Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics,
Speaker 1: where we discussed the top political headlines with some.
Speaker 2: Of today's best minds.
Speaker 1: And Tucker Carlson is in Moscow hanging out with Vladimir Putin.
Speaker 2: We have such a great show for you today.
Speaker 1: Daniella Blueiras, the CEO of the New Leadership Project, joins
Speaker 1: us to talk about how they mobilize business leaders to
Speaker 1: protect democracy. Then we'll talk to the Washington Posts Areles
Speaker 1: Hernandez for a boots on the ground report from the
Speaker 1: Texas Mexico border. But first we have the host of
Speaker 1: the Enemy's List, the Lincoln Project's own Rick Wilson, who
Speaker 1: I would like to add will be joining me along
Speaker 1: with a few other friends. Get ready at City Winery
Speaker 1: on March sixth for a general election kickoff live show.
Speaker 1: You could buy tickets now at City Winery's website and
Speaker 1: you won't miss it.
Speaker 2: And here is Rick Wilson.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to Fast Politics, Rick Wilson, it's a Monday,
Speaker 1: What the fuck man?
Speaker 3: Welcome back, my friends to the show that never ends.
Speaker 1: Ten thousand days from the general election, right, ten thousand
Speaker 1: years from the general.
Speaker 3: It's rent but for political hell. I think the biggest
Speaker 3: things out of last week were the fact that there
Speaker 3: is a number that gags Donald Trump, and I'm happy
Speaker 3: for that number. I love that number.
Speaker 2: Is eighty three million dollars.
Speaker 3: Eighty three million dollars.
Speaker 2: That's the number where Donald Trump stops to fameing you.
Speaker 3: That's the number where even Donald Trump shuts his fucking mouth.
Speaker 1: Which is kind of impressive because for Rudy Giuliani, there
Speaker 1: was no number.
Speaker 2: It turned out the number did not exist. He just
Speaker 2: kept defaming.
Speaker 3: Well, it turned out that Rudy Giuliani is going to
Speaker 3: be eating out of dumpsters at this rate because he
Speaker 3: didn't even try to make a deal. He didn't even
Speaker 3: try to conform his behavior.
Speaker 2: And now he's in bankruptcy proceedings right.
Speaker 3: He's in bankruptcy. Apparently he has about twenty five hundred
Speaker 3: bucks in the bank according to the filing in my
Speaker 3: Giuliani alumni network. It is bad, bad, and also awful.
Speaker 2: What are they saying.
Speaker 3: He's trying to hit anybody he can find up for money.
Speaker 3: He's desperate.
Speaker 1: I mean, I feel like when you owe million dollar
Speaker 1: judgments like that, and not one million, but multiple.
Speaker 2: Million dollar judgments, that's like more than a loane.
Speaker 3: How do you wake up in the morning and go, hey,
Speaker 3: I'm going to call a friend of mine and ask
Speaker 3: for five or seven million dollars. But the person I
Speaker 3: talked to said Rudy was like, oh, yeah, I need
Speaker 3: twenty grand I presume.
Speaker 2: In cat Jesus, it's so bad, you.
Speaker 3: Know, Look he bought the ticket. He's taken the right.
Speaker 3: By the way, the other bankrupt enterprise just before you start,
Speaker 3: is the rn C is flat busted out.
Speaker 1: Okay, So that's where I was going with this was
Speaker 1: money trouble the rn C. Now they're like anemic fundraising.
Speaker 1: The The problem is, from what I heard from a
Speaker 1: straight reporter, was that wealthy people are giving a Nicky Haley.
Speaker 1: Small dollar donors are giving to Donald Trump. No one
Speaker 1: is giving to the RNC.
Speaker 3: Look, the RNC a couple of years ago noticed something.
Speaker 3: If their email fundraising appeals included the name Donald Trump,
Speaker 3: they got money. If they did not include the name
Speaker 3: Donald Trump and they got no money. The problem for
Speaker 3: them is that Trump is hounding away on these small
Speaker 3: dollar donors twenty emails a day. I must have your
Speaker 3: immediate donation, or the deep State wins, you know whatever,
Speaker 3: the crap is.
Speaker 2: The real reason he needs that money is to pay
Speaker 2: his lawyers.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he is not putting this into campaigning. This is
Speaker 3: going into legal fees. Now. The reason that they are
Speaker 3: being so shall we say, blunt with every one of
Speaker 3: the major donor types, is they need a lot of money.
Speaker 3: They need. I believe the technical term is a metric fuck.
Speaker 2: Ton of money. I've heard of the metric book.
Speaker 3: Yes, it's a different the imperial fuck ton. It's a
Speaker 3: totally different thing. Those are freedom units. But long story short,
Speaker 3: you've got a campaign that is not going to be
Speaker 3: able to go out there and go head to head
Speaker 3: with Joe Biden financially on TV. Now, look that matters
Speaker 3: less than it used to matter.
Speaker 1: I think it matters though. You need money to win
Speaker 1: the presidency.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we like money in campaigns. You gotta no bucks,
Speaker 3: no buck rogers, as they say. But the fundamental underpinning
Speaker 3: of this is that nothing Trump is doing right now
Speaker 3: is actually going into campaigning. He presumes that he will
Speaker 3: outgun Biden on earn media.
Speaker 1: Which happened in twenty sixteen, but not in twenty twenty.
Speaker 3: That is correct because now Donald Trump is a known
Speaker 3: quantity and it's much harder now, even for the gentry
Speaker 3: Republicans to say, oh, well, you know, is it a
Speaker 3: private meeting with Susie Wiles and she told me Trump's
Speaker 3: just And then Trump goes out and says, I'm not bullshitting.
Speaker 3: I want to put you fuckers in camps or whatever
Speaker 3: it is. Right, So, these major donors are going to
Speaker 3: finish with Nikki and they're gonna say for about a
Speaker 3: week and then they're going to all write a check.
Speaker 3: It's what they do. Because he's also saying, I will
Speaker 3: target you if you don't.
Speaker 1: Right, all right, I think that we should not wait
Speaker 1: for these people to have a crisis of conscience because
Speaker 1: it's not coming.
Speaker 3: Oh no, but there was a fire sale on conscience
Speaker 3: a few years ago, and they're not exactly waking up
Speaker 3: in the morning and going, my god, what are the
Speaker 3: implications of me being a complete fucking, amoral shit back.
Speaker 3: They don't think about that any day ever.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: So let me ask you here we are. We're in
Speaker 1: this kind of weird period. Nikki Haley. I mean, she's
Speaker 1: going to be out there, people are giving our money.
Speaker 1: She's gonna get shellacked in South Carolina. They'll explain to
Speaker 1: us why.
Speaker 3: Well, look, South Carolina makes Ayowa look like a state
Speaker 3: full of lib tar cuck progressive communist Soro shields. South
Speaker 3: Carolina is the home of the dirtiest, lowest. And I
Speaker 3: want you to remember who's saying this to you right now.
Speaker 3: It's me.
Speaker 4: The dirtiest, lowest, nastiest, scummiest, most fucking vicious, mean spirited, amoral,
Speaker 4: bottom feeding, scum sucking, cat killing scumbag politics in the country.
Speaker 2: And I'm from Florida, which taught them how to do
Speaker 2: it right.
