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 a gay so LGBTQ. I would
Speaker 1: assume furry group, a group of them furries or people
Speaker 1: dress up like animals. They got together and hacked the
Speaker 1: agencies that attack gender affirming care.
Speaker 2: We have an interesting show today.
Speaker 1: NBC's John Allen talks Bidenomics and the dynamics of him
Speaker 1: taking responsibility for the economy. Then we'll talk to Heated's
Speaker 1: Emily Atkin about our changing climate and what can be
Speaker 1: done to help our climate crisis. But first we have
Speaker 1: the host of Fastball, Matt Negrin. Welcome to Fast Politics, Fastballs,
Speaker 1: Matt Negron.
Speaker 3: That's the take, because we're keeping it.
Speaker 2: It's the best.
Speaker 1: I am the host of Fast So pretty exciting weeks
Speaker 1: and Supreme Court ruining our.
Speaker 4: First fly of the day.
Speaker 3: Pretty exciting week, and.
Speaker 1: Supreme Court's ruining our country number one, but they're doing
Speaker 1: it with zeal.
Speaker 4: Yes, and I'm sorry, just I don't I'm not familiar
Speaker 4: with your cannon. But are we still referring to the
Speaker 4: Supreme Court as like a legitimate institution.
Speaker 2: We call them not the best.
Speaker 4: That's harsh. Yeah, that's the battle. That's a suation. That's right,
Speaker 4: really fits the headline in the onion Supreme Court rule,
Speaker 4: Supreme Court Rules, which is one of the best onions.
Speaker 4: It's an eight to one decision, and I think like,
Speaker 4: like Clarence Thomas dissented not because he didn't think it ruled,
Speaker 4: but just because he thought it was so obvious a
Speaker 4: rule that they didn't need to have a case and
Speaker 4: get me to the notion of rolling on it.
Speaker 1: I would like to mention something which I've like, since
Speaker 1: we are the United States of Amnesia, no one remembers
Speaker 1: anything from longer than three years ago, which is like
Speaker 1: the best part of the whole situation.
Speaker 2: But there was a time of.
Speaker 4: Television for sure, because we don't need to we don't
Speaker 4: need to think about previously on.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we forget that there was a time when Justice
Speaker 1: Thomas did not speak for years.
Speaker 4: It's kind of like the weird bit you keep going like,
Speaker 4: you keep it going on for way too long, Like
Speaker 4: I really committed to this bullshit and everyone's like, oh,
Speaker 4: I'm the like one person's like, oh my god, Like
Speaker 4: he's the bringings brownies to work guy, and like, oh,
Speaker 4: she's the like always has like a fun story about
Speaker 4: her weird vacation friends. And Clarence is like, I will
Speaker 4: just not talk for a day and like that was
Speaker 4: my thing. And everyone's like, we love that about you.
Speaker 4: We love how you just don't say anything. But I
Speaker 4: can never talk.
Speaker 1: Right And once he got those three trumpy justices, he
Speaker 1: was able to start talking again.
Speaker 3: Broke his self.
Speaker 2: Brocus it's right.
Speaker 4: In a way, he's he is more monkish than all
Speaker 4: of us. In a way, he's closer to Zen than
Speaker 4: any one of us could dream to be. He's taking
Speaker 4: in the bow of silence.
Speaker 1: He can be zen because he does not have to
Speaker 1: fly commercial, so you.
Speaker 4: Know, imagine flying commercial and not saying and not being
Speaker 4: able to complain.
Speaker 3: I mean that is the right.
Speaker 1: But I want to talk to you about Biden today.
Speaker 1: A reporter asked Biden, this is like my favorite Biden
Speaker 1: up there. He says, we're not going to let this
Speaker 1: break us, and then the reporter calls out to him
Speaker 1: as he's leaving, is this a rogue court?
Speaker 3: Oh great, because we're not able to.
Speaker 1: Say, and then Biden says, this is not a normal court.
Speaker 3: Again, this is not normal. Wow.
Speaker 4: So but just to be clear, we had the resistance
Speaker 4: has extended its very clean tentacles to Joe Biden now
Speaker 4: and he is part of the this is not normal crowd.
Speaker 1: Okay, so I'm going to fight with you for a minute.
Speaker 1: I'm going to fight with you here for a minute.
Speaker 3: Trade So trade barbs, Let's trade barbs.
Speaker 1: Let's let's have some hardball. Should we have some hardball?
Speaker 1: Let's play hardball?
Speaker 5: You know what.
Speaker 4: I think this brings us to our next segment, hardball,
Speaker 4: where we talk about fastballs, curveballs, and hardballs.
Speaker 3: So let's go service with the fastball.
Speaker 2: So, well, here's my question for you.
Speaker 1: Biden said two days ago at a fundraiser, he said
Speaker 1: that he was a Catholic and he was not super
Speaker 1: comfortable with abortion. And I saw people quite mad about
Speaker 1: this on the internet, and I wondered, I'm someone who
Speaker 1: grew up Jewish, atheist communists benchon drawings, I always thought
Speaker 1: that abortion I.
Speaker 4: Went to the same I went to the same synagogue.
Speaker 4: I went to the communist Synegague.
Speaker 2: That's right.
Speaker 1: We didn't belong to a synagogue because that's very bourgeois,
Speaker 1: and we would never belonged to a synagogue because that
Speaker 1: would be other Jews there. But I do want to
Speaker 1: say he said he wasn't comfortable with people very mad
Speaker 1: at him for saying that, but part of me wondered,
Speaker 1: And again, I'm like, just thinking about this for a second.
Speaker 1: There are a lot of people who are not comfortable
Speaker 1: with abortion, but they still believe Roe v Wade should
Speaker 1: be the loved land, and that's what he said. I
Speaker 1: don't agree that Biden needs to be as progressive as
Speaker 1: I am, Like I think part of why by second.
Speaker 3: Second light of the day.
Speaker 1: But I feel like part of why Biden won was
Speaker 1: because there were people who related to this guy who thought, like,
Speaker 1: you know, this is a white Catholic guy.
Speaker 2: Like I'm a white Catholic guy.
Speaker 4: I think there's no room for the middle of the
Speaker 4: road garbage, and there's good and bad, and if you
Speaker 4: say something that's not good, then it helps the bad
Speaker 4: people in some way. So I'm kind of a binary extremist.
Speaker 4: I think I get what you're saying that his comment
Speaker 4: was like not crazy, but at a time when like
Speaker 4: all the rights are being taken away, I think it's
Speaker 4: probably good to have the people on the good side
Speaker 4: just try to like be very firm about what's right
Speaker 4: and what's wrong.
Speaker 3: I don't know if it gives like the bad people
Speaker 3: ammunition that I'm.
Speaker 2: Making right, But I just wonder. I mean again, and
Speaker 2: I appreciate your take on this.
Speaker 3: Yes, no, listen.
Speaker 2: I mean the question is how do you win? Right?
Speaker 2: I mean, that's what matters, is winning right.
Speaker 4: I had a conversation like a while ago after the
Speaker 4: Rose overturned with someone who was like, everyone's so tired,
Speaker 4: and I was like, people aren't tired of like fighting,
Speaker 4: people are tired of losing. We have been thrown into
Speaker 4: a world in which like we're trying to win this game,
Speaker 4: but the other side isn't even playing a game. They've
Speaker 4: like destroyed the board and burned the pieces, and we're
Speaker 4: still like trying to figure out like what's the best move,
Speaker 4: and like we're not even playing on like a real
Speaker 4: table anymore. There's no point in trying to play when won.
