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 Jim Jordan continues to embarrass the
Speaker 1: American people on our southern border. We have an incredible
Speaker 1: show today. The new republicanitor Michael Damaski stops by for
Speaker 1: a brief history lesson on how we got to our
Speaker 1: current partisan political climate. Then Silent Spring Revolution author Douglas
Speaker 1: Brinkley outlines what Biden can learn from past environmental disasters.
Speaker 1: But first we have the one, the Only, George Conway.
Speaker 1: Welcome back, too, Fast Politics, your friend and mine. George Conway. Oh,
Speaker 1: how are Yeah? I'm fine. We haven't had any insurructions lately.
Speaker 1: It's good. That is good. First, I want to start
Speaker 1: by asking you about the Georgia Grand Jury. Yes, the jury, Foreman,
Speaker 1: it's going to be a great Saturday Night Live skin
Speaker 1: it really is, right, right, She's like that one wasn't
Speaker 1: Michigan The guy in the red vest remember the guy
Speaker 1: in the red vest ken bone, The guy in the
Speaker 1: red vest ken bone. That's right? Okay, yeah, okay, okay.
Speaker 1: So I want to ask you special grand jury put
Speaker 1: together by Fanny Wells, it was already out right, it
Speaker 1: was done, her service was done, the deliberations were done, right.
Speaker 1: I mean, I've seen some suggestions in the press. I
Speaker 1: don't know, Georgia lost. I've seen some suggestions in the
Speaker 1: press that she actually huge the line that was appropriate
Speaker 1: for a Georgia special grand jury, which is different from
Speaker 1: a federal grand jury because you'd never see a federal
Speaker 1: grand jury do this. But one one way or the other,
Speaker 1: it just wasn't particularly helpful. But at the end of
Speaker 1: the day, it's just comic relief. And that's my bottom
Speaker 1: line on this. Doesn't it bias? Like now? What? Now?
Speaker 1: What the I mean? Like, so, now Fanny Wellis is
Speaker 1: going to make these indictment recommendations. Is this, you know,
Speaker 1: take the case to another grand jury and that jury
Speaker 1: has the power to indict, and the defendants will make
Speaker 1: whatever noises they want to make about this, but it's
Speaker 1: not going to help. And at the end of the day,
Speaker 1: this is all going to be forgotten because we'll actually
Speaker 1: see the indictments, we'll see who's been indicted, and we'll
Speaker 1: start seeing more evidence. When do we think that happens?
Speaker 1: She told this court, the court that released the grand
Speaker 1: jury report. In part she told that judge that indictments
Speaker 1: were imminent. But you know, imminent can mean. I mean,
Speaker 1: some people mean imminent means it's they're they're going to
Speaker 1: the hospital have a baby. Some people mean imminent means
Speaker 1: we're getting into it in a few weeks. Logically, imminent
Speaker 1: wouldn't mean six months. I think imminent would mean at
Speaker 1: most a couple two or three months. Is this my guess,
Speaker 1: And just timing wise, she's got to get this cranking.
Speaker 1: She's got to get this cracking. It's annoying on for
Speaker 1: a while, and you don't really want to have these
Speaker 1: cases brought in the middle of the silly season. What
Speaker 1: is the silly season. The silly season is when you know,
Speaker 1: people start wearing red hats and actually going to Iowa
Speaker 1: and things like that, And that's going to happen in
Speaker 1: the next few We're not We're almost there. Okay. So
Speaker 1: that's one case of Donald Trump's many legal liabilities. The
Speaker 1: second case is Jack Smith. Jack Smith the new Bob Mueller.
Speaker 1: I think he's a younger and faster model. Okay, So
Speaker 1: tell me what you're what your sense is there? Well,
Speaker 1: I mean, we solve a report in the New York
Speaker 1: Times yesterday or the day before days all playing together. Now, really,
Speaker 1: I have no idea what that's like. You have no
Speaker 1: idea exactly. Jared and Ivanka have been subpoena to appear
Speaker 1: before that grand jury. There is only one reason why
Speaker 1: you would do that, because they're pretty and tall. They're
Speaker 1: pretty and tall, yes, And that's the money. It's like
Speaker 1: lots of sawty money, not just money. Mister Kushner tell
Speaker 1: us about NBS is he is? He is? He is?
Speaker 1: He really a fun guy, he seems everyone else oh above.
Speaker 1: I know I make these slatching jokes about the Saudis
Speaker 1: because I despise them so much. Yes, all right, so
Speaker 1: you know the only reason why you want to talk
Speaker 1: to them is because they had access to Trump on
Speaker 1: January sixth, and so the only reason why you do
Speaker 1: that is you are focusing on him as the talking
Speaker 1: Meadows isn't the target here. Meadows may even cooperate for
Speaker 1: all we know. So you know, there's really nobody else
Speaker 1: at the end of the day for those two who matters.
Speaker 1: They are a window into Trump. I mean, they kept
Speaker 1: sending Ivanka down to the Oval to talk to him
Speaker 1: and you know, trying to get them off the ledge
Speaker 1: and talk some sense into him. These two are the worst, right,
Speaker 1: she was supposed to be this influence right where she
Speaker 1: was going to get him. In their defense, which I
Speaker 1: hate to say those words, in their defense, he's completely uncontrollable.
Speaker 1: He's completely manipulable. But he's uncontrollable, and people don't understand it.
Speaker 1: There is they think just because they can manipulate him.
