Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics,
Speaker 1: where we discussed the top political headlines with some of
Speaker 1: today's best minds and New York State Attorney General Tis
Speaker 1: James says Trump still owes four hundred and fifty four
Speaker 1: million dollars in the civil judgment. We have such a
Speaker 1: great show for you today, The Lincoln Projects Stuart Steven
Speaker 1: stops by to talk about the shifting political landscape. Then
Speaker 1: we'll talk to director Alex Gibney about his new film,
Speaker 1: The BB Files and the parallels between Trump and net Yahoo.
Speaker 1: But first the news Samali.
Speaker 2: Christopher Ray, FBI director not supposed to be done with
Speaker 2: this term?
Speaker 3: Is done with this term? What are we seeing here?
Speaker 1: So he has three more years on his term. He
Speaker 1: was you'll remember, put in place by Donald Trump during
Speaker 1: Donald Trump's first term in office, when he put people
Speaker 1: who were slightly less crazy into jobs. Here's the thing.
Speaker 1: Trump wants to replace Christopher Ray with Cash Battel. He's
Speaker 1: already said that cash Battel wants to find Trump's enemies
Speaker 1: and prosecute them a la Herbert Hoover. This is a
Speaker 1: real paradigm shift. We will see if cash Battel gets
Speaker 1: through the vetting process. I don't know that it's a
Speaker 1: huge surprise that Ray resigned because Trump would have the
Speaker 1: power to fire him. In my mind, it's a bit
Speaker 1: strange that he resigned in December when Trump still doesn't
Speaker 1: take office for another month and a half. But obviously
Speaker 1: there's something going on there.
Speaker 3: It's a great vacation month, raight, It's a.
Speaker 1: Great vacation month. Look, here's the thing about this. Cash
Speaker 1: Battel is not necessarily going to head the FBI. He
Speaker 1: may get through, but the Senators have an opportunity here
Speaker 1: to prevent it. And if cash Battel does get through,
Speaker 1: there really is a sense in which Cash will likely
Speaker 1: investigate Trump's enemies, and that will mean that Trump will
Speaker 1: have even more power. Right now, he's got Elon Musk
Speaker 1: telling senators that if they decide that they don't want
Speaker 1: to support one of Trump's nominees, they're going to get primary. Now,
Speaker 1: this has not worked. The Senate is a longer range
Speaker 1: situation where people are they have the seats for six years.
Speaker 1: It's a bit different. It has worked in the House.
Speaker 1: They did were able to have an act of revenge
Speaker 1: tour in the House and primary. All of these senators
Speaker 1: who voted to impeach Trump. But here's the thing. If
Speaker 1: cash Battel does get in there, the people who are
Speaker 1: going to end up getting investigated. As much as it'll
Speaker 1: be people like us or people like George Conway, it'll
Speaker 1: also be people like Republican senators who don't do what
Speaker 1: Trump wants. Because Herbert Hoover, you know, he didn't have
Speaker 1: a ton of loyalties. So look, maybe cash Battel makes
Speaker 1: it in there. But what I think we should keep
Speaker 1: remembering about all of this is this coalition of the
Speaker 1: Maga has a lot of different wants and needs. It's
Speaker 1: a very big tent that involves both Zionists and anti Semites,
Speaker 1: and I think is going to be very unwieldy. Unwieldy.
Speaker 2: I'm trying to think we U said the Coalition of
Speaker 2: the Willing, is this like the Coalition of the unwitty?
Speaker 3: Like, what are we thinking this is?
Speaker 1: Remember during the Gulf War when they were like, this
Speaker 1: is the new Europe.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that's what we're.
Speaker 3: Gonna have to workshop this before next episode.
Speaker 1: The Coalition of the New Europe.
Speaker 2: So it's not one of our headline segments without having
Speaker 2: to talk about the stupidity of one Elon Musk.
Speaker 3: What are you seeing here?
Speaker 1: So Elon Musk, the richest man in the world, who
Speaker 1: now has installed a very rich man as president. His
Speaker 1: net worth went up fifty billion dollars because SpaceX, which
Speaker 1: is a privately held space company, which you know, look,
Speaker 1: this is crony capitalism right here. Elon helps to install
Speaker 1: a president who will give him the contracts he wants
Speaker 1: so that he can go to space now the public market.
Speaker 1: This is a private company, but it's going to go public,
Speaker 1: and the senses that this is going to help him
Speaker 1: and that the stock, the Space stock, will go crazy.
Speaker 1: You know, the Trump election made Wall Street feel that
Speaker 1: they would not have more government regulation. You'll remember that
Speaker 1: during the Biden administration they tried to break up some
Speaker 1: of the monopolies. They tried to put in some environmental regulations,
Speaker 1: some corporate regulations, some of these things that are really
Speaker 1: greatly needed because unfedered capitalism has gotten us to a
Speaker 1: place where the wealth inequality in this country is staggering.
Speaker 1: The hope was that some of that wealth inequality could
Speaker 1: be reversed. But unfortunate people voted for the billionaire and
Speaker 1: because they felt things were too expensive, and now the
Speaker 1: billionaire is helping make all of his friends richer. I mean,
Speaker 1: this is sort of what we saw coming. I think
Speaker 1: we'll see more of this kind of thing. Remember, Stale
Speaker 1: SpaceX hasn't gone public yet. A lot of this money
Speaker 1: is purely theoretical. But Tesla stock is up about sixty
Speaker 1: five percent since before the election, buoled by the expectations
Speaker 1: that Trump will streamline the rollout of self driving cars,
Speaker 1: which again would be a regulatory issue. And Musk is
Speaker 1: going into the government. So here is this guy who
Speaker 1: owns all these companies going into the government to make
Speaker 1: the government more efficient. And the thinking is by a
Speaker 1: lot of investors that this will also serve elon so MAYA.
