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 Mitt Romney says GOP policies don't
Speaker 1: always align with the working class. We have such a
Speaker 1: great show for you today. The Lincoln Project's own Rick
Speaker 1: Wilson joins us to discuss the political realignment after the
Speaker 1: twenty twenty four election. Then we will talk to Congresswoman
Speaker 1: soon to be goubernatorial candidate Mikey Cheryl about her home
Speaker 1: state of New Jersey and what it means to run
Speaker 1: for governor there.
Speaker 2: But first the news, SAMII, I saw a lot of
Speaker 2: people very very very mad on the tech steps since
Speaker 2: we're all using three different short form text steps. Now
Speaker 2: that ABY is giving into a fifteen million dollar Trump settlement,
Speaker 2: what do you see here?
Speaker 1: So basically, Donald Trump very very just always been like
Speaker 1: a job right. He often tries, you know, I think
Speaker 1: he's of the theory that if you bring people into
Speaker 1: court enough times, they will leave you alone. And in
Speaker 1: this case it actually did work. ABC News is going
Speaker 1: to pay fifteen million dollars and they are also going
Speaker 1: and they issued a public apology in order to settle
Speaker 1: a defamation suit. So this is like one of those
Speaker 1: banana banana situations where Stephanopolis said that Trump was found
Speaker 1: libel for rape in connection to the Egene Carol lawsuit.
Speaker 1: Now this is like neither verdict involved a finding of
Speaker 1: rape as defined under New York law. So it was
Speaker 1: sexual misconduct sexual assault, but it was not technically rape
Speaker 1: because New York State has a different definition of the
Speaker 1: term rape. And so while this may seem a semantic argument,
Speaker 1: he did. Actually the legal definition did not track with
Speaker 1: what Stephanopolos said. A lot of judges would have thrown
Speaker 1: this out because it's not you know, he's a public figure.
Speaker 1: There's a much lower bar to harm when it's a
Speaker 1: public figure who was who was in the media, and
Speaker 1: it should This really would not have been a case
Speaker 1: five years ago. But now judges are more in bold
Speaker 1: and magial world is more aggressive, and we're having stuff
Speaker 1: like this. Now, why do I think ABC settled this case?
Speaker 1: I as not a lawyer who does not play one
Speaker 1: on television. My guess is that ABC's parent company, Disney,
Speaker 1: was thought it would be easier just to write a
Speaker 1: check than deal with it. Remember, one of the things
Speaker 1: that people have found out about Trump is that he's
Speaker 1: very transactional, so he will in fact play for pay,
Speaker 1: or that's what history. History has dictated that he's willing
Speaker 1: to pay for play. So I don't think we should
Speaker 1: be super surprised by this. I think that it's very
Speaker 1: hard to play k Trump, and that generally, when you're
Speaker 1: going into the discourse like this with someone who is
Speaker 1: notorious for hitting back harder, that this is a road
Speaker 1: that is going to be very fraud And by doing this,
Speaker 1: ABC has now created a roadmap for suing for defamation
Speaker 1: for things that are not necessarily really straight deformation. Straight
Speaker 1: defamation should be things like when a Fox News anchor
Speaker 1: says something they know is not true, right.
Speaker 2: Like Jesse Waters does on a weekly basis.
Speaker 1: Right says they know something said something they know is
Speaker 1: not true to malign someone. So for example, you know,
Speaker 1: any number of lies or but or when somebody makes
Speaker 1: a mistaken does not retract it.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 1: But this is a kind of you know, this is
Speaker 1: a kind of sort of nuanced legal language issue that well,
Speaker 1: maybe you know, would it have been better for Stephanopolos
Speaker 1: to have said sexual misconduct or sexual violence or sexually
Speaker 1: inappropriate you know, assault, yes, but that was so he
Speaker 1: was sort of gotten out of technicality. It's fifteen million dollars.
Speaker 1: It'll be a charitable contribution to Trump's library. Trump's library
Speaker 1: will happen. Perhaps never so Wally.
Speaker 2: I was recently reflecting, you know, we've almost been doing
Speaker 2: this together for five years, very soon, and I was
Speaker 2: reflecting for an end of year segment on the jackass
Speaker 2: as we've encountered over these years. And one came to
Speaker 2: mind that I hadn't thought of it a bit, which
Speaker 2: was Devin Newness. And then sure enough I looked at
Speaker 2: the news and what do I see? That Trump is
Speaker 2: going to bring them into the administration. So what are
Speaker 2: you seeing here? Because it doesn't feel.
Speaker 3: Good to me.
Speaker 1: Another very litigious fellow, Devin Newness.
Speaker 2: Once what Suita Twitter accounts.
Speaker 1: One suit of Twitter account of a cow the young
Speaker 1: guy was in the house. Was had a lot of theories,
Speaker 1: many of them wrong. Some memos Big protector of Trump
Speaker 1: is memo written by Cash Battell, big protector of Trump,
Speaker 1: Like what we're seeing here is that Trump is Loyalty
Speaker 1: is number one. If you want a job in magal world,
Speaker 1: you need to have shown you're willing to defend the indefensible.
Speaker 1: And if you're willing to defend things that are just
Speaker 1: blatantly obviously not true or stretching the truth, if you're
Speaker 1: willing to defend Trump, you can get a job in
Speaker 1: this admin. And Devin, who knows, is the CEO of
Speaker 1: Trump's truth social platform, and now he's going to be
Speaker 1: chairman of the President's and Intelligence Advisory Board. He's not
Speaker 1: renouncing his job. He's not renouncing his outside business issues
Speaker 1: outside business. This is like not how any of this works. Usually,
Speaker 1: if you're going to go into the admin, you have
Speaker 1: to divest, you have to put things in blind trusts,
Speaker 1: you have to do the typical things so that there
Speaker 1: is no even the appearance of corruption is as bad
Speaker 1: in the federal government as corruption. This is not This
Speaker 1: is just not just the appearance. I mean, who even
Speaker 1: knows what's going to happen here. But it's hard for
Speaker 1: me to imagine that what happens here is good, honest stuff.