Speaker 1: He's old, he's stupid, he's narcissistic. You can play on
Speaker 1: his ego and that's why you know, I mean, you
Speaker 1: read these stories. It's been for years. Like the last
Speaker 1: person it's almost important to read the last person to talking,
Speaker 1: because everyone knows how to go in there and persuade
Speaker 1: him by saying that you're so smart. Look at this
Speaker 1: idea that I just thought of it, you just thought
Speaker 1: of I just thought it from you. You know. There
Speaker 1: are all sorts of tricks they used to manipulate him,
Speaker 1: but they can't control him. That's the problem, right, right, right,
Speaker 1: that's the mistake that they made. Right, No, that's for
Speaker 1: sure true. As we see this who going then there's
Speaker 1: your friend in mine e Gene Carroll's case. That's the
Speaker 1: sleeper case O case. And also this is going to
Speaker 1: be great when I get to go on TV to
Speaker 1: talk about it. Full disclaimer here and you need this
Speaker 1: disclaimer too, Oh good, I like any disclaimer that I
Speaker 1: am also covered by Gene Carroll met her lawyer, Robbie
Speaker 1: Kaplan because I met Jean and a party at your apartment.
Speaker 1: That's right, don't I know it? And I told Jean
Speaker 1: that she had to go out and get this lawyer.
Speaker 1: And I then called this lawyer, Robbie Kaplant, up and
Speaker 1: said it is I have a case for you, and
Speaker 1: the rest is unfortunate history for Donald J. Trump. So
Speaker 1: tell me about that case. Though now you can comment
Speaker 1: Donald as a That case is going to go to
Speaker 1: trial on April twenty fourth, and in one way or
Speaker 1: the other. And there are really two cases. There's one
Speaker 1: case that's the defamation case based upon the statements that
Speaker 1: Trump made while he was president when the accusations first
Speaker 1: came out. He said, she's not my type. I've never
Speaker 1: matter of course, there was a photograph of him meeting her.
Speaker 1: That's a definite action. And then New York passed this
Speaker 1: thing called the Survivor's Law. It basically it says it
Speaker 1: revived all sexual assault to sexual harassment claims for a
Speaker 1: period of I don't know how many a year, I
Speaker 1: think after the passage or the statutes, so that people
Speaker 1: victims whose claims were cut to up by a shorter
Speaker 1: statue of limitations in the past one chet chance to
Speaker 1: bring their case one time, and that's what she then
Speaker 1: brought the case against Trump on sexual assault, which for
Speaker 1: the statute of limitations for which would have otherwise run.
Speaker 1: So now there are two cases and they basically turned
Speaker 1: on the same issue. Did Donald Trump rape Jean Carroll?
Speaker 1: If he did, then that he also defamed her when
Speaker 1: he said she was lying, And if he did, he's
Speaker 1: also liable now for sexual assault under the survivors launch.
Speaker 1: So it's basically two cases and one depending on like
Speaker 1: one event that happened in nineteen nineties, to which there
Speaker 1: are multiple witnesses in the sense that there are you know,
Speaker 1: she told people immediately after it happened, and then apparently
Speaker 1: there's going to be some other evidence about you know,
Speaker 1: coming from people who are who are there at the
Speaker 1: town to gap. But we'll say, do you think that
Speaker 1: case has a real shot. It's not a question of
Speaker 1: it as a shot. I don't I don't know how
Speaker 1: it's trial for Donald Trump. Is he really going to
Speaker 1: testify and subject himself to cross examination? Because hasn't he
Speaker 1: been ordered to testify? Now he had to testify that position.
Speaker 1: He doesn't have to testify in his own defense at trial.
Speaker 1: Robbie Kaplan, the plan lawyer could call him as a
Speaker 1: hostile witness. But if he doesn't testify to what happened
Speaker 1: that day, there is no evidence on his side. But
Speaker 1: on the other hand, he can't testify because he'll get
Speaker 1: cut the shreds. Robbie'll kill him right, and it's going
Speaker 1: to be a spectacle. His best play is to not
Speaker 1: dignify the trial by showing up and just making the
Speaker 1: case about damages and saying we think it's just ridiculous.
Speaker 1: And then what happens. He's gonna be held liably. He's
Speaker 1: going to have the red jet. But there's no criminal. No,
Speaker 1: there's no criminal, but he's going to be The evidence
Speaker 1: is going to be very embarrassing to him. And the
Speaker 1: way he could compound the embarrassment, I think is by testify.
Speaker 1: I think he's going to want to basically take to
Speaker 1: take a default on liability. You don't think he's going
Speaker 1: to try to testify. I think he'd be insane too.
Speaker 1: But he is insane, right, all right? So who knows?
Speaker 1: On the other him, they were successful in getting him
Speaker 1: to flee the Fifth Amendment four hundred and some long
Speaker 1: times at his civil deposition in the ARKG case. So
Speaker 1: you did no times, then sense will prevail on him.
Speaker 1: That's sensitive. But he's you know, on the other hand,
Speaker 1: he opens his mouth about everything all the time. But
Speaker 1: what kind of civil award could this be? Do you think?
Speaker 1: I don't know what damage is sought? Are I don't
Speaker 1: know what the expert reports say or anything like that.