Speaker 3: It's like, you know, Darth Vader watching the guy kill
Speaker 3: all the kids in Star Wars, like, oh easy, woe
Speaker 3: back there, pal. You know, it's just so crazily over
Speaker 3: the top. So Nicky's gonna go there. They're doing the
Speaker 3: Birther bullshit on her already. They're gonna run a brutal campaign.
Speaker 3: They're gonna say she's an adulteress and a furner and
Speaker 3: all this other crazy bullshit. And you know what's gonna happen.
Speaker 3: I'm just gonna win by thirty points or twenty points
Speaker 3: or whatever. Would I love for her to stay in
Speaker 3: through Super Tuesday at least? Sure, great, she could live
Speaker 3: off the land. She could do it for a few weeks,
Speaker 3: but I'm I mean, at the end of the day,
Speaker 3: my brain space now is devoted to how do he
Speaker 3: beat Donald Trump? Not how can we help Nikky Haley
Speaker 3: Scooch past the political graveyard.
Speaker 1: And you know I've written about this, and I think
Speaker 1: you've written about this too, which is this fantasy that
Speaker 1: Donald Trump somehow goes Okay, I'm not the nominee, That's fine,
Speaker 1: I'll just go away is insane. This man is running
Speaker 1: to stay out of jail, right, He's not running to
Speaker 1: be the nominee. He's running for his life, his livelihood,
Speaker 1: his family business.
Speaker 3: There are two men in the world who know that
Speaker 3: if Trump doesn't win, their lives are absolutely fucked. One
Speaker 3: is Donald Trump. The other is Vladimir Putin. If Trump wins,
Speaker 3: Putin lives. If Trump doesn't, Putin dies, literally, he is
Speaker 3: going to die.
Speaker 2: I don't think he's gonna die. That I think is hyperbolic.
Speaker 3: No, they'll kill it, yeh no, no, no, no, he's no,
Speaker 3: he's fine. Now, he's not that fine. Trump needs to
Speaker 3: win to stay the fuck out of jail. And none
Speaker 3: of this, none of this works. If Trump loses all
Speaker 3: the bs falls apart, all the fundraising falls, apart all
Speaker 3: the ability to get six seven figure donations.
Speaker 2: From right, nobody's paying for his lawyers if he's not
Speaker 2: the nomine.
Speaker 3: And what you're going to see, I suspect when he
Speaker 3: is the nominee is there'll be a process of rapid
Speaker 3: naturation of the legal side and they will treat it
Speaker 3: much more seriously. They will not let Trump have another
Speaker 3: Elena Haba on the stage, because that worked out really well.
Speaker 1: Obviously, Yeah she really, I mean, you know, such an
Speaker 1: interesting thing. You know, he found this lawyer who looked
Speaker 1: like a young Milania, very beautiful.
Speaker 3: Single white female looking Milania.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: Turns out that person not a great lawyer, and you
Speaker 1: put her against one of the best litigators in this country,
Speaker 1: a woman you know, argued the defensive marriage doma in
Speaker 1: front of the Supreme Court, and that really good lawyer
Speaker 1: eats her for fucking lunch.
Speaker 3: Robbie. It was the equivalent of watching like a monster
Speaker 3: go out and tear the head off of somebody and
Speaker 3: kick it around like a soccer ball and drink from
Speaker 3: the spurting blood fountain of the neck. Because this was just.
Speaker 2: Tear us out you really think.
Speaker 3: I know, you're like, oh damn it, Grandpapa Rixton like
Speaker 3: terrible stories again.
Speaker 2: Grand guy. Yet not yet, but it's true. I mean,
Speaker 2: that's a great point.
Speaker 1: You know, we are here, we are Alena Habba by
Speaker 1: the way, supposedly, you know, when we had Robbie on
Speaker 1: the podcast, she was saying how uncomfortable it made her
Speaker 1: to watch Alena with the judge because she was not
Speaker 1: respectful with the judge, and that this judge, Caplin is
Speaker 1: a very strict judge.
Speaker 3: Right as we look at this, it's absolutely typical of
Speaker 3: the sort of broader sense of Trump world and of
Speaker 3: Maga world today, and that world is contemptuous of expertise.
Speaker 3: Trump needed, as somebody said, some man or a woman
Speaker 3: who has spent a lot of time in court who
Speaker 3: is mental strong enough to say, shut up, Donald, stop
Speaker 3: doing that. Donald.
Speaker 2: That's a Tom Nichols a kind of idea.
Speaker 3: It is a Tom Nichols type take. But it's it's
Speaker 3: not wrong. Trump doesn't have anyone like that. He doesn't
Speaker 3: have anyone well, I mean he has Susie Wiles, yeah,
Speaker 3: but Susie's not involved in that part of the operational side.
Speaker 3: She's just in the campaign. I will say this with
Speaker 3: all respect, there will become a moment where Trump's ego.
Speaker 3: Remember there's always a good rule to follow with Trump,
Speaker 3: the better he does, the worse he is. And if
Speaker 3: he starts to pick up again in the polls or
Speaker 3: anywhere else, he will And because think about it, a
Speaker 3: lot of his shit behavior from him came right after
Speaker 3: he started winning in Iowa and New Hampshire. Because of that,
Speaker 3: he got that I'm invincible thing in his head. Again,
Speaker 3: He's not invincible. We've seen it now, We've seen Robbie
Speaker 3: take him to school and end his shenanigans.
Speaker 1: You know, he does have more legal problems coming down
Speaker 1: the pike, like he has a ninety one criminal count.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Well look, and again I've said this hundred times.
Speaker 3: I mean, it will not change a single MAGA vote
Speaker 3: even if he is in prison.
Speaker 2: But doesn't matter. All the magas are not enough.
Speaker 3: What matters to me. What I find very satisfactory in
Speaker 3: this moment is that Donald Trump, even if he never
Speaker 3: spends a day in jail, he's about to have his
Speaker 3: entire real estate empire ripped away from him because it's
Speaker 3: built on a foundation of fraud. He is going to
Speaker 3: lose all of that that stuffs over, and he is
Speaker 3: going to spend the rest of his life trying to
Speaker 3: pretend to be a billionaire and hustle around trying to
Speaker 3: pretend to be a billionaire when he's not. He's got
Speaker 3: nothing left and I am here for that.
Speaker 1: So let's talk about some just retail politics that I'm
Speaker 1: not seeing a lot of discussion of. Filing deadlines were
Speaker 1: this week for a bunch of races Arizona. Looks like
Speaker 1: Carrie Lake does not have a lot of money. Looks
Speaker 1: like Kirsten Cinema has even less.
Speaker 2: I mean, is this just Reuben goes to.
Speaker 3: Have right now? It's rubens to have not. By saying that,
Speaker 3: I mean to also say, never ever, ever take anything
Speaker 3: at all.
Speaker 2: For granted, especially in Arizona, Especially.
Speaker 3: In Arizona, It's bad juju to take anything like that
Speaker 3: for granted. Don't do it. But the Lake brand, like
Speaker 3: a lot of other things, trump Ism doesn't scale as
Speaker 3: well as people think it does.
Speaker 2: It almost never does.
Speaker 3: If someone came in your house and acted the way
Speaker 3: Trump does and said the things Trump says, you'd go
Speaker 3: get the fuck out. You're insane. And if someone acted
Speaker 3: that way in the workplace, they'd be fired. All these
Speaker 3: things have added up to this sort of delusion on
Speaker 3: the part of a lot of these people that they
Speaker 3: can go out and run and pretend that they're Donald
Speaker 3: Trump and they're not not one of them.