Speaker 2: You know, what I keep thinking about is that there's
Speaker 2: it can be whole new tombs of law for law
Speaker 2: schools on conflict of interest law in the government after
Speaker 2: this administration, since every one of them has it and
Speaker 2: most Notably, we also have this case with one doctor Oz.
Speaker 1: Yeah, doctor Oz. You'll remember him as having run for
Speaker 1: the Senate and losing against John Fetterman. He has a
Speaker 1: multimillion dollar conflict of interest. Shockingly, as opposed to everyone
Speaker 1: else in this administration, who has just multi one hundred
Speaker 1: thousand dollars conflicts of interest. Doctor memin Oz, most famous
Speaker 1: as a daytime television host and also for doing very
Speaker 1: good surgery on my departed father in law. Trump has
Speaker 1: picked him to run the Center for Medicare and Medicaid
Speaker 1: Services CM. He has a direct he may have a
Speaker 1: direct financial stake. Again, we're not sure he may. I
Speaker 1: guess this is some very couching language here in a
Speaker 1: digital so he has in his twenty twenty two tax
Speaker 1: disclosure disclosures and revealed that the Trump ally owned up
Speaker 1: to a twenty six million dollars stake in Sharecare, a
Speaker 1: digital health company co founded by Oz that operates care Links,
Speaker 1: an exclusive in home benefits program, so it is used
Speaker 1: by one point five million Medicare advantage and rolely is
Speaker 1: the company one private in twenty twenty four, so it's
Speaker 1: unknown whether Oz still owns a stake in the company.
Speaker 1: It's possible that he has divested. It seems would be
Speaker 1: shocking to me because no one in this administration tends
Speaker 1: to do things like that, but certainly Diana if they do.
Speaker 1: Nova nor Disk, which produces ozemic and mogovi among other drubs,
Speaker 1: is also a client of Sharecare. As a head of CMS,
Speaker 1: Odds has considerable impact on the pharmaceutical industry, but with
Speaker 1: business ties like these, it's equally likely the drug companies
Speaker 1: could have a profound impact on him. Again, I do
Speaker 1: not consider this to be the worst thing in the
Speaker 1: Trump medicine Trump drug company world, because I am more
Speaker 1: worried about the guy with the polio vaccine stuff. But
Speaker 1: this is also in a normal government, this would be
Speaker 1: a huge scandal. In Trump world, it is but a
Speaker 1: speed bump.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So, speaking of things that I think are not the
Speaker 2: biggest deal, but definitely getting missed and not good. Last
Speaker 2: week we saw Postmaster to Joy cover his ears in
Speaker 2: a hearing on the Capitol, and now we're starting to
Speaker 2: see that Trump's plan is to privatize the postal service,
Speaker 2: which was always the plan when he put Postmaster to
Speaker 2: Joy in.
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't know what the fuck these guys
Speaker 1: are doing. I mean, they're they're you know again. He
Speaker 1: wants to, he doesn't want to. He has wanted to
Speaker 1: privatize the postal Service, but he's also he wants to
Speaker 1: overhaul it. They're very you know again. This is this
Speaker 1: ethos of life, wanting to get rid of the federal
Speaker 1: government goodies, right, like things like the National Weather Service.
Speaker 1: A lot of Project twenty twenty five is about taking
Speaker 1: away these small things that the federal government does and
Speaker 1: getting rid of them. Again, the National Weather Service is
Speaker 1: not a huge you know, it's a sort of rounding error.
Speaker 1: But the idea here is that somehow taking that away
Speaker 1: will show the American people that the federal government can't work.
Speaker 1: There's so much in a lot of Trump's plans. If
Speaker 1: we look at Project twenty twenty five, which he said
Speaker 1: he knew nothing about but now has been slightly warming
Speaker 1: too over the in the discourse, there's so many of
Speaker 1: these things that are just they seem designed to impale
Speaker 1: federal government agencies, to make them toothless, to make the
Speaker 1: government work less well for people, and this is one
Speaker 1: of them. So it looks likely to me that we'll
Speaker 1: see a lot of fight with this. Rick Wilson is
Speaker 1: the founder of the Lincoln Project and the host of
Speaker 1: the Enemy's List. Welcome back to Fast Politics, Rick Wilson, Hello.
Speaker 3: OBALI John Fast. How are you this fine?
Speaker 1: After an I like that you are, like you seem
Speaker 1: really depressed. I feel like we're in that period pre
Speaker 1: new administration when everyone in the world has decided. And
Speaker 1: I think this happens with all administrations. And you tell
Speaker 1: me if you think historically this is true that the
Speaker 1: you know whatever, the three months between the election and
Speaker 1: the inauguration are three months where everybody takes a deep breath,
Speaker 1: holds it and it's like, maybe this'll be okay, good luck.
Speaker 1: But I mean, isn't that true for anyone who's running
Speaker 1: for a president?
Speaker 4: Look, generally speak, this is that window where people try
Speaker 4: to project their best scenario onto what's coming. And I
Speaker 4: will say, there are a lot of people that I've
Speaker 4: spoken to, you know, in that Republican universe, like you know.
Speaker 3: Could turn out to be okay, and.
Speaker 4: You know, and they know what this game is and
Speaker 4: they play it with themselves over and over again, and
Speaker 4: every single time it's like, wait, I didn't know he
Speaker 4: was a psychopathic authoritarian. But they're gonna you know, as always,
Speaker 4: the fucking round has proceeded. The finding out will soon begin.
Speaker 1: I mean, it definitely seems like there is no and
Speaker 1: no moment has Donald Trump signaled that he is planning
Speaker 1: on moderating his stance towards deportation, towards tariffs, towards any
Speaker 1: of the things that seem like they may towards RFK
Speaker 1: Junior that may really cause enormous problems.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Look, there is as of now, no obvious departure
Speaker 4: from the cuckoo. There is no obvious moment where they're saying, hey,
Speaker 4: you know, Trump's change, it's real, It's not the same way.
Speaker 4: It's not going to be the same. Of course it is.
Speaker 4: Of course it is. And this belief that it's not
Speaker 4: it's charming in some ways, but it's naive as hell.
Speaker 1: So let's talk about the leadership. So one of the
Speaker 1: there have been a couple things going on in this
Speaker 1: weird period, and one of the things is that the
Speaker 1: Senate and House leadership has turned over to some degree.
