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Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to Fast Politics. I'm Molly Jongfest, and

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Speaker 1: we have such a great show for you today. Later

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Speaker 1: in the show, we'll talk to author Thomas Frank about

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Speaker 1: his new book, The Creativity Con, how innovation became America's

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Speaker 1: biggest racket. But first, we have The Lincoln Project's own

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Speaker 1: Rick Wilson on Trump's.

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Speaker 2: Very, very bad week.

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Speaker 1: Donald Trump has a very bad week. I'm going to

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Speaker 1: give you the highlights. Monday, Kimberly Guilfoyle asked to resign.

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Speaker 1: It turns out you can't hide your son's ex-fiance forever. Thursday,

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Speaker 1: Donald Trump cancels live execution. Sorry, Whiskey Pete. Friday, Donald

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Speaker 1: Trump fires press secretary, who you may remember from taking

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Speaker 1: three questions on Monday.

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Speaker 3: She was impressive. What an impressive young lady. Just really remarkable.

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Speaker 1: Let me read this to you right now. And all

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Speaker 1: the while, we have this incredible story with the money

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Speaker 1: for the Kennedy Center that Rick Grinnell may or may

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Speaker 1: not have gotten from the Democratic Republic of Congo, because

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Speaker 1: that's not at all sketchy.

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Speaker 3: Why would you think anything from the Democratic Republic of

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Speaker 3: Congo could be looked upon askance, as they say?

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Speaker 1: Turkish billionaire, Vaya, who's married to Trump's Alina Haba.

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Speaker 3: Right, who is 27 years old or something like that.

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Speaker 3: And look. Everything with Trump this week has been a

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Speaker 3: downward spiral and nothing has gone right for him at all.

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Speaker 3: He got blowback off switching off Starlink to Ukraine. He

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Speaker 3: got blowback on everything.

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Speaker 1: We don't know whose fault that was, right? That's the

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Speaker 1: reporting from Telegraph. Either Elon asked Trump or Trump asked

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Speaker 1: Elon or they both cooked it up together.

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Speaker 3: Yeah. I mean, look, Trump didn't come up with that

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Speaker 3: move on his own. There's no way Trump even knew

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Speaker 3: about it. So Elon, I'm sure went to him. I'm

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Speaker 3: guessing Elon went to him and said, herpty derp. Here's

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Speaker 3: how you do it. Here's going to take care of

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Speaker 3: the Ukrainians. Shut this switch off.

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Speaker 1: You want to make Putin happy. Yeah.

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Speaker 3: He called whiskey Pete, whiskey Pete said, sure boss. And,

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Speaker 3: and switched it off. So, but look, I mean, to

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Speaker 3: my mind, the weirdest symbol of the whole week was

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Speaker 3: him walking past the beast, not knowing where he was

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Speaker 3: just rolling on past the car, walking out into an

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Speaker 3: empty field all by himself. I'm like, I'm like, is

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Speaker 3: he going to go out there and put his arms

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Speaker 3: out as the UFO comes down to swoop him up finally?

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Speaker 3: I mean, it was just like, it's a bad week.

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Speaker 1: His people sort of directed him to turn around. If

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Speaker 1: this had happened to Joe Biden.

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Speaker 3: Fox News 24 hour a day. Is the president mentally competent? Yeah.

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Speaker 1: But because it happened to Donald Trump.

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Speaker 3: Right. It's like, oh, it's a Wednesday or a Thursday

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Speaker 3: or whatever. Yeah. No, look. I really think we are,

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Speaker 3: we are watching, you know, yesterday I was talking to

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Speaker 3: George Conway and he's like, he's like, my prediction is

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Speaker 3: he's going to make it through the next two years.

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Speaker 3: And I said, I don't know what condition he's going

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Speaker 3: to make it through in. This is a guy who

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Speaker 3: looks like he's really, I mean, when he got to

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Speaker 3: Mar-a-Lago on, I guess it was Friday night. And there

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Speaker 3: was that photograph of him at Mar-a-Lago with the, you know,

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Speaker 3: the half of his face slouching again. He looked like

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Speaker 3: he was on death's door knocking aggressively. This guy is

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Speaker 3: not in a good place.

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Speaker 1: I mean, it's a very hard job. He's 80 years old.

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Speaker 1: What I want to talk about is how disinhibited he is.

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Speaker 1: The disinhibition.

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Speaker 3: And that's our code word for Donald Trump speaking fluid

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Speaker 3: gay all week.

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Speaker 1: You said it, I didn't.

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Speaker 3: I looked at him. He was a big, strong, handsome man.

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Speaker 3: I found myself aroused in ways I did not want

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Speaker 3: to admit to myself or others.

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Speaker 1: The New York Times had a whole piece about him.

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Speaker 2: And it just.

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Speaker 1: Sort of rehashed all these quotes that he had said

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Speaker 1: about these men like John Husted. People are not particularly

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Speaker 1: gorgeous looking. They're attractive. They're fine. And he's talking about

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Speaker 1: his butt. You know, he's talking about his jawline. He

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Speaker 1: says he's at his central casting. I mean, it does

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Speaker 1: feel like he's not able to not do things anymore.

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Speaker 3: No, he cannot stop his mouth from saying whatever in

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Speaker 3: his brain. He comes right out and lets it rip.

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Speaker 3: And look, one of the things I found most fascinating

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Speaker 3: about this is this is one of those weird things

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Speaker 3: that MAGA finds very off-putting. They find it very concerning because...

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Speaker 3: One of the things they thought that Trump coded for

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Speaker 3: was robust, strict masculinity.

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Speaker 1: Yeah.

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Speaker 3: Now, I've always thought that was ironic because he wears

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Speaker 3: makeup and heels and blah, blah, blah.

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Speaker 2: Right.

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Speaker 3: But now they're looking around at the ex. It's like, oh, no,

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Speaker 3: he didn't really mean that. He was joking. It was

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Speaker 3: completely just a joke one time that he told four

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Speaker 3: times during the week over and over again about different men.

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Speaker 3: It just it just. To my mind, it's more interesting

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Speaker 3: about what it reflects about MAGA masculinity or lack thereof

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Speaker 3: or concern about than about Trump himself, because he is

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Speaker 3: clearly a man in physical and mental decline, and it's

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Speaker 3: just going to come out of his mouth like crazy

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Speaker 3: in the next couple of months.

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Speaker 1: And I want to add, we have this Russia sanctions

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Speaker 1: situation where Donald Trump has basically just been like, does

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Speaker 1: Putin want something? Because I would like to give it

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Speaker 1: to him.

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Speaker 3: Correct. He has... fully put the United States on the

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Speaker 3: side of a murderous dictator, a communist for our MAGA listeners,

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Speaker 3: a murderous dictator who is providing weapons and targeting for

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Speaker 3: Iran to kill American soldiers as we speak. In any

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Speaker 3: other universe, people will be screaming that this is treason.

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Speaker 3: I cannot see a world in which it could not

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Speaker 3: be considered such. And Trump himself is increasingly, obviously, openly

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Speaker 3: going to give Vladimir Putin any and everything he wants.

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Speaker 3: I think, Molly, we're in a very dangerous spot with

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Speaker 3: the country at the moment because of Trump's desire to

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Speaker 3: do this. And Europe is responding, I think correctly, by

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Speaker 3: the way, Europe is responding by arming Ukraine aggressively and

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Speaker 3: by arming themselves. They're getting ready for war. Oh, yeah.

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Speaker 3: And I mean, we'll be on the wrong side this time.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, we're definitely going to be on the wrong side

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Speaker 1: of things. I mean, we are the baddies, which is yeah,

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Speaker 1: which is just as such an insane moment. It's also

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Speaker 1: because like Lindsey Graham, who was Donald Trump's golf buddy

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Speaker 1: and whose sister is running as one of the most,

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Speaker 1: I would say, out of her depth Senate candidates ever.

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Speaker 3: Yes, to say Darlene Graham is not ready for this

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Speaker 3: job is like saying that I'm not ready to step in,

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Speaker 3: walk out of this room and be a neurosurgeon 10

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Speaker 3: minutes from now. I may know where the brain is,

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Speaker 3: but that's about the limit of it. And she does

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Speaker 3: not know what she's doing. And the fact that the

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Speaker 3: NRSC is now going to put 10 million bucks into

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Speaker 3: South Carolina out of desperation. Yeah. Wow. Wow.

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Speaker 2: Wow.

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Speaker 1: But there's other stuff on the map, too.

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Speaker 2: Oh, sure. Oh, sure.

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Speaker 1: But let's talk about— I want to talk about how angry

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Speaker 1: voters are. I don't know if you saw, there are

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Speaker 1: people in the South, because they got rid of souls

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Speaker 1: to the polls, we see people in the South on

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Speaker 1: Saturday from HBCUs and other places like that marching to

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Speaker 1: the polls, marching miles to the polls.

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Speaker 3: That— That March really affected me for some reason. I

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Speaker 3: got very emotional watching that because I thought these kids

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Speaker 3: who wanted to be part of American civic life, the

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Speaker 3: Republican County board moved the polling place that was on

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Speaker 3: their campus over a mile and a half away. Yeah.

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Speaker 3: And so they got up on a Saturday morning and

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Speaker 3: I think it was like 1100 or 1300 of them

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Speaker 3: marched that mile and a half and they all went

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Speaker 3: to vote. Yeah. And it gave me this moment of like,

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Speaker 3: You know, sometimes I'm very like, America's not working hard

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Speaker 3: enough for this. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Right.

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Speaker 3: Yeah. I think sometimes we don't work hard enough to

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Speaker 3: be liberated from this moment we're in. Yeah. And yet

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Speaker 3: those kids at HBCU got up at the crack of

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Speaker 3: dawn and they marched a mile and a half and

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Speaker 3: they exercised their civic right and duty.

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Speaker 1: Yeah.

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Speaker 3: And I don't want to hear a fucking word from

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Speaker 3: anybody who's like, I'm too busy to go vote this year.

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Speaker 1: Yeah.

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Speaker 3: And by the way, Republicans are pushing this message to

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Speaker 3: Democrats now. It's like, oh, they're all crooked. Don't vote

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Speaker 3: for anybody. They're all crooks.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, baby.

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Speaker 3: This is a moment where acts like that of those

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Speaker 3: students are so important. And I will say there's another

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Speaker 3: moment this weekend where Abdul El-Sayed was confronted by a

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Speaker 3: troll group. who was there to try to be a tracker.

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Speaker 1: Who worked for Josh Hawley.

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Speaker 3: Right, who worked for Josh Hawley and then for Bobby, whatever.

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Speaker 3: But this kid went in there and tried to do the, well,

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Speaker 3: you're a Muslim, therefore you're a terrorist, jihadist.

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Speaker 1: Right.

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Speaker 3: And Abdul Al-Sayed gave one of the most elegant defenses

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Speaker 3: of the American Constitution that I've ever heard. And if

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Speaker 3: this had come out of the mouth of Ted Cruz,

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Speaker 3: every Republican would be saying, he's so presidential.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, well.

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Speaker 1: But I do, I want to talk to you about

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Speaker 1: there were heroic efforts. Those kids should not have to

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Speaker 1: fight for their votes.

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Speaker 3: That is correct.

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Speaker 1: That's not what democracy is supposed to be in the

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Speaker 1: year 2036.

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Speaker 3: Not at all.