Speaker 1: But you know, it's basically argues that she was she's
Speaker 1: have an emotional injury from what happened in the department store,
Speaker 1: and then she also suffered damages from the libel. Some
Speaker 1: people wouldn't go near her and hire her for things,
Speaker 1: and so on and so forth after that. Right, it's
Speaker 1: not going to bankrupt them. But you know, the most
Speaker 1: important thing is just the testimony about what he did
Speaker 1: and the fact that there's nothing, nothing, that stands on
Speaker 1: his side. That and she's going to be a much
Speaker 1: more credible witness I think than he would ever be
Speaker 1: right right, right, And also she doesn't have years of
Speaker 1: lying to her her standing. Yes, Donald Trump could not
Speaker 1: withstrand cross examination on any subject for more than five
Speaker 1: minutes or one minute. Frankly, he can't answer class questions coherently,
Speaker 1: He can't answer questions truthfully, and basically you get gibberish
Speaker 1: and insanity after a certain amount of time. I mean,
Speaker 1: we saw that in the first this book that Woodward wrote,
Speaker 1: which I forget the names of which the books, but
Speaker 1: the first one he wrote about, you know, he wrote
Speaker 1: about the defense of the Mueller investigation and how Jim Doubt,
Speaker 1: his own lawyer, put him through a cross examination to
Speaker 1: try to figure out how, you know, how to how
Speaker 1: to prep him for being interviewed by Mueller. And basically
Speaker 1: conclusion is that I can testify to lie his ass off,
Speaker 1: he just will lose it. I know, you're not a
Speaker 1: Republican anymore, but you really are a Republican. So who
Speaker 1: do this sort of non crazy Republicans vote for in
Speaker 1: this primary? Look, I mean, if I were voting in
Speaker 1: a Republican primary, which I've been, because I will not
Speaker 1: registered as a Republican for a number of years until
Speaker 1: the rot is completely gone, and I don't see that
Speaker 1: happening anytime soon. I vote for Sinnoni and Hogan. This
Speaker 1: is more sane. Yeah, yeah, you know, and I do
Speaker 1: that because I mean, look, they're a little maybe they're
Speaker 1: a little more liberal than I might like. In sort
Speaker 1: of a normal world where we had sensible political discourse,
Speaker 1: I'd probably'd be slightly to the right of them, not
Speaker 1: too much, I think, I don't know, but in this environment,
Speaker 1: you know, so basically the big question for me is,
Speaker 1: you know, just you know, call out a lot, a
Speaker 1: big lot. I even have sympathy for people who I
Speaker 1: know know the truth and have been willing to sort
Speaker 1: of hint at it. I can even accept some of that.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, it's like, I'm not vote for
Speaker 1: Mitch McConnell for president. I don't think anybody would. I'm
Speaker 1: not even sure a Lane would. Yeah, but you know,
Speaker 1: so I have this, I have this now soft spot
Speaker 1: in my heart for you that develops right because he's
Speaker 1: not fullishit. Well, he is fullishit. I mean he is
Speaker 1: full of shit, but not in about the election in
Speaker 1: a typical politician kind of way. Okay, in a regular
Speaker 1: regular machine politician kind of way, which is fine, you know,
Speaker 1: in an ordinary environment. But the thing about McConnell is,
Speaker 1: I know, deep down he hates Donald Trump, despises Donald
Speaker 1: Trump to test his behavior everybody as much as you
Speaker 1: alide right right now, probably more, probably more because it
Speaker 1: made his life difficult, right It's crushed his dream of
Speaker 1: taking away Social Security. You gave you a pod? Yes,
Speaker 1: it cost him a job. Yeah, Oh well, thoughts prayers neither.
Speaker 1: I want to ask you one more question, which is,
Speaker 1: I mean, let's just game this out for a minute.
Speaker 1: Does de Santis get the nomination? No, okay, it's possible
Speaker 1: as an outside shot at it, What do you think happens?
Speaker 1: Because I think you have a pretty interesting I do.
Speaker 1: I have a pretty gunn Here's might be a trunk
Speaker 1: will get the nomination and he will get bailed, but
Speaker 1: he will not win the general. And what I think is,
Speaker 1: I don't think right now that the primary is set
Speaker 1: up so that Trump can be defeated. I mean, there
Speaker 1: are probably fifty percent of Republicans of a war who
Speaker 1: want him to go away. Many of those people would
Speaker 1: probably vote for him anyway if depending on who the
Speaker 1: other choices were a lot of those people would. But
Speaker 1: what matters is the fact that it doesn't take fifty
Speaker 1: percent to win the nomination. I mean, there are these
Speaker 1: you know, winner take all delegate rules that kick in
Speaker 1: pretty early, as I understand it, And so you know,
Speaker 1: you get twenty seven percent of the vote and that
Speaker 1: guy gets twenty four you get all the delegates in
Speaker 1: a lot of these states. The way you beat Trump
Speaker 1: is one on on and going after him hammer and tone.
Speaker 1: I don't think it's going to be one on one
Speaker 1: at any point or soon enough for the Santis to win.
Speaker 1: I don't think, and I don't think the Santists would
Speaker 1: do what it's necess you do, which is to go
Speaker 1: hammer and tongue at Trump. And I think the nam
Speaker 1: is going to be everybody's going to go attack the Santis,
Speaker 1: and Trump's going to be attacking the Santis. Right, everybody's
Speaker 1: not to talk about the orange elephant that shout on
Speaker 1: the stage. You know, he's going to get bit of
Speaker 1: a free ride, and he's going to get his thirty
Speaker 1: five percent, and he's going to get the nomination and
Speaker 1: he will you know, he'll post bail and he'll be
Speaker 1: the first actively indicted, maybe even trying a criminal case,
Speaker 1: presidential candidate, a nominee of a major party in history,
Speaker 1: and he's going to ferment violence because if he can't
Speaker 1: get out by getting presidential immunity of being reelected again,
Speaker 1: he'll He's wanted to take every everyone down with him,
Speaker 1: which is what malignant narcissist, narcissistic psychopaths do. Even if
Speaker 1: the Santists were able to beat Trump one on one
Speaker 1: in a race that I just don't see happening. But
Speaker 1: if it happened and he was he was got sixty
Speaker 1: or seventy percent of the vote and got the nomination
Speaker 1: or even fifty, you know he's gonna end up with
Speaker 1: twenty or thirty percent of Republicans pissed at him. And
Speaker 1: Trump would even run as a third party candidate just
Speaker 1: to just to screw things up of spite. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean that seems likely to Rick keeps saying that people
Speaker 1: in case he's going to trial, and he wants to
Speaker 1: basically say this, I'm being persecuted and because I'm running,
Speaker 1: both parties have conspired against me, and you know he's
Speaker 1: going to do that. I don't do that before anything else.