Speaker 2: Senator Susan Collens, Republican Domain met with Pete Heigsith and
Speaker 2: apparently questioned him. I'm sure it went about as hard
Speaker 2: as when I questioned my dog about what plant they
Speaker 2: ate in the backyard, and things like that might go
Speaker 2: harder on my dog. To be honest, what do you
Speaker 2: think happened here?
Speaker 1: You know, I'm going to chastise you for a minute
Speaker 1: for not.
Speaker 2: The gig that Susan Collins is a serious person who
Speaker 2: tells the truth when she does statements.
Speaker 3: Okay, I'll take it.
Speaker 1: She said she's not sure she's going to support him.
Speaker 3: Right, Well, she's been not sure of a lot of things, right.
Speaker 1: But this is a math prom, right, this is a
Speaker 1: math prom You need Collins, you need Murkowski. You can
Speaker 1: lose Collins and Murkowski, but you can't lose two others.
Speaker 1: So I think the worst thing we can do is
Speaker 1: assume these people are not going to do their fucking jobs.
Speaker 1: And maybe they won't and we'll be furious. I think
Speaker 1: that it's a cop out to let them to say
Speaker 1: we don't expect this, We expect this. This is Susan
Speaker 1: Collins's fucking job. She is up for reelection in two
Speaker 1: years in a purple state, really in a blue state,
Speaker 1: and if she wants to keep her job, and this
Speaker 1: is the same thing with Tom Tilla's. I mean, Tom
Speaker 1: Tillis is up for two years in a state that
Speaker 1: has a democratic governor. Now, and these people need to
Speaker 1: do their jobs, and it is not fair to give
Speaker 1: them any kind of pass. This is their constitutional job.
Speaker 1: And look, every time the Senate rolls over and does
Speaker 1: what Trump wants, they are giving away their power. They
Speaker 1: are no longer a relevant body. This is all they
Speaker 1: have are these very few opportunities to enact guardrails, and
Speaker 1: voters should expect it, and they should fucking call them.
Speaker 1: You know, by the way, if you're listening to this
Speaker 1: and you're furious, call Susan Collins's office, Call Tom Tillis's office.
Speaker 1: They need to hear from you. They need to know
Speaker 1: that you're watching them.
Speaker 3: That I agree with.
Speaker 2: I just don't trust her to do the right thing
Speaker 2: and I trust her to say middling answers. Okay, well,
Speaker 2: now we get to the real bullshit. You and I
Speaker 2: the listeners may not know this, Somali, Let's give them
Speaker 2: a look behind the scenes. We are extremely gossipy people.
Speaker 2: Do you think they're shocked by this?
Speaker 1: Well, I I'm just happy when the Daily Mail writes
Speaker 1: stories about people who are not me.
Speaker 2: Yes, sir, you have said that. And so for those
Speaker 2: who aren't gossipy like us. Some people may not know
Speaker 2: that Donald Trump Junior has a new girlfriend.
Speaker 1: This story has been sort of bubbling around. He has
Speaker 1: a girlfriend called Bettina Anderson who lives in Pombied and
Speaker 1: he's been around with her. Now you know, he's divorced
Speaker 1: but he is technically engaged to get moving, Jill Foil.
Speaker 3: Technically technically.
Speaker 1: What's interesting about this is Donald Trump Junior's private citizen.
Speaker 1: You know, good luck to him. No, the reason why
Speaker 1: this is interesting is because it seems like his dad
Speaker 1: is going to make Kimberly Gilfoyle the ambassador of Greece. Now,
Speaker 1: I am all about selective outrage, so I do not
Speaker 1: necessarily think that being outraged about an ambassadorship is anything worse.
Speaker 1: I mean, they're all sleazy Democrats do what sleazy Republicans
Speaker 1: do it sleazy you know, they tend to be quid
Speaker 1: pro quoll for big donors.
Speaker 2: The rarest both sides thing that you and I would say, yes,
Speaker 2: both sides.
Speaker 1: This one thing. Both sides do.
Speaker 3: It stock trading too well.
Speaker 1: Not totally relevant, but we'll keep going. I'm just saying,
Speaker 1: but yeah, both sides do this. No good can come
Speaker 1: from it. But the reason why I wanted to talk
Speaker 1: about this was because it shows the way in which
Speaker 1: the Trump government takes care of the Trump brand. Again,
Speaker 1: this is to be expected in Trump world. Though I
Speaker 1: do think it's a harbinger of bad things to come,
Speaker 1: in my mind, but I think it's also really like
Speaker 1: keep watching what they're doing behind the scenes, keep watching
Speaker 1: the way they're sort of rewarding people. I think that's
Speaker 1: relevant and important. So I wanted to bring that up.
Speaker 1: And you know, look, Don Junior, God bless him, but
Speaker 1: Kimberly Gofile is being moved to grease for a very
Speaker 1: clear reason, and it's worth thinking about that.
Speaker 2: I just like to think, as you especially the letter
Speaker 2: announcing it. He did one of his famous bye bye honey, I.
Speaker 1: Look at you know, I think she's probably pretty happy
Speaker 1: to have the job.
Speaker 3: I dope dot it.
Speaker 1: Stuart Stephens is a legendary campaign manager and the author
Speaker 1: of the Conspiracy to End America Five Ways My Old
Speaker 1: Party is Driving our Democracy to Autocracy. Welcome back to
Speaker 1: Fast Politics, Stuart Stephens.
Speaker 4: Were thanks, Molly, appreciate you asking.
Speaker 1: Here we are? How did we get here?
Speaker 4: Well, that's a profound question, a really good question, you know.