Speaker 1: And in the House, Democrats have jettisoned a number of
Speaker 1: the older members who were running different committees and replace
Speaker 1: them with younger members, which is pretty healthy, which is good, yeah,
Speaker 1: because Democrats don't actually have so Republicans in the House
Speaker 1: have the have term limits and if you want to
Speaker 1: go more than six years, you have to get a
Speaker 1: waiver to your waiver. Democrats don't have that. So even
Speaker 1: though last year they turned over their leadership, and how
Speaker 1: now have Pete Aguilar and Cheme and Rep. Clark when
Speaker 1: it comes to these leadership positions, these ranking positions on
Speaker 1: different committees, they've now turned over. Republicans did that and
Speaker 1: now one hundred percent of their leadership.
Speaker 4: Can you guess, Molly listen, I think the most put upon,
Speaker 4: the most, the most oppressed, the most, the shamefully economically
Speaker 4: uncertain group in America. They are all white bros at
Speaker 4: this point. And I just have to say, finally, in Congress,
Speaker 4: at long last, we're seeing that finally some faces that
Speaker 4: really represent Darien, Connecticut as well as they.
Speaker 1: Could white hundred percent now.
Speaker 3: One hundred percent.
Speaker 1: What is this signal? In your mind?
Speaker 4: What it signals is that the Republican Party occasionally has
Speaker 4: some stunt casting of you know, a Byron Donald's or
Speaker 4: somebody like that, or you know, a Carry Lake or
Speaker 4: what have you.
Speaker 3: But at the end of the day.
Speaker 4: These are the same white guys that were in the
Speaker 4: Leadership Institute when I was young, and then they, you know,
Speaker 4: became part of either the Federal Society or the or
Speaker 4: the or the Freedom Caucus or whatever. And it's just
Speaker 4: a it's a system that is, you know, largely composed
Speaker 4: of white brose.
Speaker 1: Here's something I'm always a little bit surprised about when
Speaker 1: we talk about elections. Republicans don't make overtures towards women, really, right,
Speaker 1: I mean they sort of have. You've got you've got
Speaker 1: a few women, not in congressional leadership, but you have
Speaker 1: women around, and they don't make overtures right towards people
Speaker 1: of color. But Trump's still got both those groups of voters.
Speaker 1: So make it make sense.
Speaker 4: Politics doesn't move demographics the same ways it used to.
Speaker 1: So what does that mean?
Speaker 3: People? So so imagine this for a second.
Speaker 4: You have three guys, an African American guy, a white guy,
Speaker 4: and a Hispanic guy, and they work on our road
Speaker 4: crew in the middle of the fucking summer, and the
Speaker 4: liberal white lady with her with her save the rainforest
Speaker 4: bumper sticker on her fucking land rover drives by them
Speaker 4: and they all fucking hate her. Okay, they there is
Speaker 4: a sense in this country among working class voters. And
Speaker 4: this is really something I've been thinking a lot about
Speaker 4: in the last few weeks. Those working class voters. It's
Speaker 4: been building for a long time, and the messaging machine
Speaker 4: on the Republican side of the equation has been getting
Speaker 4: better and better at communicating to them and blaming wrongly blaming. Oh,
Speaker 4: it's the rich people, it's the educated people. It's the women,
Speaker 4: it's the it's it's the liberal Hispanics.
Speaker 3: That that hate you.
Speaker 4: They all they don't care about your about your job,
Speaker 4: but they care about making you say LATINX.
Speaker 3: They want war on Christmas.
Speaker 4: And there was a long running misread by the Democrats
Speaker 4: that African American men were going to stay exactly where
Speaker 4: they were when African American men are much less liberal
Speaker 4: or progressive in their voting patterns. Now, as we're starting
Speaker 4: to see emerging, they really did not like the trans issue.
Speaker 3: For instance, we're seeing that in.
Speaker 4: Some of the polling they really did not like the
Speaker 4: thought that they were going to get left out. And
Speaker 4: the Democrats have promised them for generations, we're going to
Speaker 4: fix this. You're going to be this you're going to
Speaker 4: get that in terms of economic and personal opportunity. They
Speaker 4: don't feel like they got that. And so essentially, I
Speaker 4: had a friend who was on a radio showay in Chicago,
Speaker 4: a bunch of African American men. All you would scan
Speaker 4: them as progressive is they're all like, no, no, no, no, no.
Speaker 4: You know what, We're sick of being promised stuff that
Speaker 4: never happens. And it is something that is disconnected from
Speaker 4: policy because right now, when a working class voter of
Speaker 4: any race, here's a Democrat say well, you know, listen,
Speaker 4: we don't like that oil and gas industry job that
Speaker 4: pays you thirty eight bucks an hour, so we're going
Speaker 4: to retrain you to be a holistic solar panel installer.
Speaker 4: With their responses, go fuck yourself.
Speaker 1: So here's my question, Well, what you're talking about. There
Speaker 1: are a couple of things you're talking about, but the
Speaker 1: one I want to focus on is economic populism. People
Speaker 1: are mad, right, They're making less money, they have less things,
Speaker 1: are more expensive. They're mad. And that was definitely a
Speaker 1: big driver in this election.
Speaker 3: It was real, it was real, So.
Speaker 1: There was a real sense that people had we're not
Speaker 1: getting what they needed. So explain to us kind of
Speaker 1: what you think should happen there and what is not happening,
Speaker 1: and sort of where this goes.
Speaker 4: I think the Democrats have to take a very hard
Speaker 4: look at the way they're talking to working class voters,
Speaker 4: because when you propose a policy to them, when you
Speaker 4: propose some sort of plan to them, it has less
Speaker 4: emotional impact than when the Republicans say we're going to
Speaker 4: hurt the people that you don't like. Now, I'm not
Speaker 4: saying you have to adopt the philosophy of saying we're
Speaker 4: going to hurt people you don't like to these voters,
Speaker 4: but I do think there is a question of language, intent, style,
Speaker 4: if you will, in all these things. And I think
Speaker 4: it is something that is dangerously pendant for the Democrats.
Speaker 4: They don't have two years to do this. They have
Speaker 4: about seven or eight months to figure this out before
Speaker 4: the twenty twenty sixth election starts.