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Speaker 1: That is correct. we should not have to fight for

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Speaker 1: our internet rights TikTok shut down Alex Gibney's TikTok account.

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Speaker 1: He is the one who made the film about Musk. Meta,

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Speaker 1: everyone's favorite, responsible for the Rohingya genocide, they shut down

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Speaker 1: the No Kings rally. When asked about it, they said

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Speaker 1: it was because the No Kings rally was posting, but

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Speaker 1: not as much as InStyle magazine, which did not get

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Speaker 1: shut down.

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Speaker 3: Oh, listen, I see these high-frequency MAGA accounts on threads

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Speaker 3: and Twitter all the time. that post three or four

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Speaker 3: hundred times a day and they don't get shut down.

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Speaker 3: And yet No Kings puts out eight tweets in an

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Speaker 3: hour or eight threads in an hour and they get

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Speaker 3: shut down. I'm sorry. I'm calling bullshit. Right. On Mark

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Speaker 3: Zuckerberg here and Masseri. These guys clearly did not, even

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Speaker 3: if it was an automatic system, the fact that they didn't,

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Speaker 3: it took them until 3.07 in the afternoon to respond

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Speaker 3: publicly about it was bullshit. Do better, guys. Because eventually,

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Speaker 3: I just want to say to Mark Zuckerberg, motherfucker, January

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Speaker 3: is coming like a bullet train. It is coming fast.

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Speaker 3: It is coming hard. Do not think your weird reptilian

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Speaker 3: shit is going to avoid being in that fucking chair again.

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Speaker 3: And I know how much you love testifying to Congress.

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Speaker 1: It is a really interesting question. We have tech oligarchs

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Speaker 1: have decided that Democrats are never going to have power

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Speaker 1: again and that there will be no accountability or that

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Speaker 1: when they get in power, they will be able to

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Speaker 1: influence the the levers in such a way that they

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Speaker 1: will never face accountability.

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Speaker 3: That's right.

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Speaker 1: Why do they think that?

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Speaker 3: Because in the past, the Democrats have been viable because

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Speaker 3: Chuck Schumer's daughter used to be one of the lead

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Speaker 3: people for government affairs at Meta.

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Speaker 2: Still is.

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Speaker 3: They have a lot of confidence in the amount of

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Speaker 3: money they're spending. Look, leading the future, the big Democratic

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Speaker 3: super PAC that's pushing for data centers, they have a

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Speaker 3: Republican arm run by an ex-Republican and a Democratic arm

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Speaker 3: run by an ex-Democrat. Well, they're still Republican Democrats. They're

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Speaker 3: handing out money in a pretty equal opportunity basis to

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Speaker 3: safe incumbents. They're giving money to Republicans in contested races.

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Speaker 3: But if you're a safe Democratic incumbent, you're getting money

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Speaker 3: from folks that are in that tech super PAC world.

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Speaker 3: And my message to Democrats is to just be very

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Speaker 3: clear about what you're doing here. Take the money. And

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Speaker 3: then if I may quote a former I don't know

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Speaker 3: if I can quote this person on the record.

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Speaker 2: Go for it.

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Speaker 3: I asked a Republican member of the Senate one time, like,

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Speaker 3: how do you treat this money stuff when people... He goes,

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Speaker 3: I think of myself as the pimp and not the John.

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Speaker 3: I'm the guy demanding the money. I'm not the guy who, like,

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Speaker 3: hands it over. So, you know, they need to not

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Speaker 3: let the Democrats... or Democratic-coded people going to them and saying, hey,

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Speaker 3: you know, tech's pretty good. These guys, they were just misunderstood.

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Speaker 3: They had to work with Donald on this. They had to.

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Speaker 3: Without giving him money, you know, bullshit, whatever. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: I mean, they're going to have to just do... They're

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Speaker 1: going to have.

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Speaker 3: To eat a giant shit sandwich every day for a

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Speaker 3: long time, in my view.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: And the reality is anything that Democrats did in 2020

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Speaker 1: was a mistake.

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Speaker 3: Right.

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Speaker 1: Because they didn't push hard enough. They didn't shore up guardrails.

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Speaker 1: They didn't do the stuff that needed to happen, and

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Speaker 1: that's how we got back here.

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Speaker 3: And look, there will be a great temptation on the

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Speaker 3: part of Mark Zuckerberg and the Ellisons at TikTok and

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Speaker 3: the folks at Google come election day this year when

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Speaker 3: they get a call from somebody angry at the White

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Speaker 3: House saying, hey, you better not put out X or

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Speaker 3: Y information, or you better put out X or Y information.

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Speaker 3: They should think really hard about whether they want to

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Speaker 3: put their thumb on the scale because it could get

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Speaker 3: cut off pretty badly if they get caught.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. And I think, like, what is a really good

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Speaker 1: example here is that we have Elon Musk, remember, did

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Speaker 1: this thing where he messed with Sky... We were talking

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Speaker 1: about it earlier.

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Speaker 3: We messed with Starlink.

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Speaker 1: Now we see Canada, no more Starlink.

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Speaker 3: Yep.

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Speaker 1: We see... And we're going to, I think we'll see

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Speaker 1: that everywhere now, is that you can't, if a company

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Speaker 1: is run by a madman, you're not going to be

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Speaker 1: able to address the product.

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Speaker 3: And here's the thing. Elon Musk's money right now comes

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Speaker 3: from Starlink. Yeah. Tesla is not profitable in particular. SpaceX

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Speaker 3: is not profitable. Well, it's closer to profitable than not,

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Speaker 3: but they're spending a lot on the research. But Starlink

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Speaker 3: is a money printing machine for Elon Musk. And if

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Speaker 3: people around the world say, I can't trust this because Dr.

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Speaker 3: Evil over here is going to switch it off the

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Speaker 3: minute he decides he doesn't like me, he's going to

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Speaker 3: open up a great market opportunity for somebody else.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I just want to get back to Elon for

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Speaker 1: one more second. So we have Elon turning off the

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Speaker 1: internet for the Ukrainians. We also have Elon bankrolling Ken

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Speaker 1: Paxton because on Friday we learned that the single largest

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Speaker 1: donor to the midterms is Elon. He just doesn't want

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Speaker 1: people to know.

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Speaker 3: Right. You know, I wrote a piece about this on Friday.

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Speaker 3: It was like, Elon keeps his mouth shut this time.

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Speaker 1: Because he knows how uncomfortable he is.

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Speaker 3: I mean, remember, in 2024, it was like Elon was

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Speaker 3: in the club throwing out ones at the strippers, right?

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Speaker 2: Right.

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Speaker 3: He was loud and proud about his money. This time,

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Speaker 3: he's keeping his mouth shut.

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Speaker 1: Yeah.

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Speaker 3: Now, I also, it does tell you that he's spent

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Speaker 3: $ 158 million, I believe it was, on that one transfer

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Speaker 3: for Paxton.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 3: The ROI on this money is garbage. Paxton's still going

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Speaker 3: down in the polls, folks.

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Speaker 1: Why do you think that is?

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Speaker 3: He's a corrupt- Well, I.

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Speaker 1: Mean, obviously, but corrupt people have won elections before.

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Speaker 3: Look, I think Paxton was a bridge too far in Texas.

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Speaker 3: It's so obvious how bad he is. He's a charisma-free candidate.

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Speaker 3: And I'll tell you the other reason, and this is

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Speaker 3: happening in a couple of other places too, and I'm

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Speaker 3: not quite there yet, but if South Carolina may be

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Speaker 3: the same thing, Republican candidates who grow up in really

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Speaker 3: red states politically, it's easy for them. Everything's easy. All

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Speaker 3: you got to do is win the primary and off

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Speaker 3: you go. Roger Marshall. Roger Marshall. Perfect example. These people

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Speaker 3: are not tough. They're not political athletes anymore. They're like, oh, well,

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Speaker 3: you know, everything's going to be fine. Once I'm done

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Speaker 3: with the primary- whatever dust off I do with that,

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Speaker 3: everything will be great in the general. And now the

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Speaker 3: world is not looking the way it looked for them

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Speaker 3: a while ago. They're looking at these general elections now like, oh, shit,

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Speaker 3: I got to really run a campaign. They're not happy

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Speaker 3: about it.

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Speaker 1: Rick Wilson.

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Speaker 3: Molly Jungfast. Can I come back?

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Speaker 4: Maybe.

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Speaker 3: Maybe.

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Speaker 1: All right.

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Speaker 3: Molly, it's time for the headlines.

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Speaker 4: I want to first say people may not have seen

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Speaker 4: it because I– actually buy that the algorithms did suppress it,

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Speaker 4: that the No Kings rally was a massive, massive success.

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Speaker 4: It just seems you didn't really see much of it

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Speaker 4: online like we usually do. But apparently, according to reputable

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Speaker 4: outlets like The New York Times, it's possibly the great

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Speaker 4: biggest get out the vote effort of all time.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, it's bad that you're not seeing it. It's bad

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Speaker 1: that the algorithm is suppressing it. It's bad that we

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Speaker 1: don't have transparency. The government can mandate that tech companies

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Speaker 1: are unable to put their fingers on the scale. The

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Speaker 1: government can make sure that they can see the algorithms,

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Speaker 1: that they can regulate. I mean, when you regulate technology,

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Speaker 1: it means you will have greater accountability for tech companies,

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Speaker 1: which is something they have legitimately never had. So we

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Speaker 1: got here by not regulating tech. The good news is this,

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Speaker 1: these events are about voting. And so if they are huge,

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Speaker 1: you may not see them in the algorithm, but you will,

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Speaker 1: in fact, see them at the ballot box.

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Speaker 4: Yeah. And it's really alarming when this week we have

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Speaker 4: Alex Gibney's account being just taken off my TikTok.

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Speaker 1: Yeah.

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Speaker 4: And, you know, we have to remember, like a lot

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Speaker 4: of people are, we're not watching the rush. A lot

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Speaker 4: of people are not watching the Brazilian elections, but Lula

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Speaker 4: was unable to run ads for his campaign in the

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Speaker 4: last weeks of the election, and he came up a

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Speaker 4: little short.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, the company liable for the Rohingya genocide, that company, Meta,

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Speaker 1: is filled with bad faith actors you'll be shocked to know.

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Speaker 4: Okay, so, Molly, we usually focus on national politics here,

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Speaker 4: but it seems the world stage is our stage today,

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Speaker 4: and the Trump team... is try to defend Donald Trump's

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Speaker 4: incomprehensible move on Russian energy.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. So, look, we know it's really good. You know,

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Speaker 1: they're lying when they have 15 different answers for things like.

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Speaker 1: I mean, they're usually lying, but when they're so out

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Speaker 1: of lockstep, when one person is saying one thing and

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Speaker 1: another person is saying another thing, that's when you know

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Speaker 1: they've really gotten into trouble. And I think what's interesting

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Speaker 1: is we have another example here of Marco. He's sort

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Speaker 1: of saying the thing that's closest to the truth. Now,

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Speaker 1: or at least the thing that he thinks will do

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Speaker 1: the best for him in the long run, which sometimes

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Speaker 1: is closest to the truth. Part of the reason for

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Speaker 1: this is because Marco would like to have a future

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Speaker 1: after MAGA. and he's smart enough to know that he's

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Speaker 1: gonna have to do some real shape-shifting to get there.