Speaker 4: The A couple of things really strike me. When Trump
Speaker 4: won in twenty sixteen, there was a great outcry, a
Speaker 4: lot of demonstrations. People seemed shocked. Now he's won again,
Speaker 4: and people, for the most part seem to be just
Speaker 4: kind of shrugging. I don't think that's a good sign.
Speaker 4: I think that's a sign of normalization. And what he's
Speaker 4: proposing now to do with the government is obviously more
Speaker 4: severe and extreme and dangerous than what he was proposing
Speaker 4: this time in twenty sixteen. You know, I've been involved
Speaker 4: in these presidential campaigns for you won and you lost.
Speaker 4: I think it's always tempting to use a loss as
Speaker 4: a reason to push a pet theory. If only you
Speaker 4: had done this, you would have won, because there's no
Speaker 4: control to disprove it. I think the Trump coalition is
Speaker 4: very unsustainable. I don't buy that the Republican Party has
Speaker 4: created this new multicultural coalition. You know, in Bush Royld
Speaker 4: in two thousand and four, we got up to forty
Speaker 4: three percent of Hispanics, but then that dropped thirty one
Speaker 4: or so for Romney and McCain. And Romney and McCain,
Speaker 4: we're talking about the forty millions for all to talk
Speaker 4: about African Americans. Harris ended up getting about the same
Speaker 4: as Biden. So the Trump base is still non college
Speaker 4: educated whites. That's the fastest large demographic that is declining.
Speaker 4: Two thousand, it was sixty percent of the electric Now
Speaker 4: it's thirty eight percent. And it's interesting to me. You know,
Speaker 4: we talk about how Harris doesn't win college educated voters.
Speaker 4: She wins non college educated voters if they're not white, right.
Speaker 1: She actually wins college educated white voters.
Speaker 4: Yeah, there's a great trend in politics to say demographics
Speaker 4: are destiny. Then a great trend to say demographics are
Speaker 4: not destiny. I'm kind of in the demographics of destiny camp.
Speaker 4: The country is becoming a minority majority country if you're
Speaker 4: sixteen years in younger majority or non white. So I
Speaker 4: don't think that there's anything that Trump is going to
Speaker 4: do that is going to increase his popularity. I think
Speaker 4: he's at a higher order mark now, which would not
Speaker 4: be a typical for any president. But what he's proposing
Speaker 4: to do, particularly the deportation, if you actually do that
Speaker 4: and have thousands of paramilitary law enforcement rounding up brown people,
Speaker 4: it's going to be such a shock. And if you're Hispanic,
Speaker 4: he voted for Trump maybe because of the economy, and
Speaker 4: he's deporting your father in law, Just not so sure
Speaker 4: that's going to keep you stuck to Trump. These attacks
Speaker 4: on journalists, these nuts like Caspitel. I think the whole
Speaker 4: Elon Musk thing is not going to wear well. You
Speaker 4: can't have two extreme narcissists on the same stage for
Speaker 4: very long. And at a certain point, you know, Musk
Speaker 4: and Ramasamy are weirdos, but they're not stupid. And at
Speaker 4: a certain point they're going to realize to belong to
Speaker 4: a committee that the only other person is Marjorie Taylor
Speaker 4: Green is an insult. This crazy stuff they're proposing. They're
Speaker 4: not going to pass any of this stuff. It's like
Speaker 4: deals with anything. Cutting entitlements, you know, they may found
Speaker 4: that there's some and they will find if you go
Speaker 4: into government, you can find that there's things. Why is
Speaker 4: there a big grant study the appropriation rate of polar bears? Well,
Speaker 4: that actually probably is a reason to that. But you're
Speaker 4: not going to be able to go in and cut
Speaker 4: tradions of dollars without having a fracture in the civil
Speaker 4: contract in America. So I'm optimistic. I think Democrats should
Speaker 4: have a very good year. I wish the Democrats were
Speaker 4: more aggressive about defining these crazy nominees and the risk
Speaker 4: of these nominees. They seem to be taking a approach that, well,
Speaker 4: we'll focus on this when they come up. I need'd
Speaker 4: be better if they were out there holding press conferences
Speaker 4: and doing whatever they can to show the danger of them,
Speaker 4: So you're not leaving it to the last moment, you know.
Speaker 4: To me, if you look back, the model for gold standard,
Speaker 4: as it were for communications on that center left side
Speaker 4: was the January sixth Committee. They did a brilliant job
Speaker 4: of making it relevant, of telling a story, and I
Speaker 4: think that there to be well advised to look at
Speaker 4: what they did successfully then and try to imitate it.
Speaker 1: Now, let's talk through for a minute what the sort
Speaker 1: of Trump coalition he has, this coalition, I mean, we
Speaker 1: are in this Usually what happens between administrations is there's
Speaker 1: this seventy plus day period where everyone is kind of
Speaker 1: muted because there's a sense in which you want to
Speaker 1: give the coming administration a chance. I'm just saying historically,
Speaker 1: I personally don't necessarily feel this way, but there's historically
Speaker 1: the sort of seventy whatever plus days before the inauguration,
Speaker 1: between the election and the inauguration is a period when
Speaker 1: everyone is like hopes against hope that things will go okay.
Speaker 1: I'm curious when we talk about this coalition that Trump has.