Speaker 2: That is a very good point.
Speaker 1: And we had just on this podcast just a little
Speaker 1: bit ago, we had this Minnesota State Democratic Chair or
Speaker 1: Minnesota has done things and pass progressive legislation in a
Speaker 1: way that Republicans do shitty legislation in red state, So
Speaker 1: like they did a school lunches and codified row and
Speaker 1: protected trans people and like did all our wishless stuff. Like,
Speaker 1: by the way, this wishless stuff is like take care
Speaker 1: of people. I know, it's like the most basic thing
Speaker 1: that children from dying of starvation and poverty, you.
Speaker 4: Know, Woway, I don't know. I think that might be
Speaker 4: hear the other side on that before we.
Speaker 2: Commit a dress climate stage, because some.
Speaker 3: Kids are just right, like annoying, right.
Speaker 2: And should they starve to death? I mean, so the
Speaker 2: question is as.
Speaker 1: Supreme Court day, talking about the Supreme Court, we have
Speaker 1: a federal Democratic party that's pretty scared of doing hard things.
Speaker 4: So do you remember the night that Ruth Vader Ginsburg
Speaker 4: died or it was announced that she died? Where were
Speaker 4: you and like who were you texting and what were
Speaker 4: you like posting?
Speaker 2: Do you remember that all memes of her? And now I'm.
Speaker 3: As you would have.
Speaker 4: Lord, I remember seeing a tweet by I think it
Speaker 4: was Raisa Oslon who said, like, if they even think about.
Speaker 3: Replaces ven, you will burn it all down, right.
Speaker 4: Yeah, there was a lot of there was a lot
Speaker 4: of that sentiment that like, oh, are we ready for
Speaker 4: a real like genuinely popular leftist, left leaning whatever revolution
Speaker 4: where if the fascist right rushes a nomination in and
Speaker 4: makes the court truly illegitimate, that we will do some
Speaker 4: sort of never before seen protest or action or concerted
Speaker 4: organized effort or whatever. I remember being on a call
Speaker 4: that night with like a bunch of like activists who
Speaker 4: are like, Okay, here's the message, Like we're gonna support
Speaker 4: like the Like what were they saying? It was something
Speaker 4: like really weak, And I was like, what about packing
Speaker 4: the court? Like isn't that the message now? Like shouldn't
Speaker 4: we pushed a month before the election, and like there
Speaker 4: was this like tug of war.
Speaker 3: Were like what are we going to do about this?
Speaker 4: And then obviously they replaced her and we didn't brit
Speaker 4: it down and we were like, well, we have to
Speaker 4: win at the ballot box, and like that, right, that's
Speaker 4: that's what you're referring to. I assume when you say
Speaker 4: the democratic state or whatever is like, yeah, not really
Speaker 4: willing to do strong things.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I Mean the thing that I.
Speaker 1: Was sort of surprised by was just how here we
Speaker 1: find ourselves in this situation. The Supreme Court is radically
Speaker 1: remaking this country from the Dobbs decision last year to
Speaker 1: the Clean Water Act this year, where this clean Water ruling,
Speaker 1: which didn't get that much attention, basically states that if
Speaker 1: these bodies of water are not if you can't see
Speaker 1: that they're connected, then they're not connected.
Speaker 2: Right, so it limits clean water.
Speaker 1: And again, I mean that is such anti science bullshit, right,
Speaker 1: if I can't see it, then it's not happening. Like
Speaker 1: that is like the Alido, And that's how Republicans are
Speaker 1: with climate change. I mean, I just got an alert
Speaker 1: on my phone that says you can't that it's over
Speaker 1: one hundred air quality today, So like, but.
Speaker 3: You can see it in the air, you can't.
Speaker 2: I can.
Speaker 1: I can taste it, you know. But so it is
Speaker 1: a fundamental issue of like.
Speaker 4: Obviously reality denying. Right, It's like all the fact that
Speaker 4: they've denied. It's science, it's the election, It's like all
Speaker 4: these things that are real they deny, they deny reality.
Speaker 4: And if an institution is voting along reality and non
Speaker 4: reality lines and they're voting in favor of the non reality,
Speaker 4: that seems to me that it's definitionally illegitimate. So I
Speaker 4: think that needs to be kind of like accepted that
Speaker 4: we should not any longer. I mean really probably shouldn't
Speaker 4: have since the Bush Gore decision. But that's like a
Speaker 4: more uninteresting conversation to have. You shouldn't have refferd to
Speaker 4: it since then, but certainly not now. Like there is
Speaker 4: nothing legitimate about an institution that knows what is true
Speaker 4: and decides to, as you said, like deny everything because
Speaker 4: it's just like better for them, that's right, and the
Speaker 4: way that they were pushed in is also illegitiate. All
Speaker 4: of it's terrible.
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, yes, earlier times Justice when it was really
Speaker 1: the Kennedy Court, you know, or was the Roberts Court.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's really like the Kavanaugh Court now, even
Speaker 1: though Roberts is still the Chief Justice.
Speaker 3: It's the Beach week Court.
Speaker 2: It's the Shark week Court.
Speaker 3: It's Shark week Court.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yes, it's always every week like sharks.
Speaker 4: For this one, maybe it's it's very exciting, and then
Speaker 4: you know, coming up with the fall, like there's going
Speaker 4: to be a ton of a ton of new decisions
Speaker 4: and shows coming out. They are not on strike. The
Speaker 4: Supreme Court Justice Guild is really weak. They have not
Speaker 4: authorized the strike. Unfortunately we lost them. Yeah, bid that
Speaker 4: sag DGA and now the Supreme the SCG.
Speaker 1: But I think it is important. Like during Reconstruction, we
Speaker 1: had Steve Laddock on this podcast. He talked about how
Speaker 1: during Reconstruction, the Congress told the Supreme Court to fuck off.
Speaker 2: And we have a Congress right now that could tell that.
Speaker 1: I mean not obviously not the GP House, but you
Speaker 1: know the Senate.
Speaker 2: Democrats control the Senate. They could tell the Supreme Court
Speaker 2: to fuck off right now. They could put together all
Speaker 2: kinds of restrictions. I mean, they could make their they
Speaker 2: could make justice.
Speaker 1: Alito's who's the life a living likeliest person to do
Speaker 1: this in the Senate, like the most liberal White House.
Speaker 1: Yeah he's not the most liberal, but he's the most
Speaker 1: obsessed with the court.
Speaker 3: He is the most obsessed with the court. Yeah. So
Speaker 3: like he's a he's been in the Senate for.
Speaker 2: Ten billion years ten he's eight thousand years old.
Speaker 1: But he's still quite cute and we love him and
Speaker 1: he comes on this podcast all the time.
Speaker 4: Yeah, right, he's super We don't just judge elected officials
Speaker 4: based on how they were their looks, but one but
Speaker 4: he's on yet, but we do sometimes.
Speaker 1: That's right, And he is he's the aos, he's middle
Speaker 1: aged women, but.
Speaker 4: He's also probably an institutionalist. Right, So is that are
Speaker 4: those the forces at play that would prevent him from
Speaker 4: taking it.
Speaker 2: And lead it?
Speaker 1: I mean at some point, right, I mean that's the question,
Speaker 1: is alone, right, can you get a durban white house
Speaker 1: together to bully everyone else to doing it? I mean,
Speaker 1: if they wanted to, the fact that they're institutionalists, I
Speaker 1: feel like could be theoretically helpful to getting them to
Speaker 1: deal with this institution.
Speaker 2: Do you think that's a good point? I mean, I also.