Speaker 1: Is there anyone who you can think of who has
Speaker 1: done trump Ism and hasn't underperformed at least? I mean,
Speaker 1: like I'm thinking of like JJB Vans you have a
Speaker 1: JD vance still ran like about ten points less than
Speaker 1: he should have considering was Ohio.
Speaker 3: That's true, ten is as good as one if you're winning, right,
Speaker 3: I guess that's true. Or one is as good as
Speaker 3: ten if you're winning.
Speaker 2: But that's like such a red state.
Speaker 1: Have you seen anyone else like do trumpsm and make
Speaker 1: it work for them?
Speaker 3: I'm thinking about it right now, and I don't really
Speaker 3: have another person who is in a competitive seat or
Speaker 3: state been able to pull that off. Even in congressional
Speaker 3: districts that are pretty red. There is a limitation of it.
Speaker 3: So they say the sort of ritualizings of I love
Speaker 3: Donald Trump, he is the savior in the light of
Speaker 3: my light in my heart. But they don't act like
Speaker 3: Donald Trump. They don't go out and talk about I'm
Speaker 3: going to be a dictator on day one, and they
Speaker 3: don't play the Trump character that he plays in every
Speaker 3: public interaction.
Speaker 2: Probably the most maga congressman is mac Gads.
Speaker 1: Mac Gates is not a product Matt Gates, right, mac Gates.
Speaker 3: R Plus thirty two or whatever the district.
Speaker 2: Is, yeah, Florida's first district.
Speaker 1: But he's also like Macates is both maga, but he's
Speaker 1: also like the son of a.
Speaker 2: Very prominent Florida politics you know.
Speaker 3: Yeh, a former client. Look, and his dad is his
Speaker 3: dad is worth you know, three hundred million dollars. So
Speaker 3: Matt has never had a problem in his life. But
Speaker 3: none of these places or people that would imitate Trump
Speaker 3: or trump Ism in the real world would survive. It
Speaker 3: just doesn't work that way. And that's actually that American
Speaker 3: should take that as a sort.
Speaker 2: Of upbeat note, pretty good sign.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 3: Look, there's always been this this sort of like baseline
Speaker 3: idea that America finds its way to back sort of
Speaker 3: a political homeostasis at some point. And the idea that
Speaker 3: Trump and trump Ism is as unpalatable to Americans as
Speaker 3: would be like if you took the squad and put
Speaker 3: them in a moderate Midwestern Democratic district. You know they
Speaker 3: wouldn't It wouldn't work. But Trump is so far out
Speaker 3: into the extreme ether it makes even sort of like
Speaker 3: the most noisy progressives look fairly normal in some ways.
Speaker 1: I love you, but compare bearing this squad to Donald
Speaker 1: Trump is like get bearing Mussolini to the Fendi sisters.
Speaker 3: What I said was that if you put the squad
Speaker 3: in a in a moderate district in anywhere but where
Speaker 3: they exist, they couldn't survive politically.
Speaker 1: It's true, but it is like the construction is comparing
Speaker 1: the Fendi Sisters to Mussolini. I still love you, though
Speaker 1: I love you too. Daniella balu Eras is the CEO
Speaker 1: of the Leadership Now Project.
Speaker 2: Welcome to Fast Politics, dan HeLa.
Speaker 5: Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: It great to be here, great to have you so
Speaker 1: talk to us about what your organization is called and
Speaker 1: what it does.
Speaker 5: Sure, my organization is the Leadership Now Project, and we
Speaker 5: have since twenty seventeen been organizing and mobilizing business leaders
Speaker 5: who are concerned with protecting American democracy.
Speaker 2: And what does that? What does that mean? Like business
Speaker 2: leaders explain.
Speaker 5: It means a couple of things in terms of actual
Speaker 5: who of who's involved. Since the start, we have had
Speaker 5: the thesis that there are plenty of members of the
Speaker 5: business community. I started the organization with fellow alumni from
Speaker 5: Harvard Business School, but we're worried about the state of democracy.
Speaker 5: And since then we've expanded across the country, and so
Speaker 5: we have many our alumni from business schools across the
Speaker 5: country of our now leading companies and organizations. Many are
Speaker 5: gen xers who haven't really been politically engaged until in
Speaker 5: a significant way, until seeing the really significant threats to
Speaker 5: democracy after twenty sixteen, and have realized that it's in
Speaker 5: there the country's interest, in their individual interests and in
Speaker 5: their business interests to have a functioning system that works.
Speaker 2: So what does that look like?
Speaker 1: I mean, how it's one thing to say you support democracy,
Speaker 1: but how do you actually support it?
Speaker 5: Yeah, let me give you a couple of examples. So
Speaker 5: we had members across the country. They are members in
Speaker 5: their individual capacity. So if you think of organizations historically
Speaker 5: or that still exists, like the American Bar Association, American
Speaker 5: Medicalizations Association, organizations that have individual professionals who have a.
Speaker 6: Perspective and a position.
Speaker 5: Our members are coming to this as individuals, but recognizing
Speaker 5: their interests, and that can happen in a couple of
Speaker 5: different ways. We have focused on first, what are systems
Speaker 5: that can make our democracy function better, So ending jerry managering,
Speaker 5: increasing voting access, having transparent campaign finance rules, those are
Speaker 5: all in that bucket. So we've done things like just
Speaker 5: last week, our members in Ohio and worked with other
Speaker 5: business leaders in the state and issued a letter and
Speaker 5: statement supporting the objective registracting ballot initiative that is expected
Speaker 5: to be on the ballot in November and making the case.
Speaker 5: So we had seventy leaders from the former CEO of
Speaker 5: Procter and Gamble to Jenny Britton, the CEO of where
Speaker 5: the founder of Jenny's Splendid ice Cream, saying look for
Speaker 5: the date. Having fair districts, having state legislatures who are
Speaker 5: accountable to their citizens, that's good.
Speaker 6: For our state.
Speaker 5: That's good for attracting talent, and that's good for our
Speaker 5: business as a whole. And we've been doing in Wisconsin.
Speaker 5: Our members last year and the year before asked candidates
Speaker 5: like Governor Evers and Tim Michaels, who ran for governor
Speaker 5: in twenty twenty two to commit to certifying future elections
Speaker 5: regardless of the outcome, a pretty basic question. We would
Speaker 5: hope that every political candidate was willing to commit to that.
Speaker 5: But when in that case the Republican candidate for governor
Speaker 5: refused to do so, our members were very public and saying,
Speaker 5: we're Democrats, we're Republicans, but we have to vote for democracy,
Speaker 5: and in this case that means voting for governor evers.
Speaker 5: So we're trying to take very specific stances on issues
Speaker 5: that are very clearly at the core of trust in
Speaker 5: our system, the functioning of our system, and creating a
Speaker 5: stable and dynamic democracy that we need for our society
Speaker 5: to function, for capitalism to function over the long term.
Speaker 1: So there was some talk early on after Trump led
Speaker 1: an armed insurrection that corporations weren't going to donate to him.
Speaker 1: A lot of them have maybe not donated to him,
Speaker 1: but donated to you know, they said they weren't going
Speaker 1: to donate to Republicans who signed to try to overturn
Speaker 1: the twenty twenty election.
Speaker 2: All of that has changed, largely.