Speaker 1: You have white, non college educated a lot of young
Speaker 1: people a lot, but more young people than perhaps many
Speaker 1: of us thought. Then you have a kind of he
Speaker 1: did way better with Hispanic voters than perhaps he could
Speaker 1: have dreamed, you know, places like the Rio Grand Valey
Speaker 1: voting for him. And then you have non college educated,
Speaker 1: older people, white people. There's a mix, but that's largely
Speaker 1: the coalition. It strikes me that the two biggest things
Speaker 1: on Trump's agenda right now are deportation and tax cuts,
Speaker 1: and everything else is sort of shades, but tax cuts
Speaker 1: for the very wealthy because those are about to expire,
Speaker 1: and deportation. I'm wondering if you could just explain to
Speaker 1: us sort of Republicans they will soon have a one
Speaker 1: seat majority in the House of Representatives. Mike Johnson is
Speaker 1: not Paul Ryan by any stretch of the imagination. In
Speaker 1: order to deport a million people, two million people, he
Speaker 1: wants to deport, you know, more people than there are
Speaker 1: quote unquote I legal immigrants. Don't you need money for those?
Speaker 4: Yeah, you need money. It's a massive logistical operation. So
Speaker 4: you're going to build holding camps with them. Really, we're
Speaker 4: really going to do that in America in twenty twenty five.
Speaker 4: People are going to compayn them my tax dollars to
Speaker 4: set up internment camps. And this idea that well, we're
Speaker 4: not going to separate families is we're going to take
Speaker 4: them all. Like that little issue on this is so
Speaker 4: you know, it's been reported that Elon Musk a lot
Speaker 4: about his student status during his naturalization process. If that's true,
Speaker 4: that's grounds to lose his citizenship. That means if we
Speaker 4: deport Elon Musk, we'reing to deport his children too. Really,
Speaker 4: the spectacle of it is going to be so offensive,
Speaker 4: and you go back to the cases that we know
Speaker 4: of police brutality resulted in deaths is ongoing issue, and
Speaker 4: then you have one specific horrible image video. You know,
Speaker 4: all of this is not going to go down quietly.
Speaker 4: It's going to be people recording on their phones when
Speaker 4: they're coming into homes. I still don't think this is
Speaker 4: where America is. I think the key thing for people
Speaker 4: who didn't vote for Trump is to not be deluded
Speaker 4: that you were wrong. It just made you lost an election.
Speaker 4: You know, I grew up in Mississippi and I remember
Speaker 4: sitting around watching my parents. They would support all these
Speaker 4: candidates who are not segregationists. Then they would lose. That
Speaker 4: didn't make my parents want to believe that they should
Speaker 4: be segregationists. And I think that's very important to keep
Speaker 4: that we're right there wrong. If you support a president
Speaker 4: who wants to jail former members of Congress because they
Speaker 4: investigated the greatest attack on the capital since the War
Speaker 4: of eighteen twelve, If you support a president who wants
Speaker 4: to jail journalists for doing their job, you're not a patriot.
Speaker 4: You're not. I don't think we should give them that space,
Speaker 4: should give them that sort of benefit of the doubt.
Speaker 4: That's not just a difference of opinion, it's a completely
Speaker 4: different view of what it means to be an American.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we're in this sort of cabinet secretary run up.
Speaker 1: Republicans have an opportunity to engage in their constitutional duty
Speaker 1: of advising consent Article two, Section two. You know Gates
Speaker 1: is out. This is something victory is even a small
Speaker 1: victory is a victory. The reporting was a Ted Cruz
Speaker 1: called Donald Trump and said, you don't have the votes.
Speaker 1: What do you think about where they are right now?
Speaker 4: It goes back to my talks about Democrats and needing
Speaker 4: to do a better job. I think democrats ought to
Speaker 4: be out there saying we're going to ask every nominee
Speaker 4: do you believe Donald Trump lost a free and fair
Speaker 4: election in twenty sixteen? And if they say no, we're
Speaker 4: not going to vote for you, nothing else matters. If
Speaker 4: you're Marco Rubio and you say no, we're not going
Speaker 4: to vote for you, that should be a standard. It
Speaker 4: should be a standard. Do you believe that the Ellens
Speaker 4: who were convicted for assaulting police officers on January sixth,
Speaker 4: twenty one should be pardoned? If you say yes, you're
Speaker 4: disqualified for being a cabinet member, I think they ought
Speaker 4: to start off every hearing that way. Do you believe?
Speaker 4: Because what Trump is trying to do is erect his
Speaker 4: loyalty test. Isn't a test are you loyal to me?
Speaker 4: In the same way you would say is a vice
Speaker 4: president loyal to a president? The loyalty test is do
Speaker 4: you believe I Donald Trump have the ability to override
Speaker 4: the Constitution. It's like the fura oath, and you can't
Speaker 4: allow that to happen because that undermines the whole concept
Speaker 4: of the Bill of rights, whole concept of rule of law.
Speaker 4: So I think those are to be threshold questions and
Speaker 4: I wish Democrats would be out there hitting this harder.
Speaker 1: Right now, there is a kind of you know, there
Speaker 1: will be hearings, right You will see publicized hearings. You
Speaker 1: will see members ask these potential cabinet secretaries about you know,
Speaker 1: when it comes to Hagsath his payment for an alleged
Speaker 1: sexual assault, when it comes to when it comes to RFK.
Speaker 1: You know, the level of skeletons in the closet are breathtaking.
Speaker 1: I mean, one of the things that I am curious
Speaker 1: about is if Trump has an agenda that is wildly
Speaker 1: outside of the norm, that will take money and goodwill,
Speaker 1: and I mean, how much does this cabinet secretary derail him?
Speaker 1: This cabinet secretary fight.
Speaker 4: Well, you know, it's a very interesting question because you
Speaker 4: think about it. Why is he nominating Hexit? Why not
Speaker 4: nominate say DeSantis would get bipartisan support. Been in the military,
Speaker 4: say okay, he's run a big organization in the Florida government.