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Speaker 1: But Chris Wright went on State of the Union with

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Speaker 1: Dana Bash and said, Dana Bash, and said that, I mean,

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Speaker 1: it's just, he made up a story uh he said

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Speaker 1: it's a carrot to try and end the war not

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Speaker 1: an economic lifeline for russia it is in fact an

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Speaker 1: economic lifeline for russia uh marco said that diesel was

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Speaker 1: going to be sold one way or another.

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Speaker 4: I mean.

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Speaker 1: Maybe that's not really like how sanctions work uh And

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Speaker 1: there's all different answers here. But Chris Wright was on

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Speaker 1: the Sunday shows looking pretty panicked. I watched those. And,

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Speaker 1: you know, these guys have painted themselves into a million

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Speaker 1: different corners. And this is another one. We do have

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Speaker 1: to ask ourselves, why is Donald Trump such a fan

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Speaker 1: of Russia? And why does Donald Trump tend to do whatever?

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Speaker 1: It certainly seems like he wants to please Vladimir Putin.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, it's almost like he saw what he did in

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Speaker 4: Russia and really liked to make a model after it.

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Speaker 3: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: I mean, it's almost as if it seems like Vladimir

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Speaker 1: Putin has something on him, but that certainly wouldn't be it.

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Speaker 2: No, that's it.

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Speaker 4: That's definitely it. So one of the things I personally

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Speaker 4: have been a little ticked off about this week is

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Speaker 4: when Trump came after people who I really, really can't stand,

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Speaker 4: like John Bolton still said it was wrong. But the

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Speaker 4: silence around Ilhan Omar has been pretty deafening after Trump

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Speaker 4: is going after her. Obama defended her this week. But

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Speaker 4: we're really seeing that the DHS is building a crazy

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Speaker 4: RICO case against her after seizing her phone this week.

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Speaker 3: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: So again, this is a really, really, really stupid case.

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Speaker 1: And she came to this country when she was 17

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Speaker 1: years old or 18 years old. And basically they're trying

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Speaker 1: to make a case that she was older than she

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Speaker 1: said she was. You guys, like, this is not going to,

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Speaker 1: this is never going to work for you. I mean,

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Speaker 1: like the good news, this is one of these things

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Speaker 1: where it's like, They're evil, but they're also morons. And

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Speaker 1: so like this is just they're going to go after

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Speaker 1: the father who's dead, who died like about six years ago.

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Speaker 1: I mean, it's just so stupid. And again, like this

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Speaker 1: is this whole Putin-esque thing of trying to go after

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Speaker 1: the regime's enemies and lie about them. But what they

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Speaker 1: don't understand or they I think they do understand, but

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Speaker 1: they they keep trying to to influence is that we

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Speaker 1: actually have a pretty legitimate court system here. And so

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Speaker 1: nobody's going to lock up Ilhan Omar just because Donald

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Speaker 1: Trump doesn't like her because she's Muslim or because.

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Speaker 1: She is an ethnic group that Donald Trump doesn't like

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Speaker 1: and wants out of the country. Like it's not happening, man.

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Speaker 1: So like stop trying to make Ilhan Omar going to

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Speaker 1: jail happen because it's not happening. And and this is stupid.

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Speaker 1: It's a waste of resources that could go towards anything else.

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Speaker 1: But it's also not going to work. And it's also

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Speaker 1: like the American people don't. Like, thankfully, the American people

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Speaker 1: hate this stuff. And, you know, it's just but it

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00:23:15,920 --> 00:23:19,760
Speaker 1: is so stupid. And also one of the great moments

440
00:23:19,840 --> 00:23:21,920
Speaker 1: is that the people doing this are really stupid, like

441
00:23:21,960 --> 00:23:26,000
Speaker 1: Mark Wayne Mullen. So on Friday, he actually said that

442
00:23:26,040 --> 00:23:30,060
Speaker 1: there he went on Real America's Voice, which is like this,

443
00:23:31,060 --> 00:23:34,100
Speaker 1: which is like the, you know. I was going to

444
00:23:34,160 --> 00:23:36,940
Speaker 1: say 60 minutes, but 60 minutes is not 60 minutes anymore.

445
00:23:36,960 --> 00:23:40,280
Speaker 1: But it's like the, you know, the sort of gold

446
00:23:40,340 --> 00:23:45,010
Speaker 1: standard of MAGA stupidity. And he said that actually they're

447
00:23:45,030 --> 00:23:48,950
Speaker 1: just doing a RICO case and, you know, blah, blah, blah.

448
00:23:49,369 --> 00:23:49,550
Speaker 3: Yeah.

449
00:23:50,210 --> 00:23:53,290
Speaker 4: So Iran says that they have a new operational plan

450
00:23:53,450 --> 00:23:57,709
Speaker 4: if the U.S. resumes attacks. Donald Trump thinks, keeps openly

451
00:23:57,770 --> 00:24:00,660
Speaker 4: fantasizing that he's going to bring them to their knees

452
00:24:00,700 --> 00:24:03,000
Speaker 4: with some new attacks or whatever and cripple them and

453
00:24:03,730 --> 00:24:06,410
Speaker 4: Seems like the Iranians have been playing chess a little

454
00:24:06,450 --> 00:24:09,030
Speaker 4: bit better than him. And J.D. Vance is doing a

455
00:24:09,050 --> 00:24:10,359
Speaker 4: terrible job of defending it.

456
00:24:11,030 --> 00:24:15,820
Speaker 1: Yeah. J.D. Vance did a he did like a town

457
00:24:15,900 --> 00:24:20,620
Speaker 1: hall yesterday on CBS, which is a very wise own

458
00:24:20,680 --> 00:24:25,310
Speaker 1: network or very wise run run ran network. I actually

459
00:24:25,350 --> 00:24:28,490
Speaker 1: thought Tony DeCoppel did a really pretty good job pushing

460
00:24:28,550 --> 00:24:33,950
Speaker 1: back and You know, that's hard when you know that

461
00:24:34,060 --> 00:24:36,340
Speaker 1: your boss is a big donor. You know, I mean,

462
00:24:36,380 --> 00:24:38,760
Speaker 1: like he did. I thought he did. I don't know

463
00:24:38,800 --> 00:24:40,080
Speaker 1: if you watch it, but he was pretty.

464
00:24:40,100 --> 00:24:41,399
Speaker 3: I watched clips. Yeah.

465
00:24:41,560 --> 00:24:44,760
Speaker 1: I thought he kept coming back at like. But at

466
00:24:44,920 --> 00:24:48,139
Speaker 1: one point, J.D. Vance was confronted by the husband of

467
00:24:48,200 --> 00:24:51,420
Speaker 1: a soldier who had been killed. And he and J.D.

468
00:24:51,460 --> 00:24:53,870
Speaker 1: Vance died. really was said, well, you know, I just

469
00:24:53,910 --> 00:24:55,570
Speaker 1: don't know what happened.

470
00:24:55,830 --> 00:24:58,410
Speaker 4: He said he didn't know there was casualties in the war.

471
00:24:58,850 --> 00:25:02,389
Speaker 1: Did he? Or he said he didn't know the details.

472
00:25:02,410 --> 00:25:05,750
Speaker 4: Yeah, like fuzziness of that, like basically pleaded ignorance like

473
00:25:05,790 --> 00:25:06,630
Speaker 4: they do all the time.

474
00:25:07,130 --> 00:25:07,390
Speaker 3: Right.

475
00:25:07,710 --> 00:25:10,480
Speaker 1: But it was not a good moment for J.D. Vance.

476
00:25:12,420 --> 00:25:14,320
Speaker 4: Among a politician who has many bad moments.

477
00:25:14,700 --> 00:25:19,399
Speaker 1: Right. You can't spin, you know, your wife's death and

478
00:25:19,859 --> 00:25:22,879
Speaker 1: It was it really showed how hard it's going to

479
00:25:22,900 --> 00:25:26,880
Speaker 1: be for for these guys to defend what they did

480
00:25:27,180 --> 00:25:33,790
Speaker 1: and what's happened. And it was it was really see struggle.

481
00:25:33,710 --> 00:25:34,469
Speaker 3: To back you up.

482
00:25:34,510 --> 00:25:36,250
Speaker 4: I mean, that was the funniest thing is like, you know,

483
00:25:36,270 --> 00:25:38,460
Speaker 4: they came to him about Abdul's criticisms.

484
00:25:39,100 --> 00:25:39,720
Speaker 3: Of the war.

485
00:25:40,359 --> 00:25:42,660
Speaker 4: And he's like, well, what are we supposed to do

486
00:25:42,760 --> 00:25:43,699
Speaker 4: seven months in now?

487
00:25:43,740 --> 00:25:45,940
Speaker 3: Does he have a plan to get us out of this?

488
00:25:46,280 --> 00:25:49,680
Speaker 4: It's like, you know, seven months ago, this isn't 20

489
00:25:49,680 --> 00:25:50,180
Speaker 4: years ago.

490
00:25:50,640 --> 00:25:50,880
Speaker 3: Yeah.

491
00:25:51,000 --> 00:25:53,629
Speaker 1: It's interesting too, because I went to an event at

492
00:25:53,690 --> 00:25:57,590
Speaker 1: the politics Institute in Chicago this week. And, and I

493
00:25:57,650 --> 00:26:02,870
Speaker 1: heard John Kirby interview a friend of this podcast, Jason Crow,

494
00:26:03,490 --> 00:26:08,320
Speaker 1: probably a Congressman to watch who, uh, And he and

495
00:26:08,440 --> 00:26:12,670
Speaker 1: he talked about and he's, you know, he's very involved

496
00:26:12,770 --> 00:26:17,810
Speaker 1: in in in military planning, et cetera, and has served in.

497
00:26:18,270 --> 00:26:22,420
Speaker 1: And he talked about how he thought that the best

498
00:26:22,460 --> 00:26:25,040
Speaker 1: move was just to get out now and just get

499
00:26:25,220 --> 00:26:28,540
Speaker 1: out of the war. And there was some pushback from

500
00:26:30,260 --> 00:26:35,180
Speaker 1: from Kirby and. I wonder, like, clearly the smart money

501
00:26:35,260 --> 00:26:37,460
Speaker 1: is just getting out of this thing and making a

502
00:26:37,500 --> 00:26:41,780
Speaker 1: deal with the Iranians. But the sort of the like,

503
00:26:42,380 --> 00:26:45,600
Speaker 1: I wonder if like the blob, the national security blob

504
00:26:45,619 --> 00:26:46,700
Speaker 1: is going to let us get.

505
00:26:46,640 --> 00:26:47,399
Speaker 2: Out of it now.

506
00:26:48,320 --> 00:26:49,000
Speaker 3: It's something.

507
00:26:49,600 --> 00:26:52,160
Speaker 4: So, Molly, we have another one of our headlines where

508
00:26:52,340 --> 00:26:54,139
Speaker 4: we knew something like this would happen. Now we just

509
00:26:54,160 --> 00:26:57,000
Speaker 4: have the proof. NPR is reporting that eighty six million

510
00:26:57,020 --> 00:26:59,830
Speaker 4: dollars in teen pregnancy prevention funds have been diverted to

511
00:26:59,850 --> 00:27:04,290
Speaker 4: a Trump linked contractor. This is headline is feeling very Bush.

512
00:27:04,830 --> 00:27:07,410
Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, I don't know that it's feeling I mean,

513
00:27:07,470 --> 00:27:09,129
Speaker 1: it's just this is a kleptocracy.

514
00:27:09,230 --> 00:27:09,470
Speaker 3: Right.

