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 fourteen percent of Republicans say they
Speaker 1: would take action to overturn the election of Trump loses.
Speaker 1: In case you're wondering, that's a lot of people. We
Speaker 1: have such a great show for you today. The Groundwork
Speaker 1: Collectives executive director Lindsey Owens comes to talk to us
Speaker 1: about price gouging and how Vice President Harris, if elected,
Speaker 1: will fight it. Then we have Democracy Forwards Sky Perryman
Speaker 1: on how her organization is pushing back against republicans constant overreaches.
Speaker 1: Then as a bonus, we have a portion of our
Speaker 1: conversation at Democracy Forwards event at the DNC with Congresswoman
Speaker 1: Becca Balent, Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett, and Congressman Maxwell Frost. But
Speaker 1: first we have the host of the Lawrence O'Donnell Show,
Speaker 1: ms NBC's Lawrence O'Donnell. Welcome back to Fast Politics. Fan
Speaker 1: favorite and also my favorite, Lawrence.
Speaker 2: You're not supposed to say you have a favorite. When
Speaker 2: you're in the business of inviting guests, Ask me who
Speaker 2: my favorite is your favorite?
Speaker 1: Guest on my Shaw, who's your favorite?
Speaker 2: I don't have a favorite. See, by the way, Molly,
Speaker 2: this morning's lesson in parenting. Okay, if you have more
Speaker 2: than one child, you're supposed to know this and hopes.
Speaker 1: They're all your favorite. Correct, And right now again, yet
Speaker 1: another day of unprecedented times? Do you get ever? Do
Speaker 1: you ever get sick of living in sort of unprecedented times?
Speaker 2: I've been sick of it every single day since Trump
Speaker 2: went up to about twenty four percent in the polls
Speaker 2: in twenty fifteen. Before that, it was a joke, he was.
Speaker 2: He started at three percent in the Republican primary polls.
Speaker 2: He doubled that to six, and I think then double
Speaker 2: that to twelve. And I'm pretty sure that was the
Speaker 2: point when I declared authoritatively on Morning Joe, well, of
Speaker 2: course he's never going to get higher than that. And
Speaker 2: so once he got up there and he was like
Speaker 2: running in second place to Jeb Bush, that was sickening.
Speaker 2: And so it's been sickening ever since, and so tired
Speaker 2: of it. And I don't think this is too dramatic
Speaker 2: a frame to use for this, because it's a kind
Speaker 2: of necessary frame for how the human mind copes with
Speaker 2: a long term oppressive struggle. And it's like asking somebody,
Speaker 2: you know, in World War two and you know, nineteen
Speaker 2: forty three, are you sick of this?
Speaker 3: You know?
Speaker 2: And they're you know, and there's two and a half
Speaker 2: more years of World War Two. And I mean people.
Speaker 2: I don't mean the soldiers. I mean like people living
Speaker 2: in the United States, you know, who could not buy
Speaker 2: gasoline because it was rationed, or they could not buy
Speaker 2: tires because that was ration and you couldn't and America
Speaker 2: stopped manufacturing new cars, and there was all sorts of
Speaker 2: collective countrywide kind of stress and varying degrees of deprivation
Speaker 2: because of World War Two and because of this nut
Speaker 2: Hitler what he was doing to us without ever having
Speaker 2: reached this country. What you will find from people who
Speaker 2: lived through that is that most days they were laughing
Speaker 2: and joking and living completely normal lives and never actually
Speaker 2: living without that horrible feeling of what we were going
Speaker 2: through and what was at risk. And so this no,
Speaker 2: I never get used to this horrible Trump era, which
Speaker 2: is the single worst era in American electoral politics and
Speaker 2: American electoral history. It's not you know, the worst era economically,
Speaker 2: or the worst era or the worst era, you know,
Speaker 2: in a foreign policy or war challenges and things like that,
Speaker 2: but it is the single worst era of American history
Speaker 2: created entirely by politics.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, it's such an important point that this
Speaker 1: is an electoral nightmare and could perhaps end in you
Speaker 1: know not and it could very likely end in a
Speaker 1: non reelection of Trump, but either way it's possible. But
Speaker 1: I do think it's really important that the sort of
Speaker 1: sword of damocles is of Trumpism has really been there
Speaker 1: the whole decade almost.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I now find myself saying things, you know,
Speaker 2: on my show to audience members who may not be
Speaker 2: aware of how weird it all is. You know, if
Speaker 2: you're twenty four, how long have you been paying attention?
Speaker 2: By the way, if you're twenty four, have you begun
Speaker 2: paying attention?
Speaker 4: Right?
Speaker 2: And I would say, if you're twenty four and you
Speaker 2: never paid attention before at all, like you never paid
Speaker 2: attention to the elections, and you didn't vote in the
Speaker 2: last presidential election, the one thing you're aware of about
Speaker 2: this presidential election, the one thing I guarantee you every
Speaker 2: twenty four year old is aware of, is Donald Trump
Speaker 2: saying from his crazed you know semi straight jacketed condition
Speaker 2: there in Florida on Sunday morning. I hate Taylor Swift. Yeah,
Speaker 2: And so when I was talking about that the other night,
Speaker 2: I had to say, thinking about that twenty one year
Speaker 2: old or the eighteen year old, and oh, by the way,
Speaker 2: the fourteen year olds, that you have to understand, Presidents
Speaker 2: do not use the word hate as a verb applied
Speaker 2: to a human being, right, you know? And I just said,
Speaker 2: you know, because I know, having lived long enough and
Speaker 2: listened long enough, that you're not going to find it,
Speaker 2: you know, if you search everything Jimmy Carter ever said,
Speaker 2: or Bill Clinton ever said, it's never going to be
Speaker 2: I hate a person. Right. I have studied a great
Speaker 2: deal of the World War two era, and from my study,
Speaker 2: I would say to you, off the top of my head,
Speaker 2: Franklin Roosevelt, president of the United States, never said I hate.
Speaker 1: Hitler, right, though he had every reason too.
Speaker 2: Right. Yeah, And that's how rare that is. Winston Churchill
Speaker 2: I found yesterday once said that he hated Hitler. He
Speaker 2: said that once, okay, and he said it in a
Speaker 2: pretty elegantly phrased you turn and was apologizing for the
Speaker 2: use of the word at the same time. And so
Speaker 2: it's things like that. It's moments like that where you
Speaker 2: have this opportunity to remind people, and even you know,
Speaker 2: the forty year olds working on my show, it had
Speaker 2: never really crossed their minds when I was saying to
Speaker 2: them yesterday, find me an instance of a president of
Speaker 2: the United States saying I hate a person. Go ahead,
Speaker 2: you have the world Wide Web. You got a couple
Speaker 2: of hours. Find me one. And the best they could
Speaker 2: come up with former President George H. W. Bush when
Speaker 2: he was seventy eight years old, just like Docald Trump
Speaker 2: saying I hate Saddam and then in his Connecticut Yankee
Speaker 2: way kind of immediately apologizing for the use of the
Speaker 2: word hete But one of the things, one of the
Speaker 2: contexts to remember about that is that there had just
Speaker 2: been uncovered a Saddam, an alleged Saddam plot about somehow
Speaker 2: trying to assassinate his son, President George Reash. So it
Speaker 2: was kind of, you know, that was the one slip
Speaker 2: in the previous presidential history of dignity, avoidance of hate
Speaker 2: as a verb, And there wasn't the slightest ripple of
Speaker 2: surprise anywhere when Donald Trump, you know tweeted I hate
Speaker 2: Taylor Swift. And by the way, I know it's not
Speaker 2: on Twitter, and I know Twitter's not called Twitter anymore. Sorry,
Speaker 2: I'm not changing my language.
Speaker 1: Yeh, good for you.
Speaker 2: So no one was even slight surprised, and no one
Speaker 2: even really thought it was a big deal, And that
Speaker 2: is a tragic corruption of presidential and post presidential discourse.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, the fact that the office of presidency
Speaker 1: has been so genteel in a certain way, even though
Speaker 1: there have been definitely things done. Presidents have done things
Speaker 1: in this country and towards Americans, even in the House, well,
Speaker 1: the House of Non American Activities was not presidential, but
Speaker 1: certain things, like you know, the way they've treated ethnic
Speaker 1: groups in this country. I mean, they have done things,
Speaker 1: but they have always presented themselves in a really genteel way.
Speaker 1: And Trump is stylistically different, but he's also ethically, morally
Speaker 1: profoundly different.
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, And it hasn't really been a matter of gentility.
Speaker 2: It has been a matter of best strategic practice. So
Speaker 2: let's go to the example of Franklin Roosevelt never saying
Speaker 2: I hate him Hitler And oh, by the way, there's
Speaker 2: no record of him saying it privately. It's very clear
Speaker 2: he did. When you get into his private the things
Speaker 2: he did say privately about Hitler, he absolutely would pass
Speaker 2: the test of hating Hitler and certainly hating everything Hitler did.
Speaker 2: The reason not to say it is not some aristocratic gentility.
