway. One of the things about Robbie
Speaker 1: Kaplan is you can't just get any lawyer for that case.
Speaker 6: I mean, she.
Speaker 1: Really is singularly very smart and go.
Speaker 5: And then the way I got to know her was
Speaker 5: I had she was. She has another case against Sean
Speaker 5: which most people don't know about. It is a it
Speaker 5: is a uh it was a class action. I don't
Speaker 5: think I got certified as a class action. But it
Speaker 5: involves lots and lots of people who.
Speaker 1: They were Trump Steaks, No, Trump Water.
Speaker 5: No, it's it's Trump University. No, but it's but it's
Speaker 5: it was a ripoff. It was it's called no, no,
Speaker 5: what is it?
Speaker 6: That Trump for President campaign?
Speaker 5: Free drinks for that table where we go That right,
Speaker 5: very smart crowd scheme where it was like you can
Speaker 5: get rich just you know, and roll in our program,
Speaker 5: send us money. And it basically it was a what
Speaker 5: they call multiply was that was that the that the
Speaker 5: and the and the and they and they pushed it
Speaker 5: on the apprentice. He did and what was Don Jr?
Speaker 5: And there was I am shocked.
Speaker 1: Don Jr.
Speaker 5: Was basically lost the load of money and there was
Speaker 5: you know that you can demonstrate apparently the evidence is
Speaker 5: pretty strong. You can demonstrate basically there was no way
Speaker 5: anybody other than Donald Trump and the founders of ACN
Speaker 5: We're gonna make any money on us. So I had
Speaker 5: read this complaints, so I have read well, because the
Speaker 5: judge didn't certify it as a class action, refused are
Speaker 5: uncertified it as a class action. So that piece of
Speaker 5: it's going up. So it's not gonna it's not gonna
Speaker 5: get tried this year. So but you know, at some
Speaker 5: day he's gonna have to get out of prison to
Speaker 5: testify in this case. But I mean, you're maybe no,
Speaker 5: maybe maybe they'll just let him testify for my satellite
Speaker 5: from you know, from the they'll have to shut down
Speaker 5: the license plate making room for a couple of hours
Speaker 5: and he can have his deposition.
Speaker 6: I've read in the prison laundry.
Speaker 7: Now it's the best rud laundry in any federal correction.
Speaker 5: The c before I got here, the prison commissary, no
Speaker 5: one liked it.
Speaker 6: It was strong.
Speaker 5: Prisoners came up to me and would say, sir, we
Speaker 5: have a terrible, terrible commissary.
Speaker 6: It's it's it's it's.
Speaker 5: Do we need a businessman, a stable genius to run
Speaker 5: the commissary?
Speaker 6: Before the things there, we're not classy. I've made them classy.
Speaker 5: And the license plates, they were terrible. They were the
Speaker 5: worst license plates. Now they shine. They are Trump license.
Speaker 6: Plates are more beautiful license plates than these.
Speaker 2: When do I tell them to stop? Or can I
Speaker 2: let them keep doing it?
Speaker 3: Oh?
Speaker 1: They can keep doing it?
Speaker 5: Okay, did this on the We should just do this
Speaker 5: on the Jimmy Kimmel's right something right, right?
Speaker 6: I mean we can.
Speaker 5: Okay, Well yeah, I.
Speaker 7: Mean, but George, you're you're more bullish than a lot
Speaker 7: of people. On Trump actually going to prison, Yes, talk
Speaker 7: about that, because there are a lot of people it's
Speaker 7: really simple.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean he's criminal.
Speaker 6: I have noticed a lot of criming.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, and look at I mean, look at it
Speaker 5: this way. He's got the ninety one counts basically any
Speaker 5: combination of them. I mean it's like you gotta okay,
Speaker 5: they should have a roulette wheel. They've got the quick
Speaker 5: ninety one. You know, wherever the ball lands, that's three
Speaker 5: or four years right there. So you know, you just
Speaker 5: a couple of spins, bye bye.
Speaker 2: So that's I feel.
Speaker 1: Like you will not be said to see him go.
Speaker 5: I you know, I don't wish him unwell. He is unwell.
Speaker 5: I don't wish him unwell. I mean I I don't.
Speaker 1: I think when you like the Republican Party back.
Speaker 5: We're never getting it back.
Speaker 6: It's gone.
Speaker 5: It's gone. It's dead, it's gone. I mean, you know,
Speaker 5: it's it's basically, if Trump doesn't destroy the Republican Party
Speaker 5: this year, it'll be because he got elected and he will
Speaker 5: destroy the country, right, But he's not going to do that.