515
00:27:09,510 --> 00:27:11,830
Speaker 1: Like and we're just going to hear a story after,

516
00:27:11,930 --> 00:27:14,760
Speaker 1: you know, money that was supposed to go to preventing

517
00:27:14,800 --> 00:27:18,780
Speaker 1: teen pregnancy went to a Trump contractor, the Trump contractor.

518
00:27:19,560 --> 00:27:22,750
Speaker 1: Did whatever with it. Who knows? I mean, like this

519
00:27:22,830 --> 00:27:25,609
Speaker 1: is we're just going to see more and more stuff

520
00:27:25,650 --> 00:27:29,010
Speaker 1: like this where they just, you know, the just low

521
00:27:29,050 --> 00:27:33,040
Speaker 1: level grift money that was supposed to go to things

522
00:27:33,140 --> 00:27:38,780
Speaker 1: to benefit taxpayers. went to things that benefit donors of

523
00:27:39,000 --> 00:27:42,159
Speaker 1: the Trump administration or MAGA Inc. And you're going to

524
00:27:42,200 --> 00:27:45,959
Speaker 1: see more and more stuff like this. And, uh, and again,

525
00:27:46,220 --> 00:27:49,850
Speaker 1: part of it is just because they don't care, right?

526
00:27:49,900 --> 00:27:54,030
Speaker 1: They don't really like these people were never doing public

527
00:27:54,090 --> 00:27:57,750
Speaker 1: service to serve the public. They were always just doing

528
00:27:57,810 --> 00:28:01,260
Speaker 1: it to get rich. And so, uh, You know, it

529
00:28:01,780 --> 00:28:07,700
Speaker 1: is it's like the really just the dumbest. It's just dumb.

530
00:28:07,760 --> 00:28:12,859
Speaker 1: But it's also it's it's just kleptocracy. And none of

531
00:28:12,960 --> 00:28:16,800
Speaker 1: us should be surprised. But we will just hear story

532
00:28:17,040 --> 00:28:22,109
Speaker 1: after story after story coming out of this administration like that.

533
00:28:23,590 --> 00:28:26,590
Speaker 1: Thomas Frank is the author of books like What's the

534
00:28:26,650 --> 00:28:31,290
Speaker 1: Matter with Kansas and his latest, The Creativity Con, How

535
00:28:31,450 --> 00:28:36,510
Speaker 1: Innovation Became America's Biggest Racket. Welcome, welcome, Thomas Frank.

536
00:28:36,850 --> 00:28:38,540
Speaker 2: Molly, it is so great to be here.

537
00:28:38,980 --> 00:28:41,560
Speaker 1: This new book first explained to us how you decided

538
00:28:41,600 --> 00:28:44,980
Speaker 1: to write about the ways in which corporations are trying

539
00:28:45,020 --> 00:28:47,680
Speaker 1: to steal artists' stuff, among other things.

540
00:28:48,040 --> 00:28:53,830
Speaker 2: Among other things. But it's about the biggest, loudest buzzwords

541
00:28:54,050 --> 00:28:57,630
Speaker 2: in the world, creativity and innovation. And where does it

542
00:28:57,670 --> 00:29:00,459
Speaker 2: come from? So I wrote a book about, it was

543
00:29:00,460 --> 00:29:02,880
Speaker 2: 10 years ago now, time flies, but it was called

544
00:29:02,960 --> 00:29:07,160
Speaker 2: Listen Liberal. And it was an effort to explain the

545
00:29:07,220 --> 00:29:12,780
Speaker 2: Democratic Party's sort of manifest failure on any number of,

546
00:29:13,020 --> 00:29:15,830
Speaker 2: you go down the list, why did they? And one

547
00:29:15,870 --> 00:29:19,270
Speaker 2: of the things that kept coming up is that Democratic

548
00:29:19,690 --> 00:29:24,710
Speaker 2: politicians and leaders constantly talked about innovation. It's, it's like

549
00:29:24,770 --> 00:29:28,340
Speaker 2: this word had come to, in their vocabulary to replace

550
00:29:28,420 --> 00:29:31,080
Speaker 2: all the things that they used to care about labor

551
00:29:31,180 --> 00:29:36,960
Speaker 2: or the consumer or whatever, Natalie talked about innovation. I

552
00:29:37,240 --> 00:29:41,140
Speaker 2: found this really intriguing and I talked about it a

553
00:29:41,260 --> 00:29:43,180
Speaker 2: little bit in that book. I think there's a chapter

554
00:29:43,240 --> 00:29:46,850
Speaker 2: about it as I saw it played out in Boston,

555
00:29:46,890 --> 00:29:50,290
Speaker 2: Massachusetts of all places. But it occurred to me, this

556
00:29:50,630 --> 00:29:54,170
Speaker 2: is a really interesting subject. And it dovetailed with the

557
00:29:54,210 --> 00:29:56,670
Speaker 2: subject of my first book, which this is a long

558
00:29:56,730 --> 00:29:59,180
Speaker 2: time ago, back in the 90s. I wrote a book

559
00:29:59,260 --> 00:30:03,640
Speaker 2: about what was called the creative revolution in advertising, which

560
00:30:03,680 --> 00:30:08,040
Speaker 2: happened in the 60s. And so I had these two

561
00:30:08,100 --> 00:30:12,510
Speaker 2: data points. And I was so fascinated by this, I

562
00:30:12,570 --> 00:30:17,270
Speaker 2: decided to write a history of the biggest, loudest emptiest,

563
00:30:17,370 --> 00:30:21,100
Speaker 2: most flatulent buzzwords of them all and where it all

564
00:30:21,140 --> 00:30:23,440
Speaker 2: came from and where it's taking us.

565
00:30:23,820 --> 00:30:26,460
Speaker 1: I want you to, because it's a politics podcast, I

566
00:30:26,500 --> 00:30:28,520
Speaker 1: want you to sort of make it make sense with

567
00:30:28,560 --> 00:30:32,790
Speaker 1: the Democrat, because we all now believe, luckily, though I'm

568
00:30:32,870 --> 00:30:35,910
Speaker 1: not sure it's trickled down to political candidates yet, we

569
00:30:36,090 --> 00:30:40,660
Speaker 1: all now believe that the consultant class is probably the

570
00:30:40,760 --> 00:30:43,500
Speaker 1: most damaging thing to ever happen to the Democratic Party.

571
00:30:43,820 --> 00:30:48,140
Speaker 1: So how did they innovate us into losing elections?

572
00:30:48,300 --> 00:30:48,890
Speaker 3: How did they do it?

573
00:30:48,920 --> 00:30:53,200
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, you're asking to sort of recap the

574
00:30:53,270 --> 00:30:57,270
Speaker 2: story of Listen Liberal, which is that basically the Democratic

575
00:30:57,310 --> 00:31:00,110
Speaker 2: Party gave up on the things that they used to.

576
00:31:00,170 --> 00:31:02,330
Speaker 2: I mean, the Democratic Party, when I was a child,

577
00:31:02,390 --> 00:31:06,390
Speaker 2: was obviously dominant in this country and had been the

578
00:31:06,430 --> 00:31:09,510
Speaker 2: dominant party for a long time since the Depression. And

579
00:31:09,530 --> 00:31:12,670
Speaker 2: I mean, not in Kansas, but everywhere else. It's the

580
00:31:12,690 --> 00:31:15,940
Speaker 2: story of how they came to give up on those ideas.

581
00:31:16,280 --> 00:31:19,640
Speaker 2: And innovation actually has a big part in that story.

582
00:31:20,040 --> 00:31:24,330
Speaker 2: What happens is in the 1960s, you know, a combination

583
00:31:24,370 --> 00:31:26,430
Speaker 2: of things. But by the end of the 1960s, the

584
00:31:26,470 --> 00:31:30,830
Speaker 2: Democratic Party really did not want to be the party

585
00:31:31,170 --> 00:31:35,610
Speaker 2: of working class people anymore. This was sort of part

586
00:31:35,630 --> 00:31:38,489
Speaker 2: of the general trend in that decade. But if you

587
00:31:38,530 --> 00:31:41,410
Speaker 2: look deeper, they had a replacement sort of theory or

588
00:31:41,530 --> 00:31:45,810
Speaker 2: ideology ready to go. And that was the ideology of innovation,

589
00:31:46,050 --> 00:31:49,850
Speaker 2: that America was becoming what they used to call, they

590
00:31:49,890 --> 00:31:53,570
Speaker 2: still call it this, a post-industrial society. This is one

591
00:31:53,590 --> 00:31:57,330
Speaker 2: of the big ideas of the 1960s. And the Democrats

592
00:31:57,390 --> 00:31:59,850
Speaker 2: bought into it in a huge way. We were becoming

593
00:31:59,890 --> 00:32:04,979
Speaker 2: a post-industrial society. Innovation and creativity were driving the economy.

594
00:32:05,620 --> 00:32:07,980
Speaker 2: They were the only things that mattered. And then, of course,

595
00:32:08,300 --> 00:32:10,480
Speaker 2: the people who could innovate and the people who could

596
00:32:10,540 --> 00:32:14,420
Speaker 2: be creative. And working class people, meanwhile, were on this

597
00:32:15,040 --> 00:32:20,010
Speaker 2: downward trajectory. The Democratic Party didn't need to concern itself

598
00:32:20,050 --> 00:32:23,430
Speaker 2: with them anymore. And they were objectionable or they were

599
00:32:23,450 --> 00:32:25,930
Speaker 2: thought to be objectionable in all of these other ways

600
00:32:26,490 --> 00:32:29,110
Speaker 2: in the late 60s. And they really bought into the

601
00:32:30,190 --> 00:32:36,020
Speaker 2: post-industrial ideology wholeheartedly. And that sort of culminates in the

602
00:32:36,060 --> 00:32:40,340
Speaker 2: presidency of Barack Obama. He talked about innovation in every...

603
00:32:40,180 --> 00:32:42,360
Speaker 2: I went back and looked this up. He talked about

604
00:32:42,420 --> 00:32:45,100
Speaker 2: innovation in every single one of his State of the

605
00:32:45,200 --> 00:32:49,690
Speaker 2: Union speeches. He talked about the company Google all the time.

606
00:32:50,170 --> 00:32:52,709
Speaker 2: Do you remember this? I mean, all the time. It's

607
00:32:52,890 --> 00:32:56,010
Speaker 2: in his, what was his second memoir, The Audacity of Hope.

608
00:32:56,030 --> 00:32:58,830
Speaker 2: He talks about Google all the time. He did a

609
00:32:58,910 --> 00:33:03,650
Speaker 2: very famous presentation at Google headquarters in 07 when he

610
00:33:03,710 --> 00:33:07,460
Speaker 2: was ramping up his campaign. Eric Schmidt, who was then

611
00:33:07,500 --> 00:33:12,020
Speaker 2: the CEO of Google, became a really important Obama advisor

612
00:33:12,040 --> 00:33:15,160
Speaker 2: and And then by the end of his time in office,

613
00:33:15,180 --> 00:33:17,300
Speaker 2: do you remember he had brought all these Google people

614
00:33:17,460 --> 00:33:22,120
Speaker 2: into the White House and basically colonized the place? But

615
00:33:22,160 --> 00:33:27,160
Speaker 2: this was the ideology of innovation. And so I explore

616
00:33:27,330 --> 00:33:31,530
Speaker 2: why this was so meaningful to him in my new book.