Speaker 2: The reason not to say it is that you don't
Speaker 2: want the mother in Missouri thinking that her son at
Speaker 2: that time is being sent off to war and possibly
Speaker 2: die in a war with Germany because you hate Hitler. Right,
Speaker 2: that war has to be about something other than you
Speaker 2: personally hating Hitler. It must be, and so it was
Speaker 2: about something other than personally hating Hitler. And at the
Speaker 2: same time, you know, we were allies in that war
Speaker 2: with the second worst dictator on the planet, Joseph Stalin,
Speaker 2: and you had to embrace that struategic balance in order
Speaker 2: to win World War Two. So if you think you
Speaker 2: can kind of flippantly say I hate Hitler while your
Speaker 2: teammates with Joseph Stalin temporarily, temporarily and strategically to save
Speaker 2: the world, by the way, that's you know, you got
Speaker 2: a problem. And it's also President's understanding that no matter
Speaker 2: what job they had before this, whether it was governor
Speaker 2: or senator. The weight of their words now as president
Speaker 2: or a post president is just really profound. And they
Speaker 2: have all been in awe of that, you know, that
Speaker 2: weight of those words that they that they must live by,
Speaker 2: and you know, you see it to a point of timidity.
Speaker 2: For example, in George W. Bush, right, the only living
Speaker 2: former Republican president who lives in absolute silence, absolute and
Speaker 2: total silence, and all any decent person wants him to
Speaker 2: do is to say, you know, don't vote for Donald
Speaker 2: Trump and here's why. And he won't even do that.
Speaker 2: And I do think that may be of the of
Speaker 2: the negatives in George W. Bush's legacy which are profound,
Speaker 2: That one, I think is the one that you can
Speaker 2: really take very seriously as an identifier of the dimensions
Speaker 2: of that person's conscience. And when you listen to what
Speaker 2: George W. Bush's vice president has said, and you listen
Speaker 2: to what the daughter of George W. Bush's vice president
Speaker 2: has said, and if you listen to their words, it
Speaker 2: is morally indefensible for George W. Bush not to say
Speaker 2: the same thing, unless and only unless he actually wants
Speaker 2: Donald Trump to win.
Speaker 1: Yeah, when Dick Cheney has become the arbitrary. I mean
Speaker 1: he you know, has become the moral compass of the
Speaker 1: Republican Party, which he has at this moment. Can you
Speaker 1: talk about I wrote a piece about this because it
Speaker 1: just struck me as so blatant. But the lie about Ohio, Springfield, Ohio,
Speaker 1: the lie about Haitian immigrants who are there legally, who
Speaker 1: Trump wants to deport to Venezuela, that lie is just
Speaker 1: yet another one of these things they do that autocrats do,
Speaker 1: I mean, so blatant, so transparent, but also I mean,
Speaker 1: talk to me about what your take on that was.
Speaker 2: Well, you know, I think one of the more important
Speaker 2: things to know about it is that it's not new
Speaker 2: in America or in other countries. They said this about
Speaker 2: the Irish and you know, the eighteen fifties in Boston
Speaker 2: and New York and they were lying then and literally
Speaker 2: by the way, literally you know, the eating of dogs
Speaker 2: and that that sort of thing, that specific thing has
Speaker 2: been used at many times in our history. And you know,
Speaker 2: when you look at the things that Hitler said about Jews,
Speaker 2: they were that and worse, you know, and much worse,
Speaker 2: like they'll eat your children. Yeah, So it's a thing
Speaker 2: you know what these bad people immigrants. You know, in
Speaker 2: the Germany case, the Jews that Hitler was talking about
Speaker 2: it certainly at first were not immigrants. They were actually
Speaker 2: you know, born native residents of Germany, but they were
Speaker 2: the demonized group. And here the demonized group are the immigrants,
Speaker 2: and now specifically Haitian immigrants, you know, not randomly chosen
Speaker 2: from the potential immigrant group. You know, you've got a
Speaker 2: solidly black group of immigrants that he can identify that way.
Speaker 2: And it's extremely deliberate. And because Donald Trump is not
Speaker 2: has not once in his entire political career tried to
Speaker 2: convert a voter who he doesn't have already. He doesn't
Speaker 2: care how stupid it looks to us, and how evil
Speaker 2: it looks to us, and how stupid it looks to
Speaker 2: you don't know, women, suburban voters in Ohio who you know,
Speaker 2: know for a fact that it's not true. He doesn't
Speaker 2: care about that. He cares that it energizes the people
Speaker 2: who share his hatreds. And that's the currency he's been
Speaker 2: trading in from the start. Can my hatreds win the
Speaker 2: electoral college? Do my hatreds? Are my hatreds shared by
Speaker 2: enough people geographically distributed in a way that will allow
Speaker 2: me to win the electoral college, not win the most votes.
Speaker 2: That's not the campaign. He's not in a campaign to
Speaker 2: win the most votes. He's never won the most votes.
Speaker 2: It's the electoral college. And you know, in twenty sixteen
Speaker 2: they were distributed in such a way that could allow
Speaker 2: for that, and so it's horrific. And of course, you know,
Speaker 2: and of course, because you know, Donald Trump is the
Speaker 2: clown writing this history. Clown history, of course, would hand
Speaker 2: us the situation where within days of Donald Trump saying
Speaker 2: that Haitian immigrants are eating cats and dogs in Springfield, Ohio,
Speaker 2: the federal prosecutor who is now investigating the latest accused
Speaker 2: assassination attempt of Donald Trump is a Haitian immigrant. He
Speaker 2: arrived in this country when he was sixteen years old,
Speaker 2: not speaking much English at all, got into public high
Speaker 2: school in Miami, graduated, joined the Marines immediately after graduation,
Speaker 2: eventually got back to college and law school, works in
Speaker 2: the US Attorney's office for a couple of years, goes
Speaker 2: into private practice in a prestigious Miami law firm. And
Speaker 2: now we have a fifty four or so year old
Speaker 2: Haitian immigrant exactly precisely who Donald Trump says is poisoning
Speaker 2: the blood of America. That's who's in charge of the
Speaker 2: investigation of the latest person to get near Donald Trump
Speaker 2: with a gun.
Speaker 1: Yes, and these people who Trump accuses all of this
Speaker 1: stuff of are actually the reason that the American economy
Speaker 1: is doing better than almost any economy in the world.
Speaker 1: I'm wondering if you can just we don't have a
Speaker 1: ton of time, but I want you to take a
Speaker 1: shot at this. Why do you think that JD. Vance
Speaker 1: uses all the same tropes as Trump and somehow can't
Speaker 1: make it work for him.
Speaker 2: Well, I think it's a wonderful experiment that we've run
Speaker 2: a couple of times now, and JD. Evans is the
Speaker 2: latest example of it, which is that trump Ism is
Speaker 2: not transferable. It is not There's not going to be
Speaker 2: another one. The seventy eight year old Trump is going
Speaker 2: to expire from politics and there will not be another one.
Speaker 2: No one is going to be able to stand up there.
Speaker 2: Mike Pompeo thought he was the guy who was going
Speaker 2: to be able to do this. You know. JD. Evance
Speaker 2: clearly wants to be the guy. You know, Donald Trump
Speaker 2: Junior wants to be the guy. There is not going
Speaker 2: to be another guy. They're going to have to proceed
Speaker 2: in a Republican Party without Donald Trump and without any
Speaker 2: policies and without any wild guess about what do we
Speaker 2: do next? Because it has been nothing but a cult
Speaker 2: of personality, you know, absolutely nothing. But and as strongly
Speaker 2: as FDR held his grip on the Democratic Party such
Speaker 2: that he won, you know, four presidential elections in a row,
Speaker 2: it was never a cult of personality. It was a
Speaker 2: program of policies, the most advanced and set of public
Speaker 2: policies in the history of the presidency, directed at domestic governance.
Speaker 2: And so when he died in office and Harry Truman
Speaker 2: took over, Harry Truman, who had absolutely no following in
Speaker 2: the United States of America, won the next presidential election when,
Speaker 2: by the way, everybody predicted he was going to lose,
Speaker 2: including every single reporter on the on the Truman campaign train.
Speaker 2: They liked the guy, but they were sure he was
Speaker 2: going to lose. And so it was kind of that
Speaker 2: election of Harry trumpan was kind of proof, Okay, this
Speaker 2: wasn't a cult of personality. As much as FDR was
Speaker 2: loved and so We've never seen an actual cult of
Speaker 2: personality take over one of the political parties, so we
Speaker 2: don't have any idea what happens to that party when
Speaker 2: that personality leaves that stage.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well we're going to see, right, or maybe we won't.
Speaker 2: He's seventy eight years old. We are going to see.
Speaker 1: Yes, Thank you, Lawrence, Thank you very much.
Speaker 5: We have even more toward dates for you. Did you
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Speaker 1: Lindsey Owens is the executive director of Groundwork Collective. Welcome
Speaker 1: to Fast Politics, Lindsay Owens, Hi, thanks for having me
Speaker 1: explain to us. You are an expert on price gouging.
Speaker 1: Explain to us how you get to be an expert
Speaker 1: on that and what that looks like and what you do. Yeah.
Speaker 6: So, I run a think tank in Washington, d C.
Speaker 6: Called the Grammar Collaborative, and we focus on policies that
Speaker 6: build an economy that works for everyone. And for the
Speaker 6: last few years, the biggest topic in the economy has
Speaker 6: really been inflation and high prices, and as part of
Speaker 6: that work, we have really spent a considerable amount of
Speaker 6: time digging into the research and the legal theories around
Speaker 6: price gouging, price fixing, profiteering, all of the things that
Speaker 6: have sort of worked against bringing costs down for families
Speaker 6: over this last few years.
Speaker 1: Explain to us where we are right now in the
Speaker 1: kind of price gouging cycle, you.