Speaker 1: How to harness populism?
Speaker 4: Yes, exactly, when voters get in a habit of voting
Speaker 4: a certain way, they keep voting that way as a rule,
Speaker 4: all of the things being equal. Okay, So it took
Speaker 4: something to change those African American men, and it took
Speaker 4: something to change those Hispanic men who meant for the
Speaker 4: Republicans over time, but they're not locked into that voting
Speaker 4: pattern yet. And some of that voting pattern did come
Speaker 4: from the fact that Trump is a celebrity.
Speaker 1: Right, and also that he was not bound by the truth, right.
Speaker 1: I mean, a Ron DeSantis might be an aspiring autocraft. More,
Speaker 1: he may be able to lie with quite the same
Speaker 1: zeal that a Donald Trump will.
Speaker 4: Quite without exaggeration. It is very difficult to find anyone
Speaker 4: in our political history in this era, including Richard Nixon,
Speaker 4: who could lie with the faculty of Trump. I mean,
Speaker 4: he is a man who lies without a single sentilla
Speaker 4: of guilt or regret or caution.
Speaker 1: So part of what happened here was that people were
Speaker 1: sort of addicted to giving him the benefit of the down.
Speaker 4: Per some Molley, that's completely correct. People have always said, oh,
Speaker 4: that's Trump being Trump. They price it in, but.
Speaker 1: They don't do that with anyone else.
Speaker 3: It is unique, isn't it.
Speaker 4: And it partly is because over time, almost a decade,
Speaker 4: they've said things like, well, he's a businessman, he's not
Speaker 4: really a politician.
Speaker 3: We're not going to hold him in the same standard.
Speaker 4: He's a he's an entertainer, not a politician. We're not
Speaker 4: going to hold him the same standard. All those things
Speaker 4: I think really add up to this kind of terrible
Speaker 4: equation we find ourselves in. We are still not out
Speaker 4: of the woods here. Donald Trump is going to start
Speaker 4: proposing things that are you know, when he says I'm
Speaker 4: going to listen to Bobby Kennedy, and Bobby Kennedy says, yeah,
Speaker 4: we're going to stop vaccinating people for polio, that's gonna
Speaker 4: have real impacts.
Speaker 1: So, I mean, what the waere the polio story came from.
Speaker 1: Important to just be clear on this is that he
Speaker 1: one of his lawyers who is in his who is
Speaker 1: helping him through the process. It actually did file complaints
Speaker 1: against the company that makes the polio vaccine, which is
Speaker 1: in some ways more insane and worrying than if RFK
Speaker 1: Junior had just said something like that that was more clear, right,
Speaker 1: because it's like, clearly these guys would actually like to
Speaker 1: end the polio vaccine. Thing that does seem really in
Speaker 1: congruous is like, do you think Donald Trump really does
Speaker 1: like RFK Junior and does because he never I mean
Speaker 1: certainly he came out on vaccines where we thought he
Speaker 1: might because of the base, but this seems like very
Speaker 1: sort of out of his This is not something. This
Speaker 1: is not like tariffs.
Speaker 4: No, this is this is sort of out of band
Speaker 4: even for Trump, and it is it is, But there
Speaker 4: is a part of Trumps as we see over and
Speaker 4: over again, where he finds something and he thinks, Okay,
Speaker 4: the base likes this, My people like this. They expect
Speaker 4: me to do this. And if that happens and he
Speaker 4: gets into that frame, there's a chance he does it.
Speaker 4: And I think that is super disturbing. Yeah, I mean yeah,
Speaker 4: I think that is incredibly risky in this country and
Speaker 4: incredibly dangerous.
Speaker 1: Frankly, do you think Republicans sign off on that because.
Speaker 3: That what if he does? What if he just runs
Speaker 3: an executive order?
Speaker 1: Well, I mean, like a question. Here is Mitch McConnell, right,
Speaker 1: Like Mitch mcconnall did come out against the polio vaccine.
Speaker 4: Literally a guy who survived polio.
Speaker 1: But I mean it's hard for me to imagine that
Speaker 1: Mitch McConnell will go along with that. And you have
Speaker 1: Murkowski and Collins, and then you have like four or
Speaker 1: five senators who are doctors, like Rand Paul Is certainly
Speaker 1: not going to do anything because he's a complete anomaly.
Speaker 1: But there are quite a lot of doctors in the Senate.
Speaker 1: I mean, these people. It's hard for me to imagine
Speaker 1: that these people are like.
Speaker 4: Yes, right, like this is the greatest idea ever.
Speaker 1: Right, Like polio wasn't that bad? Let's go.
Speaker 4: You posted this the other day on your things from
Speaker 4: the Internet, one of your posts that you know there
Speaker 4: are people out there say, well, you know, we haven't
Speaker 4: had any cases of polio in a long time, so
Speaker 4: why don't we get rid of the vaccine. I'm like,
Speaker 4: oh my god, right, they don't get it, don't understand it.
Speaker 4: They don't understand it. Listen, there's a part of me
Speaker 4: that would really love to let this be an option
Speaker 4: for people and to say, Okay, if you don't want
Speaker 4: to get your kids vaccinated for polio, go forth and
Speaker 4: prosper And but by the way, you don't get any
Speaker 4: you're not going to be covered by any kind of
Speaker 4: federal health insurance. Because the only lesson sometimes in the
Speaker 4: world is brought by pain. And while I don't want
Speaker 4: anyone to suffer from polio, this anti vaccination thing that
Speaker 4: has grown in our country, and it weirdly used to
Speaker 4: be this isolated, little sort of Beverly Hills Mom's weird
Speaker 4: progressive bubble, like we're all holistic here, we're gonna, we're gonna,
Speaker 4: you know whatever. But now it is this widely accepted
Speaker 4: on the in the Republican mainstream and the MAGA mainstream,
Speaker 4: if you can use that word there, that vaccines are
Speaker 4: a bad thing, and it is it constantly. It constantly
Speaker 4: amazes me that we're in a world right now where
Speaker 4: there's an argument against vaccinating people for polio. Just so
Speaker 4: my friends on the right understand this, the polio virus
Speaker 4: still exists in the world endemically, it's everywhere. If you
Speaker 4: aren't vaccinated for it, enjoy your time for the rest
Speaker 4: of your life in a sixteen square foot condo called
Speaker 4: an iron lung.