617
00:33:31,870 --> 00:33:35,430
Speaker 1: But all of that worked for Obama. Yeah. You could

618
00:33:35,490 --> 00:33:39,210
Speaker 1: make a case that it, again, right, the job of

619
00:33:39,250 --> 00:33:41,630
Speaker 1: president is larger than that. But if you can't win,

620
00:33:41,950 --> 00:33:44,760
Speaker 1: you can't govern. And we saw a lot of candidates

621
00:33:45,200 --> 00:33:49,700
Speaker 1: use that language and lose and lose big. I'm thinking

622
00:33:49,720 --> 00:33:54,479
Speaker 1: of Hillary Clinton. I'm thinking of Harris. Biden barely won.

623
00:33:54,560 --> 00:33:55,980
Speaker 1: And then, you know, what?

624
00:33:56,040 --> 00:33:56,140
Speaker 2: So.

625
00:33:56,680 --> 00:34:00,200
Speaker 1: Talk us through how those words hurt those candidates.

626
00:34:00,460 --> 00:34:02,870
Speaker 2: I mean, it seemed to work for Obama, right? It

627
00:34:02,920 --> 00:34:05,650
Speaker 2: made sense for him. It was the word that brought

628
00:34:05,710 --> 00:34:09,509
Speaker 2: everything together. And I'm fascinated by this, what the word

629
00:34:09,630 --> 00:34:13,110
Speaker 2: meant for Barack Obama. By the way, there's other presidents

630
00:34:13,150 --> 00:34:15,469
Speaker 2: who use different versions of the word that I go into.

631
00:34:15,930 --> 00:34:20,319
Speaker 2: So Ronald Reagan loved the word creativity, and he would

632
00:34:20,360 --> 00:34:22,399
Speaker 2: go on and on and on about it. He had

633
00:34:22,440 --> 00:34:25,860
Speaker 2: a famous advisor. You probably remember this guy, George Gilder,

634
00:34:26,600 --> 00:34:29,950
Speaker 2: who wrote about it. And they located creativity in the

635
00:34:30,110 --> 00:34:33,509
Speaker 2: act of entrepreneurship. And we can talk about the words

636
00:34:33,530 --> 00:34:35,750
Speaker 2: that Trump likes to use for this, but Obama's word

637
00:34:35,790 --> 00:34:39,630
Speaker 2: was innovation. And why did he why was he drawn

638
00:34:39,710 --> 00:34:42,590
Speaker 2: to it so much? And so a part of it

639
00:34:42,610 --> 00:34:45,060
Speaker 2: is that he really believed, you know, that this is

640
00:34:45,140 --> 00:34:48,520
Speaker 2: what drives the economy. And so what our job is

641
00:34:48,640 --> 00:34:51,919
Speaker 2: as politicians is to encourage innovation. And we do that

642
00:34:52,000 --> 00:34:56,600
Speaker 2: by encouraging education, specifically in the STEM field. Subjects which

643
00:34:56,640 --> 00:34:58,540
Speaker 2: was a really big deal for Barack.

644
00:34:58,260 --> 00:35:01,820
Speaker 1: Obama and also a pretty cool move all things considered

645
00:35:01,880 --> 00:35:06,569
Speaker 1: like education always good might have gone a little overboard

646
00:35:06,770 --> 00:35:08,010
Speaker 1: with the stem, but.

647
00:35:08,070 --> 00:35:11,129
Speaker 2: Yes, I You know, I don't agree with you there

648
00:35:11,210 --> 00:35:15,970
Speaker 2: because it's it's also a recipe for for doing nothing

649
00:35:16,230 --> 00:35:19,259
Speaker 2: So there's this famous speech that Obama gives so is

650
00:35:19,280 --> 00:35:21,379
Speaker 2: it so that this is this is what I think

651
00:35:21,440 --> 00:35:24,100
Speaker 2: of innovation meant to Barack Obama three things one What

652
00:35:24,120 --> 00:35:24,960
Speaker 2: would you what you just mentioned?

653
00:35:25,360 --> 00:35:25,940
Speaker 3: Education.

654
00:35:26,520 --> 00:35:32,229
Speaker 2: Second of all, it sounds like progress. It sounds, quote unquote, progressive.

655
00:35:33,250 --> 00:35:34,569
Speaker 2: I believe in innovation.

656
00:35:34,930 --> 00:35:35,610
Speaker 3: That's progress.

657
00:35:35,630 --> 00:35:38,930
Speaker 2: So it sounds vaguely liberal. But at the same time,

658
00:35:38,969 --> 00:35:42,009
Speaker 2: it allows him to cozy up with Google, Silicon Valley.

659
00:35:42,930 --> 00:35:45,030
Speaker 2: The banks, everybody, because these are the innovators.

660
00:35:45,310 --> 00:35:46,590
Speaker 1: To have it both ways.

661
00:35:46,860 --> 00:35:47,320
Speaker 3: Yeah.

662
00:35:47,400 --> 00:35:50,400
Speaker 2: And, you know, he loved to hang around with these people. And,

663
00:35:50,620 --> 00:35:52,779
Speaker 2: you know, he went to South by Southwest. Do you

664
00:35:52,800 --> 00:35:58,310
Speaker 2: remember this? He guest edited an issue of Wired magazine

665
00:35:58,410 --> 00:35:59,350
Speaker 2: from the White House.

666
00:35:59,690 --> 00:35:59,870
Speaker 3: Right.

667
00:36:00,950 --> 00:36:04,830
Speaker 2: Yes. So innovation was his perfect word. It allowed him

668
00:36:04,850 --> 00:36:07,299
Speaker 2: to have it both ways, to be a friend of

669
00:36:07,360 --> 00:36:11,200
Speaker 2: the corporate world, the high-tech world, to sound like a progressive.

670
00:36:11,480 --> 00:36:15,259
Speaker 2: And then there's one other really important ingredient, which is

671
00:36:15,320 --> 00:36:19,529
Speaker 2: that it makes it seem as though politicians can't do anything.

672
00:36:19,950 --> 00:36:22,390
Speaker 2: You got to remember one of the big complaints, and

673
00:36:22,489 --> 00:36:24,270
Speaker 2: I was one of the people writing this complaint at

674
00:36:24,310 --> 00:36:27,410
Speaker 2: the time, big complaints about the Obama administration is that

675
00:36:27,610 --> 00:36:31,049
Speaker 2: they didn't goddamn do anything. Do you remember? And they

676
00:36:31,090 --> 00:36:33,489
Speaker 2: had this he had this whole theory of the presidency,

677
00:36:33,570 --> 00:36:37,260
Speaker 2: which is a theory shared by the larger Democratic Party,

678
00:36:37,610 --> 00:36:41,160
Speaker 2: that politicians are basically powerless. You know, the best you

679
00:36:41,180 --> 00:36:44,319
Speaker 2: can hope for is incremental change. Do you remember this?

680
00:36:44,340 --> 00:36:44,460
Speaker 3: Yeah.

681
00:36:44,880 --> 00:36:46,600
Speaker 2: And you remember he gave a whole speech about or

682
00:36:46,640 --> 00:36:48,420
Speaker 2: not a speech, but he talked about how hard it

683
00:36:48,460 --> 00:36:50,960
Speaker 2: was to turn an ocean liner, etc., So it gets

684
00:36:50,980 --> 00:36:53,080
Speaker 2: him off the hook. It's a term that does all

685
00:36:53,120 --> 00:36:54,860
Speaker 2: of these things at once. It gets him off the

686
00:36:54,900 --> 00:36:57,180
Speaker 2: hook for doing it because it's all about innovation. It's

687
00:36:57,219 --> 00:37:01,670
Speaker 2: not up to the politicians. The politicians can only encourage innovation. Now,

688
00:37:01,710 --> 00:37:04,210
Speaker 2: back in the 1920s, this would have been the philosophy

689
00:37:04,290 --> 00:37:09,880
Speaker 2: of the Republican Party. This is trickle down. But in

690
00:37:10,260 --> 00:37:12,700
Speaker 2: our day and age, it sounds very progressive and very

691
00:37:12,800 --> 00:37:14,900
Speaker 2: modern and very enlightened and all.

692
00:37:14,760 --> 00:37:15,279
Speaker 3: Of this stuff.

693
00:37:15,960 --> 00:37:19,580
Speaker 1: I think it's easy to criticize Obama and certainly there

694
00:37:19,620 --> 00:37:22,670
Speaker 1: were issues. And you know, a lot of Democrats criticize

695
00:37:22,690 --> 00:37:25,630
Speaker 1: him for not being able to sort of legislate a.

696
00:37:25,610 --> 00:37:26,190
Speaker 3: Lot of problems.

697
00:37:26,250 --> 00:37:30,370
Speaker 1: But at this moment, from where we sit, criticizing Obama

698
00:37:30,410 --> 00:37:33,569
Speaker 1: does not feel like the move, especially because we're in

699
00:37:33,590 --> 00:37:34,590
Speaker 1: such a dire moment.

700
00:37:34,810 --> 00:37:36,970
Speaker 2: Oh my God. Oh yeah. I mean, no, I mean like,

701
00:37:37,219 --> 00:37:38,480
Speaker 2: I wish you were back, right?

702
00:37:38,620 --> 00:37:41,640
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. I mean, but there was, there certainly was

703
00:37:41,660 --> 00:37:44,540
Speaker 1: an imperfection there and You know, a lot of people

704
00:37:44,560 --> 00:37:47,000
Speaker 1: thought that he was sort of too smart for the

705
00:37:47,040 --> 00:37:50,100
Speaker 1: presidency because he was very, very, very smart. And a

706
00:37:50,140 --> 00:37:51,700
Speaker 1: lot of the people you have to make deals with

707
00:37:52,120 --> 00:37:56,290
Speaker 1: are not geniuses. They're just... functionaries of government.

708
00:37:56,310 --> 00:37:56,529
Speaker 3: Yes.

709
00:37:56,850 --> 00:38:00,420
Speaker 2: And so in that sense, his fixation on innovation was

710
00:38:00,500 --> 00:38:03,380
Speaker 2: a reflection of the sort of social class that he

711
00:38:03,420 --> 00:38:06,299
Speaker 2: came from, where everybody talked about it. And so it

712
00:38:06,380 --> 00:38:07,620
Speaker 2: makes a certain amount of sense.

713
00:38:07,920 --> 00:38:08,080
Speaker 3: Yeah.

714
00:38:08,120 --> 00:38:11,049
Speaker 2: I mean, what's happened since then is just, I mean,

715
00:38:11,070 --> 00:38:14,029
Speaker 2: I don't know, what words can we put on it?

716
00:38:14,070 --> 00:38:18,470
Speaker 2: It's just an unspeakable disaster. Among other things, Silicon Valley

717
00:38:18,489 --> 00:38:22,020
Speaker 2: has now switched sides. Do you remember they supported Hillary

718
00:38:22,160 --> 00:38:26,230
Speaker 2: over Trump in terms of donations by some incredible factor

719
00:38:26,270 --> 00:38:28,890
Speaker 2: like 70 to 1 or something like that? And now

720
00:38:28,910 --> 00:38:35,009
Speaker 2: it's completely reversed. Yeah. You know, and and they're getting

721
00:38:35,030 --> 00:38:38,270
Speaker 2: their way. They're rolling out a product that they openly

722
00:38:38,370 --> 00:38:42,049
Speaker 2: admit might be the end of humanity. And Trump is

723
00:38:42,110 --> 00:38:45,950
Speaker 2: letting them do it. He's like he doesn't care. We

724
00:38:45,969 --> 00:38:48,130
Speaker 2: don't have a choice when talking about like, should we

725
00:38:48,150 --> 00:38:51,950
Speaker 2: or should we not criticize Barack Obama? If you're writing history. Right.