Speaker 4: Will may not like it. People are not like his
Speaker 4: views on women in combat. I don't know what the
Speaker 4: standards views are. Assume he's against it, but you'd still
Speaker 4: vote for him. So but he goes and picks this
Speaker 4: you know, weirdo, clearly damaged, misogynist guy who, like so
Speaker 4: many in the Trump world, they use the public sphere
Speaker 4: to work through personal problems. M And you know, government
Speaker 4: should be a lot of things, but it shouldn't be therapy,
Speaker 4: and it shouldn't be a way for you to get
Speaker 4: even into people that you know put you in lockers
Speaker 4: in high school. Because Stephen Miller, it's very self defeating.
Speaker 4: And there's this tendency to give Trump credit when he
Speaker 4: does something stupid. For well, there must be you know,
Speaker 4: some higher plan here that we're just not grasping, Like
Speaker 4: I'll nominate Matt Getz and then you know, we know
Speaker 4: he won't get it, so then they'll allow me to
Speaker 4: get a headset. I don't think it's that calculating.
Speaker 1: I would never subscribe three dimensional chests to any of
Speaker 1: this exactly.
Speaker 4: It's just why have this fight. So Marco Rubio is
Speaker 4: a good example, Marco Rubio, I would expect they'll get
Speaker 4: bipartisan support. And look, Marco Rubio, it's a chairman's Republican
Speaker 4: Center and Intelligence Committee, Republican head of it that came
Speaker 4: to the conclusion that Russia tried to help elect Trump
Speaker 4: in twenty sixteen, and Rubio has been right on Ukraine.
Speaker 1: I have a question about Marco, which is, why would
Speaker 1: anyone who has seen Trump in action take this job? Right, Like,
Speaker 1: if Marco goes into this job and Trump decides to
Speaker 1: fire him, which if history is any guy, that seems
Speaker 1: very likely that at some point they're going to come
Speaker 1: into collision and Trump is going to say, you know,
Speaker 1: I never forget it. You know, you're not doing what
Speaker 1: I want. He doesn't get to go back to the Senate.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you know, I suspect in the case of Rubio,
Speaker 4: he just thinks that that moment won't come because ultimately
Speaker 4: he'll refer to Trump, you know. I mean, I think
Speaker 4: Marco Rubio, it's just remember this is the guy who
Speaker 4: was on the cover of Time magazine twenty fourteen or so,
Speaker 4: you know, the Republican savior, you know, who went out
Speaker 4: and spoke truth for a very brief time about Donald Trump,
Speaker 4: and then Trump just broke him. And I think it's
Speaker 4: an incredibly sad spectacle. But I don't think Rubio has
Speaker 4: any principles that Trump is going to violate such that
Speaker 4: he would say, you know, if we do this on
Speaker 4: resigning or trying me. I'm not going to carry this out.
Speaker 4: I just don't think it's in his DNA. I think
Speaker 4: he's just one of these sort of accidental figures. Came
Speaker 4: up in Florida politics really because Jeb Bush was trying
Speaker 4: to build this Hispanic Republican coalition and people forget about this,
Speaker 4: but you know, in Florida it's legal to be a
Speaker 4: state legislature legislator and the lobbyist, and Rubio was. He
Speaker 4: got elected because he ran against Charlie Christ for the Senate.
Speaker 4: Charlie Christ was a client of mine. Charlie Chris should
Speaker 4: have run for reelection as governor. Instead he ran for
Speaker 4: the Senate. It was clear from the beginning that he
Speaker 4: was not well positioned to win a Republican primary. So
Speaker 4: ultimately Charlie got out ran as an independent, which was
Speaker 4: looney we quit working for. And then and then Rubio
Speaker 4: got elected, and you know what has he really done?
Speaker 4: So I think for Rubio to say okay on Secretary
Speaker 4: of State, I wouldn't be surprised if he does go
Speaker 4: the distance.
Speaker 1: Stuart Stevens, thank you, thank you, thank you, really appreciate you.
Speaker 5: Thank you.
Speaker 4: Molly love the show. Listen to it every episode.
Speaker 1: Alex Gibney is a legendary documentary producer and director of
Speaker 1: films like Going Clear, Zero Days, and his latest The
Speaker 1: BB Files. Welcome Back to Fast Politics, Alex Gibney.
Speaker 5: Thank you so much, Molly.
Speaker 1: This movie is amazing. Just the whole story behind it
Speaker 1: is so interesting. So explain to me what the dB files.
Speaker 1: How this came to path.
Speaker 5: You know, one day I was on a you know,
Speaker 5: I just looked at my signal and I get no.
Speaker 5: I get queries on signal from time to time. Some
Speaker 5: of them are crank calls and some of them are
Speaker 5: the real thing. This one was the real thing. And
Speaker 5: the person who ultimately became my source said, I have
Speaker 5: this footage that I think is very valuable. It's police
Speaker 5: interrogation videos of Benjamin Netanya, who's wife Sarah is Sonya
Speaker 5: year and many many others, all relating to the netanyahuo
Speaker 5: corruption investigation. Now, this was in twenty twenty three, before
Speaker 5: October seventh. This is at the height of this sort
Speaker 5: of the judicial overhaul crisis in Israel. I was very interested,
Speaker 5: but I don't speak Hebrews, so I wasn't able to
Speaker 5: you know, I could see it, and he sent some
Speaker 5: sample was over the trans and I could see it,
Speaker 5: but I didn't know precisely. I involved a journalist named
Speaker 5: Reviv Drucker from Israel, who is a very talented investigative
Speaker 5: journalist and has been on the corruption beat for some time,
Speaker 5: and he was able to confirm that this was a
Speaker 5: mother load. And then I brought on Alexis Bloom to
Speaker 5: direct the film, and we faced the prospect of trying
Speaker 5: to make this film in secret while I was trying
Speaker 5: to raise money for it in secret. But it turned
Speaker 5: out to be something very powerful, though it started as
Speaker 5: something other than what it became.