Speaker 1: So it's going to be the biggest It's going to
Speaker 1: be a biggest shit show because we've seen in the
Speaker 1: last one hundred and sixty years of American history. Is
Speaker 1: there going to be a change in George Conway's life.
Speaker 1: It's possible. It's possible. Okay, So that I think is uh,
Speaker 1: you know, not not nothing, George Conway. I hope you
Speaker 1: will come back. Will you come back? You are a troublemaker.
Speaker 1: You are a troublemaker. You are such a trouble maker.
Speaker 1: I hope you will come back. Come on, it's fun. Hi.
Speaker 1: Doug Brinkley is the author of Silent Spring Revolution, Welcome
Speaker 1: Too Fast Politics. Doug Brinkley, thank you so much for
Speaker 1: having me. Molly appreciate it. I'm very excited to have you.
Speaker 1: We are second generation friends because you have been on
Speaker 1: panels with my mother absolutely and I've watched on video
Speaker 1: of panel you did with Playboy with your mom recently,
Speaker 1: which I just love talking about the Second Feminist Revolution
Speaker 1: and just where things are at today. It was a
Speaker 1: really interesting panel you did. Oh well, thank you, mom
Speaker 1: and daughter swapping stories. It was great. You know, we
Speaker 1: have a dog and pony show, but you are an
Speaker 1: expert in this field about this political history of environmental disaster.
Speaker 1: For lack of a better phrase, yeah, well, you know, so,
Speaker 1: I grew up in a town called Perrysburg, Ohio, along
Speaker 1: the Mammy River, and I was there in nineteen sixty
Speaker 1: nine when the Kayahoga River caught on fire. That's the
Speaker 1: great industrial waterway by Cleveland, and I mean little match
Speaker 1: you would go up and fire, and then Lake Geary
Speaker 1: was dying. The novelist Kurt Vonnegut said it's dying of
Speaker 1: human excrement in clorox bottles. And doctor Seuss wrote about
Speaker 1: Lake Geary, Smeary, Lake Gary. And unfortunately Ohio has been
Speaker 1: treated very shabbily from an environmental point of view. Companies
Speaker 1: come here and run willy nilly and shotgun over the landscape.
Speaker 1: That's one of the reasons one has to be concerned
Speaker 1: about the chemical derailment that just occurred and the explosion
Speaker 1: and a seemingly lack of immediate strong federal response. People
Speaker 1: in Ohio feel like their rivers and their landscapes are
Speaker 1: often abused by industrial chemical companies. So I want to
Speaker 1: ask you about this book you wrote, Silent Spring Revolution.
Speaker 1: You focused on a period of time and the leaders
Speaker 1: who got involved in this great environment mental awakening. Can
Speaker 1: you explain a little bit about how that came about
Speaker 1: and sort of what this was. We've had three environmental waves.
Speaker 1: It used to be the word conservation, So forgive me
Speaker 1: for saying environmental to an era when that work didn't exist.
Speaker 1: But for listeners it's easier for me to use the
Speaker 1: word environmental. The first was Theodore Roosevelt from nineteen o
Speaker 1: one to nineteen o nine, and tr really started putting
Speaker 1: the federal large s on things like creating our US
Speaker 1: FARS Service. Today, if you look at a map and
Speaker 1: see all these national fars, they were born during the
Speaker 1: Roosevelt pr administration. He started using executive power the Antiquities
Speaker 1: Act of nineteen o six. The White House had the
Speaker 1: power to go in and say you're not mining the
Speaker 1: Grand Canyon for zinc, abstos and copper, and if you
Speaker 1: don't want it as a national park, the national parks
Speaker 1: have to be approved by Congress, and Congress didn't want
Speaker 1: the Grand Canyon. R then used executive power to save
Speaker 1: what became over a million acre national monument later became
Speaker 1: park when the politics were better. So that era, that
Speaker 1: first wave was quite exciting because Roosevelt by nature, tr
Speaker 1: was a wildlife conservationist. He went to Harvard and naturalist studies.