Speaker 6: Know, really beginning with the pandemic. One thing that we
Speaker 6: saw over and over again is you know a number
Speaker 6: of companies and you know some individual Americans as well,
Speaker 6: started gouging on essentials. You may remember that we saw
Speaker 6: a lot of examples of guys hoarding PPP and their
Speaker 6: garages and selling it, you know, at a very high
Speaker 6: price point. We saw companies spiking the price of essentials.
Speaker 6: We have an example recently where the New York Attorney
Speaker 6: General came to a settlement with Walgreens over price gouging
Speaker 6: on baby formula. Remember we had that baby formula shortage,
Speaker 6: you know, a couple of years back, and you know,
Speaker 6: Walgreens took advantage of it and really hiked the price
Speaker 6: point of baby formula, and Tiss James, the new Attorney
Speaker 6: General in New York State, deployed the regulations that new
Speaker 6: York State has on the books against price gouging to
Speaker 6: settle with Walgreens and basically deliver ninety five hundred cans
Speaker 6: of baby formula back to New Yorkers. So we had
Speaker 6: a number of examples of this. We see price gouging
Speaker 6: in food and agriculture quite frequently. I mean there we
Speaker 6: have the impact of natural disasters, and pandemics and other
Speaker 6: diseases are quite substantial in food and agriculture. So we've
Speaker 6: had examples of Calmine, one of the largest egg producers
Speaker 6: in the country. There was recently a jury trial that
Speaker 6: found them guilty of price gouging during the bird flu.
Speaker 6: So of course, you know during bird flu, you know,
Speaker 6: we had fewer eggs, but they weren't just charging more
Speaker 6: because there were fewer eggs. They were also really fanning
Speaker 6: the flames of the shortage. So they were exporting eggs
Speaker 6: to keep the number of eggs in the US lower,
Speaker 6: and they were also culling the flock right to keep
Speaker 6: the egg production down and keep those high prices going
Speaker 6: for longer.
Speaker 1: So it's sort of like every company has become OPAQ.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I think that, you know, in a version of
Speaker 6: the world in which disasters are more frequent, we're going
Speaker 6: to see the kind of activities of disaster capitalism. Price
Speaker 6: gouging is one of those hallmark activities more frequently and
Speaker 6: more forcefully. And I think you know, when it comes
Speaker 6: to essentials, the things that matter most to families, keeping
Speaker 6: a roof over their head and food on the table,
Speaker 6: it makes a lot of sense for lawmakers at the
Speaker 6: state level and at the federal level to take a
Speaker 6: look at what additional tools we might need to curb
Speaker 6: this really excessive exploitative behavior.
Speaker 1: So one of the things that Robert Reich has said
Speaker 1: on this topic is that part of the reason why
Speaker 1: price gouging is such a problem is because of monopolies.
Speaker 1: Is that true, and if so, explain.
Speaker 6: Yeah, it's absolutely true. Look, if you want to charge
Speaker 6: high prices, it helps if there's no one across the
Speaker 6: street charging lower prices. Right at the end of the day,
Speaker 6: if you are looking over the shoulder and competitors are
Speaker 6: nipping at your heels, it's tougher to run away with
Speaker 6: these really high prices. And so competition, while not a panacea,
Speaker 6: is a really important check on excess corporate power, and
Speaker 6: companies with a lot of power have a lot of
Speaker 6: market share, and they also have a lot of pricing power,
Speaker 6: and pricing power is really what you need if you
Speaker 6: want to push pricing to anti competitive levels. So it's
Speaker 6: not just price lounging that you can execute more seamlessly
Speaker 6: if you have a little size and a little pricing power.
Speaker 6: It's also price fixing, right. If there are fewer people
Speaker 6: to coordinate with to set prices, it is easier to
Speaker 6: fix prices at a higher level. It's also the case
Speaker 6: that sometimes companies are just pricing anti competitively, or pushing
Speaker 6: prices just a little above where they would be otherwise
Speaker 6: in a competitive market. We might not think that constitutes
Speaker 6: sort of true price gouging, which usually is triggered by
Speaker 6: an emergency, usually really only applies to essentials. We're not
Speaker 6: really cracking down on price gouging and luxury handbags, for example,
Speaker 6: but we do see anti competitive pricing throughout the economy,
Speaker 6: and a great example just really this week, we've seen
Speaker 6: the Federal Trade Commission blocking the merger of Kroger and Albertsons.
Speaker 6: Kroger trying to buy Albertsons, and you know, in twenty
Speaker 6: two states, these are competitors. Kroger and Albertsons compete for shoppers.
Speaker 6: And what we've learned throughout that trial, which you know,
Speaker 6: many folks have attended and journalists have covered, you know,
Speaker 6: really well, is that Koger and Albertson has basically admitted
Speaker 6: that they've been pricing anti competitively because of their size.
Speaker 6: And so I think, you know, while we wouldn't call
Speaker 6: that price gouging, it's just another way, another kind of
Speaker 6: countervailing pressure that we've seen during this period of high
Speaker 6: inflation that really cuts against getting prices back on the level.
Speaker 1: So can you explain to us how tariffs would be
Speaker 1: inflationary and how they would make prices more expensive?
Speaker 6: You know, so President Trump has proposed this sort of
Speaker 6: broad based, across the board twenty percent tariff, and the
Speaker 6: basic idea is that you know, companies in the US
Speaker 6: would have to work over more to import goods from abroad,
Speaker 6: and that you know, the fact that companies you know
Speaker 6: inside the US are paying more means they're going to
Speaker 6: pass those higher prices along to consumers at the endpoint,
Speaker 6: at the point of sale. And so it's almost impossible
Speaker 6: to imagine a scenario in which broad based traff like
Speaker 6: those that President Trump is proposing won't increase prices for Americans. Now,
Speaker 6: I think there are more narrow settings in which targeted
Speaker 6: and curated tariffs can make a lot of sense. President
Speaker 6: Biden is pursuing tariffs as well, in particular around electric vehicles,
Speaker 6: to really prevent China from sort of dumping in the
Speaker 6: electric vehicle space and making it hard for the US
Speaker 6: to build its own electric vehicle industry, which is you know,
Speaker 6: nascent and burgeoning and was a big part of what
Speaker 6: the investments in the Inflation Reduction Act aimed to do.
Speaker 6: So I think there are good reasons for well targeted tariffs.
Speaker 6: There are economic reasons for them, there are national security
Speaker 6: reasons for them. There are resiliency reasons for them. We
Speaker 6: want to be a country that has a strong manufacturing
Speaker 6: base here. We learned the hard way on the eve
Speaker 6: of the pandemic when there were a lot of things
Speaker 6: that we couldn't make in the US that we had
Speaker 6: to import, and we couldn't import because of the pandemic.
Speaker 6: And so I think, you know, there's a lot you
Speaker 6: can do with tariffs, but the type of broad based
Speaker 6: tariffs that President Trump is proposed will surely raise prices
Speaker 6: broadly for American families, But can.
Speaker 1: You explain sort of what Harris's plan is to lower
Speaker 1: inflation and also more importantly, to hit these prices like
Speaker 1: the eggs and the meat and etc.
Speaker 6: The Vice President laid out an economic agenda in a
Speaker 6: speech in North Carolina a few weeks ago, and it
Speaker 6: was really her first speech, you know, letting the American
Speaker 6: people know what she would pursue visa via economic policy
Speaker 6: if she were elected. And she basically said that she
Speaker 6: was going to be laser focused on lowering costs for Americans.
Speaker 6: And so she talked about bringing down housing costs using
Speaker 6: a few different policies, including building three million homes. She
Speaker 6: talked about cracking down on price fixing in the rental
Speaker 6: market a couple of weeks ago. We really saw the
Speaker 6: wisdom of that approach when we learned that the Department
Speaker 6: of Justice brought a lawsuit against real Page, a Texas
Speaker 6: based real estate technology company runs an algorithm called yield Star,
Speaker 6: which helps corporate landlords in large markets in the United
Speaker 6: States price fix and by their own admission, Real Page
Speaker 6: is increasing rents anywhere between two and seven percent above
Speaker 6: competitive levels in major markets. So she talked a lot
Speaker 6: about housing prices, but she also talked about food prices,
Speaker 6: and she proposed effectively a federal price gouging ban. So,
Speaker 6: you know, nearly forty states have price gouging laws on
Speaker 6: the books, right. These are kind of plane vanilla laws
Speaker 6: that have been on the books for decades in many
Speaker 6: states that prevent companies from exploiting crises to gouge customers.
Speaker 6: So they basically have four parts. Part one, they're triggered
Speaker 6: by some sort of crisis, you know, a natural disaster,
Speaker 6: a pandemic, a period of economic uncertainty. Part two, they
Speaker 6: really apply only to necessities. Again, you're not going to
Speaker 6: see someone cracking down on price gouging for luxury items.