Speaker 1: Tell me some good news here, because it feels like,
Speaker 1: in my mind, a lot of corporations have really been
Speaker 1: quite cowardly and not really stood up for democracy.
Speaker 2: So give us like a tiny bit of good news here.
Speaker 7: One.
Speaker 5: I think it is really important not to think about
Speaker 5: businesses business leaders as a modelis right if you look
Speaker 5: at we look at over time, what are the political
Speaker 5: orientation of MBAs. They're about half half Democrat Republican people.
Speaker 5: Look at how many say they support democracy, They're pretty
Speaker 5: moderate on both sides. It's seventy to eighty percent really
Speaker 5: are worried about it and concerned. And so the coalition
Speaker 5: for democracy I think is very large, and it's in
Speaker 5: all of our interests to make that as large as possible,
Speaker 5: and business people are part of it.
Speaker 6: I think to the specific point of the business.
Speaker 5: Response to the interaction and what has happened around supporting
Speaker 5: election deniers, I think what immediately happened around the election
Speaker 5: in twenty twenty, and we were very involved in this,
Speaker 5: that we were the first business organization to come out
Speaker 5: in October of twenty twenty and say we have to
Speaker 5: this election is legitimate, our processes are legitimate. We're going
Speaker 5: to need to be patient with results. And that had
Speaker 5: everyone from read Hoffman to mursa mayor, to many others
Speaker 5: who signed on and through you know, the election debates
Speaker 5: around waiting for GSA certification, the insurrection, we were really
Speaker 5: in lockstep with many of the other business groups like
Speaker 5: the Chamber and Business Roundtable and CEOs coming out and saying, Okay,
Speaker 5: this is unacceptable, this election is legitimate, and then obviously
Speaker 5: coming out against the insurrection and then stating that they
Speaker 5: would no longer a support election deniers. And you're absolutely
Speaker 5: right that that commitment has waned. It's not with one
Speaker 5: hundred percent. I mean about half of those companies have
Speaker 5: kept commitments. The dollars going from companies to election deniers
Speaker 5: has reduced, but it has not become a standard right,
Speaker 5: which is ideally you would like to see a more
Speaker 5: kind of baseline set of expectations for candidates that corporate
Speaker 5: packs would support.
Speaker 6: So I don't have a great excuse for that.
Speaker 5: I think that that is something that we were encouraging
Speaker 5: companies to really take a real look at in twenty
Speaker 5: twenty four as they make their decisions and the.
Speaker 6: Risk that that creates.
Speaker 5: But I do think it's important to recognize that the
Speaker 5: way companies and business leaders are engaged in the system
Speaker 5: is not just about you know one hundred and forty
Speaker 5: seven members of Congress and the twenty five hundred dollars
Speaker 5: checks that you know, a relatively limited set of companies
Speaker 5: in the big scheme of things. Right, it comes down to,
Speaker 5: I mean, what we know in this election, right. I mean,
Speaker 5: you're talking to people on this podcast every day about
Speaker 5: it is.
Speaker 6: It's going to come.
Speaker 5: Down to the conduct and mobilization in six states. You know,
Speaker 5: I was recently in Arizona. Eighty percent of the election
Speaker 5: administrators have quit. Yeah, there's intimidation all over the place,
Speaker 5: including of the particularly of the Republican election administrators, right,
Speaker 5: and business leaders standing up for those election administrators, helping
Speaker 5: fill the gap, and poll workers encouraging going out to
Speaker 5: vote publicly, standing against election deniers in this their state,
Speaker 5: which is what our Wisconsin business leaders did. I mean,
Speaker 5: that's even bolder from my perspective than a company deciding
Speaker 5: not to write a twenty five hundred dollars check.
Speaker 2: Is that happening?
Speaker 6: Yeah?
Speaker 5: And I mean that you know, as I mentioned, our
Speaker 5: members in Wisconsin and the Wisconsin Business Leaders for Democracy
Speaker 5: when they did this question neire to candidates to the
Speaker 5: governor givenatorial candidates and said will use sort of five
Speaker 5: future elections. They came out publicly, they endorsed Evers because
Speaker 5: he was supporting democracy.
Speaker 6: They shot an.
Speaker 5: Ad, It was viewed ten million times, It was covered
Speaker 5: all over the press, and it was a clear statement
Speaker 5: to voters and too many moderate voters that you know,
Speaker 5: this was an election that was first and formed about
Speaker 5: for our institutions and I think for business. You know,
Speaker 5: I've been disappointed by the narrative coming out of Davos.
Speaker 1: Why don't you tell our listeners for those who are
Speaker 1: not completely tuned in what the narrative, the incredibly ridiculous
Speaker 1: narrative coming out of Davos.
Speaker 5: Was, which I will say, I will attribute to a
Speaker 5: combination of the chat or the ara to Davos, and
Speaker 5: I think they're kind of overestimating how much there's a
Speaker 5: singular narrative. So I think the press is weaved it
Speaker 5: into like one narrative that everyone in Davos kind of
Speaker 5: was taking. All of that said, I mean, there were
Speaker 5: clearly data points that the press had to work with
Speaker 5: around business leaders, including Jamie Diamond, suggest thing at a minimum,
Speaker 5: they were willing to work with whoever would win and
Speaker 5: it wouldn't really affect the us that much, and maybe
Speaker 5: even that would be you know, net positive.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: There might be a tax cut, which is insane, right,
Speaker 2: but yes, I'll be in Gitmo, so I won't get
Speaker 2: to see the tax cut. But yes, that's the idea.
Speaker 7: I'm on the stand. It's you are.
Speaker 1: It is this idea that corporate I mean, corporations are
Speaker 1: now people.
Speaker 2: They are corporations serving their corporate interest.
Speaker 6: Right, right.
Speaker 5: But the people who made comments in Davos are people, right.
Speaker 6: Those business leaders are.
Speaker 5: Made out of comments that they have, from my perspective,
Speaker 5: a fear billit of latitude and how they frame this issue.
Speaker 6: And so I think the.
Speaker 5: The failure in that framing is that this election, first
Speaker 5: and foremost is about of law and institutions and about
Speaker 5: not what exactly what economic policy decision is.
Speaker 6: Going to be made in the first month or year,
Speaker 6: et cetera.
Speaker 5: Although I think there are many ways that Trump will
Speaker 5: be bad for trade, will be bad for many industries.
Speaker 2: Well, the sixty percent tariff seems like it might be inflationary.
Speaker 2: Trump has been mulling private lily to advisors a sixty
Speaker 2: percent tariff on Chinese goods.
Speaker 5: Yes, I mean there is all kinds of both bluster
Speaker 5: and like real policies that could be taken that would
Speaker 5: be bad economically. But I think this most important argument
Speaker 5: here is the question is will you be ever able
Speaker 5: to influence policy again, whether you.
Speaker 6: Like the next policy or not.
Speaker 5: Are we going to be at the end of real
Speaker 5: democracy in this country where institutions and policies are debated
Speaker 5: and fought out in different interests. You know, we might
Speaker 5: not love exactly which interests have more influenced or not,
Speaker 5: but ultimately, even in its imperfection, our system is about
Speaker 5: rule of law, a set of representation of people. And
Speaker 5: what's at stake here is really the entire system itself,
Speaker 5: and that not only has real domestic you know, I
Speaker 5: think the application for business, of course, are also things
Speaker 5: like political retribution. We did an amicust brief. What are
Speaker 5: the other things we do in addition to, you know,
Speaker 5: taking positions on ballot initiatives or on expectations of political leaders?