Speaker 1: He wrote a book as an undergraduate called The Summer
Speaker 1: Birds of the Adirondack. And so we had a president
Speaker 1: who really got conservation and elevated it. And didn't he
Speaker 1: have a lot of wild pets too. He had thirty
Speaker 1: seven at one point in the White House. His favorite
Speaker 1: was a little dog named Skip that could climb trees,
Speaker 1: but he also had parrots snakes. Emperor highly Selassie of
Speaker 1: Ethiopia had gifted him a hyena, which Roosevelt and gave
Speaker 1: to the National Zoo. Wandering around the White House was Josiah,
Speaker 1: a badger that a little girl gave President Roosevelt in
Speaker 1: a box in Nebraska, and he fed it with a
Speaker 1: baby bottle milk and potatoes and grew up. And badgers
Speaker 1: are colonial animals, meaning they'll play with they'll never turn
Speaker 1: on the family they're grown up with, but they'll attack
Speaker 1: anybody outside of the perfect pet perfect Yeah, exactly, But
Speaker 1: so it actually bit a congressman that attack with the
Speaker 1: badger in the White House forced near to Roosevelt to
Speaker 1: bring the badger to his home in Long Island Sagamore Hill,
Speaker 1: but it's buried and with the cemetery stone right at
Speaker 1: Sagmore Hill the badger Josiah So Roosevelt was a Doctor
Speaker 1: Doolittle like figure. TR kept his pockets filled with nuts
Speaker 1: to feed the squirrels. Every day. He started working on
Speaker 1: a book about the birds of Washington, DC. As president,
Speaker 1: really remarkable Roosevelt and environmentalism and outdoor world. And I
Speaker 1: wrote a book called The Wilderness Warrior about that. I
Speaker 1: led you on a tangent, but I want you to
Speaker 1: get back to it because what you're talking about is
Speaker 1: incredibly interesting. So the second president who led this second
Speaker 1: environmental revolution was who, oh, it was Franklin D. Rose Belt. Okay,
Speaker 1: to understand TR and FDR, I mean, Theodore Roosevelt was
Speaker 1: from New York. FDR was from New York. Theodore Roosevelt
Speaker 1: went to Harvard. FDR went to Harvard, and they were
Speaker 1: fifth cousins. But Theodore Roosevelt was assistant Secretary of the Navy.
Speaker 1: FDR was assistant Secretary of the Navy. Theodore Roosevelt was
Speaker 1: Governor of New York. FDR was Governor of New York.
Speaker 1: Theodore Roosevelt liked the Big Navy and loved conservation. FDR
Speaker 1: loved both. And Theodore Roosevelt had a niece, Eleanor, who
Speaker 1: FDR married, right, So the two Roosevelts really elevated environmental
Speaker 1: concerns to the very top of the national agenda. And
Speaker 1: in fact, when it used to be inaugurations of presidents
Speaker 1: were in March, and the famous New Deal kickoff of
Speaker 1: FDR in March of thirty three. His first New Deal
Speaker 1: program was the Civilian Conservation Corps, which paid unemployed workers
Speaker 1: a dollar a day to tree plant, and from nineteen
Speaker 1: thirty three to nineteen forty two, the CCC plant to
Speaker 1: nearly three billion trees across America because we were just
Speaker 1: like in Ohio right now, it's an ecological disaster of
Speaker 1: the whole country. It wasn't just the stock market in
Speaker 1: the depression. It was the dust bowl and the Great Plains.
Speaker 1: We had cut all of our hardwood trees, drained all
Speaker 1: the swamps. Right, we had been farming wrong, and that
Speaker 1: had killed the land. Yeah, we've been farming wrong, and
Speaker 1: we now we brought science into agriculture and forestry under FDR.
Speaker 1: And he was the progenitor of eight hundred state parks
Speaker 1: during the New Deal, and say places like the Great Smokies,
Speaker 1: the Everglades, the Channel Islands of California, the Olympic Forest.
Speaker 1: Want to go on and on with what FDR did
Speaker 1: with others. It was a movement. So the third wave
Speaker 1: that my new book is Silent Spring Revolution, doesn't have
Speaker 1: a Roosevelt in it, and it didn't have a president
Speaker 1: that really loved the natural world like these two Roosevelts,
Speaker 1: I mean, tr and FDR loved Henry David Thurreau and
Speaker 1: you know, and we're autub honors and all this. And
Speaker 1: I had to begin my book in nineteen forty five
Speaker 1: because the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki,
Speaker 1: while gave us victory over Japan, concerned a lot of
Speaker 1: public scientists and public moralists. Is this the doom of mankind?
Speaker 1: And people started getting information and data, scientific info on radiation, fallout, sickness, cancer, leukemia.
Speaker 1: Yet we were willy nilly testing nuclear weapons in the
Speaker 1: Nevada Desert, right, people were six six six well. And
Speaker 1: also we were building bombs in Los Alma, Yeah, New Mexico,
Speaker 1: because the Southwest became a nuclear range. What happened is
Speaker 1: people I write about in my book Rachel Carson, who
Speaker 1: was from Pennsylvania. She had done her advanced degree in
Speaker 1: zoology at John's Hopkins studied at Woods holl in Massachusetts.
Speaker 1: Anybody listening read Rachel Carson's trilogy on ocean life. They're remarkable.
Speaker 1: So let's get now to what's happening in Ohio because
Speaker 1: there's a historical president. But there's also an opportunity here
Speaker 1: for the Biden administration to get serious about conservation. Again. Well,
Speaker 1: the Biden administration has done a good job on climate change,
Speaker 1: but unfortunately, because I'm admer of President Biden, the administration
Speaker 1: was slow in Ohio. In my book, I write about
Speaker 1: when Nixon was president in eight days and the Santa
Speaker 1: Barbara oil spill happened, and Nixon's sent Walter Hickle, the
Speaker 1: Interior Secretary, to California, and right when he was arriving,
Speaker 1: he heard the White House saying it wasn't so bad
Speaker 1: in California. Yes, there's some birds that are got in oil,
Speaker 1: but it's going to be okay. Hickle got ahold of
Speaker 1: Nixon and said, do not minimize. It's a disaster. Do
Speaker 1: not minimize. And Nixon listened to that. And avoided the
Speaker 1: blame for the spill. Biden administration didn't seem to want
Speaker 1: to make this into a big environmental flash point moment, right,
Speaker 1: but it is, and they're going to have no choice.