Speaker 6: The third component that these laws typically have is a
Speaker 6: hibit unconscionably excessive. That's a legal term price hikes. So
Speaker 6: companies who are charging two three percent more during a
Speaker 6: pandemic are not going to be, you know, brought to
Speaker 6: justice for price gouging. These are really price hikes, you know,
Speaker 6: well in excess of ten percent usually. And then the
Speaker 6: final component is that you know, lawmakers have to take
Speaker 6: a close look to ensure that price hikes can't be
Speaker 6: justified by underlying increases in costs. So if you're raising
Speaker 6: prices because you're selling diapers, and diapers the main ingredient
Speaker 6: in diapers is wood pulp that comes from timber, right,
Speaker 6: that's the absorbent paper, And the price of timber is up,
Speaker 6: and you're just passing along your rising costs the input
Speaker 6: costs of timber. You're not going to be looked at
Speaker 6: for price gouging, right, So you really need all four
Speaker 6: of those components in a price gouging law. And that's
Speaker 6: what you see commonly, you know, throughout the United States
Speaker 6: and in most states and red states and blue and
Speaker 6: so what the Vice President proposed in her speech is
Speaker 6: a federal statute that would ban price gouging. You know,
Speaker 6: obviously she didn't lay out a huge amount of detail
Speaker 6: in a short speech, but I think it would probably
Speaker 6: look a lot like the state laws, and it might
Speaker 6: look a lot like a piece of legislation currently in
Speaker 6: the Senate that Senator Warren has, which is basically a
Speaker 6: federal price gouging ban. And so you would imagine something
Speaker 6: modeled closely after Senator Warren's proposal. And I think the
Speaker 6: federal version of this policy makes a ton of sense.
Speaker 6: At the end, of the day. A lot of the
Speaker 6: disasters that we experience, a lot of the uncertainty that
Speaker 6: we experience in the economy, you know, happens at the
Speaker 6: national level, not the state level. A lot of the
Speaker 6: companies that we've seen engage in price gouging are not
Speaker 6: operating only in one state. They're operating across state lines.
Speaker 6: This is interstate commerce. And so I think it would
Speaker 6: be really helpful going forward for the FEDS to have
Speaker 6: a tool, for the Federal Trade Comission to have a
Speaker 6: tool to take a look at price gouging federally. So
Speaker 6: I think it's a pretty common sense piece of legislation
Speaker 6: in some ways, a bit of a vanilla piece of legislation.
Speaker 6: But obviously, you know, the reaction to it was quite strong.
Speaker 1: One on the podcast were fans of hers, But I
Speaker 1: certainly know a lot because I live in New York.
Speaker 1: I know a lot of business people of venture capitalists,
Speaker 1: investment bankers, etc. Who are truly threatened by her. Can
Speaker 1: you explain to us sort of why they're threatened by
Speaker 1: her or why stuff like this is so threatening? And
Speaker 1: if you think that there's a way to thread the
Speaker 1: needle to have a responsible capitalism, that puts its finger
Speaker 1: on the scale in a way that helps workers, but
Speaker 1: that isn't wasteful, thoughtless.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I think that's a good question. So I'll take
Speaker 6: the first piece first around, sort of why why Senator
Speaker 6: Warren elicits such strong reactions in the business community. You know,
Speaker 6: I worked for Senator Warren for several years in the
Speaker 6: Senate in Washington, and I think that Senator Warren has
Speaker 6: two things that motivate her. The first, I would say
Speaker 6: is she really does have a theory of what a
Speaker 6: healthy economy should look like. And it's a pretty clear
Speaker 6: and strong theory. Right, It's an economy where the workers
Speaker 6: who power the economy are doing well. It's an economy
Speaker 6: where the consumers who's spending powers the economy, are doing well.
Speaker 6: It's an economy where caregivers who's unpaid labor keeps the
Speaker 6: economy afloat, are doing well. And it's an economy where
Speaker 6: where companies have to play fairly, right, they have to
Speaker 6: play by the rules. They can make a profit, they
Speaker 6: can compete with each other, but there has to be
Speaker 6: free and fair competition. She also has a clear theory
Speaker 6: of what's wrong with the economy and why the economy
Speaker 6: doesn't look like the healthy economy that she so desires.
Speaker 6: And there, I think the answer is fairly clear, which
Speaker 6: is that in the United States context, for years, companies,
Speaker 6: through do regulation through tax cuts have really amassed outsized
Speaker 6: power in our economy such that they're not actually competing anymore,
Speaker 6: they're just controlling. She has supported, i think, in some
Speaker 6: ways and omnivorous and sort of I would say policy
Speaker 6: tool agnostic approach to fixing that problem. I mean, she
Speaker 6: really supports any prescription, any surgery, any procedure that will
Speaker 6: help get the economy back to a fair place that's
Speaker 6: working good and well for workers and families. And so
Speaker 6: she supports having people like Lena Khan at the Federal
Speaker 6: Trade Commission using every tool that the Federal Trade Commission
Speaker 6: has to build that healthy economy, whether that's suing to
Speaker 6: block the merger of Kruger and Alberton's, whether that's dusting
Speaker 6: off regulatory authority at the FTC for the first time
Speaker 6: in decades and issuing a rule to ban noncompete so
Speaker 6: that workers can vote with their feet when they want
Speaker 6: to leave a job, whether that's building the Consumer Financial
Speaker 6: Protection Bureau to ensure that consumers a cop on the beat,
Speaker 6: as she used to say, or someone advocating for them
Speaker 6: in the mortgage process, in the credit card acquisition process. Right,
Speaker 6: So she really supports that I think omnivorous approach. She
Speaker 6: really is willing to turn over every rock, use every
Speaker 6: tool in the toolkits, sort of whatever metaphor you want
Speaker 6: to profer to build that economy. Look, I think it
Speaker 6: is fair to say that many companies in the United
Speaker 6: States have benefited from the exact opposite approach, which is
Speaker 6: to say, a government and Congress who has mostly let
Speaker 6: companies do what companies want to do. Whether that's an
Speaker 6: FTC that rubber stamped mergers for decades, whether that's regulators
Speaker 6: captured regulators in some cases who didn't pick up any
Speaker 6: of the tools that they had to use to make
Speaker 6: the economy more fairic poor consumers. Whether that's Congress whose
Speaker 6: greenlit tax cuts under Democratic and Republican administrations. Right, we
Speaker 6: have Reagan pushing tax cuts fifty years ago, we have
Speaker 6: Bush pushing tax cuts, but we also have Obama extending
Speaker 6: Bush tax cuts. Right, So I think we I've been
Speaker 6: sort of working and rowing in one direction for a
Speaker 6: really long time. You know, the Senator, and I think
Speaker 6: many others who are inspired by her or enjoy working
Speaker 6: alongside her in this broader movement, are interested in sort
Speaker 6: of rerouting the ocean liner. And I think it is
Speaker 6: threatening to many companies to see someone who's taking this
Speaker 6: on aggressively, but frankly also effectively. The people that she's
Speaker 6: put in positions of power in the White House, the
Speaker 6: people she's helped mentor and support in agencies at the
Speaker 6: state level, at the federal level, they're smart and they're effective.
Speaker 6: They're getting wins in the courts, they're getting wins in Congress,
Speaker 6: they're getting wins in the administration. And so I think,
Speaker 6: you know, if you're someone who benefits from a kind
Speaker 6: of rigged status quo, then it's absolutely the case that
Speaker 6: the warrant approach is a real threat to your model.
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure. So interesting. I hope you will come back.
Speaker 6: I'd love to.
Speaker 1: Are you concerned about Project twenty twenty five and how
Speaker 1: awful Trump's second term could be? Well, so are we,
Speaker 1: which is why we teamed up with iHeart to make
Speaker 1: a limited series with the experts on what a disaster
Speaker 1: Project twenty twenty five would be for America's future right now.
Speaker 1: We have just released the final episode of this five
Speaker 1: episode series. They're all available by looking up Molly Jong
Speaker 1: Fast Project twenty twenty five on YouTube. And if you
Speaker 1: are more of a podcast person and not say a YouTuber,
Speaker 1: you can hit play and put your phone in the
Speaker 1: lock screen and it will play back just like the podcast.
Speaker 1: All five episodes are online now. We need to educate
Speaker 1: Americans on what Trump's second term would or could do
Speaker 1: to this country, So please watch it and spread the word.
Speaker 1: Sky Perryman is the president of Democracy Forward. Welcome back
Speaker 1: to Fast Politics.
Speaker 7: Sky, thanks for having me always get to talk to you.
Speaker 1: So you and I we were both at the DNC
Speaker 1: and we did a panel together. We're going to have
Speaker 1: some snippets of the panel in this podcast because there
Speaker 1: are some great things that people said, and we had
Speaker 1: some great congresspeople there, Maxwell Frost, we had Jasmine Crockett,
Speaker 1: we had beca ballot. Sky explained is what your organization does.
Speaker 7: Democracy Forward is a legal organization that believes that people
Speaker 7: in communities in this country, all the vast majority of them,
Speaker 7: want to embrace freedom and democracy, but to do that
Speaker 7: they have to have representation in court because so many
Speaker 7: of our rights and our freedoms are on the line
Speaker 7: in courts and communities across the country. So we represent
Speaker 7: people in communities across the country to disrupt anti democratic policies,
Speaker 7: whether those are abortion bans or voter suppression initiatives, or
Speaker 7: book bans or blacklisting companies, which is the state of
Speaker 7: doing these days, I mean all kinds of things. And
Speaker 7: then we also defend positive policies for people that the
Speaker 7: democratic process has produced that are being challenged in the
Speaker 7: courts by far right legal organizations and organisms, including those
Speaker 7: that are behind Project twenty twenty five. We got our
Speaker 7: start in the first year of the Trump administration when
Speaker 7: it was clear that democracy and people in communities needed
Speaker 7: some additional lawyers on the on the Tech took the
Speaker 7: Trump administration to court more than one hundred times. We
Speaker 7: reversed a lot of problematic and harmful policies, and now
Speaker 7: we have expanded our mission and are working in communities
Speaker 7: across the country to disrupt extremism and build for the future.