Speaker 1: No, I know, it's really dark. So we have a
Speaker 1: couple of different problems going on. We have that the
Speaker 1: leadership in the House of the Senate. We have the judges,
Speaker 1: which again I don't want to criticize democratic leadership, but
Speaker 1: the I do you can do it, doubt I do.
Speaker 4: Look, here's the thing. Harry Reid one time said that
Speaker 4: Mitch McConnell's better in the minority even than Chuck Schumer
Speaker 4: is in the majority. Okay, there's a reason for that.
Speaker 4: He's not good at this work. This bullshit. We're gonna
Speaker 4: wait and see and figure it out and see if
Speaker 4: we can find the moment to pounce.
Speaker 3: It is unfun.
Speaker 4: It's like saying, well, I know the Germans just rolled
Speaker 4: through Belgium and they're gonna take France, but we might
Speaker 4: as well just sit back and wait.
Speaker 3: You cannot.
Speaker 4: You cannot let these people get ahead of steam. You
Speaker 4: cannot let them build up momentum. Look, Trump is going
Speaker 4: to try to push through in the front end. They're
Speaker 4: going to try a lot of crazy shit. Okay, it's
Speaker 4: going to hurt, it's going to be nuts. It's going
Speaker 4: to be terrible, and people who are not ready for
Speaker 4: it are going to be shocked how fast it moves.
Speaker 4: This idea of we're going to wait for our honorable
Speaker 4: friends on the other side to see reason and light
Speaker 4: and do the right thing. Have you met these people.
Speaker 1: We are in an insane moment in American life. The
Speaker 1: House is really tight. The Senate again, they don't have
Speaker 1: the majority they need to break a filibuster. It strikes
Speaker 1: me that there was a fair amount of warning about
Speaker 1: Trump trying to do these try to do recess appointments
Speaker 1: like they're clearly not going to go along with it.
Speaker 1: I mean, whether or not Trump does it, who knows,
Speaker 1: but sort of Democrats should do right now.
Speaker 4: Well, look, I think I think every one of these nominees,
Speaker 4: and some of them are going to go through. Okay,
Speaker 4: I'm not saying they're not going to. Some of them
Speaker 4: are going to go through. Listen, Marco is going to
Speaker 4: get through, pambody is going to get through. A lot
Speaker 4: of them are going to go through. But the Democrats
Speaker 4: need in every single one of these nomination fights they do,
Speaker 4: make them all into fights. They need to say, here's
Speaker 4: what Project twenty twenty five is going to look like,
Speaker 4: here's what they're going to do. Get them on the record.
Speaker 4: Get these people on the record. Joe when Taught, when
Speaker 4: Homan from you know, on.
Speaker 1: The wann just say whatever. I mean. Holman is not
Speaker 1: even trying to hide it at all.
Speaker 3: Well, but here's the thing.
Speaker 4: I want those people to have those pieces of video
Speaker 4: on the record. I want them to know. You know,
Speaker 4: those things are going to become ads later, those things
Speaker 4: are going to hurt their candidacies later on the Republican side,
Speaker 4: that these people aren't going to get like the my
Speaker 4: honorable friend nod and a wink bullshit And look, you know,
Speaker 4: Marco Rubia, they need to be asking him questions.
Speaker 3: Like this, Marco.
Speaker 4: When Donald Trump says he wants to not do Article
Speaker 4: five with NATO, what is the position of the State
Speaker 4: Department on Article five with NATO? What is your position
Speaker 4: on Ukraine? What will you be doing viz Israel and
Speaker 4: the fight with Hamas that is not related to Trump.
Speaker 4: I think these people are going to have to do
Speaker 4: a lot of things that aren't on the agenda yet,
Speaker 4: and so we want to make sure that they are
Speaker 4: on the record about how they're going to govern, how
Speaker 4: they're going to lead, what they're going to do in
Speaker 4: these departments, because if they're not, it will just be,
Speaker 4: you know, they will have nothing but the whim of
Speaker 4: Trump to guide them.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I think that's right, and it's also I think
Speaker 1: that like there is a real opportunity here for Democrats
Speaker 1: to remind us what we're doing a little bit.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Rick Wilson, thank.
Speaker 3: You, as always, my friend. I'll talk to you soon.
Speaker 1: Congresswoman Mikey Cheryl represents New Jersey's eleventh congressional district and
Speaker 1: is a candidate for governor in the Democratic primary in
Speaker 1: the state of New Jersey. Welcome to Fast Politics, Mikey.
Speaker 5: Thank you so much. I appreciate it. Great to be back.
Speaker 1: Yeah, delighted to have you. You're in Congress. I want
Speaker 1: you first to talk about what it's like right now
Speaker 1: in Congress.
Speaker 5: You know, I think there is this like just general
Speaker 5: need for grit right now in the democratic way to
Speaker 5: just move forward in the best possible way to serve
Speaker 5: the most amount of people while protecting what we can,
Speaker 5: but being really clear eyed about it, because I have
Speaker 5: to tell you the attacks have already started on vulnerable populations,
Speaker 5: and there are going to be areas where the federal
Speaker 5: government legislates in ways that are really harmful people, including kids,
Speaker 5: really harmful to you know, a lot of the work
Speaker 5: we have done to create a more stable economy, to
Speaker 5: create a better pathward for opportunity for the most amount
Speaker 5: of people, to run government more efficiently, which creates equity
Speaker 5: in and of itself. So there's just a lot that
Speaker 5: we're going to see rollbacks on. And when we tell
Speaker 5: people elections have consequences. Boy, are we going to be
Speaker 5: paying the price. So it is incumbent upon Democrats to
Speaker 5: con continue to move forward, to continue to connect with
Speaker 5: constituents and to say, look, this is where we can
Speaker 5: move forward. These are the things we can do. And
Speaker 5: I'm going to continue to look for those bipartisan coalitions
Speaker 5: of people and those areas where we can move forward.
Speaker 5: And there are always those pockets. I am really disappointed.