Speaker 4: Hate the term institutionalist in the time when I actually
Speaker 4: don't even believe anything is an institutions. I don't even
Speaker 4: know that phrase. It's like a really weird like everyone
Speaker 4: is in it for themselves. They are no institutions.
Speaker 2: I think in the House that's true, and in the
Speaker 2: Senate that's less true.
Speaker 3: Why.
Speaker 2: I think, because in the House people.
Speaker 3: Are just isn't Tommy Tuberville in.
Speaker 1: Well, no, there are except Tommy Tubberville's a dumbit. He
Speaker 1: is the Louis Gomert of the send.
Speaker 4: I mean, fact that he can get in is like, Okay,
Speaker 4: it's not an institution, but.
Speaker 2: It's Alabama man. I mean Marshall, like Burrow.
Speaker 4: It's like if they're letting people like me on Riyah,
Speaker 4: like it's not exclusive.
Speaker 1: So Taco Carlson starting a media company discussed that was.
Speaker 4: Not reported in The Lucky Clover because I tried, you
Speaker 4: need to know more about this. I assume this is
Speaker 4: about Twitter, like he's on Twitter.
Speaker 1: Puck reported that Elon Musk is not Elon Musk. I'm
Speaker 1: sorry that the Tucker Carlson. I don't know why I
Speaker 1: confuse the two.
Speaker 3: I don't know why I used two fascists with each other.
Speaker 1: Yes, that Tucker Carlson is starting a media company. It
Speaker 1: is he's going to raise a lot of money, he believes,
Speaker 1: and he's going to make Ben Shapiro really pretty miserable,
Speaker 1: which I.
Speaker 3: Guess he's going to make Ben Shapiro his editor in chief.
Speaker 1: But I think I think that two of them will
Speaker 1: I mean the one good part of his whole sort
Speaker 1: of tale.
Speaker 3: What's the point of the media company?
Speaker 1: The point is yeah, I mean yeah, I mean I
Speaker 1: think that would.
Speaker 3: Like this thing, is it like a fake media company
Speaker 3: or is it.
Speaker 1: Wait, what's Devin nuon as this thing like truth Social Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I assume true Social.
Speaker 2: Some kind of money laundering thing.
Speaker 4: But that's what I mean, Like it's fake, But is
Speaker 4: Tucker Carlson's does it have more intention? Like truth Social
Speaker 4: is a thing that doesn't exist, whereas it's like just
Speaker 4: for Trump to tweet on and then we see screenshots
Speaker 4: of it's Tucker's thing, an actual uh, like media enterprise
Speaker 4: that will produce original content with different hosts like and I.
Speaker 2: Would assume it's basically the same thing.
Speaker 3: It's awesome.
Speaker 4: It's awesome for us in the in the world of
Speaker 4: people who watch crazy right wingers professionally, we are losing
Speaker 4: people to watch, okay, like Tucker Tucker fres like, oh
Speaker 4: my god, Like great, now there's less content to make.
Speaker 4: So this is great. I embraced this. I think there's
Speaker 4: like a lot of people out there, you know, the
Speaker 4: the Aaron Ruperts of the world, the Ason's, Brendan Murphy's,
Speaker 4: the Nicky McCann. Ramirez is all the media matters crowd. Uh,
Speaker 4: this is our livelihood, Like, we we need stuff to post.
Speaker 4: So I'm glad to see that Tucker is giving us
Speaker 4: the kind of finally acknowledging our role in the media
Speaker 4: world and giving us things maybe there's new fresh faces
Speaker 4: into the mix, like propagandas we haven't even heard of.
Speaker 4: Maybe that like that Charlie Kirk guy will get.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah the best right, yeah yeah.
Speaker 1: But not to be too boring here, but I'm just curious,
Speaker 1: like this right wing stuff tends to be really for
Speaker 1: an older group. I mean, how do you can't just
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess you could start a cable network?
Speaker 3: Is that still is that still true?
Speaker 2: I think the I mean I think that.
Speaker 4: The Joe Rogan phenomena, I don't want to say phenomenon,
Speaker 4: the Joe Rogan like era of like, yes, the top
Speaker 4: rated is it even rated? Most popular Spotify playlist post whatever?
Speaker 4: Is a really unfortunate guy, like someone who gives a
Speaker 4: voice to white men who feel like they're a victim,
Speaker 4: has like Jordan like that. So is that not a
Speaker 4: sign that whatever conservative means, which at this point probably
Speaker 4: just means like not talking about before, like but it's
Speaker 4: just like reality denying. It's just like a false victim
Speaker 4: and whatever. Does that not mean that that's more appealing
Speaker 4: now to younger people than you know, sixty and up.
Speaker 4: Because Jordan Peterson has trying to reach young men and
Speaker 4: giving them a message that will be like hurtful to
Speaker 4: a lot of non white men, and Joe Rogan is
Speaker 4: kind of doing the same thing. I think that message
Speaker 4: is working because they have millions and millions listeners, and
Speaker 4: but I just know that people listen to Joe Rogan
Speaker 4: and even man, I this is so hypocritical of me
Speaker 4: to do this, but like, I have a friend, it's
Speaker 4: like a friend of a friend, and you know, I've
Speaker 4: known her for a few years, like don't like keep
Speaker 4: up with her a lot, but we were catching up
Speaker 4: and then I made a Joe Rogan joke. But she
Speaker 4: was like, oh, I really like him, and I was
Speaker 4: like why. She was like, it's just like interesting, like
Speaker 4: he has people on from like both sides, And I
Speaker 4: was like, oh, fuck.
Speaker 2: Like does he really know?
Speaker 4: He really just he doesn't. He doesn't like he does
Speaker 4: so that he can say he does. But the damage
Speaker 4: you do by having like vaccine deniers and all that
Speaker 4: stuff is not undone or made fair by also having
Speaker 4: like a person on there who believes that you know
Speaker 4: sciences right right right, So it's a it's an unfair
Speaker 4: defense to say, yeah, I have like the demons who
Speaker 4: want to eat our skin but I also.
Speaker 3: Have the people whose skin is being eat So it's
Speaker 3: not like it's not good that someone that I considered.
Speaker 4: Intelligent and in my peer group was like, I think
Speaker 4: it's really cool that he has like these people. So
Speaker 4: I just think there's more people like that than I knew,
Speaker 4: like three or four years ago, because Joe Rogan's podcast
Speaker 4: is very popular. So I think back to what you
Speaker 4: were saying that it's not just old people now, like
Speaker 4: Tucker speaks to that older generation of I guess you
Speaker 4: could say racists or just like Republicans, but there are
Speaker 4: younger people who want to hear their views affirmed, and
Speaker 4: I think Tucker is really good at doing that, So
Speaker 4: it probably will reach a younger crowd, especially if it's
Speaker 4: like again, I get all my news from the Blucky
Speaker 4: Clever Gazette and ZELD, but especially has reported. I assume
Speaker 4: it's going to be like lots of videos and like
Speaker 4: different online and different hosts and things like that, not
Speaker 4: just like Tucker's bock show, like repeat probably going to
Speaker 4: be more right, I would assume it's gonna be bigger.
Speaker 2: I have no idea. Matt Nagrin, thank you so much.
Speaker 4: I hope you'll come back, Okay, but I will come
Speaker 4: back if you let me talk more about the ethical
Speaker 4: issues in the legend of Zelda's newspaper, Flagship Newspaper.
Speaker 1: John Allen is a national political reporter at NBC and
Speaker 1: the author of Lucky How Joe Biden Barely won the presidency.