Speaker 1: So I want to say that you're one of the
Speaker 1: groups that when Republicans try to break the law, and
Speaker 1: they do in the state of Texas, is a really
Speaker 1: good example. Remember they repealed ROW a year before the
Speaker 1: Supreme Court did with SBA. So when Republicans try to
Speaker 1: break the law, which is sort of their metier at
Speaker 1: this point, you guys go in there and you fight.
Speaker 7: Yeah, when any extreme lawmaker, we're a non partis an organization,
Speaker 7: But when any abuses their power to the detriment of
Speaker 7: people in communities, we are one of the groups that
Speaker 7: has the honor of being there on the front lines.
Speaker 7: In Arkansas, Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders signed into law a
Speaker 7: measure that would have criminalized librarians, and so we went
Speaker 7: in and were able to stop that on a pulmonary
Speaker 7: injunction or continuing to litigate that case. Like I just said,
Speaker 7: in Texas, this Texas Legislature and Greg Abbatt have a
Speaker 7: law on the books that are blacklisting companies in the state.
Speaker 7: Even though the thing it's a pro business environment, blacklisting
Speaker 7: companies were there on the front line. And then in
Speaker 7: West Virginia, of course we are there on the front
Speaker 7: lines to help ensure medication of wortion access. So those
Speaker 7: are some examples of the types of things that we do.
Speaker 1: Right and things that should not be partisan It's a
Speaker 1: really good point that this is about bad actors and
Speaker 1: not it doesn't matter if they have a D or
Speaker 1: an R next to their name.
Speaker 7: Well, and the vast majority of people in this country,
Speaker 7: they don't necessarily agree on all kinds of policy matters
Speaker 7: are but most of the work that we have the
Speaker 7: pleasure of doing are things that the vast majority of
Speaker 7: people want. They want people to be paid fairly for
Speaker 7: their work. They want people to be able to raise
Speaker 7: their kids and take, you know, send them to a
Speaker 7: school where there's not going to be a school shooting, right.
Speaker 7: They want to be able to access healthcare and not
Speaker 7: have women dying during pregnancy because of being deprived of
Speaker 7: emergency here. And so, you know, we have the pleasure
Speaker 7: of getting to really provide people in communities tools to
Speaker 7: make their voice heard and to try to make society
Speaker 7: more democratic and toward the terrible threats.
Speaker 1: Yes, and I think that's a really important point. So
Speaker 1: why don't we talk a little bit about kind of
Speaker 1: what that looks like. So one of the things that
Speaker 1: Trump did with his policy is that you never really
Speaker 1: had policy proposals, but the people who got him into
Speaker 1: office and paid, you know, and paid for his campaign
Speaker 1: and his ads and the things that a presidential campaign needs.
Speaker 1: Those people have policies they want, and so those groups
Speaker 1: which are funded by those people put together a policy
Speaker 1: sort of doctor are in called Project twenty twenty five. Now,
Speaker 1: it turns out the reason that a lot of these
Speaker 1: Republicans ever put stuff on paper is because it's very,
Speaker 1: very very unpopular and in some cases illegal, what they
Speaker 1: want to do. So talk to me about what that
Speaker 1: looks like for you, guys. VERSUS Project twenty twenty.
Speaker 7: Five for US, Project twenty twenty five showed the American
Speaker 7: people what we fight against all day long, because we
Speaker 7: have known and see in our work every day that
Speaker 7: there is an ecosystem of far right extremists that do
Speaker 7: not represent the vast majority of this country, but that
Speaker 7: seek to wield a tremendous amount of political power. And
Speaker 7: we saw that in the prior administration. We saw, for instance,
Speaker 7: I was one of the lawyers that challenged the Pence
Speaker 7: Cobok voter Commission. We're even in twenty seventeen former President Trump,
Speaker 7: you know, he was seeking to undermine our trust and election.
Speaker 1: Can you explain what the Pence Kobok Voter Commission.
Speaker 7: Is yeah, because it's really all that after former President
Speaker 7: Trump won the electoral College but did not win the
Speaker 7: popular vote, he did not ascribe to the notion that
Speaker 7: millions of people had actually voted for Secretary Clint And
Speaker 7: so there was an effort in the early days of
Speaker 7: the Trump administration called the Pence Kobok Voter Commission, that's
Speaker 7: Vice President Pence and Chris Kobok, to seek to undermine
Speaker 7: our confidence in our elections, to seek to intimidate voters,
Speaker 7: including voters of color and voters who are immigrants, and
Speaker 7: to challenge the counts and the elections. And they actually
Speaker 7: set up they sought to set up panels around the
Speaker 7: country to investigate whether there was voter fraud, all because
Speaker 7: the former president was unhappy and unwilling to admit that
Speaker 7: he lost the popular vote. And so we and other
Speaker 7: organizations filed a volume of lawsuits against that commission, and
Speaker 7: actually the administration was forced to disband it are found fraud.
Speaker 7: There was no fraud. This was a voter intimidation effort.
Speaker 7: And I always like to bring this up because we
Speaker 7: saw in those early days how this far right ecosystem,
Speaker 7: these groups that you see behind Project twenty twenty five.
Speaker 7: The former president has administration, many of whom, by the way,
Speaker 7: many of the officials in the former administration have written
Speaker 7: chapters of Project twenty twenty five. We're just sort of
Speaker 7: deeply uncomfortable with the notion that the vast majority people
Speaker 7: do not support what they believe in what they are
Speaker 7: peddling to the American people, and so to us, Project
Speaker 7: twenty twenty five is a manifestation of what we've known forever,
Speaker 7: which is that there is this ecosystem that is seeking
Speaker 7: to shape American policy in regressive ways, in ways that
Speaker 7: are unpopular and that are harmful, and that are often unlawful.
Speaker 7: And at Democracy Forward, we have put together a people's
Speaker 7: guide to Project twenty twenty five, which you and I
Speaker 7: have talked about before. Your listeners can get it at
Speaker 7: democracyford dot org that really breaks down what is in
Speaker 7: the document for people to understand a lot of this.
Speaker 7: They try to hide this extreme and not you know,
Speaker 7: in sort of policy language or nine hundred pages, hoping
Speaker 7: that people won't understand. The encouraging thing is that we
Speaker 7: know people are rejecting Project twenty twenty five and a
Speaker 7: Democracy Forward, we want to make sure people understand and
Speaker 7: I think this was one of the highlights of the
Speaker 7: conversation you and I had the pleasure of having in
Speaker 7: Chicago with our friends from Congress. But that product twenty
Speaker 7: twenty five is already happening in states like Texas, you know,
Speaker 7: Representative Crockett talked about that, in states like Florida as
Speaker 7: Representative Frost.
Speaker 1: And Oklahoma too, right and Oklahoma right.
Speaker 7: It's happening in these states with anti democratic leadership, and
Speaker 7: it's also happening in the courts that these a lot
Speaker 7: of these people, a lot of these organizations are legal organizations,
Speaker 7: and they're going into court to try to win in
Speaker 7: court what they can't win among the American people, whether
Speaker 7: that's seeking to ban medication abortion, which we've seen, whether
Speaker 7: it's seeking to undermine over time or minimum wage protections.
Speaker 7: So this is really a movement that's afoot in many
Speaker 7: different ways in our society.
Speaker 1: Can you expec ex blame to us how Congress works
Speaker 1: sort of in tandem to organizations like.
Speaker 7: This, Yes, And this is a good opportunity to also
Speaker 7: highlight an organization that I have the pleasure being an
Speaker 7: advisor for Demand Justice, which also co hosted the panel
Speaker 7: with us Molly, you'll remember, yes, And there are a
Speaker 7: number of things that Congress can do, and I was
Speaker 7: really inspired to hear some of our congressional leaders mention it.
Speaker 7: I mean, first of all, many of the things that
Speaker 7: these far right organizations seek to do in court, Congress
Speaker 7: could try to overturn through clear lawming. So that's in
Speaker 7: all instances. Unfortunately many instances now these legal organizations are
Speaker 7: claiming Congress has no power, which is something we're trying
Speaker 7: to raise the alarm bell around. But there are things
Speaker 7: that can be done through legislation. You've seen that President
Speaker 7: Biden propose and no Person above the Law constitutional amendment,
Speaker 7: which is something that would require state to do as well.
Speaker 7: But another thing, and this is where demand justice comes in,
Speaker 7: and I thought was a great part of the conversation
Speaker 7: we had, is that many people think that they think
Speaker 7: that our courts are untouchable and they are a coequal
Speaker 7: branch of go They don't exist above the law either,
Speaker 7: And so one thing that Congress can do is to
Speaker 7: ensure that our courts are operating in ways that serve everyone,
Speaker 7: to ensure that there are enforceable ethics codes at the
Speaker 7: Supreme Court, which there are not currently to ensure that
Speaker 7: the justices that are at the Supreme Court or operating
Speaker 7: in accordance with ethics and not taking you know, gifts
Speaker 7: and failing to disclose them or other ethical problems that
Speaker 7: we've seen. And they have a lot of power to
Speaker 7: control the way the federal judiciary, including the Supreme Court, operates,
Speaker 7: and Congress has done so in the past, and so
Speaker 7: I thought the conversation and you know, was really great
Speaker 7: in terms of highlighting and a lot of the members
Speaker 7: of Congress highlighted the tools that Congress itself has, which
Speaker 7: means that we the people have to fix some of
Speaker 7: this extremism. And this Project twenty twenty five that we're
Speaker 7: already seeing alive and well in communities and courts across
Speaker 7: the country.