Speaker 1: Then they have no choice. That president didn't come, Kamala
Speaker 1: Harris didn't come, Buddha Jedge only came after Trump, and
Speaker 1: the EPA of Chief, who I like and Amyer was
Speaker 1: seemed slow out of the gate, and it's unfortunate, but
Speaker 1: when these disasters happened like this, you have to be
Speaker 1: on the ground and have a bullhorn moment where you're
Speaker 1: saying I'm here. And Biden is so good at hugging
Speaker 1: and emphasizing with people, it would have been a natural
Speaker 1: scene for him. But I think he may have been
Speaker 1: planning the Ukraine trip to keep and kind of neglected
Speaker 1: Ohio and they're paying a political cost for it in
Speaker 1: the public square right now. Right. It's interesting because this
Speaker 1: is actually a real opportunity. What's happened. I mean, so
Speaker 1: one of the things that Trump did was he really
Speaker 1: ran on deregulation, right he would say, for every regulation,
Speaker 1: you know, we're going to take away five And nobody
Speaker 1: was able to thread the needle between deregulation and environmental
Speaker 1: catastrophes in such a clear way as we're seeing right
Speaker 1: now right here. Absolutely, and so they do. You know,
Speaker 1: the blame of the Trump administration for gutting EPA, for
Speaker 1: massive deregulation. I could go on and on, but when
Speaker 1: a crisis of the environment happens, the president has to
Speaker 1: respond in a forty eight hour window while people are traumatized.
Speaker 1: And you know, I remember when Barack Obama went to
Speaker 1: Flint later and then drank the water. It was a
Speaker 1: photo op moment. But it may people think maybe I
Speaker 1: should be able to drink our water. There's confusion going
Speaker 1: on in Ohio and Pennsylvania right now, you know, people
Speaker 1: saying all that rash is and it isn't important, it's
Speaker 1: not so bad. And then cameras showed get fish and
Speaker 1: wildlife in a creek. Right People's pets are dying. We
Speaker 1: actually last week we had the incredible Aaron Brockovich on
Speaker 1: this podcast and she said that she had been told
Speaker 1: that people's pets were dying, which struck me as really bad.
Speaker 1: And Aaron, today, I'm in Ohio right now. She is
Speaker 1: at ground zero. She's there today. Where do we go
Speaker 1: from here? What do we do? Obviously the railroads are
Speaker 1: going to pay up the gazoo for this, and they
Speaker 1: fucking should excuse my fringe, absolutely full agreement, and it'll
Speaker 1: be raining class action suits. What does the Biden administration?
Speaker 1: I would have this public spokesperson. It's unusual for a
Speaker 1: White House to farm it out, but I would now
Speaker 1: let Shared Brown be the voice for the White House.
Speaker 1: I would appoint him. He's loved in Ohio because he's
Speaker 1: very good at constituent politics. And if he goes and
Speaker 1: puts his arm around the mare and visits with people,
Speaker 1: he has credibility in Ohio as being a compassionate senator
Speaker 1: who cares about environmental justice issues. So I think he
Speaker 1: has to be elevated. Now. I'm afraid Biden Harrison Buddha
Speaker 1: jugs that wots their window to be the voice of this. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's really interesting, and I mean you say this as
Speaker 1: we are both fans of Biden. But I think in
Speaker 1: my mind there a number of issues here, and the
Speaker 1: biggest one is, you know, how do we protect the
Speaker 1: land in Ohio and the people who are there. I mean,
Speaker 1: do you have any sense on what the plan there is?
Speaker 1: The first thing that has to happen is FEMA never
Speaker 1: should have said they're not going to be there. It's
Speaker 1: not in their Ballywick. FEMA presence should have been everywhere.
Speaker 1: There's going to have to be a shakedown. Even Nixon
Speaker 1: would shakedown polluters after Kuyahoga and make him pay. The
Speaker 1: White House and cher Brown have to be the voice
Speaker 1: of anger that this has gone on for this many weeks,
Speaker 1: that people are telling you that the idea was minimize
Speaker 1: it and let people get back in their houses. But
Speaker 1: any mother and father with children would be terrified within
Speaker 1: a hundred mile area here of whether you would want
Speaker 1: to be there, putting your child's long term risk of cancer, leukemia,
Speaker 1: and on and on at risk. So it happened. It's
Speaker 1: not an immediate solution. We're obviously going to be a
Speaker 1: massive cleanup effort, but there everybody that lives in that
Speaker 1: community needs to be paid. In my book, I wrote
Speaker 1: about nineteen forty eight Dinorah, Pennsylvania, where the factories there.
Speaker 1: It was so polluted. One day and the summer, you know,
Speaker 1: it was hot, and everybody in the community of Dinora
Speaker 1: got sick. Twenty people died a respiratory illness, and it
Speaker 1: became where the word smog was born. There's even a
Speaker 1: little museum in DeNora, Pennsylvania for the history of smog.
Speaker 1: But that triggered a look at why can't we breathe
Speaker 1: in New York City through the smog? Why is laf smog?
Speaker 1: And it led to December nineteen sixty three Clean Air Act,
Speaker 1: which attacked stationary pollution of factories. We now are going
Speaker 1: to have to look at the railroad industry in a
Speaker 1: new light. This utter recklessness by the Norfolk, Southern folk.