Speaker 1: Welcome back, too Fast Politics, your friend and mine and
Speaker 1: really my friend, though I think we're going to get
Speaker 1: into it today, Jonathan Allen.
Speaker 5: Oh, try not to slow down fast Politics too much. Molly.
Speaker 2: By the way, Fast Politics, I hope.
Speaker 1: All of you are listening to this at one point
Speaker 1: seven speed. It's the least you can do. So that
Speaker 1: I sound like many mouse, I.
Speaker 5: Mean say go too well.
Speaker 1: Two two is like two is like At some point
Speaker 1: you're like, is this English?
Speaker 5: Are you trying to get in a fight with Rodney Panthers.
Speaker 2: The Minimal Mini Mask. Before we were recording, we were
Speaker 2: talking about this.
Speaker 1: We are in this very strange run up to the
Speaker 1: twenty four election where it looks like the twenty four
Speaker 1: election is going to be the exact same matchup as
Speaker 1: a twenty twenty election.
Speaker 2: Is there a historical president for this?
Speaker 5: There is historical president for this, but it doesn't happen
Speaker 5: very often. You have consecutive elections, I believe you, with
Speaker 5: Benjamin Harrison and Grover Cleveland. Oh my Cleveland, So Cleveland
Speaker 5: with President then Harrison beat Cleveland, and then Cleveland beat Harrison.
Speaker 5: So it has happened before, but it is it is unusual.
Speaker 2: It's like a sort of mind blowingly.
Speaker 1: I mean, let's just let's just go into the GOP
Speaker 1: primary contest because it is happening. Still, does it seem
Speaker 1: like there's any world in which the great hope of
Speaker 1: the National Review crowd? Do you not very charismatic on
Speaker 1: de Santis is able to somehow rise from the ashes.
Speaker 5: I think there's certainly a scenario, But you know, the
Speaker 5: more we try to figure out with what that scenario is, like,
Speaker 5: the farther we get from the current reality. What I
Speaker 5: mean by that is like, sure, I can qujure up
Speaker 5: a scenario like Trump decides he's not going to run, and.
Speaker 2: That's a zero point zero zero scenario. Let's be honest for.
Speaker 5: Just saying this, I think or anybody else to beat Trump,
Speaker 5: what you'd have to do is effectively have a one
Speaker 5: on one with them, and you would have to hair
Speaker 5: away some of his base and I think the only
Speaker 5: way to tear away some of his base is to
Speaker 5: prove that you were like a better Trump than Trump.
Speaker 5: There's a personal following of Donald Trump, right, that like
Speaker 5: thirty five percent of the Republican Party has, and they're
Speaker 5: pretty fixed to him. And it's like unless somebody comes
Speaker 5: and knocks him down, knocks him off the perch, you know,
Speaker 5: I don't see them beating him. I don't think it's
Speaker 5: just a matter of collecting the people who are anti Trump.
Speaker 5: I think it's a pretty small percentage of the Republican
Speaker 5: Party that's actually anti Trump.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, I want to just get into that
Speaker 1: for a second, because it does seem to me, like, really,
Speaker 1: what you're saying is there's another reality television star who's
Speaker 1: also a Republican who appeals to the far rights basist
Speaker 1: instincts in a way that's charismatic.
Speaker 2: I mean, there is no person like that.
Speaker 5: Right, Like if Steven Sagall was funny or something, Yeah.
Speaker 2: Maybe right and not living in Russia, right.
Speaker 5: I mean, there are impediments to the Steven Sigall presidency, obviously,
Speaker 5: But your point is the right one value, which is
Speaker 5: that there's a celebrity quality to Donald Trump. It is
Speaker 5: all about personality. I mean, not all all about personality,
Speaker 5: but the idea that you're going to come up with
Speaker 5: some sort of clever way to contrast with them on
Speaker 5: policy or you know, on demeanor or whatever. I mean,
Speaker 5: it just it hasn't worked. We've been watching the script
Speaker 5: play out for eight years.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I mean again, I think the Desanders's larger
Speaker 1: problem is that Trump is not policy. Trump is that
Speaker 1: he was famous for twenty years, so everybody knew who
Speaker 1: he was, and then he you know, was very charismatic.
Speaker 1: I mean, you don't beat a charisma candidate by running
Speaker 1: to the right of him and saying, you know, I
Speaker 1: want to end birthright citizenship, which he.
Speaker 2: Which again I don't know where that came from. He ran.
Speaker 1: You know, you win against a charisma candidate by being
Speaker 1: more charismatic or being sane and not a complete sociopath,
Speaker 1: as the case may be.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean I think that they just looked at
Speaker 5: the Brian Camp model in Georgia, where Camp ran to
Speaker 5: the right in terms of ideology of David Perdue who
Speaker 5: he was running against and Purdue, who was a Trump
Speaker 5: endorsed candidate and you know, worked for Kemp to go
Speaker 5: pretty hard right on olicy and then and collect all
Speaker 5: the anti front boat in that primary. But the problem
Speaker 5: was David Perdue wasn't Trump. You know, It's not as applicable.
Speaker 2: Also, Brian Camp had support.
Speaker 1: You could say what you want about him, he stood
Speaker 1: up to Trump, so like he may be far right,
Speaker 1: but he at least like you know, I think a
Speaker 1: lot of like conservative voters felt like he had protected
Speaker 1: their democracy.
Speaker 5: I should also say, like an operative recently said to
Speaker 5: me that the be in a Republican primary is not
Speaker 5: you know, which candidates do you want to have a
Speaker 5: beer with, but which candidate will break a beer bottle
Speaker 5: over someone else's head?
Speaker 2: That's terrible? Has that always been true? Is that new?
Speaker 5: I think there's always been a pretty strong element of that,
Speaker 5: but more so now you know big part of this Manto.
Speaker 5: I'm like, I do think that this matters, you know,
Speaker 5: in terms of if you are a candidate who you
Speaker 5: want to defend your positions and fight for your positions
Speaker 5: and defend your country. Looking for the biggest, baddest person
Speaker 5: out there is not the worst metric necessarily, right, It's
Speaker 5: one of many. But I think in the Republican Party
Speaker 5: the toughest candidate is where the persons perceived to be
Speaker 5: the toughest is often in the best place to win.
Speaker 1: Okay, I'm going to do something mean now, because we're friends.
Speaker 1: I'm going to redo a tweet and you're going to
Speaker 1: have to guess what year this is?
Speaker 2: Oh wow.
Speaker 1: Nearly half of all registered voters say they're not satisfied
Speaker 1: with the two major presidential candidates and want other choices.
Speaker 1: Forty seven percent not satisfied. Guess what election twenty twelve,
Speaker 1: two thousand.
Speaker 2: And eight, John McCain and Barack Obama.
Speaker 5: I was going in the right direction.
Speaker 1: You were, same story in two thousand with Bush vy Gore,
Speaker 1: also Carter Reagan in nineteen eighty.
Speaker 5: Yeah, but Twitter did not exist for Carter Reagan really
Speaker 5: and really for Obama and McCain. Like, I mean, the
Speaker 5: extent that any I'm not even sure when Twitter started exactly,
Speaker 5: but the extent that anyone was on Twitter during the
Speaker 5: Obama McCain election, you would think that it was basically
Speaker 5: just a handful of journalists.