Speaker 5: And I think that you can already see the tensions
Speaker 5: in the Republican Party at the state level. At the
Speaker 5: federal level, You've got Henry Barber saying no, don't spend
Speaker 5: the money on Trump's legal defense and his judgments. You know,
Speaker 5: you've got you've got all these I mean at the
Speaker 5: state level. Look, the Republican Party is a disaster because
Speaker 5: all the looney tunes have taken over the state. The
Speaker 5: state parties, Michigan's are perfect. Florida can't raise any money
Speaker 5: because they're crazy. You know, we we haven't seen everybody.
Speaker 5: I want all the Democrats to be paranoid and upset
Speaker 5: and scared.
Speaker 6: We don't don't.
Speaker 5: Because I want all of you people to walk on
Speaker 5: a crawl unbroken glass with people on your back to
Speaker 5: the you know, in a swing state, please take you know,
Speaker 5: get on Jet blue or.
Speaker 6: Whatever whatever whatever, register legally, and.
Speaker 5: That's you know, that's that's the way. You know, it's
Speaker 5: it's when you assume that, oh, he's such an idiot,
Speaker 5: he can't win. Is y he wins? Yeah, And that's
Speaker 5: what happened in twenty sixteen.
Speaker 7: I remember twenty sixteen. I was talking to people around
Speaker 7: Clinton World.
Speaker 6: They're like, oh man, they've got this in the bag.
Speaker 6: It's amazing.
Speaker 5: They were hanging out in.
Speaker 6: Brook they were picking out curtains in the west wind.
Speaker 7: They were like, I'm going to be the deputy Secretary
Speaker 7: of Commers, I'm going to be in the state and
Speaker 7: where were they after that?
Speaker 5: And then and then but they figured it out, like
Speaker 5: with seven days to go before the election, which is
Speaker 5: why they held that big rally in Philadelphia, and it
Speaker 5: was and they never how many times they go to
Speaker 5: Wisconsin zero?
Speaker 1: Yeah, but the reason they did go to Wisconsin was
Speaker 1: because every time she went it wasn't good, was it
Speaker 1: didn't do whatever.
Speaker 6: Here's here's the book.
Speaker 5: The reason why she lost was because the election became
Speaker 5: about her.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 5: The reason why he lost in twenty twenty was because
Speaker 5: the election was about him, because he was the incumbent
Speaker 5: and the lunatic. And twenty twenty four he is going
Speaker 5: to lose because he cannot help but make the election
Speaker 5: about him, because everything has to be about him. And
Speaker 5: they can tell him, no, you have to say you
Speaker 5: have to you know, you have to talk about Joe Biden,
Speaker 5: and he'll mutter some things about Biden crime family where
Speaker 5: he's see and then he's gonna say blah blah, and
Speaker 5: then and then and then people like people like Rick
Speaker 5: are gonna run ads saying you know, you are a lunatic,
Speaker 5: You're a madman, and he's gonna say, no, I'm not.
Speaker 5: He's gonna spend all day saying I'm a stable genius
Speaker 5: and he's gonna look like a complete and one of
Speaker 5: the things we have to do this year, everybody was
Speaker 5: upset about this guy herd the council. It's like, no,
Speaker 5: he did he doesn't. He did us a favor because
Speaker 5: he put the mental state of our presidential candidates an issue.
Speaker 5: And okay, hey, Joe's old. He forgets stuff. I forget stuff.
Speaker 5: We're all forgetting stuff. Okay, he needs more sleep than
Speaker 5: he used to, like my dog, like my dog, Bonnie.
Speaker 8: Yes, okay, Bonnie, and so fucking what Yeah, okay, and
Speaker 8: you're here, all right, So so let's let's talk about
Speaker 8: You got the old guy who's nice and not crazy
Speaker 8: and doesn't wanna it, doesn't want.
Speaker 5: To destroy the be a dictator for damn a minute.
Speaker 6: Or burn down the republic, burn down the.
Speaker 5: Republic, or you know, reak vengeance upon his enemies.
Speaker 2: That's us, by the way, in case you're wondering, Yeah.
Speaker 6: I want the I want the bungalow nearest to the
Speaker 6: to the fire pit.
Speaker 1: So yeah, that's what Givemo is known for its bungalows.