726
00:38:52,150 --> 00:38:54,279
Speaker 2: You know, you have to understand how we got to

727
00:38:54,340 --> 00:38:54,940
Speaker 2: where we are.

728
00:38:55,300 --> 00:38:55,509
Speaker 1: For sure.

729
00:38:55,530 --> 00:38:59,620
Speaker 2: And Barack Obama is obviously, you know, he's a very

730
00:38:59,700 --> 00:39:01,540
Speaker 2: important character in that story.

731
00:39:01,920 --> 00:39:05,239
Speaker 1: Right. And, you know, certainly true. But I just, I

732
00:39:05,280 --> 00:39:09,500
Speaker 1: want to get to your book. So the idea here

733
00:39:09,600 --> 00:39:12,440
Speaker 1: is that creativity is sort of, I want you to

734
00:39:12,560 --> 00:39:16,140
Speaker 1: explain to us sort of the larger premise of this

735
00:39:16,239 --> 00:39:17,340
Speaker 1: creativity con.

736
00:39:17,420 --> 00:39:17,760
Speaker 3: Yeah.

737
00:39:17,820 --> 00:39:22,500
Speaker 2: So creativity is sold to us as anything. the most

738
00:39:22,640 --> 00:39:27,690
Speaker 2: magical property of the human being. It's the spark of

739
00:39:27,730 --> 00:39:30,270
Speaker 2: the divine in the individual. And a lot of that

740
00:39:30,350 --> 00:39:35,490
Speaker 2: I accept. I like to think I'm a creative person myself.

741
00:39:35,610 --> 00:39:38,470
Speaker 2: I admire creative people. But what you find, the way

742
00:39:38,530 --> 00:39:42,479
Speaker 2: the word has been used and the way it's developed

743
00:39:42,540 --> 00:39:45,440
Speaker 2: over the years is that it's basically, it's a way

744
00:39:45,640 --> 00:39:53,020
Speaker 2: of explaining or excusing our plutocratic social order, our class system.

745
00:39:53,400 --> 00:39:58,270
Speaker 2: It's always used to explain why the people who are

746
00:39:58,410 --> 00:40:00,649
Speaker 2: on top deserve to be on top. You know why?

747
00:40:00,710 --> 00:40:06,609
Speaker 2: Because they're creative, because they can innovate. And why nothing

748
00:40:06,770 --> 00:40:10,069
Speaker 2: can be done or nothing should be done for the

749
00:40:10,110 --> 00:40:13,430
Speaker 2: rest of us, you know, because working class people aren't creative.

750
00:40:13,489 --> 00:40:18,140
Speaker 2: Their jobs can be safely and even rightfully automated or exported.

751
00:40:17,719 --> 00:40:18,260
Speaker 3: To other countries.

752
00:40:20,980 --> 00:40:23,640
Speaker 2: And there's, you know, this is you look back at

753
00:40:23,700 --> 00:40:27,080
Speaker 2: the Clinton administration. Well, all those trade agreements that they signed,

754
00:40:27,100 --> 00:40:30,529
Speaker 2: this is Republicans and Democrats both. But that that was

755
00:40:30,790 --> 00:40:33,489
Speaker 2: the under that was the theory underneath it is that,

756
00:40:33,550 --> 00:40:37,529
Speaker 2: you know, we have to protect and promote our creative industries.

757
00:40:38,100 --> 00:40:42,290
Speaker 2: such as Hollywood, such as Silicon Valley, such as, get this,

758
00:40:42,590 --> 00:40:45,370
Speaker 2: Wall Street, and of course, Big Pharma. But we have

759
00:40:45,410 --> 00:40:48,049
Speaker 2: to promote and protect those. Those are important. The kind

760
00:40:48,090 --> 00:40:51,109
Speaker 2: of work that people like us do, but the kind

761
00:40:51,160 --> 00:40:54,660
Speaker 2: of work that blue-collar people do is not creative and

762
00:40:54,800 --> 00:40:58,540
Speaker 2: is not valuable, and it adds no, it doesn't add anything,

763
00:40:58,940 --> 00:41:05,170
Speaker 2: and it's safe and more efficient to just send it overseas,

764
00:41:05,190 --> 00:41:08,150
Speaker 2: which turned out to be, you know, a disastrous move

765
00:41:08,210 --> 00:41:09,390
Speaker 2: in a bunch of different ways.

766
00:41:09,850 --> 00:41:13,319
Speaker 1: It's funny because you hit on like one of my

767
00:41:13,380 --> 00:41:17,200
Speaker 1: favorite topics, which is class and the many ways in

768
00:41:17,239 --> 00:41:18,899
Speaker 1: which class... You and.

769
00:41:18,820 --> 00:41:19,400
Speaker 3: Me, Molly.

770
00:41:19,880 --> 00:41:23,020
Speaker 1: It's secretly a caste system that the many ways in

771
00:41:23,060 --> 00:41:26,380
Speaker 1: which we signify class to each other. And I'm actually

772
00:41:26,400 --> 00:41:29,540
Speaker 1: working on a piece about this right now that a

773
00:41:29,600 --> 00:41:33,010
Speaker 1: lot of education is not actually about educating as much

774
00:41:33,070 --> 00:41:35,270
Speaker 1: as it's about keeping you sorted. Yep.

775
00:41:35,510 --> 00:41:36,529
Speaker 2: That is exactly right.

776
00:41:36,870 --> 00:41:40,290
Speaker 1: So I want you to talk about how class figures

777
00:41:40,350 --> 00:41:44,290
Speaker 1: into all this. My grandparents succeeded in a time of

778
00:41:44,330 --> 00:41:46,850
Speaker 1: a lot of social mobility, and then my parents were

779
00:41:46,930 --> 00:41:50,430
Speaker 1: able to stick in that situation despite their best efforts.

780
00:41:51,390 --> 00:41:54,440
Speaker 1: I wonder if you could talk about how you see

781
00:41:54,480 --> 00:41:56,120
Speaker 1: class functioning here.

782
00:41:56,219 --> 00:41:59,259
Speaker 2: Molly, you know, how many books have I written now?

783
00:41:59,380 --> 00:41:59,520
Speaker 1: Eight?

784
00:42:00,210 --> 00:42:02,620
Speaker 2: Every single one of them is about social class and

785
00:42:02,660 --> 00:42:05,359
Speaker 2: the way that we understand it and the way that

786
00:42:05,400 --> 00:42:09,029
Speaker 2: we distort it and the way it is in turn

787
00:42:09,070 --> 00:42:12,549
Speaker 2: distorted for us by people like Donald Trump or the

788
00:42:12,570 --> 00:42:15,759
Speaker 2: Republicans or... the way it's blown off and brushed off

789
00:42:15,860 --> 00:42:19,230
Speaker 2: by the people who used to be the great defenders

790
00:42:19,530 --> 00:42:23,190
Speaker 2: of working class, the Democrats. Barack Obama did talk about it.

791
00:42:23,210 --> 00:42:28,750
Speaker 2: There's his momentous speech in Osawatomie, Kansas. It's the one

792
00:42:28,810 --> 00:42:32,500
Speaker 2: time in his presidency he came to Kansas, right down

793
00:42:32,540 --> 00:42:34,640
Speaker 2: the road from Kansas City, and he spoke in the

794
00:42:34,680 --> 00:42:38,080
Speaker 2: high school in Osawatomie. This is the town where John

795
00:42:38,140 --> 00:42:44,100
Speaker 2: Brown made a famous stand against slave holders from Missouri.

796
00:42:44,120 --> 00:42:47,610
Speaker 2: And it's the city where Teddy Roosevelt gave a famous

797
00:42:47,650 --> 00:42:50,310
Speaker 2: speech a long time ago. And Obama goes there and

798
00:42:50,350 --> 00:42:54,170
Speaker 2: gives his famous speech, deservedly famous, in which he talked

799
00:42:54,250 --> 00:42:59,310
Speaker 2: about the sort of decline and fall of the middle class.

800
00:42:59,469 --> 00:43:03,150
Speaker 2: The great middle class society of the 50s and 60s

801
00:43:03,550 --> 00:43:07,330
Speaker 2: that he and I were born into. in which working

802
00:43:07,370 --> 00:43:10,370
Speaker 2: class people would live next door. This is the famous

803
00:43:10,450 --> 00:43:13,110
Speaker 2: cliche of the time. And in my case, it happens

804
00:43:13,140 --> 00:43:15,560
Speaker 2: to be true, in which working class people would live

805
00:43:15,640 --> 00:43:18,719
Speaker 2: next door to white collar people and their standard of

806
00:43:18,760 --> 00:43:23,920
Speaker 2: living was effectively the same. And that was America. And

807
00:43:24,160 --> 00:43:27,440
Speaker 2: it was dying when Obama gave the speech. It was

808
00:43:27,480 --> 00:43:30,160
Speaker 2: dying and you would drive down any main street in

809
00:43:30,219 --> 00:43:32,900
Speaker 2: Kansas or Missouri and you could see it dying. You

810
00:43:32,940 --> 00:43:40,100
Speaker 2: could see the closed down businesses, the ruined neighborhoods. I

811
00:43:40,140 --> 00:43:41,560
Speaker 2: wrote about a lot of this in What's the Matter

812
00:43:41,580 --> 00:43:45,190
Speaker 2: with Kansas when it was new and shocking. But Obama

813
00:43:45,210 --> 00:43:47,870
Speaker 2: comes to Osawatomie and talks about it. And it was

814
00:43:48,090 --> 00:43:51,290
Speaker 2: one of his best moments. And then he expanded on

815
00:43:51,310 --> 00:43:54,489
Speaker 2: that in other speeches. And he basically said, what's the

816
00:43:54,570 --> 00:43:56,730
Speaker 2: answer for those people? The answer is for them to

817
00:43:56,750 --> 00:43:59,630
Speaker 2: get an education. There is no answer. There is no answer.

818
00:43:59,690 --> 00:44:03,589
Speaker 2: Their world is over. And that was some harsh medicine.

819
00:44:04,070 --> 00:44:07,040
Speaker 2: And I think incorrect also, but he basically said they

820
00:44:07,080 --> 00:44:09,200
Speaker 2: have to become, I mean, I'm putting, this is not

821
00:44:09,219 --> 00:44:12,100
Speaker 2: what he said, but this is basically what our society

822
00:44:12,140 --> 00:44:14,770
Speaker 2: says to them. You have to become innovators. Look, so

823
00:44:14,870 --> 00:44:19,890
Speaker 2: I traced this idea back to its origins, creativity and innovation. Well,

824
00:44:20,150 --> 00:44:22,360
Speaker 2: I mean, the words obviously go all the way back

825
00:44:22,680 --> 00:44:26,750
Speaker 2: to the Bible. God is the creator. But its modern

826
00:44:26,850 --> 00:44:30,730
Speaker 2: origins is in the years after World War II, when

827
00:44:30,750 --> 00:44:33,529
Speaker 2: there was a famous advertising executive in New York, a

828
00:44:33,650 --> 00:44:37,860
Speaker 2: guy called Alex Osborne, wrote a series of very popular

829
00:44:37,940 --> 00:44:41,380
Speaker 2: books about how to be a more creative person. And

830
00:44:41,420 --> 00:44:43,239
Speaker 2: this is, you know, he's one of the great sort

831
00:44:43,260 --> 00:44:46,359
Speaker 2: of the great men of Madison Avenue in those days.