Speaker 1: I'm just saying that it does seem in my mind,
Speaker 1: like that question is, you know, the question of like
Speaker 1: you're not happy with either candidate feels like everybody feels
Speaker 1: that way all the time.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, it shouldn't be shocking, Like the two
Speaker 5: parties are going to spend you know, a couple billion
Speaker 5: dollar between the candidates and the parties, a couple of
Speaker 5: billion dollars destroying each other in campaign ads and mailers
Speaker 5: stuff like that. So you know, you look at that
Speaker 5: and you're like, no, wonder people are angry about the
Speaker 5: two parties. It wouldn't be shocking. Like if every morning
Speaker 5: you wake up and you turn on the television and
Speaker 5: it's like, you know, this party is gonna take your
Speaker 5: house and your family and your car and then you know,
Speaker 5: shoot you in the street, and then you turn on
Speaker 5: the TV the next morning it's the other party saying
Speaker 5: the exact same thing. Eventually gonna be like, maybe there's
Speaker 5: another alternative to these two parties, and.
Speaker 2: That alternative is RFK JUNI, you're just kidding.
Speaker 5: No, it's not those a real shot in the army.
Speaker 2: We are the worst people.
Speaker 1: That was a terrible joke and both of us, no
Speaker 1: I appreciate the hell out of it. So let's talk
Speaker 1: about everyone's favorite MAGA congresswoman CrossFit Queen Marjorie Taylor Green.
Speaker 2: She's hit a bump in the road for sure.
Speaker 5: The Freedom Caucus basically wants to get rid of her,
Speaker 5: and most of them don't want her anymore.
Speaker 2: Does that work?
Speaker 5: She's too mainstream? He went, like she partied out. I
Speaker 5: mean the original kin was that she threw her support
Speaker 5: to Kevin McCarthy, and she's been fighting with Lauren Bobert.
Speaker 5: They had nasty words with each other on the House
Speaker 5: more recently.
Speaker 1: And there was a great moment where the was it
Speaker 1: Bobert who said that MTG was just that the reason
Speaker 1: she had called her a nasty little bitch was because
Speaker 1: she was a nasty little bitch.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I think that's the way it read.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's what did you call this person?
Speaker 2: I did because she is well.
Speaker 5: Well, I mean, you know, that's a Washington apology if
Speaker 5: I ever heard. But it was MTG that called Bobert that,
Speaker 5: So I think I think you asked if.
Speaker 2: It was called was No, it's MTG. Yes.
Speaker 5: I mean, look, I think they have very different profiles.
Speaker 5: In Congress number one, Marjorie Taylor Green's in a pretty
Speaker 5: safe district, and it seems unlikely she's going to lose
Speaker 5: no matter what she does, whereas like Lauren Bobert's in
Speaker 5: the district where she could lose and she's kind of
Speaker 5: doubling down on extremism, so maybe that will work for her.
Speaker 5: I would say the commercial wisdom is that it won't,
Speaker 5: and maybe that Marjorie Taylor Green doesn't have to worry
Speaker 5: about Lauren Bobert for very long.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but Marjorie Taylor Green does have to worry about
Speaker 1: the rest of freedom carcos if she gets kiboshed.
Speaker 5: Yeah. I mean, I guess, I you know, are they
Speaker 5: going to end up a primary challenge or two? Or
Speaker 5: does anybody really believe that she's like not extreme enough?
Speaker 5: You know?
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess I love how exhausted you sound.
Speaker 5: I mean, if you ever like saw the movie Mean Girls,
Speaker 5: Like it's like some groups sitting at one of those
Speaker 5: tables that's not the you know, the plastic table. They're
Speaker 5: like sitting at one of the like outer rain tables,
Speaker 5: and then they're like starting to pick on each other.
Speaker 5: They're like, oh, you're not You're not cool enough to
Speaker 5: be in the av club now, you know, Like, I.
Speaker 1: Mean, right, there's a larger Republican congressional problem going on,
Speaker 1: which is McCarthy has like really kind of long. I mean,
Speaker 1: he did this thing, which was he kept the federal
Speaker 1: government from defaulting and crashing the American economy.
Speaker 2: He's kind of like lost the will of his caucus.
Speaker 5: Now I'm not sure that he had it to lose.
Speaker 5: That is just say we watched him go through fifteen
Speaker 5: rounds of taming. It's been a long time since there's
Speaker 5: been anyone in politics at that level that has had
Speaker 5: such a little room to maneuver. Sometimes people make a
Speaker 5: choice and they decide, you know, to do things that
Speaker 5: they know will harm the moment. You could see John
Speaker 5: Bahner doing that. But I think McCarthy's just simply trying
Speaker 5: to figure out the best thing he can do to
Speaker 5: maintain his place. You know, it's like he's walking a
Speaker 5: tightrope and juggling, you know, fiery sticks at the same time,
Speaker 5: and there's diosaurs coming at him, just trying to stay
Speaker 5: on that pipe rope. Then all of a sudden, boom,
Speaker 5: out of nowhere, you know, Marjorie Taylor Green and Lauren
Speaker 5: Bober fighting each other, and you know, he says awkwardly
Speaker 5: something about how Trump might not be the best handed
Speaker 5: pig on Biden and then he has to like put
Speaker 5: that back back in a box really quickly, and yet
Speaker 5: guys like he's got no room to maneuver. But also,
Speaker 5: let's just say he doesn't have the strongest vertebrae of
Speaker 5: any congressional leader we've ever seen. So maybe it's helpful
Speaker 5: as you try to maneuver into tiny spaces.
Speaker 1: But I want to I just want to go further
Speaker 1: with this for a minute. Is the problem a lack
Speaker 1: of spine with McCarthy, Because I would argue there have
Speaker 1: been other leaders of Congress.
Speaker 2: I know this is going to that you're going to
Speaker 2: be shocked by this.
Speaker 1: Who themselves did not have deep and real beliefs in
Speaker 1: the things that they were pushing. Like, I don't know
Speaker 1: that the problem McCarthy has is a lack of a
Speaker 1: spine as much as it's a lack of a brain.
Speaker 1: I mean that in the nicest possible way.
Speaker 5: Obviously, I am certain that Kevin McCarthy has a brain.
Speaker 5: Having interact with Kevin McCarthy before, I can I assure
Speaker 5: you that Kevin McCarthy has a brain.
Speaker 1: But that there's a sort of golden retriever like quality
Speaker 1: to him.
Speaker 5: I think that Kevin McCarthy, like most congressional leaders, as
Speaker 5: somebody who wants power more than they have particular adherents
Speaker 5: to any one policy or even total ideology, right like
Speaker 5: what they care about his advance of themselves. But I
Speaker 5: think with McCarthy it is more transparent and more evident
Speaker 5: than with most that he's just doing what he has
Speaker 5: to do to get along. And you almost never see
Speaker 5: him take a position that is like the difficult one
Speaker 5: to take. I mean, I guess, I guess arguably maybe
Speaker 5: you know, not the fault thing was difficult to take.
Speaker 5: But he's trying to find the positions he can take
Speaker 5: that are going to keep him in power. And look,
Speaker 5: the founders, I think designed a system that relied on,
Speaker 5: you know, the ambition of individuals. They understood it, right,
Speaker 5: They knew that people that were in these jobs, that
Speaker 5: were members of Congress or whatever would act in certain
Speaker 5: ways and try to get reelective and whatnot, and so
Speaker 5: they understood the infernal politics. I just you know, McCarthy
Speaker 5: is again in this position where you.
Speaker 2: Like, he can't move, he has no he doesn't have
Speaker 2: the numbers.
Speaker 5: Right, one misstep and his career was over.
Speaker 1: Yeah, heartwarming story I want to get into this sort
Speaker 1: of where Biden is right now. Jesse and I were
Speaker 1: both saying this before we started recording, that we thought
Speaker 1: the Biden economics message was good.