Speaker 5: I had hoped in this Congress one of those areas
Speaker 5: would be the Kids Online Safety Act, because that was
Speaker 5: really bipartisan in the Senate. And I don't know why
Speaker 5: Mike Johnson and Scalise have decided that they don't want
Speaker 5: to protect kids online. I mean, I am getting NonStop
Speaker 5: complaints from my district. I see it in my own home.
Speaker 5: Parents are just unable to sort of deal with the
Speaker 5: onslaught of the algorithms and the new apps and what
Speaker 5: kids have access to. So even if, for example, I
Speaker 5: took away all of my children's smartphones, they get issued
Speaker 5: computers at their school that they have access to, and
Speaker 5: so there is just an ability of parents to control
Speaker 5: it all. And I think a sense that we're all
Speaker 5: failing because you're you know, we're constantly being told as parents, Oh,
Speaker 5: there's these protocols and protections that if you want to,
Speaker 5: you can sign up for and you can protect your
Speaker 5: children online. Well, it's a full time job because, as
Speaker 5: we all well know, the apps changed quickly. Our kids
Speaker 5: have a much better understanding of technology and can override
Speaker 5: a lot of these protectings. I remember when my daughter
Speaker 5: was eleven, her friend was grounded because her parents kept
Speaker 5: putting safety restrictions on her phone and she kept, you know,
Speaker 5: working around them, and the answer was they hadn't found one.
Speaker 5: I guess she couldn't crack. So the answer what she
Speaker 5: got grounded. But I mean it's really really difficult, and
Speaker 5: you know, we're not seeing movement here. So but I
Speaker 5: still think I can build a broad coalition as we
Speaker 5: go into the next Congress, and I'm still going to
Speaker 5: work on that kind of thing.
Speaker 1: One of the things that happened was you guys passed
Speaker 1: a military funding bill and Mike Johnson put some stuff
Speaker 1: in there at the last minute. Can you talk about that?
Speaker 5: Yeah, So it was really bad.
Speaker 1: It's pretty unusual, too, right, and very unusual.
Speaker 5: Yeah, So we conference the bill, meaning what happens is
Speaker 5: we have hearings all year. As you can imagine, the
Speaker 5: Defense Bill, it's, you know, almost half the nation's budget.
Speaker 5: It's a huge piece of legislation. I sit on the
Speaker 5: House Arms Services Committee, and that's unusual in and of itself,
Speaker 5: because we only pass one bill basically, and it's the
Speaker 5: Defense Act. And so we spend all year hearing about
Speaker 5: what our nation's national defense needs are, what are the concerns,
Speaker 5: Where are we not supporting our soldiers and sailors as
Speaker 5: well as we should be. So we spend all year
Speaker 5: dealing with this. We come together after months of hearings,
Speaker 5: both public hearings, and then we go into it's called
Speaker 5: a skiff, so we can do secret hearings and make
Speaker 5: sure that we're getting all the information we need to
Speaker 5: really push in this in the places that protect our
Speaker 5: national security and take care of our service members. And
Speaker 5: so we then get to the Defense Act and we
Speaker 5: pass this bill. Sometimes it takes you twenty four hour.
Speaker 5: I mean I've been there. I've gotten in there at
Speaker 5: nine in the morning and not gotten out until seven
Speaker 5: am the next morning. I mean, we pull Allas, yeah,
Speaker 5: which I don't think I really believed when I heard
Speaker 5: it and experience it We spend all night just going
Speaker 5: over this bill, and we craft it. We get the
Speaker 5: bill done, it goes onto the floor. People outside the
Speaker 5: committee work to amend it. We try to make sure
Speaker 5: that we're continuing to move forward on a bipartisan bill.
Speaker 5: We work really hard. This bill has passed every year.
Speaker 5: It is so unusual to in these times get a
Speaker 5: piece of legislation that passes every year. So it's really
Speaker 5: important to us that we continue to do that because
Speaker 5: the national security of the nation should never be sort
Speaker 5: of a part is an issue. So we keep working
Speaker 5: to do that. We get the bill done. We then
Speaker 5: conference the bill, meaning we take the Senate's defense bill,
Speaker 5: we take the Houses defense bill, and then we meet
Speaker 5: to conference them so that we can get you know,
Speaker 5: get an agreement on what the final piece of legislation
Speaker 5: will be. All that had been done, there was an agreement,
Speaker 5: it was teed up to be put on the floor,
Speaker 5: and at the eleventh hour, I assume, because you know,
Speaker 5: he got the sort of word and nod from Trump,
Speaker 5: which really I think shows the concerns that many of
Speaker 5: us have with an independent legislature in these times. Gets
Speaker 5: the call from Trump, and Johnson subverts everything and puts
Speaker 5: in this piece of legislation that will block medical treatment
Speaker 5: and therapy for trans children, so families in the military
Speaker 5: can't get access to that, which is just horrible.
Speaker 1: But also Republicans in leadership were furious too.
Speaker 5: Yeah, everybody, I mean, this was this was one person
Speaker 5: Trump talking to, you know, somebody who is I guess
Speaker 5: just his total follower, Johnson, who is a Speaker of
Speaker 5: the House should be an independent voice our government, and
Speaker 5: is not telling him, Yeah, just subvert the whole system
Speaker 5: up in the apple cart.
Speaker 1: And he did.
Speaker 5: And so we got this piece of legislation, and you know,
Speaker 5: we're looking at it and here we have the national
Speaker 5: security at stake. We also and it wasn't just dealing
Speaker 5: with drones, which we're having a huge issue with over
Speaker 5: New Jersey. It wasn't just supporting cybercom to deal with,
Speaker 5: you know, protection of our networks. It wasn't just how
Speaker 5: we are going to deter aggression from China and how
Speaker 5: we are going to be ready to deal with the
Speaker 5: problems throughout the world like Ukraine and the Middle East.
Speaker 5: But also getting a pay raise for sailors who are
Speaker 5: on food stamps, getting contraception prescriptions extended from three months
Speaker 5: to one year. Imagine if you're a service woman and
Speaker 5: you're going non deployments for six months getting you know,
Speaker 5: there were some really innovative things, getting women's eggs frozen.