832
00:44:46,420 --> 00:44:49,109
Speaker 2: If you've ever heard of the ad agency BBDO, he's

833
00:44:49,150 --> 00:44:53,130
Speaker 2: the O in BBDO. You know, he's a fascinating figure

834
00:44:53,250 --> 00:44:55,689
Speaker 2: in his own right. But if you read his works

835
00:44:55,710 --> 00:44:57,870
Speaker 2: very closely, he insists on two things. First of all,

836
00:44:58,350 --> 00:45:02,120
Speaker 2: creativity is a democracy, unlike IQ. IQ is this, as

837
00:45:02,160 --> 00:45:06,299
Speaker 2: we all know, is this really ugly, racist, hereditarian idea.

838
00:45:06,920 --> 00:45:10,509
Speaker 2: And creativity is not that. It's a kind of American

839
00:45:10,790 --> 00:45:15,150
Speaker 2: version of that where high mental performance is open to anybody.

840
00:45:15,530 --> 00:45:18,990
Speaker 2: You just have to work hard, learn the right moves,

841
00:45:19,030 --> 00:45:21,390
Speaker 2: the right sort of mental steps, and anybody can do it.

842
00:45:21,420 --> 00:45:26,980
Speaker 2: So that's really a very attractive idea. And millions of

843
00:45:27,020 --> 00:45:29,160
Speaker 2: people signed up for that. And by the way, that's

844
00:45:29,200 --> 00:45:31,520
Speaker 2: still going to this day. There's popular books about how

845
00:45:31,560 --> 00:45:34,320
Speaker 2: to be more creative, how to be a more innovative

846
00:45:34,380 --> 00:45:37,700
Speaker 2: person that are bestsellers every year. The thrift stores of

847
00:45:37,760 --> 00:45:41,290
Speaker 2: America are cluttered with them. I have an enormous collection

848
00:45:41,310 --> 00:45:44,370
Speaker 2: of them on this bookshelf over here, which you can't

849
00:45:44,469 --> 00:45:47,049
Speaker 2: see from where you're sitting. So what's funny is that

850
00:45:47,110 --> 00:45:52,350
Speaker 2: it's both a democracy, creativity is this democratic version of IQ,

851
00:45:52,370 --> 00:45:56,810
Speaker 2: but it's also, for whatever reason, only found among white

852
00:45:56,870 --> 00:46:00,290
Speaker 2: collar people. And this has been explicit since the very beginning.

853
00:46:00,650 --> 00:46:06,339
Speaker 2: Osborne thought that liberalism, labor unions, that sort of thing

854
00:46:06,660 --> 00:46:11,239
Speaker 2: were the enemies of creativity. And that has been, you know,

855
00:46:11,300 --> 00:46:14,379
Speaker 2: nobody says it as bluntly or as openly as he

856
00:46:14,420 --> 00:46:17,180
Speaker 2: did back then. They don't say that anymore. But that

857
00:46:17,380 --> 00:46:21,380
Speaker 2: is the through line through the whole thing. Who is creative, Molly?

858
00:46:21,440 --> 00:46:23,919
Speaker 2: Who's Who is creative? It's always the people on top.

859
00:46:23,960 --> 00:46:26,880
Speaker 2: It's Steve Jobs. It's Elon Musk. Who are the innovators?

860
00:46:27,280 --> 00:46:33,520
Speaker 2: It's always the top executives. Who is not creative? By definition,

861
00:46:33,580 --> 00:46:37,080
Speaker 2: it's always supposed to be blue-collar work, which is highly

862
00:46:37,140 --> 00:46:40,580
Speaker 2: ironic because what do factories do, Molly? They create. They

863
00:46:40,640 --> 00:46:44,879
Speaker 2: make things, right? But the making of things is not

864
00:46:44,960 --> 00:46:48,880
Speaker 2: creative by these definitions. It's the coming up with zany ideas.

865
00:46:49,160 --> 00:46:52,380
Speaker 2: And then in the 60s, this all melds with the

866
00:46:52,400 --> 00:46:56,640
Speaker 2: kind of The big cultural turn against working class people

867
00:46:56,700 --> 00:46:59,520
Speaker 2: in the late 60s and early 70s. You know, they're

868
00:46:59,560 --> 00:47:02,020
Speaker 2: not creative. And then, you know, by the, you know,

869
00:47:02,060 --> 00:47:06,100
Speaker 2: you have in the Clinton administration, one of the, you know,

870
00:47:06,120 --> 00:47:09,320
Speaker 2: we become this quote unquote post-industrial society. And one of

871
00:47:09,340 --> 00:47:12,000
Speaker 2: the great sort of ways of expressing this in the

872
00:47:12,060 --> 00:47:14,180
Speaker 2: Clinton years, and this is going to, I hope I

873
00:47:14,200 --> 00:47:16,509
Speaker 2: don't make you throw up here. They used the term

874
00:47:16,650 --> 00:47:20,170
Speaker 2: financial innovation. This was a sacred cause.

875
00:47:20,510 --> 00:47:20,950
Speaker 3: We had to.

876
00:47:20,950 --> 00:47:23,410
Speaker 2: Deregulate the banks. We had to roll back the old

877
00:47:23,489 --> 00:47:27,770
Speaker 2: Depression-era rules because now we knew that Wall Street was

878
00:47:27,790 --> 00:47:30,049
Speaker 2: this creative industry and they were coming up with these

879
00:47:30,180 --> 00:47:33,200
Speaker 2: great financial innovations that were going to make us all rich.

880
00:47:33,940 --> 00:47:36,839
Speaker 1: I want you to talk for two seconds because we're

881
00:47:36,860 --> 00:47:38,319
Speaker 1: really out of time, but I want you to talk

882
00:47:38,340 --> 00:47:41,660
Speaker 1: about Kansas because your most famous book. is What's the

883
00:47:41,680 --> 00:47:47,710
Speaker 1: Matter with Kansas, about how Governor Brownback, who recently endorsed

884
00:47:48,210 --> 00:47:52,290
Speaker 1: Roger Marshall, lucky for Roger, I want you to talk about,

885
00:47:52,330 --> 00:47:56,609
Speaker 1: he's still like wildly unpopular in the state. Adam Hamilton

886
00:47:56,870 --> 00:48:00,330
Speaker 1: strikes me as a very unusual Democratic candidate. He is

887
00:48:00,650 --> 00:48:06,960
Speaker 1: a pastor of a megachurch that has 36,000 people. He

888
00:48:07,000 --> 00:48:09,300
Speaker 1: told me when we interviewed him, a third Republican, a

889
00:48:09,340 --> 00:48:13,770
Speaker 1: third Independent, a third Republican, Democrat. You know Kansas. You know,

890
00:48:13,790 --> 00:48:16,420
Speaker 1: you haven't been there so much in the last two years.

891
00:48:16,480 --> 00:48:18,640
Speaker 1: But what do you make of this?

892
00:48:18,960 --> 00:48:20,360
Speaker 2: Let me just tell you, first of all, I haven't

893
00:48:20,400 --> 00:48:23,980
Speaker 2: followed this race at all. But several times when I

894
00:48:24,100 --> 00:48:28,900
Speaker 2: was following Kansas politics very closely, There were there were

895
00:48:28,940 --> 00:48:31,950
Speaker 2: occasions where we thought these sort of these these big

896
00:48:32,010 --> 00:48:36,450
Speaker 2: name Republican figures, including Brownback, when he was trying to

897
00:48:36,469 --> 00:48:38,350
Speaker 2: get reelected for governor, when we thought they were going

898
00:48:38,370 --> 00:48:41,740
Speaker 2: to lose because they had committed all of these sort

899
00:48:41,760 --> 00:48:45,080
Speaker 2: of political fouls that you see, the kind of thing

900
00:48:45,100 --> 00:48:45,880
Speaker 2: that you see right now.

901
00:48:46,160 --> 00:48:46,820
Speaker 3: What is it, Roger?

902
00:48:47,160 --> 00:48:49,140
Speaker 2: What is it that Roger Marshall? Is that his name?

903
00:48:49,600 --> 00:48:54,550
Speaker 1: Right. He jailed 81 patients for non-payment of bills and

904
00:48:54,700 --> 00:48:57,250
Speaker 1: then didn't pay his bakery bill.

905
00:48:58,230 --> 00:49:00,770
Speaker 2: In any other place, that would be, you know, that

906
00:49:00,810 --> 00:49:02,170
Speaker 2: would be that would be it.

907
00:49:02,230 --> 00:49:02,450
Speaker 3: Right.

908
00:49:03,450 --> 00:49:07,529
Speaker 2: But I remember there's another several times I went back

909
00:49:07,570 --> 00:49:10,370
Speaker 2: to Kansas and was writing about the politics and writing

910
00:49:10,410 --> 00:49:13,910
Speaker 2: about the races, political races, and thought that these that

911
00:49:13,930 --> 00:49:16,930
Speaker 2: these big name Republicans were going to go down. And

912
00:49:17,130 --> 00:49:18,759
Speaker 2: in every case, they didn't.

913
00:49:19,100 --> 00:49:19,319
Speaker 3: Right.

914
00:49:20,239 --> 00:49:24,000
Speaker 2: One with Pat Roberts, who was then the U.S. Senator.

915
00:49:24,550 --> 00:49:27,770
Speaker 2: The New York Times had revealed that he didn't actually

916
00:49:27,850 --> 00:49:31,190
Speaker 2: live in the state, which is always a problem. Kansas

917
00:49:31,230 --> 00:49:35,560
Speaker 2: sends people to Washington like Bob Dole, and they basically become,

918
00:49:35,900 --> 00:49:39,680
Speaker 2: you know, they don't like to come back to the state. It's,

919
00:49:39,980 --> 00:49:43,109
Speaker 2: you know, it's. they find the life on the East

920
00:49:43,170 --> 00:49:48,870
Speaker 2: Coast so much more attractive. This had apparently happened with

921
00:49:48,930 --> 00:49:54,719
Speaker 2: Pat Roberts. He listed his address as a voter, a

922
00:49:54,800 --> 00:49:58,680
Speaker 2: house in Dodge City that was owned by some friends

923
00:49:58,719 --> 00:50:04,100
Speaker 2: of his. He would sleep in the recliner when he

924
00:50:04,239 --> 00:50:07,180
Speaker 2: was there, you know, their lazy boy or whatever, when

925
00:50:07,239 --> 00:50:11,300
Speaker 2: he was there. And I thought, wow, that's really bad.

926
00:50:11,500 --> 00:50:14,690
Speaker 2: You know, it's happening again. And in both of these cases,

927
00:50:14,730 --> 00:50:16,969
Speaker 2: both Brownback and Roberts managed to get reelected. And I

928
00:50:17,030 --> 00:50:20,670
Speaker 2: remember there was a man who I really, a professor

929
00:50:20,710 --> 00:50:24,410
Speaker 2: at KU who I really admired. He was a professor

930
00:50:24,450 --> 00:50:26,239
Speaker 2: of political science. And he told me when I was

931
00:50:26,300 --> 00:50:28,200
Speaker 2: writing one of these stories, I went and talked to

932
00:50:28,239 --> 00:50:32,819
Speaker 2: him and he said, never underestimate the Republican Party of Kansas.