Speaker 2: And those graphs.
Speaker 1: From the European the G seven, and they're not all
Speaker 1: European obviously, but the G seven countries showed that really
Speaker 1: the Bidenomics, for whatever it's worth, is actually working.
Speaker 5: Yeah. I mean, I think there are about zero Americans
Speaker 5: who are going to vote based on how the US
Speaker 5: economy is doing at large versus other countries.
Speaker 2: Right, But I mean I think it's a meaningful indicator.
Speaker 5: Sure, I guess what I would say about the biodonomics
Speaker 5: message of this. There are strong indicators of recovering economy,
Speaker 5: and there are also some indicators that are not where
Speaker 5: the Biden folks would like them to be. But there's
Speaker 5: only so much the president can do to control the economy.
Speaker 5: And if the economy surges back and people feel that
Speaker 5: it surges back, because of course, the perceptions of what's
Speaker 5: going on to voters are often more important than the reality.
Speaker 5: If by next November voters feel like the economy is
Speaker 5: a good place, Biden's going to want to be able
Speaker 5: to take credit for it, and he's not going to
Speaker 5: be able to do that unless he lays the ground
Speaker 5: for that. So now is when he's laying the ground,
Speaker 5: or to say, he's here is our economic plan. We
Speaker 5: believe that it's working now, and we believe it's going
Speaker 5: to be working more next November. And the thing is,
Speaker 5: if he's wrong, he's going to lose anyway. Maybe he
Speaker 5: wins anyway. But if the economy has fallen off the
Speaker 5: cliff a year, you know, a year and a half
Speaker 5: from now, if we're in deepercession or depression or something,
Speaker 5: then it doesn't matter what he said today. On the
Speaker 5: other hand, if it's going well, he wants to be
Speaker 5: able to take credit for it, so he lays that
Speaker 5: credit it now.
Speaker 1: It does seem like, you know, every time and again,
Speaker 1: I feel like every time we talk about this economy,
Speaker 1: when we've talked about this when we've had a Republican
Speaker 1: in office, I feel like there's more kind of the
Speaker 1: president gets credit for the economy than when we have
Speaker 1: a Democrat in office. And remember when you see all
Speaker 1: that polling, people are always saying, oh, Republicans are better
Speaker 1: on the economy, and that's just sort of like a
Speaker 1: conventional wisdom baked in. I mean, there's so much evidence,
Speaker 1: and I always think about this, there's so much evidence,
Speaker 1: and in fact, like what did Trump do? He did
Speaker 1: a huge tax cut, He raised the taxes in the
Speaker 1: Blue states with this making the state and local income
Speaker 1: tax assault not deductible, so raising our taxes. And then
Speaker 1: because to punish blue states, and then he uh, you know,
Speaker 1: he did all these sort of crony capitalist moves and
Speaker 1: then we had a pandemic. So I mean that obviously
Speaker 1: these things are not related in that way, but like
Speaker 1: he didn't show any great economic chops. And then you
Speaker 1: have Biden here who was doing this massive infrastructure spending.
Speaker 2: So again like that does pump up the GDP.
Speaker 1: So I just wonder, like, why do people who are
Speaker 1: pulled always think Republicans are better on the economy.
Speaker 2: It's you have thirty seconds to answer this question.
Speaker 5: If your assertionist the Democrats are better on the economy,
Speaker 5: and if people think Republicans are, then that would seem
Speaker 5: to be a messaging the spirit.
Speaker 2: But I mean, you think it's just sort of baked
Speaker 2: in there.
Speaker 5: I don't think it necessarily is. I don't think people
Speaker 5: felt Republicans were good on the economy in two thousand
Speaker 5: and eight when the economy was like falling through the floor.
Speaker 5: So you know, it depends on the moment, but Republicans
Speaker 5: talk more about the economy, or at least traditionally have
Speaker 5: talked more about the economy. Last thirty years or so
Speaker 5: is a little different. It's always sort of a core
Speaker 5: focus on business, and the markets are core focused bubblekan politics.
Speaker 5: So I think the Democrats have they have to make
Speaker 5: sure that they you know, am a competitive standpoint, that
Speaker 5: they talk about that issue that is most important to
Speaker 5: most voters and talk about it in a way that
Speaker 5: resonates with voters.
Speaker 2: John Allen, I hope you're not mad at me.
Speaker 5: Why would I be mad at here?
Speaker 2: And that you'll still come back and visit us again.
Speaker 2: This was really a great conversation. I appreciate you.
Speaker 5: I'm never mad at you. Molli.
Speaker 1: Hi, it's Mollie and I am wildly excited that for
Speaker 1: the first time, Fast Politics, the show you're listening to
Speaker 1: right now.
Speaker 2: Is going to have merch for sale over at.
Speaker 1: Shop dot fastpoliticspod dot com.
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Speaker 1: We've heard your cries to spread the word about our
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Speaker 2: Thanks for your support.
Speaker 1: Emily Atkin is the author of the climate newsletter Heated.
Speaker 2: Welcome to Fast Politics, Emily.
Speaker 6: Oh, it's so great to be back.
Speaker 1: I was just talking to my husband and he was saying, like,
Speaker 1: maybe we should go for a walk, and then he's like,
Speaker 1: there's an air quality alert out. This is like the
Speaker 1: first summer where like you can't walk because of the
Speaker 1: air it's bad.
Speaker 7: I think that people are starting to kind of see
Speaker 7: how this is connected to climate change and starting to
Speaker 7: realize like, oh, I don't think I like puffs la, Yeah,
Speaker 7: I really do.
Speaker 1: I'm excited if that's true. I'm a little worried that
Speaker 1: they're not putting it together. We did have orange smoke.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: There was one day where we got.
Speaker 1: Up to like almost five hundred on the AQI, which
Speaker 1: is like, is in five hundred when you start like
Speaker 1: getting really sick and dying.
Speaker 7: Yeah, that's like the worst air quality you're running up
Speaker 7: on some of the worst air quality in the world.
Speaker 7: That can trigger a stroke, It could trigger a heart
Speaker 7: attack in people with cardiovascular problems, it could trigger it
Speaker 7: out asthma attack. Yeah, that's the level that you really
Speaker 7: don't want to be outside, particularly if you have any
Speaker 7: pre existing conditions, but also just generally.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean that was pretty scary.
Speaker 1: I mean, so what's happening right now is that there
Speaker 1: are wildfires in Canada. Can you just talk a little
Speaker 1: bit about what exactly is happening and how this is
Speaker 1: sort of playing out.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I mean from a climate change perspective and from
Speaker 7: just a weather perspective, wildfires are It's normal that wildfires
Speaker 7: would happen, and it's normal that the smoke would travel
Speaker 7: from the place that the wildfire is to a different place.
Speaker 6: Right, That's that's a normal thing that would happen.
Speaker 7: Yeah, you know, wind fires, it's all good. The problem
Speaker 7: right now is that we're seeing these massive wildfires and
Speaker 7: it's not really wildfire season. It technically is, but it's
Speaker 7: right at the start and the amount of acres that
Speaker 7: are burning from these wildfires is unlike anything that people
Speaker 7: have ever seen, particularly for this region in Canada that
Speaker 7: they're burning. So that is very consistent with predictions from
Speaker 7: climate scientists that say, you know, the more carbon women
Speaker 7: into the atmosphere, the hotter the average world temperature gets,
Speaker 7: the drier dry places get. One of the funny things
Speaker 7: about climate change, it's not funny, it's just complicated, but
Speaker 7: it's that drier places get drier, and wetter places get wetter.