Speaker 1: Can you explain to us what it means to put
Speaker 1: together binding ethics code, like how that would work for
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court.
Speaker 7: There's a range of ways that ethics codes can be enforceable,
Speaker 7: but right now there's just no oversight. The Court is
Speaker 7: sort of seeking to self police itself, and they've assured,
Speaker 7: you know, Justice Roberts assured Congress that it could do that.
Speaker 7: And then we've had a whole host of a number
Speaker 7: of examples of where ethics codes have been violated conflicts
Speaker 7: of interest. There's a real concern, and so I think that,
Speaker 7: you know, both through legislation as well as through continued oversight,
Speaker 7: it's really important. And so President Biden has recently proposed
Speaker 7: an enforceable code of ethics and has urged Congress to
Speaker 7: do that. There's a number of people on Capitol Hill,
Speaker 7: both on the Senate side and on the House side,
Speaker 7: working very hard. And then we have some members of
Speaker 7: Congress have just had it and they want, you know,
Speaker 7: they are seeking to investigate, and of course, you know,
Speaker 7: Representative you know AOC filed impeachment charges in order to
Speaker 7: raise I think awareness about the level of unethical conduct
Speaker 7: that we're ce.
Speaker 1: Do you think there is a world where you can
Speaker 1: get the past? I mean, how would it work? It
Speaker 1: would be a bill, Yeah, I do think.
Speaker 7: So, what we know about the American people is that
Speaker 7: while they may have some disagreements on policy, the vast
Speaker 7: majority support freedom and support democracy. The vast majority of
Speaker 7: people oppose restrictions on our freedom and restrictions on a
Speaker 7: vision of our constitution that protects that freedom. You've seen
Speaker 7: that in geographically diverse, you know, states across the nation
Speaker 7: that are voting on abortion freedom initiatives. And we also
Speaker 7: know that the Supreme Court's favorability rating is nearing historic
Speaker 7: lows at this moment because of the range of problematic
Speaker 7: conduct that we've seen out of the court. And that's
Speaker 7: really a problem for democracy. By the way. You don't
Speaker 7: want you don't want people to not have confidence in
Speaker 7: their courts. And so I think that there are a
Speaker 7: number of impolling has shown this, you know, is there
Speaker 7: are a number of policy solutions that can help fix
Speaker 7: the quandary that we're in where our courts are not
Speaker 7: working for everyone, and some of our courts are reversing rights,
Speaker 7: not protecting rights that are popular. And so a lot
Speaker 7: of the work, I think is around education and making
Speaker 7: sure that people and communities understand these are things that
Speaker 7: their representatives have the power to do and to consider,
Speaker 7: and ensuring that those people in communities are making their
Speaker 7: voices heard. There is a recent campaign called Moms for
Speaker 7: a Fair Court that I am my personal capacity and
Speaker 7: a part of, but a lot of other Shannon Watts,
Speaker 7: Fatima Goss grades, you know, many women are joining and
Speaker 7: are part of that are really highlighting the importance in
Speaker 7: our families and our communities on fair courts. And I
Speaker 7: think more of those types of efforts are going to
Speaker 7: be important to show the support that these basic protections have.
Speaker 7: I mean, most people think the Supreme Court is already
Speaker 7: under an enforce code of ethics, and we're shocked to
Speaker 7: learn that it is not. And so these are not
Speaker 7: proposals that should have a problem if there's a political
Speaker 7: will to get them done right.
Speaker 1: It's a really good point. And Roberts's really just sort
Speaker 1: of fallen asleep at the switch, or perhaps this is
Speaker 1: what he's always wanted. Can you sort of explain to
Speaker 1: us what you can do in a state where the
Speaker 1: state legislature has done craziness. I'm thinking of Oklahoma. Talk
Speaker 1: to me about sort of one thing they've done and
Speaker 1: how you and organizations like yours have pushed back on it.
Speaker 7: Yes, I mean, well, a number of these states, and
Speaker 7: you know Oklahoma is one, Texas is one, Florida are
Speaker 7: passing laws and their legislatures that are deeply unpopular even
Speaker 7: with their own people, because their legislatures are now a
Speaker 7: function of gerrymanderd congressional districts, and the example that I
Speaker 7: always give of that Molly is people forget that. In
Speaker 7: twenty eleven in Mississippi, in the state of Mississippi, far
Speaker 7: right interests came in to try to pass a personhood
Speaker 7: ballot initiative and put it to the vote of the
Speaker 7: whole people, and it was rejected. And they the legislature
Speaker 7: in Mississippi, which is you know, forced the functioning of
Speaker 7: many years of jerrymandering, had to pass the law that
Speaker 7: fundamentally became the law that led to the Dobbs decision
Speaker 7: out of their legislature. Because even in Mississippi, when you
Speaker 7: put these things to the people, they don't have work
Speaker 7: that they like. And so I think in some states
Speaker 7: where ballot initiatives are an option and don't have to
Speaker 7: be referred from the legislators, in Texas, they have to
Speaker 7: be referred from the legislature, so people have, you know,
Speaker 7: even further hurdles to have their voices heard. But I
Speaker 7: think that's why you're seeing the rise of ballot initiatives
Speaker 7: in the fight for ballot initiatives in these states right,
Speaker 7: allowing people to actually vote on the issues when their
Speaker 7: legislatures are failing to protect these things themselves. I think
Speaker 7: in addition, though, the courts are a huge counterweight in
Speaker 7: these states, and we find that even in states with
Speaker 7: extremely far right leadership and where the courts are elected,
Speaker 7: that litigation continue us to be a way to disrupt
Speaker 7: the anti democratic activity. We win in difficult places all
Speaker 7: the time, and we also are able to provide opportunities
Speaker 7: for people to make their voices heard through raising awareness
Speaker 7: of the unlawful activity that these states are engaging in.
Speaker 7: And so I think, you know, there is a deep
Speaker 7: level of hope in what we call the hard places
Speaker 7: here at Democracy Forward. We believe that's what the fight
Speaker 7: for democracy is all about. It's not just about federal work,
Speaker 7: although that's important too, It's also about the state and
Speaker 7: local community work. And we see in our work every
Speaker 7: day the hope that can exist when people in communities
Speaker 7: have the tools they need to fight back, which is
Speaker 7: what we are we really try to put people with.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's really important, but it's also how
Speaker 1: much of an effect does the Supreme Court zealotry have
Speaker 1: when you're doing legislation.
Speaker 7: We know that the US Supreme Court has emboldened a
Speaker 7: real era of extremism that it sort of came from
Speaker 7: it was shaped out of an era of extremism, and
Speaker 7: extremism by the way that deprived President Obama and the
Speaker 7: American people of present Obama's final nominee. We have to
Speaker 7: remember how we got to this court then immediately ushered
Speaker 7: in the confirmation of two justices, and then of course
Speaker 7: later very late in the Trump term, just a month
Speaker 7: before the election, quickly moved to confirm the third justice.
Speaker 7: And then they even confirmed justices after Trump lost, Federal
Speaker 7: justice after Trump lost. So we have to remember that.
Speaker 7: But I think that you know, look, we know that
Speaker 7: the Supreme Court is a reality, but what we've also
Speaker 7: seen is some of its extreme behavior is so extreme
Speaker 7: it's been rejected by the Supreme Court. You know, in
Speaker 7: the myth of pristone case, just this last term, the
Speaker 7: Court nine zero said that the case never belonged in
Speaker 7: the court. That tells you how extreme the Fifth Circuit
Speaker 7: has become. When this Supreme Court is knocking that down.
Speaker 7: And we know that that's not the end of the
Speaker 7: fight on mif of pristone. But I just remember that.
Speaker 7: But the other piece is I think that in many instances,
Speaker 7: it shows people what's at stake, right, the need to
Speaker 7: get engaged at all levels of government. It's not just
Speaker 7: about your court case. It's also about making sure that
Speaker 7: members of Congress, which is why I really appreciated the
Speaker 7: conversation we had in Chicago understand the role that they
Speaker 7: play and the role that we the people play in
Speaker 7: making sure that our laws represent us. And so there
Speaker 7: are famous, you know, cases where Congress has had to
Speaker 7: legislate after the Court has struck something down to correct
Speaker 7: what the court has done. And then of course we
Speaker 7: know that there is just work to be done in
Speaker 7: this country to restore legitimacy to the Supreme Court so
Speaker 7: that we don't have historically low and ury concerning favorability
Speaker 7: ratings of the Court, which is something that Congress can
Speaker 7: do too, by ensuring that the Court is not above
Speaker 7: the law and has to operate consistent with ethics. You know,
Speaker 7: the consideration of term limits is important, thinking about jurisdiction
Speaker 7: is important. So all the tools that Congress has, Thank you, Sky,
Speaker 7: thanks for having.
Speaker 1: And now for a special bonus, we have portion of
Speaker 1: the conversation that we had at Democracy Forwards event at
Speaker 1: the DNC with Congresswoman Becca A. Lint, Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett
Speaker 1: and Congressman Maxwell Frost.
Speaker 8: Project Plane five.
Speaker 9: Is really Trump's plan, and so this is if Trump went.
Speaker 9: Maybe Trump doesn't want to do this, but the people
Speaker 9: who are.
Speaker 8: Actually gonna be in charge will be.
Speaker 9: And so that is why we're focused on it, because
Speaker 9: it really is the groundwork for what we're gonna do
Speaker 9: to unwind a lot of our rights. And I'm gonna
Speaker 9: start with Representative Crockett because you.