Speaker 1: BB is very important because his corruption, even though it's
Speaker 1: perhaps not at the same scale of Trump's corruption, there
Speaker 1: is a lot of parallels. Israel is in a very
Speaker 1: complicated place because of BB and any number of other factors.
Speaker 1: But can you explain to us what the sort of
Speaker 1: pressures and these kind of documentaries are likely going to
Speaker 1: be the thing that, if anything, acts as a guardrail
Speaker 1: to keep the corruption that Trump well, you know, hopefully not,
Speaker 1: we all hope not, but to keep corruption in check.
Speaker 1: So talk to us about what the crosswinds were like
Speaker 1: and what that experience was like.
Speaker 5: You mean, the cross lends in terms of getting it.
Speaker 1: Made, yes, and also just the anxiety and that I'm
Speaker 1: sure you had to behave in secrecy, and I mean,
Speaker 1: just talk to me about what that was like.
Speaker 5: We had to do it in secret because we didn't
Speaker 5: know what kind of blowback there might be when these
Speaker 5: materials surface. And then of course there was a period,
Speaker 5: you know, post October seventh, where we wondered, how do
Speaker 5: we reckon with this now? I mean, it was a
Speaker 5: horrific moment, and how did it relate to the story
Speaker 5: we were telling. Then soon after Netanyahu embarked on this
Speaker 5: horrific killing campaign in Gaza, and it became clear that
Speaker 5: there were levels of corruption to this story. That was
Speaker 5: what knitted it all together, and that his attempts to
Speaker 5: sort of elude judgment, which of course is very resonant
Speaker 5: with Trump, his attempts to undermine the rule of law,
Speaker 5: and his attempts to sort of treat the government as
Speaker 5: a kind of personal fiefdom, even though we know that,
Speaker 5: you know, in order to stay in power, he had
Speaker 5: to make these alliances with these incredibly far right characters
Speaker 5: and is Smo Trick and Ben Giber in particular, it
Speaker 5: just showed us the way to think about the story
Speaker 5: as a tale of Titanic corruption, because you take venal
Speaker 5: petty corruption, you know, trading expensive champagne and cigars and
Speaker 5: jewelry for political favors, to a point where you've got
Speaker 5: well this is like real time, Sorry about that, where
Speaker 5: suddenly you've got a man who's literally embarking on a
Speaker 5: permanent war in order to keep out of prison. That
Speaker 5: is just a staggering level of corruption.
Speaker 1: I want you to talk a little more about that
Speaker 1: sort of war that he really did do to stay
Speaker 1: in power and he managed. I mean, we all saw
Speaker 1: it happen in real time, but it's still is a
Speaker 1: bit stocking.
Speaker 5: It is shocking, and in a way, I think what
Speaker 5: the film could do, in what some of the print
Speaker 5: reporting about this could not, is to show in real
Speaker 5: time with this footage the sort of venality of these characters,
Speaker 5: so that it becomes more believable that they would both
Speaker 5: undermine democracy and also act in a way. What was
Speaker 5: consistent about it was there was a sense of entitlement
Speaker 5: in the footage that I think even Israelis who have
Speaker 5: pirated the film at this point rapaciously have noticed and
Speaker 5: been gobsmacked by that led to this idea that what
Speaker 5: is good for the state is good for me, and
Speaker 5: what is good for me is good for the state,
Speaker 5: right tas Seinoa. And that was really an incredible insight
Speaker 5: that this footage provided. Even though you know obviously these
Speaker 5: police interrogation videos take place well going back to twenty
Speaker 5: seventeen eighteen, it still gives insight into the characters and
Speaker 5: how they operate, which sort of blows a hole in
Speaker 5: this idea that nets in Yahoo is Israel. The nets
Speaker 5: you know that he's operating according to his own agenda,
Speaker 5: not the nation's agenda, or he thinks they're one and
Speaker 5: the same.
Speaker 1: That seals so deeply trumpy. You know that there is
Speaker 1: a connection between the good of the autocrat and the
Speaker 1: good of the state. Israel is in a similar moment
Speaker 1: to America. Right, both countries are in the grips of
Speaker 1: an autocrat. Explain to me where you were able to
Speaker 1: release this film and sort of what the confines were.
Speaker 5: The one deal I had to make with the source,
Speaker 5: and that was the condition was that I not released
Speaker 5: the film or caused the film to be released officially.
Speaker 5: In Israel, there's a privacy law in Israel, which says
Speaker 5: that if somebody is photographed or tape recorded as part
Speaker 5: of an official proceeding, like a police interrogation, that material
Speaker 5: can't be published without the permission of the subject. In
Speaker 5: this case that ta yahoo Sarah yayir. We're definitely not
Speaker 5: going to agree. So somebody who can be linked to
Speaker 5: that can go to prison. So the source said, I
Speaker 5: will give you this material on one condition. You can
Speaker 5: do with it whatever you will, but you can't cause
Speaker 5: it to be officially released in Israel, So it can
Speaker 5: be released all over the world, but not in Israel.
Speaker 5: And that that's a little bit why on our trailer
Speaker 5: and other things we played games with reactions and voice alteration.
Speaker 5: Just with the trailer, anybody wh wants to see it
Speaker 5: outside Israel can see it now. It just so happens
Speaker 5: that as the film has started to emerge, people have
Speaker 5: pirated it and they're sharing faciously without my permission or
Speaker 5: anybody else's permission in Israel. And I must say that
Speaker 5: the reaction there has been, you know, staggering. People are
Speaker 5: really shocked by the materials in a way that people
Speaker 5: predicted to me they wouldn't be because they know this
Speaker 5: stuff but it's it's one thing to know content another
Speaker 5: thing to see people behave, particularly Sarah and Yayir, their
Speaker 5: contempt towards the state, their contempt toward the rule of
Speaker 5: law really comes out in the way they insult the
Speaker 5: detectives and the way they act in such an entitled
Speaker 5: manner throughout all these videos. It's really something to see.