Speaker 5: But anyway, I mean, you know, one of the one
Speaker 5: of the great failures. So the press was that, I mean,
Speaker 5: it's his problem. Isn't just that he's losing it, like
Speaker 5: he's losing it in terms of his ability to recall things,
Speaker 5: his language ability is is aphasia, all these things. His
Speaker 5: problem is the same problem he's had this entire life.
Speaker 5: He's a narcissistic sociopath. And and the thing that's that's that's.
Speaker 2: We're gonna clap for narcissistic.
Speaker 5: Exact, everybody cluster b let's hear it for cluster We
Speaker 5: having a hand for all these people who know what
Speaker 5: cluster b is. Everyone took a cluster b he he
Speaker 5: we need to talk about that. And four years ago,
Speaker 5: oh my god, four and a half years ago, I
Speaker 5: wrote a piece in The Atlantic that was like eleven
Speaker 5: thousand words trying to get people to focus on the
Speaker 5: fact that he was a narcissist somath. No. But you know,
Speaker 5: I mean it got some press. It really got a
Speaker 5: lot of play in the Beltway. I think all of
Speaker 5: the basically all the journalists read it and they said, oh,
Speaker 5: that makes sense, but they still ill wouldn't report it
Speaker 5: because because well, well there's there's first of all, there's
Speaker 5: there's a, there's a everybody's used to his lunacy. So
Speaker 5: you know, we've defined deviancy down if you will, and
Speaker 5: we've we've basically, you know, or psychologists or sociology called
Speaker 5: it malignant normality. And so everything he's graded on a curve.
Speaker 5: But there's the gold Water Rule, and the press always
Speaker 5: afraid about the Goldwater Rule says says that mental health
Speaker 5: professionals cannot talk about people who are not their patients,
Speaker 5: and they and and so they're afraid to go near it.
Speaker 5: The problem is all the reasons behind the Goldwater Rule
Speaker 5: don't apply here. Like one is, well, how can you
Speaker 5: how can you say somebody has this condition if you
Speaker 5: haven't examined them. Dude, we have been examining this fucking
Speaker 5: guy for how many years now? Nine nine years, nine
Speaker 5: nine and years. And it's not like it's not like
Speaker 5: it's ambiguous or marginal. I mean, if you look at
Speaker 5: you know, this isn't hard. I mean, it's it's actually
Speaker 5: written in plain English that diagnosed The Constatistical Manual of
Speaker 5: of of mental disorders is the description of narcissistic personality
Speaker 5: disorder and it's and anti social personality disorder. Of the
Speaker 5: two clear ones that he clearly has. You go through
Speaker 5: one through nine, only like five of them you have
Speaker 5: to have. He's nine for nine, like five, they're like
Speaker 5: five of them. For for sociopathy, ding ding ding ding ding,
Speaker 5: you only need like three. It's like so much winning,
Speaker 5: so much winning and everything. If you look at those
Speaker 5: behavioral characteristics, it explained everything makes sense about Donald Trump. Everything,
Speaker 5: the pathological line that's basically part and parcelov of the
Speaker 5: self regard, the talking about himself, the fact that he
Speaker 5: thinks that that the soldiers who die and to protect
Speaker 5: democracy are our suckers and losers. Okay, this is this
Speaker 5: is this is Donald Trump. This is his this is
Speaker 5: his sociopathy and his narcissism. And and you know, there
Speaker 5: was there was one I was sort of wondering about, Well,
Speaker 5: was he is he is? There is Does he assault people? Yes, yeah,
Speaker 5: we've proven that already. And and there are just so
Speaker 5: many I mean it, literally he checks every box. And
Speaker 5: we need to start talking about that because it explains
Speaker 5: almost everything about him, about his desire to use the
Speaker 5: government as an instrument for revenge, about his problem with
Speaker 5: not seeking consent before in trying to engage in sexual relations,
Speaker 5: with other people, and you know his fevery stealing documents
Speaker 5: and money. Do I mention the pathological line? Yeah, you know,
Speaker 5: it's all. It all makes sense when you say this
Speaker 5: is this guy is textbook and and the press will
Speaker 5: not talk about it. They'll just say, oh, he's unconventional
Speaker 5: because he's a fucking lunatic.
Speaker 6: But take him seriously but not literally, No, take him literally.
Speaker 5: He's crazy and and and you know, I I think
Speaker 5: that's something that we need to talk about this year.
Speaker 5: And now that we.
Speaker 1: Are he's the nominee again.
Speaker 5: We're gonna start talking about it this year more than ever.
Speaker 5: And you you know, we're.