Speaker 8: Are an oversight tell us.
Speaker 9: About her many A viral video has come ProView on oversight.
Speaker 10: Talk to us.
Speaker 9: About your own oversight project twenty twenty five.
Speaker 8: Is like, really, how can you fight against this? Talk
Speaker 8: to us about what Oversight's job is. Also, talk to
Speaker 8: us about being on oversight.
Speaker 9: Didn't Republican polers right now that it's so controlled by
Speaker 9: the far right.
Speaker 8: So mollys to asking about Overside.
Speaker 11: I just want to make sure that everyone knows that
Speaker 11: actually the three of us actually.
Speaker 8: All started on Oversight together and none.
Speaker 11: Of us thought over side, and the three of us
Speaker 11: actually all wanted to go to get to tradiiars and
Speaker 11: Becca is the only one that needs no graduating.
Speaker 8: And because it's this year, so Max and I are
Speaker 8: still on overside, saw all three of us. That is
Speaker 8: what we were. That was our introduction.
Speaker 9: Can you explain why they wanted judiciary or oversight?
Speaker 11: So I think for each of us it's probably a
Speaker 11: little different, but it's probably still all in the same
Speaker 11: judiciary For me as an attorney, obviously it's a safe
Speaker 11: space for me, and doing civil rights works on a
Speaker 11: lot of promote business work.
Speaker 8: That's where that legislation work.
Speaker 6: Cool.
Speaker 11: I will assume that Rebecca being a huge advocate for
Speaker 11: the LGBUSI a community, that's exactly where all of that
Speaker 11: legislation comes through.
Speaker 12: As well as most problem though that because I mean
Speaker 12: he started organizing in the streets around gun by lice
Speaker 12: and mass shootings and just getting guns off our streets.
Speaker 8: And again that legislation goes through judiciary, so.
Speaker 11: A lot of the things that in fact, I want
Speaker 11: to say that probably this freshman class had more requests
Speaker 11: that served as the freshman representatives to leadership. I honestly
Speaker 11: think the judiciary was the most requested committeed of our class,
Speaker 11: which really speaks to the things.
Speaker 8: That actually brought us to Congress. We have just an
Speaker 8: amazing bitch of.
Speaker 11: Freshmen who really care about the social issues and fairness
Speaker 11: and equity, and so these are the things that we
Speaker 11: fight towards, these things that brought us there.
Speaker 8: But to quickly kind of give you an idea of.
Speaker 11: What oversight does, because it obviously doesn't deal with judiciary,
Speaker 11: a guess which seems like it kind of sorder because
Speaker 11: we spent lots of time talking about the same stuff.
Speaker 11: So of course, if you if you go way way back,
Speaker 11: our very first hearing involves Hunter Biden and his.
Speaker 8: Laptop and his news. And then the very first thing
Speaker 8: that's not really what oversight is. It is.
Speaker 12: That's actually cor Marjorie Upsets, unsets with somebody's package. But nevertheless,
Speaker 12: you know, so old Side is really supposed to do
Speaker 12: the things that I think most Americans care about.
Speaker 8: Right when we think about the.
Speaker 11: Conversations that are happening about the war enforcing my dollars
Speaker 11: are going overseas.
Speaker 8: We really are supposed to make sure that there's no.
Speaker 11: Misuse, waste, or fraud in governments, whatever that is. And
Speaker 11: so we oversee all of the federal agencies and we
Speaker 11: are supposed to be the anyway basically how they're performing,
Speaker 11: and come up come up with legislation it will allow
Speaker 11: them to perform better.
Speaker 8: For the American people. Unfortunately, literally that what we've been doing.
Speaker 11: If you have tuned in to the drama that happens
Speaker 11: on overside, we have done everything but what we should
Speaker 11: be doing. In fact, they have used this committee really
Speaker 11: more so to push their political agenda. And because president
Speaker 11: who was the president, well that was their agenda. So
Speaker 11: it was all about in teaching the president, and then
Speaker 11: it went to the teaching May Orgust, and then it
Speaker 11: went to let's.
Speaker 8: Jail our attorney general.
Speaker 11: And so honestly, the day that Marjorie and I had
Speaker 11: our biggest spec because that was not those expect that
Speaker 11: we were there and we were supposed to be discussing
Speaker 11: whether or not we should hold the Attorney General of
Speaker 11: the United States and contents and potentially jail.
Speaker 8: That is what the hearing was supposed to be about.
Speaker 12: But the Republicans decided to take the field trips to
Speaker 12: New York you're with.
Speaker 11: And go hang out with their fearless orange slavior and
Speaker 11: in the criminal court room is where they were. So
Speaker 11: we did not have our hearing at ten am like
Speaker 11: were supposed to.
Speaker 8: Instead, they called this.
Speaker 11: In at eight m and Marjorie was still stuck on
Speaker 11: Judge Marshaun and what happened at court. And so that's
Speaker 11: kind of how the beginning of the evolution because as
Speaker 11: it relates to projects, when twenty five, I think a
Speaker 11: lot of the bad actors have probably come in front
Speaker 11: of us.
Speaker 8: Another committee that I started.
Speaker 11: On this organization from the federal governments, and so I've
Speaker 11: had the Heritage Foundation in front of me more than
Speaker 11: once from and I'm also very familiar with them, and
Speaker 11: I'm Rebecca is as well because she works in the
Speaker 11: state legislature. And when you say things like Project tween
Speaker 11: twenty about governor here, that is because when you think
Speaker 11: about things like who's heard of crt oh no, yeah, right,
Speaker 11: So that was a whole gimme make at a gang.
Speaker 11: It just cleared right, right, But that was a gimmick
Speaker 11: and a ganger that came out of the Heritage Foundation
Speaker 11: that was making a move to make sure that we
Speaker 11: could delete certain portions of our piecetivity.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 11: They handed down this legislation in state houses all throughout
Speaker 11: and usually it was in the Republican led houses that
Speaker 11: this legislation would come through. Same thing with the six
Speaker 11: week abortion of bands. As we've seen throughout the country.
Speaker 8: They called it a Heartbeat bill in Texas.
Speaker 11: But again, this all happened and this was free docs,
Speaker 11: So I I just wanna be clear that this has
Speaker 11: been underway. What they decided to do is basically say
Speaker 11: you know what we're gonna play in your places, and
Speaker 11: like you don't see what you see.
Speaker 8: It's over one.
Speaker 11: Thousand pages and it's laying out everything.
Speaker 8: That they want to do.
Speaker 11: And for this idea of Trump separating himself, there is
Speaker 11: no daylights.
Speaker 8: He turned Trump at Projects twenty twenty five. And I'm
Speaker 8: not saying that just because I'm a proud immigrants.
Speaker 11: I'm saying that because over thirty people that either worked
Speaker 11: on his administration or worked on his campaign are the
Speaker 11: authors of this right, So therefore there is no daylights.
Speaker 11: I will stop there because I'm like a lease have
Speaker 11: great things to add, and I'm sure we'll dig in
Speaker 11: a little bit differ.
Speaker 13: And I would also like to add that his name
Speaker 13: is mentioned. Trump's names mentioned three hundred plus times in.
Speaker 9: The document, which is a pretty good sign that it's back.
Speaker 3: You have done so.
Speaker 10: Much more for LGBT two protections, this Project twenty twenty five,
Speaker 10: which I think Jasmine has a really good point is
Speaker 10: already here is square a laye coming after your rights?
Speaker 8: Yeah, it is here. And I want to just say
Speaker 8: I have no idea when I got.
Speaker 14: Cheated on unitionary that I would see the kind of
Speaker 14: hatred and vitriol and demonization directed at my community if
Speaker 14: we arey transcrimuted it.
Speaker 4: And it sneaks into hearings that aren't not even about
Speaker 4: anything related.
Speaker 8: To gender identity or sexuality. And it has become so
Speaker 8: clear to.
Speaker 4: Me that they want to make it so that there
Speaker 4: is a very narrow definition of what a legitimate American is.
Speaker 3: That's what it's about.
Speaker 8: It's about who who belongs and who doesn't.
Speaker 4: And one of the most hateful hearings I was ever
Speaker 4: part of was when the man who was now Speaker.
Speaker 8: Speaker Johnson was on that committee. He was on.
Speaker 4: Undistry, and he held essentially a fate hearing on the
Speaker 4: dangers of trans Americans.
Speaker 3: That's what it was.
Speaker 8: It was hours and hours of hatred.
Speaker 4: And so a man who purports to me a Christian
Speaker 4: is conducting a hearing specifically on that, and I just
Speaker 4: have to highlight for you one of the most poignant
Speaker 4: moments was looking at one of the witnesses that we called.
Speaker 8: Right, So when you're in.
Speaker 4: A hearing on judiciary, the majority gets to call the
Speaker 4: bulk of the witnesses, and we get to call usually
Speaker 4: just foreign our tutors.
Speaker 8: And in this instant it was a.
Speaker 4: Conservative Republican Christian mom of a trans kid was our
Speaker 4: witness and she is sitting there being robby by these
Speaker 4: people because of the way that she showed up for
Speaker 4: her child.
Speaker 8: And that's what I'm talking about here.
Speaker 4: So it is constant, and I hear from constituents a lot,
Speaker 4: which is do they understand what it feels like for
Speaker 4: us to have our own government talking about us.
Speaker 8: People, human beings, citizens.
Speaker 4: And says hateful, hateful terms. And so I didn't know
Speaker 4: that that would be a lot of the work that I.