Speaker 5: Is amicus briefs on things like the Morvey Harper Independent State,
Speaker 5: Independent State Legislature case, which was a case in twenty
Speaker 5: twenty three that sought to just give state legislatures free
Speaker 5: reign over elections, which failed, fortunately in the Supreme Court,
Speaker 5: but we submitted an amarchist saying this kind of lack
Speaker 5: of rule of law and uncertainty would be bad for business.
Speaker 6: And we also did an amicist brief.
Speaker 1: Which seems pretty obvious, but a lot of Republicans don't
Speaker 1: believe that, which is bizarre, continue to say.
Speaker 7: Yeah, yeah, well yeah.
Speaker 5: And this is another place where the framing does not
Speaker 5: make sense of removing constitutional checks and balances the system,
Speaker 5: which again are the like four of democracy rate and
Speaker 5: protects everyone, I mean.
Speaker 6: Including business.
Speaker 5: And we didn't amachus brief on Disney's case against Governor
Speaker 5: DeSantis on you know, free speech grounds and also you know,
Speaker 5: the lack of constitutionality of political retribution against a company
Speaker 5: for them exercising free speech as Disney did in the
Speaker 5: case in Florida on LGBT rights, and that I think
Speaker 5: the scale of behind the scenes political retribution or threats
Speaker 5: of political retribution and then the public examples like Disney
Speaker 5: are very significant.
Speaker 6: I mean, we hear about it all the time, and
Speaker 6: it's at it's at the state level.
Speaker 5: It's threatening a company if you say anything we don't like,
Speaker 5: here's the three things we're going to do on your
Speaker 5: regulation on the regulatory side to a degree. I mean,
Speaker 5: you know, you could argue politics has never exactly been
Speaker 5: the most clean of political systems anywhere, but it has
Speaker 5: gone up dramatically in the last eight years. And the
Speaker 5: idea that you can just kind of hide from that
Speaker 5: or that intervention in your business is something that won't happen,
Speaker 5: or you can just you know, you can stop using
Speaker 5: the term ESG and start saying sustainability and then they'll
Speaker 5: go away. Unfortunately, history tells us that that is not
Speaker 5: the case. I mean, we work with business leaders from Hungary,
Speaker 5: from Turkey, from Mexico. They've all seen, as they've experienced
Speaker 5: that democracy eroded. The political leadership is willing to completely
Speaker 5: go after them, go after them personally, go after their businesses,
Speaker 5: make it impossible for them to operate. I mean, you
Speaker 5: see in Hong Kong the number of business leaders that
Speaker 5: have been thrown in jail. Go back to Pazi Germany.
Speaker 5: You know, it really is unfortunately, very naive. What we
Speaker 5: know is that business leaders over history are often naive
Speaker 5: that they can kind of work with the autocrat. Unfortunately,
Speaker 5: you know, they'll just kind of not take them on,
Speaker 5: and that never ends well at all.
Speaker 1: Exactly what can our listeners do to support your organization
Speaker 1: and also just to support democracy as all.
Speaker 5: Absolutely, And I mean I think one just one other
Speaker 5: comment on Davos and the commentary there and this commentary
Speaker 5: that business has come to terms with Trump. I really
Speaker 5: think that is not helpful because business and business leaders,
Speaker 5: whether it's the Fortune five hundred or at a state
Speaker 5: level across different industries, is just are just not monolithic.
Speaker 5: And there of business leaders and plenty of power that
Speaker 5: we have in this country, whether it's in business or
Speaker 5: in civil society, who does not want to see the
Speaker 5: erosion of rule of law. And that's not purely defined
Speaker 5: by democrat versus Republican. And lots of people don't even
Speaker 5: like to think of themselves first, second, or third as partisan, right.
Speaker 5: They think of themselves as a business person, They think
Speaker 5: of themselves as a mom, They think of you know,
Speaker 5: all all of those things that I am, you know,
Speaker 5: I think about and I'm a New Yorker like all
Speaker 5: of those identities. There's no readings, and we shouldn't be,
Speaker 5: you know, thinking about them broadly. And I really do
Speaker 5: think we have many examples in recent years of business
Speaker 5: people and business leaders taking a position.
Speaker 6: Here and there's no reason we can't do more.
Speaker 5: And I think one of the you know, lessons from
Speaker 5: I find Tim Snyder's work The Yell Historians so instructive
Speaker 5: and his on iranny, you know, his twenty steps of
Speaker 5: how to kind of resist autocracy. The first one is
Speaker 5: don't obey in advance if there's bluster around you know, oh,
Speaker 5: we're scared.
Speaker 6: That Donald tweet.
Speaker 5: Donald Trump might tweet against us, or there might be
Speaker 5: you know, threats of retaliatory regulation, et cetera. What autocrats
Speaker 5: depend on is you taking action before they even do anything.
Speaker 5: So I think that kind of reminder to everyone, like,
Speaker 5: you know, don't change the way you're operating in your
Speaker 5: business or in life just because you're fear of what
Speaker 5: might happen later, because that increases the chance that happens later.
Speaker 5: And I think the other thing is, which is relevant
Speaker 5: to business or to engaging any civic group, right, is
Speaker 5: that like small actions and small groups of people do
Speaker 5: have a lot of power. So even you know what
Speaker 5: we've seen, if even a dozen executives in the city
Speaker 5: come together and say, how are we going to protect
Speaker 5: be part of protecting election administrators in this state?
Speaker 6: What are we going to do publicly.
Speaker 5: How do we work with other civic groups, How do
Speaker 5: we make it unacceptable for threats? For election administrators that
Speaker 5: can have a lot of power, you don't need to have,
Speaker 5: like you know, all the leaders in your state or
Speaker 5: city involved, you can you can move, which I think
Speaker 5: is going to be so important in the next nine months.
Speaker 5: And then I you know, I think a basic thing
Speaker 5: that any leader of an organization can do also is
Speaker 5: give time out for voting, you know, make sure that
Speaker 5: everyone's aware of all.
Speaker 6: Of the ways to engage.
Speaker 5: We have such a desperate need for poll workers, for instance,
Speaker 5: because so many are quittings. So I think just supporting
Speaker 5: that engagement, et cetera. I'll say one last thing on
Speaker 5: the point of what can people do? Mali, I see
Speaker 5: that we both grew up in New York.
Speaker 6: I was in Brooklyn mostly before Brooklyn was cool, maybe
Speaker 6: a gritty cool.
Speaker 5: I was reflecting on how the former president was so
Speaker 5: present in the press and around the time that you
Speaker 5: and I were both young, and you would have lots
Speaker 5: of Donalds in and Evada press and publicity, and how
Speaker 5: that seemed kind of farcical at the time, and how
Speaker 5: it seems anything but that now, but I do think
Speaker 5: New Yorkers I feel an extra obligation to be part
Speaker 5: of addressing these threats to democracy since it's kind of a.
Speaker 2: Home we created him. Yes, yes, thank you so much, Daniella.
Speaker 6: That was great, great to connect.
Speaker 1: Arelis Hernandez is a correspondent for The Washington Post.
Speaker 2: Welcome to Fast Politics at our alis.
Speaker 7: Happy to be here. Thank you.
Speaker 2: He wrote this incredible piece on the border.