Speaker 1: Gonna talking over The goal is we're going to talk
Speaker 1: about it for eight months and then we're never going
Speaker 1: to talk about him, right.
Speaker 9: That's what we want, and then we go back to
Speaker 9: having normal politics with normal presidents who you might not
Speaker 9: agree with, but who you don't think are going to.
Speaker 7: Asp You know what, I don't think we're going to
Speaker 7: be clear of it, even if we beat him this year.
Speaker 7: I don't think we're going to be clear of it
Speaker 7: for a while. There's a lot of bad incentives out there,
Speaker 7: I hope. So there's a lot of bad incentives out
Speaker 7: there to make people act in crazy ways.
Speaker 5: And that's not in the clubhouses. Yeah, right, running there
Speaker 5: the Lauren Boberts. But that's the thing. I mean, I
Speaker 5: think the Republican Party is going to fall apart because
Speaker 5: those people are not going to be able to hold
Speaker 5: it together. Yeah.
Speaker 1: One of the things go ahead, one of the things
Speaker 1: you would say to me for years now, as you've
Speaker 1: been saying to me, he's going to destroy the Republican Party.
Speaker 6: Yes, yes, I mean functionally the party doesn't exist.
Speaker 5: It doesn't exist anymore.
Speaker 7: Right, there's no ideology, there's no philosophy, there's no plan
Speaker 7: of governance.
Speaker 5: It's all about Well, there was the twenty twenty Republican platform.
Speaker 6: You mean, the one that was whatever Donald says goes.
Speaker 5: Yeah. They said we will just reprint the one from
Speaker 5: twenty sixteen.
Speaker 6: It's better when it was like the Bath Party platform.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Oh but but yeah, I think that's a really good point.
Speaker 1: We are, Uh, he really has all of the It's
Speaker 1: funny because as Nicky Haley and Nikki Hally's last sort
Speaker 1: of hurrah, she was talking about spending, government spending, and
Speaker 1: I was like, I haven't heard a Republican talk about
Speaker 1: this in like five seasons.
Speaker 6: No, it was, it was.
Speaker 5: It was so quaint. I remember like that first debate,
Speaker 5: it's like.
Speaker 6: Oh, tell us more about them. Before times Grandma was.
Speaker 5: Talking about not spending money wastefully. Wow, that's like that's
Speaker 5: the earth I grew up on. What how into that planet?
Speaker 5: So I give her credit for that. Yeah, I don't
Speaker 5: give her credit for raising her and saying, well, I'll
Speaker 5: vote for him even he's a criminal. And did she
Speaker 5: say she'd pardon him or no?
Speaker 7: Yeah, she said several times that She's like, we just
Speaker 7: have to put it behind us. I'm like, yeah, close
Speaker 7: the jail, Doring's behind us.
Speaker 5: That's she seems to have gotten better lately. I don't know. Yeah,
Speaker 5: it's gonna last.
Speaker 1: She's out now she's going.
Speaker 5: Look, I know she's out, but I I but she was,
Speaker 5: she's she was actually getting close to saying the right
Speaker 5: things almost consistently.
Speaker 1: And then she was like, and Joe Biden's bad too.
Speaker 6: Yeah, Well I hope she. I hope she stays strong.
Speaker 6: I don't hold a lot of hope for it, though.
Speaker 7: I Mean, I've just seen too many of these people
Speaker 7: join that cadre of broken men and women who oppose
Speaker 7: Trump and.
Speaker 6: Then so befo him anyway, because Biden's communism, and then
Speaker 6: you end up being like a hollow shell of a man,
Speaker 6: like a Marco or a Ted.
Speaker 5: Cran What about it, right, If I had to bet
Speaker 5: money on that.
Speaker 6: Rudy, Rudy's on a hollow shell of anything. Rudy is.
Speaker 5: Rudy is like Rudy is, he's he's just sloshing around.
Speaker 6: Rudy is destroyed. Yeah, yes, listen, I would actually not
Speaker 6: actually full. I wouldn't even describe it as secrets.
Speaker 7: I would describe it something on the lower shelf in
Speaker 7: the plastic jug wild No, no, not even wild turkey,
Speaker 7: like old Ocelot or.
Speaker 1: All right, we have zero minutes left.
Speaker 10: Yes, I'm going to break this up, this party, but
Speaker 10: it was absolutely amazing, all right, George Conway, No, no moment.
Speaker 6: So it's now time for a moment. We're standing now
Speaker 6: for the moments of fu We really.