Speaker 1: I really do think that their ability to really believe
Speaker 1: that this is all for them, it feels very Trumpian.
Speaker 5: The one distinction I might make though, I think Trump,
Speaker 5: you know, obviously falls into this, and malignant narcissists often
Speaker 5: do this sense of grandiosity. But for many years, I
Speaker 5: think BB felt that he was on a mission and
Speaker 5: convinced everybody else that he was on a mission to
Speaker 5: do what was best for Israel. But over time, that mission,
Speaker 5: that noble cause, corrupted him. You know, police have a
Speaker 5: term called noble cause corruption. And so he began to think, well,
Speaker 5: I'm doing so much good for the country, I deserve
Speaker 5: a few favors, Like how about some cigars, how about
Speaker 5: some champagne? How about jewelry? How about people pay for
Speaker 5: me wherever I go? You know, oh yeah, sure, so
Speaker 5: what if I give people some regulatory favors worth hundreds
Speaker 5: of millions of dollars in exchange for favorable coverage. I'm
Speaker 5: doing so much good for the country. So this rationalization
Speaker 5: that takes place now Trump, I think always came from
Speaker 5: a much more personal, personal gain perspective. Is like just
Speaker 5: you know, I think he ran in twenty sixteen because
Speaker 5: he thought it'd be better for his brand, he'd have
Speaker 5: a cable TV show that'd be great, and then, much
Speaker 5: to a shock and surprise, he won the presidency this time.
Speaker 5: I think he's now assumed a sort of grandiosity though
Speaker 5: though I think he ran, you know, eighty percent of
Speaker 5: the reason he ran was to stay out of prison.
Speaker 5: So there are some kind of eerie parallels. Though I
Speaker 5: think Nathan Yahuo kind of started in a different kind
Speaker 5: of a place.
Speaker 1: This closing up to the far right in order to
Speaker 1: stay empower similar thing Trump did right largely, yes, quickly.
Speaker 5: On aborshe Trump was never going to get elected unless
Speaker 5: he had the evangelicals, and so he made that Faustian
Speaker 5: bargain and basically said, if I get in, I'll give
Speaker 5: you the justices that will overturn Roe v. Wade. So
Speaker 5: that became a Passion Project, and evangelicals could say to themselves,
Speaker 5: you know, God has delivered us a sinner to take
Speaker 5: us to the promised.
Speaker 1: Land, right, And that is similar to Nan Yahu, right, he.
Speaker 5: Is, though I think in Natiao's case it was much
Speaker 5: more pragmatic. In other words, how can I stay in power?
Speaker 5: The only way stay in power is to form a
Speaker 5: coalition with these people with whom I would not have
Speaker 5: my photograph taken with, you know, five years earlier. And
Speaker 5: and their agenda was really a rapacious agenda. I mean
Speaker 5: they wanted to utterly annex the West Bank, which, by
Speaker 5: the way, you know, I would argue is one of
Speaker 5: the things that allowed for the attack on ten to seven,
Speaker 5: because we have there's a there's a moment in the
Speaker 5: in the interrogation tapes in the film where Natia was
Speaker 5: talking with the police about how he's keeping Hamas in
Speaker 5: check and saying, you know what they say and the
Speaker 5: Godfather keep your friends close and your enemies closer. But
Speaker 5: I think the idea was buy off Hamas so that
Speaker 5: that will undermine the Palestinian authority so we can then
Speaker 5: continually rapaciously expand settlements into the West Bank. That was
Speaker 5: also to some extent what was going on with the
Speaker 5: judicial reform? Do I think in that case, just like
Speaker 5: with Trump, the judicial reform was kind of like, how
Speaker 5: can I take control or exert greater influence over the
Speaker 5: judiciary so I can affect my own cases.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and stay in power as long as bossball.
Speaker 5: Right, stay in power a desperate need to stay in power.
Speaker 1: Are there lessons from this story? Obviously net Yahoo is
Speaker 1: still in power, Trump about to take power again. But
Speaker 1: do you think there are lessons from this slope?
Speaker 5: I do, And I think one of the lessons is
Speaker 5: pay attention early, because when you see that kind of
Speaker 5: corruption manifesting itself, you can't look the other way. And
Speaker 5: the other lesson I think is don't ever fall for
Speaker 5: that argument. The end justifies the means. BB always uses it.
Speaker 5: I stand for Israel. Therefore, do not criticize me, because
Speaker 5: if you criticize me, you're criticizing Israel. But once you
Speaker 5: start to say unequivocally that the end justifies the means,
Speaker 5: you're traveling down the road to corruption that will only
Speaker 5: get bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger. So being
Speaker 5: suspicious of that idea at the beginning is really important.
Speaker 5: It's kind of like, how do you sniff this stuff
Speaker 5: out early before it's too late and suddenly they're autocrats
Speaker 5: with an enormous amount of power.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, there's just so much important information from this.
Speaker 1: And also you really do get the sense that or
Speaker 1: at least answer this question for me if you don't mind,
Speaker 1: Do you actually get the sense that this will change
Speaker 1: things in Israel?
Speaker 5: I hope. So. I think a lot of Jews in
Speaker 5: this country feel strongly, you know, have felt very powerfully
Speaker 5: about seeing this film because they see a distance it's
Speaker 5: placing between Nettignaho and Israel that he is not Israel.