Speaker 1: I am so conflicted because I want to cover the
Speaker 1: border because there's a humanitarian crisis going on there. But
Speaker 1: it feels to me that the way it's being covered
Speaker 1: as a political crisis when in fact it's really a
Speaker 1: humanitarian crisis.
Speaker 7: What is it like so right now, actually, crossings have plummeted.
Speaker 7: I'm actually an Eagle Pass right now, and you know
Speaker 7: there's some activity down the river, but right now there's
Speaker 7: sort of in a stasis. I can describe to you
Speaker 7: Shelby Park for example, of this riverfront park here in
Speaker 7: Eagle Pass, it has quite a bit of sort of
Speaker 7: military personnel there. There are raes or wire shipping containers,
Speaker 7: and they're continuing to sort of place more and more
Speaker 7: stuff as a barrier as a deterrent to migrants, and
Speaker 7: so what we have been hearing from local officials and
Speaker 7: particularly law enforcement and fire rescue folks here at Eagle
Speaker 7: Pass is that because migrants are seeing that this path
Speaker 7: that was once available that I'm to cross the river
Speaker 7: is longer available, they're going upriver and downriver, where in
Speaker 7: some cases the water is more swift, it's deeper, and
Speaker 7: it's a bit more dangerous across.
Speaker 1: One of the things you what about in this pieces,
Speaker 1: you talked about how you know there are soldiers there.
Speaker 1: There's a whole sort of security industrial complex booming in
Speaker 1: the town of Eagle Pass.
Speaker 7: Right, Yes, I mean on normal date is right when
Speaker 7: you don't have the State of Texas and the National
Speaker 7: Guard occupying a city municipal park, there is tons of
Speaker 7: federal law enforcement and border control that are here regularly controlling.
Speaker 7: The reason that we think that crossing xanthropped off in
Speaker 7: the new year has to do in part with some
Speaker 7: of the work that's happening in Mexico, with our diplomats
Speaker 7: and some of our congressional leaders negotiating with Mexico to
Speaker 7: have the National Police over there be also more aggressive
Speaker 7: in stopping groups from reaching northern Mexico. In this case,
Speaker 7: this is called Quawia States, which is the sister city
Speaker 7: to Eagle Pass, and there they've been more successful in,
Speaker 7: for example, taking migrantsoft buses, stopping them from boarding flights
Speaker 7: to the border, intercepting caravans and sending them back south
Speaker 7: to Tabatula or to the Guatemala Mexico border. And so
Speaker 7: you know, the US has been in this holding pattern
Speaker 7: of sorts where the numbers sort of fluctuate, in part
Speaker 7: depending on how much interest Mexico has in stopping those
Speaker 7: groups from even reaching the border.
Speaker 2: Right, I want you to talk about.
Speaker 1: Because one of the things that was so moved with
Speaker 1: your piece was about how this is really a dangerous cross.
Speaker 2: I mean, people die doing.
Speaker 7: This all the time. In fact, I was with a
Speaker 7: shared deputy yesterday and we were talking through His job
Speaker 7: for a long time was just to respond to the
Speaker 7: remains of migrants dubbed floaters, because if you drown in
Speaker 7: the river, it takes a couple of days for your
Speaker 7: body to inflate and float up to the surface of
Speaker 7: the river. He handled two hundred and twenty five bodies
Speaker 7: in twenty twenty two alone. There are different groups that
Speaker 7: have different numbers than metic Balok x Amner's officer, the
Speaker 7: Justice of the Peace, Board of Patrol has different numbers,
Speaker 7: but we're talking about hundreds of people, men, women and children,
Speaker 7: and in some cases women who are pregnant, you know,
Speaker 7: good and distressing the river and then give burst his
Speaker 7: stillborn children. On the US side. It's a massive tragedy.
Speaker 1: So one of the things you read about in this
Speaker 1: piece is the town of Eagle Pass. The people around
Speaker 1: there have a lot of mixed feelings about immigration and
Speaker 1: these people coming over the border.
Speaker 7: Yeah, so Eagle Pass is technically part of Tony gonzalezis
Speaker 7: a Republican his district. This is a place where people
Speaker 7: are mostly voting Democrat, but are very conservative or at
Speaker 7: least extremely moderate, and they're facing this in different ways.
Speaker 7: For example, if you're a local firefighter, you're experiencing the
Speaker 7: trauma of having to respond to migrant rescues all the time.
Speaker 7: If you're someone who needs the here to the hospital
Speaker 7: in Eagle Past, you're having to wait some time because
Speaker 7: a lagrant might be occupying that bed that you need.
Speaker 7: If you're a shared's deputy who is experienced, like, there
Speaker 7: are different layers to this. So people I think are
Speaker 7: for the most part, are largely sympathetic to the fact
Speaker 7: that people are making this choice to joiney northward and
Speaker 7: to seek asylum, but are angry about the resources and
Speaker 7: more than anything, I think the sort of inaction of
Speaker 7: both the state and the federal government in providing actual
Speaker 7: solutions to the problem. Right.
Speaker 2: And that's I.
Speaker 1: Think a really important point here, because Biden had asked
Speaker 1: for all this border money and Republicans had said no,
Speaker 1: And then there was a border bill which nobody's seen
Speaker 1: but is probably not going to make anyone happy. Until
Speaker 1: you have legislation, Biden can't really executive order his way
Speaker 1: out of those as much as Republicans pretend to want
Speaker 1: him to. So, like, these people who live in this community,
Speaker 1: are they feel that they're not I mean, they don't
Speaker 1: just feel it, It's really true that they're not able
Speaker 1: Like the part of in the piece you wrote about
Speaker 1: how like, you know, people who have a heart attack
Speaker 1: can't get an ambulance because they're trying to save someone
Speaker 1: who's drowning in the river, right.
Speaker 7: Right exactly. I mean they're literally in the middle in
Speaker 7: every single way and dimension of this particular humanitarian issue.
Speaker 7: And you know, folks are trying to sort of figure
Speaker 7: out a way that they can be a part of
Speaker 7: the conversation, whether at the state or the federal level.
Speaker 7: I mean, if you ask regular folks in egal past,
Speaker 7: they won't blame the governor for stepping in the way
Speaker 7: he has. They don't think it's effective or will solve
Speaker 7: the problem, but they sympathize with that frustration that like,
Speaker 7: here you have thousands of people every day, like at
Speaker 7: some point it was like five thousand people every day
Speaker 7: crossing the river into your community. And while you know,
Speaker 7: in sort of direct everyday way, you're not interacting or
Speaker 7: having encounters with micro depending on where you live within
Speaker 7: the rural or in the city, but you are feeling
Speaker 7: sort of like the residual effects of all of that.
Speaker 2: Right exactly.
Speaker 1: And it's complicated because a lot of these people are
Speaker 1: new immigrants.
Speaker 7: Right, And I mean you've got all kinds of different
Speaker 7: sort of family dynamics in the borderlands. In some cases,
Speaker 7: there are folks who've been here since you know, Spanish
Speaker 7: were here in this region and this was still Mexico.