Speaker 1: I mean, it is a really interesting opportunity for legislators
Speaker 1: to remind all of us why they exist right why
Speaker 1: the government needs to regulate things. The thing I wanted
Speaker 1: to actually ask you about was Nixon and the EPA,
Speaker 1: because that seems very counterintuitive. Well, I know, and that's
Speaker 1: what I mean to your point, Molly, when you said
Speaker 1: these crises can get you know, they're very very likely
Speaker 1: in Ohio right now. JD. Vance and Shared Brown can
Speaker 1: get on the same page. It's that's not far betched
Speaker 1: on this issue. But Nixon decided to work with Henry M.
Speaker 1: Jackson Scoop Jackson, Democrat from Washington, who was just won
Speaker 1: the North Cascades National Park Battle and was an environmentalist.
Speaker 1: Nixon worked with Jackson because Jackson did not criticize the
Speaker 1: Vietnam War. Where George McGovern you, Jim McCarthy, Gaylord Nelson,
Speaker 1: I can name you twenty Democrats that were denouncing Nixon's
Speaker 1: policy in Southeast Asia, Jackson didn't. Nixon worked with Jackson,
Speaker 1: and in April twenty second, nineteen seventy, we had Earth Day,
Speaker 1: the first one, and Nixon saw that there were these
Speaker 1: teachings everywhere, and he ended up planning a tree on
Speaker 1: Earth Day and giving Interior Department employees the day off.
Speaker 1: He was worried that they were gonna it was an
Speaker 1: anti war trick Earth Day, but when it came and
Speaker 1: went and it seemed to be a positive Earth consciousness event.
Speaker 1: Nixon in the summer of nineteen seventy worked with Democrat
Speaker 1: Scoop Jackson and Congressman John Dingle of Michigan, and they
Speaker 1: cobbled together EPA and it opened its doors in December
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy and under its first director, Administrator William Ruckles House,
Speaker 1: it was awesome. The first EPA and seventy they did
Speaker 1: bus polluters. They became law enforcement, going after companies, ruckle houses.
Speaker 1: EPA would have been all over this in Ohio right
Speaker 1: now in a very large way. Now, Nixon later thought
Speaker 1: ruckles House was a loose cannon. A longer story, but
Speaker 1: you know, Nixon ended up banning DDT. He didn't want to,
Speaker 1: but the public demanded it, and his own EPA said
Speaker 1: he had to. So I think the Biden administration is
Speaker 1: going to get on the page here in the right ways.
Speaker 1: But they've lost a communication opportunity to show the empathy
Speaker 1: of the moment they needed, and so they're operating out
Speaker 1: of a deficit right now, and they've allowed their opponents,
Speaker 1: the GOP, to take some major punches at them. And
Speaker 1: you know, it's indisputable they didn't move quickly enough there,
Speaker 1: at least in a symbolic way, right And it is
Speaker 1: interesting nobody is going to accuse the Republican Party of
Speaker 1: being interested in environmental protection right or regulation, which are
Speaker 1: the two things that need to happen now. So it
Speaker 1: does feel really important that Democrats reclaim this. I agree,
Speaker 1: and I think Shared Brown's the man. He's a running
Speaker 1: for reelection for the Senate in twenty twenty four Ohio
Speaker 1: is becoming a Republican state. He's got a hold on
Speaker 1: to a Senate seat. I know sheared Brown quite well.
Speaker 1: In fact, I know he w we knowed. He's reading
Speaker 1: my book Silent Spring Revolution. Oh yeah, he really cares
Speaker 1: about what's going on there. And so I think if
Speaker 1: he becomes the voice of the Democrats in Ohio like
Speaker 1: Mike DeWine was doing for the Republicans, and I think
Speaker 1: that there can be a bipartisan consensus here on how
Speaker 1: to regulate these railroad companies that are bringing toxic chemicals
Speaker 1: through states at very rapid speeds. And they've done budget
Speaker 1: cuts and got rid of employees on these train companies
Speaker 1: that are carrying the toxic chemicals. And there's something always
Speaker 1: bad happens when you start downsizing jobs better involved lethal
Speaker 1: chemicals or industrial debris. Yeah, exactly. Thank you so much,
Speaker 1: Doug Brinkley. We're gonna want to have you back hey anytime,
Speaker 1: Molly adoreya and I love your podcast and keep it going.
Speaker 1: Oh you, our dear listeners are very busy, and you
Speaker 1: don't have time to sort through the hundreds of pieces
Speaker 1: of pundentry each week. This is why every week I
Speaker 1: put together a newsletter of my five favorite articles on politics.
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Speaker 1: our mailing list. That's Fast politicspod dot com. Mike Damaski
Speaker 1: is the editor of The New Republic. Welcome to Fast Politics,
Speaker 1: my favorite friend, Mike Damaski. Hey, hey, I want to
Speaker 1: talk to you about this unprecedented time in American history.
Speaker 1: I would think of you as someone who has like
Speaker 1: a long memory old ye, do give me a precedent
Speaker 1: for what the fuck is happening here? Also weekend Curse. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: it's fucking crazy. There's not much precedent really. You know,
Speaker 1: people point to the eighteen fifties. I guess, but I
Speaker 1: think I've always said this is worse than the eighteen fifties,
Speaker 1: because at least in the eighteen fifty they were kind
Speaker 1: of arguing about the same set of facts. They disagreed
Speaker 1: about slavery, but neither disputed the essential facts of the
Speaker 1: slave trade. There was just one side that was against it.