Speaker 6: It just makes everything a bit more extreme. And so when.
Speaker 7: People ask me, how do you know if this event
Speaker 7: was because of climate change or influenced by climate change,
Speaker 7: the answer is that every single weather event that we
Speaker 7: live through is affected by climate change because we live
Speaker 7: in a climate that has already changed. And these fires
Speaker 7: that we're seeing are very consistent with predictions that wildfires
Speaker 7: burn stronger, burn longer, and that translates to air quality
Speaker 7: alerts in places that the fires aren't even happening.
Speaker 1: It does seem like that is pretty unbelievable, like the
Speaker 1: change I've seen in my lifetime.
Speaker 2: And I'm forty four, so I could probably be your mother.
Speaker 2: But if I had you when i was fourteen, I'm
Speaker 2: just kidding.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, But what I've seen is that there's like.
Speaker 2: There's also like no snow, we even had snow.
Speaker 7: I was actually just at this climate summit where there
Speaker 7: was this awesome presentation of climate data. The name of
Speaker 7: the organization doing this is eluding me, so I apologize
Speaker 7: to them in advance. But it was this awesome presentation
Speaker 7: of what the country looked like forty years ago versus
Speaker 7: now in terms of the warming that's already happened. They
Speaker 7: zoomed in on Maine, for instance, that these towns in Maine,
Speaker 7: and they could tell you what the average snow season
Speaker 7: looked like forty years ago and what it looks like now,
Speaker 7: and how that corresponds with the one point one to
Speaker 7: one point two degrees celsius of warming that has happened
Speaker 7: over time, right right, because the world has already.
Speaker 6: Warned a certain amount.
Speaker 7: So like what you're seeing over the last forty years
Speaker 7: of your life is backed up by the data. Like
Speaker 7: you can look at a map and see that this
Speaker 7: thing that you feel that you're getting less snow, that
Speaker 7: it's not as cold, it is happening and it is
Speaker 7: consistent with these predictions.
Speaker 6: As horrifying as that is, it is, at.
Speaker 7: The same time, the way I look at it kind
Speaker 7: of nice to know that, like, Okay, we can sort
Speaker 7: of we can trust these predictions are correct, and so
Speaker 7: therefore we can trust the science that says here what
Speaker 7: you need to do to have it not get worse.
Speaker 1: So let's talk for a minute about what that science
Speaker 1: looks like. I mean, there's a lot of there's a
Speaker 1: lot of anxiety about carbon capture. There's a lot out
Speaker 1: there that sounds like bullshit.
Speaker 2: So talk to us about what is bullshit and what
Speaker 2: is real.
Speaker 7: The most important thing that you need to know about
Speaker 7: what is bullshit is anyone that tries to make the
Speaker 7: claim that we can continue to extract and burn fossil
Speaker 7: fuels at the current rate and not reach a level
Speaker 7: of climate catastrophe that makes a large chunk of the
Speaker 7: planet unlivable for millions of people.
Speaker 1: And by the way, I think what's important when you
Speaker 1: say that is we're not talking about like just climate
Speaker 1: crisis in one country. If people are dying of heat
Speaker 1: stroke in the UAE, that is echoing out everywhere else too. Well.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I mean climate change is so common, flex right,
Speaker 7: that there are many different ways that the planet or
Speaker 7: an ecosystem can become unlivable. In let's say, a three
Speaker 7: sea world, a world that has warmed on average three
Speaker 7: degrees celsius since the pre industrial era. Like, yeah, there
Speaker 7: are going to be areas of India that regularly become
Speaker 7: too hot for the human body to actually live in.
Speaker 7: That's going to spur refugee crises. We're going to have
Speaker 7: a lot of people moving. They're going to be sea
Speaker 7: level rides. That is going to make some places also unlevel.
Speaker 7: Pretty easy stuff to visualize there. There's also going to
Speaker 7: be more wildfires that bring more smoke into cities that
Speaker 7: makes it unlivable for people with asthma, or people with
Speaker 7: babies or old people. Right, stores, hurricanes, things like that,
Speaker 7: and then there's just all of these social effects that
Speaker 7: come with those things. Right, maybe you can actually live
Speaker 7: in the place with a lot of smoke, but there's
Speaker 7: not enough hospital capacity or something like that, or you
Speaker 7: can't get to work because you work outside. Right, It's
Speaker 7: livability is not just about your health and about whether
Speaker 7: you die. It's about also the quality of life and the.
Speaker 6: Way you live your life.
Speaker 7: So there is no unfortunately, there is no credible science
Speaker 7: that shows that we can limit these effects without transitioning
Speaker 7: away from fossil fuels. The fossil fuel industry and a
Speaker 7: lot of conservatives in particular, will try to tell you
Speaker 7: that just by switching to natural gas or just by
Speaker 7: installing carbon capture, we can avoid a lot of these
Speaker 7: emissions and keep using fossil fuels. The only thing that
Speaker 7: they don't offer there is evidence to show that that
Speaker 7: will work. And the reason they don't offer it is
Speaker 7: because it doesn't exist. It's just a lot of buzzwords
Speaker 7: that sound really cool. Carbon capture is not a feasible
Speaker 7: technology at scale. Natural gas is a fossil fuel that's
Speaker 7: made of methane right which it's hugely polluted p greenouse
Speaker 7: gas that is the most was harmful bullshit that is
Speaker 7: out there right now.
Speaker 2: For sure, there was.
Speaker 1: Some weird elon Musk climate change stuff where he was
Speaker 1: saying crazy stuff about climate change and how I wasn't
Speaker 1: quite following. But isn't that a little scary that that
Speaker 1: guy who made all his money on an ev.
Speaker 2: Is uh doesn't believe in climate change.
Speaker 7: It's wild because he is very much cited as this
Speaker 7: savior for climate change because he's.
Speaker 6: Developed evs a tesla.
Speaker 7: First of all, like simply developing EV's doesn't help that
Speaker 7: much you actually have to reduce the number of cars
Speaker 7: on the road. That's also been pretty clearly laid out
Speaker 7: in scientific literature that like just merely switching to EV's,
Speaker 7: switching all the gas powered cars to EV's is not
Speaker 7: going to help. You have to you have to make
Speaker 7: it so that people drive less and that there are
Speaker 7: actually less cars on the road.
Speaker 6: And Elon does not want to do that. It's just
Speaker 6: so interesting.
Speaker 7: He's got this really weird view of climate change I've
Speaker 7: been looking into recently where he acknowledges the role of
Speaker 7: fossil fuels but doesn't think that farming contributes to climate change,
Speaker 7: which is wild because it.
Speaker 2: Does, right, Obviously, I really don't know.
Speaker 6: What's going on with him.
Speaker 7: The latest thing that he was in the news climate wise,
Speaker 7: for was that he responded to this New York Post
Speaker 7: story about.
Speaker 1: Oh, the coal pizza ovens, yeah, which you wrote brilliantly about.
Speaker 6: Thank you.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 6: He was like, these won't do anything to fight climate change.
Speaker 7: They're bullshit, and it made so much news that it
Speaker 7: was so wild because it was like, these rules for
Speaker 7: pizza ovens have nothing to do with climate change. So unfortunately,
Speaker 7: I would say, like, the thing that's so wild about
Speaker 7: him is that he's just so vulnerable to misinformation now
Speaker 7: because that's like who he's decided he is.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, now, I mean quite interesting to watch him
Speaker 1: just flail around. So it's basically fire season now, even
Speaker 1: though it used to only be fire season in California,
Speaker 1: I guess now it's fire season in New York too, right.