Speaker 7: And then you have people who, yeah, who are one
Speaker 7: or two generations removed from having migrated themselves or their
Speaker 7: families are still on the other side in Piados Negadas
Speaker 7: who are in mixed status families, so again like they
Speaker 7: understand and they sympathize. There is a little bit of
Speaker 7: sort of quiet resentment, particularly on Mexicans who migrated to
Speaker 7: the United States work in Eagle Pasts and are trying
Speaker 7: to bring their families across because there's a perception that, right,
Speaker 7: and they've spent money, they spent years trying to bring
Speaker 7: their wife or their child across the Eagle Past, and
Speaker 7: here are thousands of people seemingly getting a free pass
Speaker 7: and access to resources to be able to move about
Speaker 7: the country. There is some resentment that exists, but it's
Speaker 7: more a resentment I think good.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 7: My perception is with the government sort of not being
Speaker 7: able to manage this in a way that makes sense.
Speaker 2: Right, what happens to people when they come over? How
Speaker 2: does it go?
Speaker 7: So there is no straight script for what happens to
Speaker 7: a person when they cross the river step on US soil.
Speaker 7: Maybe as for asylums or coming to relief and going
Speaker 7: to border patrol custing, there are a couple of things
Speaker 7: that can happen, and it all depends on what country
Speaker 7: you come from who you are, like male or female child,
Speaker 7: they're coming as a family, and how you crossed. And
Speaker 7: so for example, for those Venezula migrants, that couple that
Speaker 7: I met, the twenty five and twenty one year old,
Speaker 7: they were clearly asking for protection at asylum for political
Speaker 7: persecution in Venezuela. In that case, had this been sort
Speaker 7: of a normal border patrol interaction, those folks would have
Speaker 7: been taken into custody. If they ask for asylum verbally,
Speaker 7: they would have had a conversation with an asylum officer
Speaker 7: and screened for credible seer and then would have moved
Speaker 7: on the process. Depending on sort of the discretion of
Speaker 7: the various officers involved in that process, they could have
Speaker 7: been released on parole into the United States place and detention,
Speaker 7: possibly even deported because we do we are doing deportation
Speaker 7: flights to Venezuela. And it's no secret to anyone here
Speaker 7: that of you know, the thousands of people who pastor
Speaker 7: assylament entered that process, a large number of them, as
Speaker 7: the laws written out, probably won't qualify for asylum in
Speaker 7: this country.
Speaker 1: I feel like the politics of this have gotten so
Speaker 1: removed from the actual experience of people can you talk
Speaker 1: a little bit about what these people have done by
Speaker 1: the time they gotten to Ego Pass, like what their
Speaker 1: trip looks like.
Speaker 7: Yes, I can give you sort of what the stereotypical
Speaker 7: and again it really varies from migrant to migrant, depending
Speaker 7: on a nationality and their economic resources. Frankly, but in
Speaker 7: recent years a lot of migration has been coming through
Speaker 7: South America, particularly Venescuela, in some cases Cuba and Nicaragua.
Speaker 7: These are all places that we don't have diplomatic relations
Speaker 7: with and that are you know, run by socialists or
Speaker 7: governments or autocracies, right, and these folks do in some
Speaker 7: cases across the Darien Jungle, which is links Columbia to
Speaker 7: Panama to get onto the Isthmus and the continent, they're
Speaker 7: crossing eight or nine national borders along the way. They're
Speaker 7: facing all kinds of dangerous situations, extortion rights, you know,
Speaker 7: vulnerability to criminal organizations. In some cases they are getting help,
Speaker 7: like they've had relatives who've made that journey and are
Speaker 7: you know, have basically mapped it out for them, told
Speaker 7: them which bus is to take, or jumping on top
Speaker 7: of trains. It's such a constellation of experiences that you
Speaker 7: can have, but all of it, none of it is
Speaker 7: is easy.
Speaker 1: There are people coming from places also that you would
Speaker 1: not expect, right, Can you talk about that?
Speaker 7: Yes, I've talked to particularly folks who run in geos
Speaker 7: in this sector of the border that have seen folks
Speaker 7: from Vietnam, from Senegal, from Marisha, from Syria in some cases,
Speaker 7: or Russians. You know, people have gotten the message and
Speaker 7: you know, cartails and criminal organizations have will We've spread
Speaker 7: that message that if you are seeking this kind of
Speaker 7: protection or you just want to make the trip to
Speaker 7: the USA, this is the way to go.
Speaker 1: This is a people problem more than it is a
Speaker 1: stuff problem.
Speaker 7: Right, I think so, right, Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean I'm just saying, like the fentanyl is not
Speaker 1: flowing over this border, right, These people don't have anything
Speaker 1: with them, is what I'm.
Speaker 2: Trying to get to.
Speaker 7: Oh, yeah, this is this is a human smuggling, human exploitation,
Speaker 7: and human migration situation.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 7: That there's folks that who are bringing drugs, absolutely, but
Speaker 7: they're for the most part, they're not amongst the surrenderers.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 7: The large majority of people that you see in images.
Speaker 1: And the people who are bringing drugs are probably coming
Speaker 1: through ports.
Speaker 7: Of entry, yes, and in vehicles and people who work
Speaker 7: for organizations and not how to do this work.
Speaker 1: Yes, right, So if you were a good faith actor,
Speaker 1: which I'm not sure Republicans are, you are seeing firsthand
Speaker 1: what the issues are.
Speaker 2: In your mind. I know this is like kind of.
Speaker 1: Unfair as you're straight journalist, but like, what are your
Speaker 1: sense of how if you were.
Speaker 2: The president you would solve this problem. I'm sorry to
Speaker 2: ask you this question.
Speaker 1: But I'm just curious if you have solves that you've
Speaker 1: seen because you're.
Speaker 7: There, I'm going to sort of relay what folks who
Speaker 7: live here has been trying to advance for a long time.
Speaker 7: There are a bunch of influential business people and political
Speaker 7: years out here who have advanced some of these solutions
Speaker 7: have gotten nowhere the conversation in Congress. So we're talking
Speaker 7: about specifically aligning migration to labor needs in the United States.
Speaker 7: We're talking about creating many ellis islands where you have
Speaker 7: civilian people who are in charge of specifically processing folks
Speaker 7: at the borer seeing asylum and making a very clear
Speaker 7: pathway for them to be able to do that so
Speaker 7: they don't have to cross the river. That there's like
Speaker 7: a special line for them at the bridge, and that
Speaker 7: there's a processing center for them to be able to
Speaker 7: do that, and to increase the number of immigration judges
Speaker 7: and asylum officers that are reviewing these cases so you
Speaker 7: don't have these bag backlogs and rating waiting two to
Speaker 7: three years. I mean it. The availability of legal pathways
Speaker 7: has diminished over the decades for folks, and you know,
Speaker 7: the asylum seemed to be that pathway as sylolon does
Speaker 7: need to change, probably at least that's what borderlanders are saying,
Speaker 7: because again the realities don't match what experiences that people
Speaker 7: are bringing. And spinning that forward into sort of a
Speaker 7: question of demographic labor and economics. The United States is
Speaker 7: aging quite rapidly and baby boomers are coming out of
Speaker 7: the workforce, in which case you're going to need people
Speaker 7: to fill those jobs. You're going to need people to
Speaker 7: for those industries. So I think there are practical solutions
Speaker 7: that again borderlanders advance and if you want, there is
Speaker 7: a common sense playbook that the International Bank of Commerce
Speaker 7: that just situated in the borderlands. Dennis Nixon is the president.
Speaker 7: He has tried to push this forever and again has
Speaker 7: not made an intraction.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so you're basically saying that a better funded federal
Speaker 1: government would be able to handle this crisis, and in fact,
Speaker 1: it may have been created by a Republican party that
Speaker 1: wants the federal government to fail.