Speaker 5: Imagine if you're a service you know, and the lifestyle
Speaker 5: end and serving with burn pits and other pathages. I mean,
Speaker 5: amazing stuff. And then this, So it was a really
Speaker 5: I think it's a sign of things to come.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so speaking of bad signs of things to come,
Speaker 1: let's talk about Pete hegg set It's that's not that's it.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about.
Speaker 5: Because yeah, we need to talk. I don't even know
Speaker 5: where to begin. I am so incredibly disappointed that, again,
Speaker 5: which should be an independent branch of government, the Senate,
Speaker 5: seems to be caving to Trump. I mean, there is
Speaker 5: a reason the Constitution has advice and consent, and it
Speaker 5: is for just the moment when an irrational president puts
Speaker 5: forth a nominee like Pete Hegseet for the Secretary of Defense.
Speaker 5: I mean, this is a person that on every single
Speaker 5: level is unqualified for this position. Somebody said to me,
Speaker 5: we were talking about whether or not he would get
Speaker 5: through the Senate, and I said, it just seems like
Speaker 5: he's got that momentum. And they said, well, you know,
Speaker 5: maybe if just you know, another shoe drops, and I said,
Speaker 5: what shoe are you waiting for? He has got credible
Speaker 5: sexual assault claims, has problems with intoxication, he has sexual
Speaker 5: harassment claims. He has been unable to run small veterans
Speaker 5: organizations or has run them into the ground. He has,
Speaker 5: you know, in every single level. If there is any
Speaker 5: qualification you may think of to be the area of defense,
Speaker 5: he has not met it in any way, shape or form.
Speaker 5: And then furthermore, has said women shouldn't be in combat,
Speaker 5: which man I graduated thirty years ago with the first
Speaker 5: class of women to be able to serve on combatant
Speaker 5: ships and aircraft. And I have to tell you it
Speaker 5: has been a game changer for women in service. They
Speaker 5: are no longer second class citizens and because of that,
Speaker 5: they have thrived, They have come to the fore. And
Speaker 5: now we have a woman who is the CNO, and
Speaker 5: who was a CEO of an aircraft carrier, and who's
Speaker 5: the superintendent of the Naval Academy. I mean, women competing
Speaker 5: in our military at the highest possible levels. And all
Speaker 5: that's been put in jeopardy. Imagine thirty years of service
Speaker 5: to the Navy and the growth of this professional navy,
Speaker 5: the best fighting force in the world, and Pete Hegseth
Speaker 5: is going to go in there and try to tear
Speaker 5: down all that we have built. It's shocking. It's shocking
Speaker 5: that this is going to possibly get through the Senate.
Speaker 1: Talk to me about you, what your plans are next? Sure?
Speaker 5: So I am running to be the next governor of
Speaker 5: the great State of New Jersey, which is exciting for
Speaker 5: so many reasons. And the possibilities in our state just
Speaker 5: feel somewhat endless. But the challenges in our state also
Speaker 5: feel somewhat endless. But it's such an exciting thing to
Speaker 5: take on such an exciting role. But it's also a
Speaker 5: unique opportunity because there are only two statewide race is
Speaker 5: twenty twenty five, and that's the governor's race for New
Speaker 5: Jersey and the governor's race for Virginia. So the opportunity
Speaker 5: here when we know that we lost the presidency, we
Speaker 5: don't have a majority in the Senate, we don't have
Speaker 5: a majority in the House. The opportunity for I think
Speaker 5: leadership and vision comes from democratic governors. This sets the
Speaker 5: table for that future, and it just feels like such
Speaker 5: an exciting opportunity, especially given that you know, I'm sitting
Speaker 5: here in Washington today we just voted. Being here is
Speaker 5: really tough, and it's really tough to see the way forward.
Speaker 5: We're just all trying to hold the line until twenty six.
Speaker 5: So to have the ability to run for an office
Speaker 5: where you can actually have a proactive vision and engage
Speaker 5: in that feels great. I have to say, it feels
Speaker 5: really great.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean I have just been to Washington recently,
Speaker 1: and the vibes, I mean, I was meeting with some
Speaker 1: different congress people just too I'm friendly with them. The
Speaker 1: vibes are so fucking bad. I mean, it just feels
Speaker 1: like hard to imagine how this is not going to
Speaker 1: end in tears.
Speaker 5: I think the vibes are bad because we've been through it.
Speaker 5: Many of us have actually been in office when Trump
Speaker 5: was president, and it's tough. And the way I put
Speaker 5: it to people who've not had that experience is he
Speaker 5: does something that you think is the worst attack on
Speaker 5: our democratic system of government, or is the worst case
Speaker 5: of self dealing by any president of the United States,
Speaker 5: or is doing something that is going to harm so
Speaker 5: many people but enrich himself or his family. And he
Speaker 5: does that thing, and you start to get to work, right,
Speaker 5: like you gather the forces, you investigate it, you go
Speaker 5: study the constitutional scholars, you know, you start to think
Speaker 5: of the communications plan and the legislative plan and how
Speaker 5: you are going to address this and bring people together
Speaker 5: so that this never happens again, or you block what's
Speaker 5: going on. And before you get about a quarter of
Speaker 5: the way through this big effort, he's done five other
Speaker 5: things that are equally awful, and so it's just churn.
Speaker 5: So that's why I think people in Washington are so
Speaker 5: grim and resolute, because we understand that now, and we
Speaker 5: are going to have a proactive vision and we're not
Speaker 5: going to get into the mailstorm of whatever this is
Speaker 5: going to be, but rather fight on the legislative floor,
Speaker 5: fight on the floor of the House everything we can.
Speaker 5: And remember in the House we have that really slim majority,
Speaker 5: made even slimmer by Trump pulling three people out of
Speaker 5: the House, and then at the same time coming up
Speaker 5: with our proactive vision, having the democratic governors lead on that.
Speaker 5: In the States, now the laboratories of democracies they were
Speaker 5: envisioned to be figuring out the path forward and then
Speaker 5: you know, really showing that compelling path to the American people.