Speaker 7: Well, yeah, I mean you wouldn't normally see a lot
Speaker 7: of wildfire in New York, but unfortunately that's another effective
Speaker 7: climate change, is that the dryer it gets, the more
Speaker 7: areas are vulnerable to wildfires. So yeah, I mean wildfire
Speaker 7: season normally, like wildfire and hurricane season. Like, while the
Speaker 7: West is getting messed up by wildfire season, the East
Speaker 7: is getting messed up by hurricane season. They kind of intersect,
Speaker 7: they're like at the same time summer to fall. And
Speaker 7: now we're seeing that that's still happening, but both coasts
Speaker 7: are also getting the threat of the other coasts problem too.
Speaker 7: We see very clearly now that the East Coast is
Speaker 7: starting to feel the effects of wildfire season because wildfire
Speaker 7: season is expanding, and now even the even the West
Speaker 7: coast gets hurricane threats now they haven't seen you know,
Speaker 7: a big storm in the way the East Coast has
Speaker 7: gotten yet, but it's coming.
Speaker 6: It's it's wild, it's not great.
Speaker 1: Can you explain to us what this warmer Alnino means? Basically,
Speaker 1: the the ocean in the Atlantic is as warm as
Speaker 1: it's ever been.
Speaker 7: Right, you'll have these anomaly years, right. I don't think
Speaker 7: that the meteorology of it is necessarily as useful for
Speaker 7: us to explain and understand as the effect of it
Speaker 7: is that when it's an al Nino year, everything is
Speaker 7: magnified in terms of heat. So anything any you're probably
Speaker 7: an al Nino year is when you're probably going to
Speaker 7: see the hottest temperatures on average in a long time.
Speaker 7: Probably when you're going to see more heat waves, and
Speaker 7: then also extreme weather like hurricanes because warm water, warm
Speaker 7: ocean water fuels storms.
Speaker 1: This is like unprecedented how warm the Atlantic is right now, right.
Speaker 7: Right, Because it's an al Nino, it's like we're talking
Speaker 7: about earlier, the climate has already changed, so this will
Speaker 7: will be the hottest El Nino ever. And el Nino
Speaker 7: is normal, that was always going to happen, but in
Speaker 7: the world that it now exists is a hotter world.
Speaker 7: So it's going to be the hottest alnino.
Speaker 2: That does not seem good.
Speaker 6: None of it is good.
Speaker 7: I think the question really is like, what are we
Speaker 7: going to do now that we know about this, now
Speaker 7: that we see it. Are we going to stop denying
Speaker 7: that it's happening? And are we going to take some
Speaker 7: necessary steps to ensure that every single El Nino now
Speaker 7: in the future is not the hottest El Nino that's
Speaker 7: ever been?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 2: Do you have anything hopeful you want to tell us? Yeah?
Speaker 7: I do, actually, which is that I think there's this
Speaker 7: general idea that it's kind of too late to do
Speaker 7: anything about this, which just isn't true. I mean, it's
Speaker 7: very clear that it's not true. And every single piece
Speaker 7: of action that anyone does to help, even if you
Speaker 7: can't like see the effect on the atmosphere, it does
Speaker 7: help because even if it doesn't change emissions, the things
Speaker 7: that we do help change culture. One of the things
Speaker 7: that I write about a lot in my newsletter is
Speaker 7: that climate change is not just an emissions problem. It
Speaker 7: is a society and cultural problem. It's about what we
Speaker 7: value and changing the things that we value. Because we
Speaker 7: won't do what's necessary to solve climate change until we
Speaker 7: change the things we value. So even like posting online
Speaker 7: and making podcasts about stuff like this and trying to
Speaker 7: like envision a different worlds where and an economy and
Speaker 7: world is not based on extraction and that's you know,
Speaker 7: based on reciprocity with each other and with nature. It's
Speaker 7: that kind of messaging is actually really important.
Speaker 6: And there are so many movements.
Speaker 7: I think what's so great about the climate change activism community,
Speaker 7: which is so broad by the way, is that if
Speaker 7: there's one thing they know how to do, it is
Speaker 7: create community. And I think that there is a joy
Speaker 7: of working on something that you really care about with
Speaker 7: other people. I think we tend to have this capitalism
Speaker 7: driven need to not do anything.
Speaker 6: Unless we know that it will have, you know, an impact.
Speaker 7: It's like, oh, I'm not going to do a hobby
Speaker 7: unless I'm going to be the best editor, unless I'm
Speaker 7: going to monetize it, and not just doing things because
Speaker 7: they make us feel good and we get to be
Speaker 7: with people and you know, and enjoy ourselves. I feel
Speaker 7: the same way about climate activism and climate writing and
Speaker 7: anything based on ecological solutions. Is that like, if you
Speaker 7: go into it with the idea that you don't want
Speaker 7: to do it unless you can save the world, then
Speaker 7: you're never going to experience.
Speaker 6: Any joy out of it.
Speaker 7: The point should be to experience joy out of it
Speaker 7: and to make yourself feel better. And the more you
Speaker 7: do that, like, the more progress is going to be made.
Speaker 2: Oh very interesting.
Speaker 1: Is there anything else that you feel like is important
Speaker 1: that we should be talking about when it comes to climate?
Speaker 6: So many things.
Speaker 7: My reporter Aril is currently working on a story about
Speaker 7: how renewable energy in Texas is actually saving the electric
Speaker 7: grid from shutting down during their extreme heat. Oh wow,
Speaker 7: that's a really good climate story. And it's funny because
Speaker 7: you'll see still from Texas Governor Abbit and other politicians.
Speaker 7: You know, they'll still say that solar and wind energy
Speaker 7: are unreliable, we can't rely on them to power the grid.
Speaker 6: But the reality is right now that as the grid
Speaker 6: is overheating in Texas because of climate fueled extreme heat,
Speaker 6: the natural gas plants that are shutting down. It's the
Speaker 6: nuclear facilities that are shutting down, the ones that depend
Speaker 6: on thermal regulated heat. The only reason the grid is
Speaker 6: up and still working and people have their air conditioner
Speaker 6: right now is because Texas also has a ton of
Speaker 6: solar and wind. So we're seeing the positive news play
Speaker 6: out before our eyes, like these renewable energy sources are
Speaker 6: really working, and so it's really important, I think, for
Speaker 6: people to know that and to be armed with that information.
Speaker 1: Right on that note, thank you so much, Emily.
Speaker 2: I hope you will come back.
Speaker 7: I hope you will have me back. It's always great
Speaker 7: to be here, and thank you for covering this.
Speaker 5: Now.
Speaker 8: Pet Jesse Cannon, Molly junk Fast. You know that Kevin
Speaker 8: McCarthy doesn't have a lot of good qualities, and one
Speaker 8: of them is nefitely not his backbone.
Speaker 1: I was really impressed today with how much stupid Kevin
Speaker 1: McCarthy is managing to involve himself in. But today he
Speaker 1: said that maybe Trump wasn't the best candidate. You will
Speaker 1: remember Trump as having been impeached twice, in dieted twice,
Speaker 1: and having led the January sixth armed insurrection at the Capitol.
Speaker 1: Kevin McCarthy suggested that perhaps that person was not the
Speaker 1: best GOP presidential candidate. Well, I'm going to fast forward
Speaker 1: and tell you unsurprisingly, he has now apologized for that
Speaker 1: terrible misleading of the American people, and he and his
Speaker 1: incredible stupidity is once.
Speaker 2: Again are a moment of fucker.
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.