Speaker 2: You don't have to agree with that.
Speaker 7: Yeah, yeah, I mean there's a debate or in that
Speaker 7: space about that.
Speaker 1: But yes, I mean it seems like the government, if
Speaker 1: it had enough money to address this problem, could solve
Speaker 1: it or at least make it better.
Speaker 7: I think there is some sense of that. Maybe it
Speaker 7: isn't a question of more money, but more targeted and
Speaker 7: efficient use of that money towards the kinds of commons
Speaker 7: and solution bringing ideas that borderlanders again have advanced for years.
Speaker 1: Yeah, now that these numbers are down a little bit,
Speaker 1: do you think that why the numbers are down are
Speaker 1: because Mexico is sort of doing more remain in Mexico stuff.
Speaker 7: Remain in Mexico is a totally different sort of paradigm,
Speaker 7: but in terms of they are doing more enforcement, they
Speaker 7: are keeping migrants from getting to the river or the
Speaker 7: desert line. So like you know, they're not in some
Speaker 7: cases not issuing tickets to ride buses that would be
Speaker 7: headed Norris or they're pulling off them off with trains,
Speaker 7: those kind of enforcement actions.
Speaker 2: So that is why it's happening.
Speaker 7: It's part of the reason.
Speaker 2: Yes, right.
Speaker 1: Do you think that if there were really a clear
Speaker 1: path to citizenship that that would slow these illegal crossings.
Speaker 7: That's a great question. Part of the issue is that
Speaker 7: you're combating a criminal international criminal organizations that are incredibly
Speaker 7: sophisticated and have been known to adapt very quickly to
Speaker 7: whatever the problems of changes of the border are, and
Speaker 7: they'll figure out how to make money. But I think
Speaker 7: if you make it safer, if you make it clearer,
Speaker 7: if there are clear expectations for what happens when I
Speaker 7: enter this process, then you know, you could potentially create
Speaker 7: a scenario where people bypass those criminal organizations altogether. Now
Speaker 7: that's also you know, idealistic and futuristic, and I don't
Speaker 7: know what's actually going to happen, but that's okay.
Speaker 1: We need to be idealistic, especially when it comes to
Speaker 1: we have this tight labor market. We have this you know,
Speaker 1: we are not keeping up growing our population. This is
Speaker 1: my opinion now, and I'm on the opinion space, so
Speaker 1: I can say this, these are people we need in
Speaker 1: this country.
Speaker 2: It's just a question of how to be able to
Speaker 2: get them here.
Speaker 7: And to be clear, like I mean, they're not thinking
Speaker 7: that all of these folks are exactly what the United
Speaker 7: States needs. I think there is very much from business
Speaker 7: leaders at least, this sense that we should match the
Speaker 7: skills that some of these folks, if they have, you know,
Speaker 7: special skills to the labor needs in the United States.
Speaker 7: It's like the idea of a guest worker program, for example,
Speaker 7: is something that is still pretty popular amongst I think
Speaker 7: a lot of different sectors of folks who live here
Speaker 7: on the border.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much, Arellis for taking the time with us.
Speaker 7: It's my pleasure happy to shed light on some of
Speaker 7: this stuff.
Speaker 1: In a moment, and so so let me ask you,
Speaker 1: do you have a moment of fuckery, Rick Wilson.
Speaker 3: My moment of fuckery is every one of these assholes
Speaker 3: in MAGA universe who are still ship talking and down
Speaker 3: talking the American economy because at this point they can't
Speaker 3: deny that Joe Biden's economy is so good and so
Speaker 3: strong and growing stronger by the day. We've got record
Speaker 3: wage growth for the first time in fifty five years,
Speaker 3: we've got record job growth, we've got record energy production.
Speaker 3: Prices are coming down faster than they went up. We've
Speaker 3: got gas prices under three bucks a gallon everywhere in
Speaker 3: the country except California. Now we've got an amazing economy.
Speaker 3: And these people that continue, like on Fox, they are
Speaker 3: like some say, they'll wait to see if these numbers
Speaker 3: are adjusted later. Walking past that graveyard is not working
Speaker 3: out as well as y'all think.
Speaker 2: So and men, that was an incredible yeah.
Speaker 3: Wasn't it. So that's my moment of fucker. He is
Speaker 3: all these people down talking the American economy right now, when,
Speaker 3: by god, you know, at some point just some basic
Speaker 3: reality check on these people. I know how too much
Speaker 3: it irritates them. But here we are.
Speaker 1: It is so insane to me that you know, look,
Speaker 1: it's exactly what Trump said. He wants the economy to creator,
Speaker 1: he wants there to be a recession. He doesn't want
Speaker 1: to be Herbert Hoover, right, remember that.
Speaker 3: Ah, yeah, he knows what's going on.
Speaker 2: Well, he sort of knows what's going on.
Speaker 3: Well, no, but he does see that there's a very
Speaker 3: difficult case to be made to pretend that the economy
Speaker 3: is somehow this dark and perilous place. Now, it's really
Speaker 3: hard to do that now.
Speaker 1: And so he's going to prevent legislation for the border
Speaker 1: in the hopes that that will provide him enough to
Speaker 1: make a theory of the case that that will give
Speaker 1: him something to run it. Because right now the economy
Speaker 1: is good, inflation is going down. There are so many
Speaker 1: sort of wins in this Biden economy political at this morning,
Speaker 1: which I am going to just read you a tiny
Speaker 1: bit of because it's such an incredible little thing that
Speaker 1: I completely missed. It's called thirty things that Joe Biden
Speaker 1: did as president, which you might have missed, and they
Speaker 1: include expanding overtime guarantees for millions. First over, the counter
Speaker 1: birth control pill to hit US stores in twenty twenty four,
Speaker 1: which means that people who can't afford doctors, which is
Speaker 1: a large percentage.
Speaker 2: Of American women.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, sad, we.
Speaker 1: Can get birth control, gun violence prevention, and gun safety
Speaker 1: get a boost.
Speaker 2: I know that's something near and dear to your heart.
Speaker 1: Renewable power is the number two source of electricity in
Speaker 1: the United States, and climbing. Did you know that I
Speaker 1: did not know that? I did know that preventing discriminatory
Speaker 1: mortgage lending.
Speaker 2: He did that.
Speaker 1: He sweeping cracked down on junk fees and overdraft charges,
Speaker 1: forcing Chinese companies to open their books. I me in
Speaker 1: preventing another January sixth. I mean my man building armies
Speaker 1: of drones to counter China that I have mixed feelings
Speaker 1: about the drones. Nations, farms, get big bucks to go climb.
Speaker 2: It's smart. I mean. Biden scrabs Trump's paint scheme for
Speaker 2: Air Force one.
Speaker 3: Here's the thing. The economy that Donald Trump fantasizes about
Speaker 3: in his head is Joe Biden's economy. The economy donald
Speaker 3: Trump pretended he was delivering for America is actually the
Speaker 3: economy Joe Biden has built. And all the Trump stuff
Speaker 3: was always a Potemkin village. It was always a sort
Speaker 3: of illusion to make his own himself happy. It was
Speaker 3: always sort of like, you know, maga porn, and Biden's delivered.
Speaker 3: So people that criticize that, they are in my moment
Speaker 3: of the fuckery. Thank you, Rick, good night, good day,
Speaker 3: and all that.
Speaker 1: That's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in
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