Speaker 5: In other words, it doesn't have to be this real
Speaker 5: horror show of sexual assaults and sexual harassment and demeaning
Speaker 5: of women, and demeaning of families who want to get
Speaker 5: medical care for their children, and demeaning of the military,
Speaker 5: and I mean, on every level. Doesn't have to be
Speaker 5: that our values are strong in the States, and we
Speaker 5: are going to make sure that we take our case
Speaker 5: to our constituents and not only win in twenty five,
Speaker 5: but then set the table I think compellingly for a
Speaker 5: vision of the future that's going to actually be I
Speaker 5: think what flips the House in twenty six.
Speaker 1: New Jersey is a largely blue state. This election will
Speaker 1: actually take place at the primary level, really, so talk
Speaker 1: to us about what your primary contest is starting to
Speaker 1: shape up today.
Speaker 5: I think what's exciting is there are just a lot
Speaker 5: of people that are looking at this as a really
Speaker 5: key moment in our state's history and the vision of
Speaker 5: going forward. So I am in a six way primary,
Speaker 5: which is something that we don't normally see in your Jersey.
Speaker 5: You know, I think we have different competing visions, and
Speaker 5: it's something as the front runner in the race, it's
Speaker 5: something I actually love to hear the different ideas of
Speaker 5: the different candidates because I think they make my candidacy
Speaker 5: stronger as people push in on different efforts to really say, Okay,
Speaker 5: I need to address that. Oh wow, that's really interesting
Speaker 5: coming from this community or this group of people. I
Speaker 5: need to address that. So I actually think it's going
Speaker 5: to make everyone more thoughtful candidates and going forward kind
Speaker 5: of going through the rigor of a primary, coming out
Speaker 5: of it with again just a really great vision for
Speaker 5: the state and even for many states across the nation
Speaker 5: to follow.
Speaker 1: So you're not going to talk to ash about any
Speaker 1: of your primary challengers.
Speaker 5: Oh, I won't go that far. It's right, that's just
Speaker 5: not a thing in my state, right, Like we're tough competitors.
Speaker 5: Nobody's gonna just you know, there will hash talk, yes,
Speaker 5: that will be coming, but what will be as important
Speaker 5: is really the vision. And that's actually why I think
Speaker 5: my candidacy has been so impactful in the state is
Speaker 5: because the state, I think people myself included, I think
Speaker 5: they want new leadership and a fresh perspective, and what
Speaker 5: speaks to people in these tough times, when they see
Speaker 5: so many people in office who are self dealing and
Speaker 5: acting as if this is all all the things we
Speaker 5: thought about government are fake, and that everybody's just in
Speaker 5: it to make a buck or to secure power for themselves.
Speaker 5: I think it is incumbent upon me to show that
Speaker 5: that is not the case. That the majority of us
Speaker 5: are in public service because we desperately and deeply want
Speaker 5: to serve the public. I want to make the state
Speaker 5: of New Jersey the best possible state in the nation.
Speaker 5: And I want that because I have four kids who
Speaker 5: I want to move back to the state. I was
Speaker 5: just at a by a Harvard professor who tacks about happiness,
Speaker 5: and you know, it's funny because if I'd heard this tack,
Speaker 5: if I had been some young, you know, graduate student
Speaker 5: in my twenties, maybe wouldn't have resonated because I wanted
Speaker 5: to seek adventurancy the world. But he was saying, you know,
Speaker 5: one of the keys to happiness is your family and
Speaker 5: your interactions and having your family around. And at this
Speaker 5: stage in my life, that speaks to me. You know,
Speaker 5: I want all my kids. I have four kids. I
Speaker 5: want them all to move back and live in town
Speaker 5: with me. I realize that's a bit of a pipe dream.
Speaker 5: And when I Old Night Contrarian twelve year old that vision,
Speaker 5: she said she was going to go live in China.
Speaker 5: But nevertheless, still working towards that. But you know, you
Speaker 5: look at New Jersey and costs are too high. The
Speaker 5: thought of my kids actually being able to afford coming
Speaker 5: home seems hard. That's what one of the things that
Speaker 5: drives me is. I want to serve the people of
Speaker 5: New Jersey and at the same time, I want to
Speaker 5: make New Jersey the kind of place our kids can
Speaker 5: live and our kids can have opportunity, and the future
Speaker 5: looks bright. So maybe the end of the day, it
Speaker 5: is a little self serving right my kids to live
Speaker 5: for me.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much, really appreciate you.
Speaker 5: Thank you well, back at you. I love your podcast
Speaker 5: and thanks again.
Speaker 4: No moment fuck Rick Wilson, Molli Jong Fast, what is
Speaker 4: your moment of fuckery? My favorite moment of fuckery this
Speaker 4: week is the unbelievable tension and ugliness between Ron De
Speaker 4: Santis and Donald Trump. There is a reason Pete Hexath
Speaker 4: is still the nominee for Secretary of Defense, and that
Speaker 4: is because Ron de Santis will not make Laura Trump
Speaker 4: US Senator as with Marco Leaving. They want him to
Speaker 4: make Laura Trump. They want this dynastic fantasy to live
Speaker 4: out in first in the form of Laura Trump is
Speaker 4: slow Eric's wife and make her the US Senator from Florida.
Speaker 4: DeSantis doesn't want to do it. If he does it,
Speaker 4: he can't give it to because he's going to run
Speaker 4: for it in two years.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 1: We think he's going to run because I thought he
Speaker 1: was sort of well.
Speaker 4: He's this is what I'm hearing from from that universe.
Speaker 4: He wanted to put either Janet Nunez, his lieutenant governor
Speaker 4: who's loyal to him, or his chief of staff James
Speaker 4: Utmeyer into that job, or Casey into that job. Now
Speaker 4: Trump has been pressuring him. Trump World has been pressuring him.
Speaker 4: Susie Wilds, who hates Ron De Santis, has been using
Speaker 4: this to further diminish him. It is a great piece
Speaker 4: of fuckery inside Trump World, and it speaks to a
Speaker 4: larger question. These people are going to eat themselves in
Speaker 4: a lot of cases.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's a real thing. Is let them
Speaker 1: go and get each other fight. Rick Wilson, thank you,
Speaker 1: Thank you.
Speaker 3: Anytime I've talked to you. Soon. Bye bye.
Speaker 1: That's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in
Speaker 1: every Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Saturday to hear the best
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