Speaker 8: Have to do on judiciary, but it is. I'm proud
Speaker 8: to be able to do that work. But as you said,
Speaker 8: it's already here. And when you look at what they
Speaker 8: want to do in Project.
Speaker 4: Twenty twenty five, before I was in Congress, I before I.
Speaker 8: Was in politics at all, I was a teacher.
Speaker 4: I taught middle school love that Hell's Gate prepare me
Speaker 4: for commerce, and they was Project Trade twenty five two
Speaker 4: they want to criminalize teachers and linemprarians when they are.
Speaker 8: Simply trying to create.
Speaker 4: In their classrooms, in the whole libraries of support of
Speaker 4: the environment for all students.
Speaker 8: And that's what I want people to understand.
Speaker 4: That it is an incredibly narrow definition of who gets
Speaker 4: to belong there, who is an American and this attack
Speaker 4: specifically on who are in trans people.
Speaker 8: This was set up before this term started.
Speaker 4: Republicans got together and said, well, essentially we've lost the.
Speaker 8: Battle for saying sex marriage right.
Speaker 4: The country has moved on everybody then to a lesbian wedding.
Speaker 8: Okay, we've all helped.
Speaker 4: People move with you all, we've all all be there,
Speaker 4: not as sary. So they said, what can we fire
Speaker 4: the base up on, and they settled on trans people
Speaker 4: And it is despicable.
Speaker 8: Maxwell Frost, you are a young person.
Speaker 13: I'm sorry I shouldn't say that because I was young
Speaker 13: one anymore.
Speaker 8: How to get young people fired up?
Speaker 9: Like, how do you transmit this enthusiasm and we're seeing
Speaker 9: it now more than gapocrats have ever seen it, or
Speaker 9: at least recently, And how do you translate this into
Speaker 9: registration voting and almost more imprely, you know, pushing back.
Speaker 11: On Project twenty twenty five.
Speaker 3: That's a good question because there's so much energy.
Speaker 15: Right now behind Vice President, behind the work that we're doing.
Speaker 15: The questions like how do you take that energy and
Speaker 15: put into real life action and actual votes? And what
Speaker 15: I was I still am an organizable when I wasn't organizing.
Speaker 15: What I'd always tell my organizers and I've worked for
Speaker 15: our lives is the true testament of our work isn't
Speaker 15: when if there's a shooting that happens and everybody cares
Speaker 15: about gun violence and everyone wants to talk about it,
Speaker 15: everyone wants to volunteer, and everyon wants to donate the
Speaker 15: media to talk about it.
Speaker 3: The true testament of our work is how strong are
Speaker 3: we when no one gives a damn? When no one's
Speaker 3: talking about how.
Speaker 15: Are we preparing ourselves for these Unfortunately, I hate to
Speaker 15: say this, eventual moments that happen in our country where
Speaker 15: there will be millions of people who are looking around
Speaker 15: as saying that's not right.
Speaker 3: What can I do?
Speaker 15: That's when it's our job as organizers, as people to
Speaker 15: do this work to give people a political hope, to
Speaker 15: show people how they get a harness that energy towards the.
Speaker 3: Future that they want.
Speaker 15: And if we hadn't prepared ourselves and our infrastructure to
Speaker 15: take those folks in, we could lose out on that moon, right.
Speaker 15: And the good thing about this moment that we're in,
Speaker 15: I feel like we are prepared as a movement, and
Speaker 15: this campaign is prepared because there are gonna be folks.
Speaker 3: Who are very fire up about the vice president who walk.
Speaker 15: Into an office who warn't off yours want to make
Speaker 15: bote caws. Like two or three days after the president
Speaker 15: passid Baton, I went to I was in Las Vegas, Nevada,
Speaker 15: for a few office openings and se.
Speaker 3: These events we're supposed to have like seventy five people
Speaker 3: of peace. I pull up the first one at four
Speaker 3: hundred and fifty people at I just be like three oclos.
Speaker 15: The next one, it was supposed to be like a
Speaker 15: post guard party with twenty people. One hundred and twenty
Speaker 15: people people doing postcards in their cars because there wasn't
Speaker 15: room and people were just so excited.
Speaker 3: But here's the thing. And as someone who used.
Speaker 15: To do a lot of like pro organizing, sometimes our
Speaker 15: volunteer basically was a little old.
Speaker 3: But being in those rooms, it was actually very diverse.
Speaker 15: There was tons of high schoolers there who came there
Speaker 15: weren't groups of high.
Speaker 3: Schoolers who came together to do it together.
Speaker 15: And that shows that our movement, the Vice president, what
Speaker 15: you're doing has gotten to the culture right, and that's
Speaker 15: when you have truly untapped movement. Potentially, think about any
Speaker 15: of the social movements in our country's history that have
Speaker 15: actually made a big difference. They all have combined and
Speaker 15: really blurred the lines between civics and culture right.
Speaker 3: And so that we say on my campaign is like finding.
Speaker 15: Ways to bridge the gap between pool and consciousness.
Speaker 11: When you do that.
Speaker 15: And it's not and it's authentic and it's not like
Speaker 15: a printage.
Speaker 3: Things, I remember the remark for our lives, Like, I'm
Speaker 3: at the rally.
Speaker 15: In Orlando and I'm running into friends that like hate politics.
Speaker 3: They never cared to have it, and I went up
Speaker 3: to them. I was like, why why do you call them?
Speaker 3: I'm curious?
Speaker 15: Are like, you know, one person, my friend Will made
Speaker 15: a comp again with my friend's culture right, Like I
Speaker 15: felt like I knew to d or all my friend's work, go,
Speaker 15: that's culture Ario and Brande told me it's different.
Speaker 3: But when we do that we really have attacked potential
Speaker 3: and we have that right. That's why it's up to us.
Speaker 15: But now the harnessings we're not going to win this
Speaker 15: race no matter what right it's gonna because we do
Speaker 15: the work.
Speaker 3: Nothing's gonna be handed here.
Speaker 15: And those decent moments when people feel validated, whether it's
Speaker 15: funny or exciting.
Speaker 3: Or this and that, and this moment's making the culture.
Speaker 3: It's impactful. It brings more people in, right like when
Speaker 3: Chad when that happening and brought new people in right.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 3: But there's probably a.
Speaker 15: Lot of like YouTube pages and people like that who
Speaker 15: gave it on this like not like politicize, but now
Speaker 15: they like, oh god, they're saying there seems she has going.
Speaker 3: On right like and like those messages getting cross little
Speaker 3: by little. I think a lot of times in politics
Speaker 3: we've put.
Speaker 15: A lot of fresh ourselves where like this one conversation
Speaker 15: needs to change this person's.
Speaker 3: Life, and they're there are knocking doors and put on
Speaker 3: the you know, because they're right and with Biden going
Speaker 3: with Hares.
Speaker 2: And everything like that.
Speaker 3: But the reality is and is this work.
Speaker 15: I feel like we need to feel ourselves to work
Speaker 15: that we' as a part of somebody's time.
Speaker 3: Right, and it could be that pivotal moment for them,
Speaker 3: and it might lead to that pivol And I think
Speaker 3: as long as we're like rounded and bad, we were
Speaker 3: all working on this team together. So I'm really excited
Speaker 3: about this moment.
Speaker 8: Young people are.
Speaker 3: Scared about the Project twenty twenty five.
Speaker 15: Obviously it's like a laundering list of a lot of
Speaker 15: conservative talking points and platforms and policies that a lot
Speaker 15: of us know of. But the scariest part for me
Speaker 15: is a subvergent of democracy and the fact that the
Speaker 15: right wing is wising up. Like in twenty twenty, seventy
Speaker 15: percent of gen Z voting for Democrats and half the
Speaker 15: Genzkenu voting, So they see that. I guess young people
Speaker 15: don't like fascism and so they want to change the
Speaker 15: way young people could think.
Speaker 3: That's why that's one of the reasons that they're so
Speaker 3: focused on education.
Speaker 15: That band looks changing what's spoken about intentionally marginalized public education,
Speaker 15: so everything is privatizing, it's even more control over what
Speaker 15: students get. But I think it's really having a backlash
Speaker 15: effect because it's not they're not changed to the spies.
Speaker 3: It's signal and they're going after work.
Speaker 16: There no moment, Jesse Cannon, Molly Jung Fast Who would
Speaker 16: have thought that Justice Roberts was actually conservative?
Speaker 1: I would have thought it, Yes, we all would have
Speaker 1: thought it. But some people seem to have been tricked. Yes,
Speaker 1: it's true. I guess some people didn't think he was
Speaker 1: a completely in the tank for Trump. But in New
Speaker 1: New York Times, Peace, which had a lot of leaked
Speaker 1: documents and interviews with people from the court, show that
Speaker 1: actually John Roberts is the man behind the curtain. He
Speaker 1: is the wizard in the Wizard of Oz, just like
Speaker 1: we thought he was. And our moment of fuckery belongs
Speaker 1: to the guy who pretended to be a centrist but
Speaker 1: is really as brainwormed as Alito and Thomas. Your man,
Speaker 1: Justice Roberts. That's it for this episode of Fast Politics.
Speaker 1: Tune in every Monday, Wednesday and Friday to hear the
Speaker 1: best minds in politics makes sense of all this chaos.
Speaker 1: If you enjoyed what you've heard, please send it to
Speaker 1: a friend and keep the conversation going. And again, thanks
Speaker 1: for listening.