Speaker 1: Wanted to and this whole time didn't we So we
Speaker 1: are in the moment of fuckery. For people who listen
Speaker 1: to my podcast, that's something we do there.
Speaker 3: Do you do it in your podcast?
Speaker 5: No? I do.
Speaker 6: Who's on the enemy's list.
Speaker 5: Oh and oh that's good.
Speaker 1: I listened to your podcast, so don't. It's didn't make
Speaker 1: it sound it made it sound like I don't, but
Speaker 1: I do. Obviously, moment of buckery, you're gonna go first
Speaker 1: because you have real scorged earth.
Speaker 6: Is Mitch motherfucking McConnell.
Speaker 7: That is a man who, at two critical moments in
Speaker 7: our American history, had the chance to shut.
Speaker 6: Donald Trump's ship down. He had the chance.
Speaker 7: He said the right thing after January sixth, and when
Speaker 7: he said Donald Trump did this, he caused this, and
Speaker 7: you know what he did what he did this week?
Speaker 11: Will hope to endorse Trump because of what don't you know?
Speaker 11: We'll hold full communism when Joe Biden is a Marxis socialist.
Speaker 11: And guess what This is a man who insulted Mitch
Speaker 11: McConnell's wife, who called her Coco chow, overtly racist, unbelievably
Speaker 11: destructive to McConnell's plan to hold power in the Senate,
Speaker 11: and yet all he cares about is the vestigial twitch
Speaker 11: reflex of maintaining a Republican Therefore, most vote for the
Speaker 11: guy is divorced from every single moral aspect of what
Speaker 11: Trump is and does. And for that, Mitch McConnell, is
Speaker 11: my moment of fuckery.
Speaker 1: Nice.
Speaker 3: That was very good.
Speaker 9: Go girl, you're pretty good at this.
Speaker 1: So my moment of fuckery is actually something I've seen
Speaker 1: now because I was interviewing Tammy Baldwin the other day,
Speaker 1: great senator from the state of Wisconsin running for reelection,
Speaker 1: good people, and she was saying to me, you know,
Speaker 1: they actually brought in a candidate who lives in California
Speaker 1: to run for the Wisconsin seed.
Speaker 7: Well, it's like Dave McCormick in Pennsylvania. He flew his
Speaker 7: jet down from his house in Connecticut.
Speaker 6: I'm not kidding you, No, no, he really did.
Speaker 5: And this is not even a joke.
Speaker 6: They bought a house in.
Speaker 7: A very fancy neighborhood, I know because they know one
Speaker 7: of his neighbors, and they fly their jet down there
Speaker 7: when Dave has to come down for events. They commute
Speaker 7: from Connecticut to run for US Senate in Pennsylvania.
Speaker 6: But this is happening in.
Speaker 1: Wisconsin, and he actually lives in a seven million dollar
Speaker 1: house in California. But these are candidates who are carbon baggers,
Speaker 1: but they're also self funded, and so I just wonder
Speaker 1: and again, we are going to see more reporting on this,
Speaker 1: but I just wonder how much of these self funded
Speaker 1: candidates are running because the RNC is having some trouble
Speaker 1: raising money.
Speaker 6: It's listen, McConnell.
Speaker 7: This was part of McConnell's plan for a long time
Speaker 7: was to get wealthy moderate Republicans to run and smash them.
Speaker 6: Ag. Here's the again, going back to my moment of fucker.
Speaker 7: The irony is that Mitch McConnell after twenty twelve said, oh,
Speaker 7: fuck these tea Party people, We're going to put more
Speaker 7: modern Republicans in.
Speaker 6: Well.
Speaker 7: That didn't work in the end of the day, but
Speaker 7: so then there the plan was, oh, well, we'll get
Speaker 7: these rich guys.
Speaker 6: They're donor class guys. We know who they are.
Speaker 7: They like money, we like money, and it made it
Speaker 7: easier for them to counteract the crazy right and also.
Speaker 1: All and also all that money is going to Trump's
Speaker 1: legal bills, so you got to get bless them.
Speaker 5: And that is our moment off the Great Well.
Speaker 6: And by the way that it started, my experience.
Speaker 5: Was we've done it. I know, We've done it.
Speaker 1: That's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in
Speaker 1: every Monday Wednesday and Friday to hear the best minds
Speaker 1: in politics makes sense of all this chaos. If you
Speaker 1: enjoyed what you've heard, please send it to a friend
Speaker 1: and keep the conversation going. And again, thanks for listening.