933
00:50:34,620 --> 00:50:39,000
Speaker 2: So look, they haven't elected, if Marshall goes down, they

934
00:50:39,040 --> 00:50:45,740
Speaker 2: haven't elected a Democrat to the U.S. Senate since 1932.

935
00:50:45,739 --> 00:50:52,069
Speaker 2: And so if they do it, it'll be a huge change. Now,

936
00:50:52,150 --> 00:50:54,690
Speaker 2: there have been other changes that I think are really noteworthy.

937
00:50:54,930 --> 00:50:56,969
Speaker 2: So when I wrote What's the Matter with Kansas and

938
00:50:57,010 --> 00:50:58,489
Speaker 2: when I grew up there, I grew up in a

939
00:50:58,510 --> 00:51:01,110
Speaker 2: place called Johnson County, which is the sort of affluent

940
00:51:01,170 --> 00:51:04,390
Speaker 2: suburbs of Kansas City. And when I was a kid,

941
00:51:04,650 --> 00:51:07,239
Speaker 2: this was one of the most Republican places in America.

942
00:51:07,260 --> 00:51:10,799
Speaker 2: It was like Orange County, California, you know, contented suburbanites.

943
00:51:12,100 --> 00:51:13,140
Speaker 3: They love Bob Dole.

944
00:51:13,180 --> 00:51:14,580
Speaker 2: They love Nancy Kassebaum.

945
00:51:14,600 --> 00:51:15,370
Speaker 3: They love Dwight D.

946
00:51:15,440 --> 00:51:19,660
Speaker 2: Eisenhower, you know. And they were, it was, I thought,

947
00:51:19,680 --> 00:51:23,880
Speaker 2: the most Republican place in the world. And like places,

948
00:51:24,860 --> 00:51:28,400
Speaker 2: like All the other places like that in America where

949
00:51:29,060 --> 00:51:35,290
Speaker 2: their wealth is based on educational achievement, where they're innovators...

950
00:51:35,260 --> 00:51:38,589
Speaker 2: You know, this is a creative class. They've switched from

951
00:51:38,710 --> 00:51:42,690
Speaker 2: Republican to Democrat. And to my enormous surprise, I was

952
00:51:42,750 --> 00:51:45,910
Speaker 2: there in 2020 during the COVID year. I was there

953
00:51:45,950 --> 00:51:50,320
Speaker 2: with my elderly father and my Johnson County went for Biden.

954
00:51:50,680 --> 00:51:54,140
Speaker 2: It flipped for Joe Biden. First time I think they'd

955
00:51:54,180 --> 00:51:57,020
Speaker 2: gone for a Democrat since Woodrow Wilson or something like that.

956
00:51:57,040 --> 00:51:57,120
Speaker 1: Yeah.

957
00:51:57,540 --> 00:52:01,509
Speaker 2: And not only that, but every precinct in my neighborhood,

958
00:52:01,750 --> 00:52:03,770
Speaker 2: the neighborhood that we lived in at the time, I checked,

959
00:52:04,430 --> 00:52:07,069
Speaker 2: he won every single one. And this was, I'm telling you,

960
00:52:07,110 --> 00:52:09,910
Speaker 2: these were the most Republican people in the world. They

961
00:52:10,250 --> 00:52:15,680
Speaker 2: loved Barry Goldwater. And now, and that change is happening

962
00:52:15,880 --> 00:52:18,580
Speaker 2: all over the country. And it's sort of the long

963
00:52:18,660 --> 00:52:21,279
Speaker 2: tail of what's the matter with Kansas, all the old

964
00:52:21,320 --> 00:52:23,980
Speaker 2: Republican moderates becoming Democrats.

965
00:52:24,000 --> 00:52:24,120
Speaker 1: Yeah.

966
00:52:24,510 --> 00:52:25,549
Speaker 2: That is fascinating.

967
00:52:25,870 --> 00:52:29,689
Speaker 1: And in some ways, that's a long tail of Obama, too. Yeah.

968
00:52:29,950 --> 00:52:30,890
Speaker 2: Yeah.

969
00:52:30,950 --> 00:52:31,609
Speaker 3: Oh, for sure.

970
00:52:31,790 --> 00:52:33,870
Speaker 2: It's been going for a very long time.

971
00:52:33,890 --> 00:52:35,290
Speaker 1: Since Bill Clinton, too.

972
00:52:35,390 --> 00:52:38,509
Speaker 2: And then you have lots of Democrats who think that's

973
00:52:38,550 --> 00:52:40,430
Speaker 2: the future of the party, is that they need to

974
00:52:40,469 --> 00:52:43,450
Speaker 2: become this party of affluent suburbanites. They basically need to

975
00:52:43,489 --> 00:52:46,950
Speaker 2: become the Republicans of my childhood. And I mean, that's

976
00:52:46,989 --> 00:52:49,190
Speaker 2: going to be awesome when we have two Republican parties.

977
00:52:50,270 --> 00:52:53,270
Speaker 1: Thomas Frank, thank you for coming on.

978
00:52:55,230 --> 00:52:58,010
Speaker 3: And now, your moment of fuckery.

979
00:52:58,270 --> 00:52:59,170
Speaker 1: Rick Wilson!

980
00:52:59,550 --> 00:53:00,170
Speaker 3: Hello, Molly.

981
00:53:00,630 --> 00:53:02,410
Speaker 1: What is your moment of fuckery?

982
00:53:02,860 --> 00:53:05,739
Speaker 3: My moment of fuckery this week is the character that

983
00:53:05,760 --> 00:53:07,700
Speaker 3: we'd seen a little bit around the edges before, but

984
00:53:07,719 --> 00:53:09,800
Speaker 3: has now become a big part of MAGA's troubles.

985
00:53:10,360 --> 00:53:13,140
Speaker 1: It's Eric Dieter, who was the guy.

986
00:53:14,020 --> 00:53:18,049
Speaker 3: The Sam Nundark of election people. The guy who Kimberly

987
00:53:18,070 --> 00:53:21,049
Speaker 3: Guilfoyle said, oh, honey, please, just wire $ 100, 000 to my

988
00:53:21,070 --> 00:53:24,529
Speaker 3: American Express account and pay my bill. This guy... has

989
00:53:24,550 --> 00:53:27,310
Speaker 3: been so burned by these people that now he has

990
00:53:27,350 --> 00:53:30,950
Speaker 3: gone completely rip shit and it is a thing of beauty.

991
00:53:31,230 --> 00:53:35,339
Speaker 3: He's playing tapes about her. He's releasing text messages. He's like,

992
00:53:35,380 --> 00:53:40,259
Speaker 3: I'm going to burn down the entire Trump enterprise.

993
00:53:40,500 --> 00:53:43,779
Speaker 1: He did a list of all the scandals she was

994
00:53:43,840 --> 00:53:45,120
Speaker 1: involved in.

995
00:53:45,739 --> 00:53:46,580
Speaker 3: He's, yeah.

996
00:53:46,780 --> 00:53:49,779
Speaker 1: I mean, I think when you pay for play and

997
00:53:49,820 --> 00:53:51,400
Speaker 1: they pay and you don't play.

998
00:53:51,480 --> 00:53:54,509
Speaker 3: And you don't get any play. Sometimes somebody is going

999
00:53:54,530 --> 00:53:56,730
Speaker 3: to go, yeah, well, they're going to screw me now

1000
00:53:56,770 --> 00:53:58,370
Speaker 3: and they're not going to help me. And I'm going to,

1001
00:53:58,410 --> 00:54:00,649
Speaker 3: I've given them all this money. And when you add

1002
00:54:00,710 --> 00:54:03,290
Speaker 3: up the speaking fees, he gave to like Don jr

1003
00:54:03,469 --> 00:54:08,529
Speaker 3: and Kimberly and Eric and the planes. When you add

1004
00:54:08,550 --> 00:54:10,850
Speaker 3: all that up, this guy's got a lot of reasons

1005
00:54:10,890 --> 00:54:13,210
Speaker 3: to be pissed off. And I am, I am, I

1006
00:54:13,230 --> 00:54:16,930
Speaker 3: am so welcoming Eric Dieter. to the moment he's in

1007
00:54:16,989 --> 00:54:19,790
Speaker 3: because he is actually, you know, you can see that

1008
00:54:19,830 --> 00:54:22,710
Speaker 3: this guy has been like, he's still conflicted. He wants

1009
00:54:22,730 --> 00:54:25,730
Speaker 3: to still be Trump's, you know, a Trump guy. But

1010
00:54:25,770 --> 00:54:28,230
Speaker 3: he also realizes like he's surrounded by a group of

1011
00:54:28,430 --> 00:54:31,270
Speaker 3: fucking criminals and it's glorious to watch.

1012
00:54:31,750 --> 00:54:34,650
Speaker 1: I have two thoughts here. I think we're going to,

1013
00:54:34,750 --> 00:54:37,629
Speaker 1: I think the Eric Dieter story, we're going to hear

1014
00:54:37,690 --> 00:54:41,480
Speaker 1: more about that. And the Ricker now Alina Habas.

1015
00:54:41,560 --> 00:54:43,830
Speaker 3: Oh, yeah. That's some dirty shit right there.

1016
00:54:43,910 --> 00:54:46,149
Speaker 1: Because when you read the piece in The Times, there's

1017
00:54:46,190 --> 00:54:47,730
Speaker 1: just a lot still missing.

1018
00:54:48,290 --> 00:54:50,690
Speaker 3: Yeah, there are a lot. I mean, first off, that

1019
00:54:50,710 --> 00:54:54,580
Speaker 3: guy's history. You know, he left the Democratic Republic of Congo,

1020
00:54:54,739 --> 00:54:56,620
Speaker 3: went to Venezuela to get engaged to the head of

1021
00:54:56,660 --> 00:55:00,400
Speaker 3: the oil ministry's daughter or something, and then splits from that,

1022
00:55:00,580 --> 00:55:03,020
Speaker 3: gets in trouble, comes here, gets in with Alina.

1023
00:55:03,040 --> 00:55:03,140
Speaker 1: Alina.

1024
00:55:06,420 --> 00:55:08,300
Speaker 3: This is like a telenovela at this point.

1025
00:55:08,400 --> 00:55:08,740
Speaker 2: Yeah.

1026
00:55:09,120 --> 00:55:11,240
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah. I think this is going to, we're going

1027
00:55:11,260 --> 00:55:12,210
Speaker 1: to hear some crazy stuff.

1028
00:55:12,230 --> 00:55:13,910
Speaker 3: Oh, it's going to get good. It's going to get good.

1029
00:55:14,410 --> 00:55:14,989
Speaker 3: All right, my friend.

1030
00:55:15,489 --> 00:55:20,590
Speaker 1: Thank you. That's it for this episode of Fast Politics.

1031
00:55:21,050 --> 00:55:26,960
Speaker 1: Tune in every Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Saturday to hear

1032
00:55:26,980 --> 00:55:31,360
Speaker 1: the best minds in politics make sense of all this chaos.

1033
00:55:31,820 --> 00:55:34,540
Speaker 1: If you enjoy this podcast, please send it to a

1034
00:55:34,620 --> 00:55:38,630
Speaker 1: friend and keep the conversation going. Thanks for listening.