Speaker 5: It's not the same thing. And obviously Israel at this
Speaker 5: moment is a deeply divided country, just as we are.
Speaker 5: But I do think that seeing him in this light
Speaker 5: and separating him from the state as if he is
Speaker 5: the embodiment of it, and also seeing the cynicism with
Speaker 5: which he's conducting these kind of forever wars, I hope,
Speaker 5: will have an impact in Israel. But that's ultimately up
Speaker 5: to the Israelis and to some extent us, I mean,
Speaker 5: you know, we're arming netsa Yahoo I.
Speaker 1: Should have Yeah, do you get the sense that the
Speaker 1: Biden administration has any sort of understanding of what's going
Speaker 1: on there with Ntyaho, I do.
Speaker 5: But I just think they put themselves in such a
Speaker 5: feckless position in order to do anything about it. I
Speaker 5: thought Netiyah who played Biden like a fiddle, and Biden
Speaker 5: would stamp his feet and say I'm so angry with
Speaker 5: you BB, and BB would just chuckle, you know, because
Speaker 5: he knew that Biden wasn't going to stop the flow
Speaker 5: of weapons, which is the one thing that would have
Speaker 5: gotten everybody's attention. If you're going to threaten somebody a
Speaker 5: bit prepared to follow through on that threat. If you
Speaker 5: really want the carnage to stop, then you have to
Speaker 5: be prepared to take the steps that only this country
Speaker 5: can take to you know, affect a change like that.
Speaker 5: But you have to be willing to take those steps.
Speaker 1: And it did seem like Nanya who just outfoxed Biden
Speaker 1: and the admin. And at every point.
Speaker 5: I think he did. And also once even once the
Speaker 5: campaign turned to Kamala, you could see him turning up
Speaker 5: the heat in the Middle East. It's like, this is
Speaker 5: my opportunity. Nobody from the Democratic Party is going to
Speaker 5: do anything to me, right now, and so I'm just
Speaker 5: gonna do whatever I want. And you can see him
Speaker 5: opening front after front after front now even bombing Syria
Speaker 5: after Assad is toppled. You can make all sorts of
Speaker 5: arguments strategically about this or that, but you can see
Speaker 5: him playing the card of being the wartime president. Let's
Speaker 5: you know, I think the other analogies here also go
Speaker 5: back to nine to eleven. I mean, let's remember that
Speaker 5: the Bush was an incredibly unpopular and almost discredited president
Speaker 5: prior to nine to eleven, and he used nine to
Speaker 5: eleven and the need to win the war on terror?
Speaker 5: How did that work out to ennoble himself and ultimately
Speaker 5: want a second term. But you know, into that moment,
Speaker 5: the wheels were falling off the car.
Speaker 1: Oh it's so true, alex Thank you so much for
Speaker 1: coming on and talking to me about this. I really
Speaker 1: had wanted to talk to you about it, and I
Speaker 1: am heartened by the fact that you're doing stuff like that.
Speaker 5: Well, thank you so much, Molly. I should add for
Speaker 5: everybody listening like this is this is a FELM I produced.
Speaker 5: It was directed by Alexis Bloom, who did a spectacular
Speaker 5: job and at least in this country. It's on a
Speaker 5: new platform called Jolt dot Film, So I encourage everybody
Speaker 5: to see.
Speaker 1: It, and it's really easy to download and it's not expensive,
Speaker 1: and you know, it's the future, hopefully, hopefully. Yeah, thank you, Alex.
Speaker 5: All Right, Molly, good to talk to you.
Speaker 3: There no moment.
Speaker 2: Jesse Cannon, all right, Molly Trump first season, first presidency.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna shock you. Looks like there are some abusive powers.
Speaker 1: DOJ secretly obtained phone and text message logs at forty
Speaker 1: three congressional staffers and two members of Congress seeking to
Speaker 1: investigate leaks of classified information. And we're not surprised because
Speaker 1: we knew this was coming. They got these logs at
Speaker 1: forty three congressional staffers, two members of Congress in a
Speaker 1: broader probe. So this is a report from the Inspector
Speaker 1: General that the DOJ didn't act with political motives but
Speaker 1: failed to take sufficient account of constitutional separation of the power.
Speaker 1: You think they really didn't act with political motives. I
Speaker 1: think they did act with motives. What fucking I mean?
Speaker 1: This is like Democrats bringing his stuff to animal to
Speaker 1: a knife fight. Yeah, they just did it because they
Speaker 1: I mean, what other motive is there? Anyway, So this
Speaker 1: is a Bill Barr special. He personally approved the news
Speaker 1: media subpoenas in twenty twenty. A committee that had been
Speaker 1: set up to review any such moves was not consulted,
Speaker 1: as policy required. The report said Bill Barr did not
Speaker 1: cooperate with the investigation because why would he. This is
Speaker 1: going to be too California Democrats Adam Schiff and Erswolwow
Speaker 1: that they had been targeted in these records seizures. Look,
Speaker 1: this is going to look like nothing compared to what
Speaker 1: they're going to try to do next season.
Speaker 2: As someone married to a congressional staffer, I really feel
Speaker 2: bad for that bureaucrowd is going to have to sit
Speaker 2: through all the dog photos and beabs.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, this is where we are, and I think
Speaker 1: that it's really, really, really bad, and I think we're
Speaker 1: just seeing the beginning of it. And I think we
Speaker 1: have to just be so incredibly vigilant about reporting on
Speaker 1: this and talking about it and making sure, Look, these
Speaker 1: guys respond to respond to pushback. The only way to
Speaker 1: save American democracy is to make sure that we're vigilant.
Speaker 1: You know. That's it for this episode of Fast Politics.
Speaker 1: Tune in every Monday Wednesday, Thursday, and Saturday to hear
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