Speaker 1: In one side thought it was fine, and so on
Speaker 1: and so on and so on. Now we're not talking
Speaker 1: at all about the same set of facts, you know,
Speaker 1: I mean, you watch MSNBC and CNN one night, and
Speaker 1: then if we brought somebody here either from like another
Speaker 1: planet or from a you know, a remotish civilization somewhere,
Speaker 1: and asked them to watch MSNBC the first night, CNN
Speaker 1: the second night, and Fox News the third night, they'd say, well,
Speaker 1: the first two nights were pretty similar, and we're describing
Speaker 1: a certain world, but the third night was just describing
Speaker 1: a completely different place, right right, Yeah, in that sense,
Speaker 1: we're much farther apart than they were in eighteen fifty nine,
Speaker 1: in eighteen sixty. Well, that's what I wanted to ask
Speaker 1: you about, because when we're talking about this idea of like,
Speaker 1: I mean, you were there, as was I in nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety seven when Fox News started. It was the same
Speaker 1: year that MSNBC started and the networks at that time.
Speaker 1: There were liberals on Fox. You know there are liberals
Speaker 1: today on Fox too. Yeah, there was one liberal on Fox.
Speaker 1: Let's not get carried away, Molly. There was Combs Alan Colmes,
Speaker 1: right right, and his job was to be Sean Hannity's doormat.
Speaker 1: You know, we know that, whereas on MSNBC, who was
Speaker 1: on Laura Ingram was on MSNBC. Wow. Yeah, people forget
Speaker 1: that MSNBC didn't become the MSNBC we know until well
Speaker 1: into the Bush years. I always wonder what the chicken
Speaker 1: or the egg here is, Like, did Fox News create
Speaker 1: this or did this create Fox News? Yeah? I think
Speaker 1: this created Fox News. But let's define this. This was
Speaker 1: the Rupert Murdoch empire first of all, that started out
Speaker 1: very small, started out with the New York Post and
Speaker 1: included New York Magazine, include the Village Voice for a
Speaker 1: little while. And he didn't try he didn't try to
Speaker 1: turn the Village Voice right wing. He just wanted to
Speaker 1: make money off the Village Voice and then he sold it.
Speaker 1: So this was spearheaded by Murdoch and then also spearheaded
Speaker 1: by the end of the fairness doctrine in the Reagan
Speaker 1: years and the rise of right wing radio, right wing
Speaker 1: talk radio and Christian talk radio, which people a lot
Speaker 1: of people thought wasn't going to succeed at all, and
Speaker 1: of course has. So those things were the first steps
Speaker 1: in the right wing media. And Fox was just seeing
Speaker 1: a market opportunity, Fox News seeing a market opportunity and
Speaker 1: inserting themselves into it. Right. That is sort of the
Speaker 1: sense that I was getting is that Murdoch is in
Speaker 1: many ways just a mercenary, and that while he may
Speaker 1: be ideologically right wing, she is chasing the dollar ultimately. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and you know we've learned that. We learned that never
Speaker 1: more emphatically than we learned it last week. Yes, the
Speaker 1: dominion soon. Yeah, with that court filing, I mean they
Speaker 1: openly said to each other, we can't lose market share
Speaker 1: to Newsmax. We can't lose market share to Newsmax. We
Speaker 1: know Trump is peddling a bunch of bullshit, but we
Speaker 1: can't lose viewers to Newsmax. Let's play this, you know,
Speaker 1: without exactly endorsing. Let's let's play this with kid gloves.
Speaker 1: But of course they did go on to exactly endorse.
Speaker 1: You know, a lot of the hosts completely endorse the
Speaker 1: big lie, completely gay space to it. And it's not
Speaker 1: just if you read through that filing. It's not just
Speaker 1: Carlson and Ingram and Hannerty, it's other people, notably Bardaromo.
Speaker 1: I mean, she comes off so poorly. I think I
Speaker 1: never understood what happened to her. Yeah, how much money
Speaker 1: does she make a year. That's probably what happened to her, right, Okay,
Speaker 1: hey got it. I could give you sixteen million reasons
Speaker 1: why she did or whatever the number is, you know,
Speaker 1: all right, but it is like very clear when you
Speaker 1: look at the filing just how much this was a
Speaker 1: calculated decision on the part of these Fox anchors. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and they played it along for weeks and weeks and
Speaker 1: weeks and you know, so they let people go on
Speaker 1: their air saying stuff that they knew to be false.
Speaker 1: Let's stop, take a step back. These are alleged journalists
Speaker 1: doing alleged journalism, and they let person after person after
Speaker 1: person go on their air and say false things and
Speaker 1: say crazy thing things they knew to be to have
Speaker 1: no basis in fact. That wasn't about you know, whether
Speaker 1: the New England Patriots inflated footballs or not. You know,
Speaker 1: it was about the most important serious matters that democracy. Yeah, democracy,
Speaker 1: the most important thing we confront as a country. And
Speaker 1: they let these lies go on for weeks and weeks
Speaker 1: and weeks and weeks, and they still go on, and
Speaker 1: they now have been caught I think, you know, red handed.
Speaker 1: But we'll see what happens. I mean, it's you know,
Speaker 1: it's it's hard to convict rich people of anything in
Speaker 1: this country. And I'm not arguing with that, that's certainly true.
Speaker 1: But the other thing that I think is pretty interesting
Speaker 1: is that here we are where there's a percentage of
Speaker 1: the population that really needs to now hear that they
Speaker 1: were lying, and they will not hear that on Fox News.
Speaker 1: Oh no, of course not. I still think back to
Speaker 1: that woman. Oh when was this? Oh it was it
Speaker 1: was about the Muller Report. Do you remember that they
Speaker 1: had that clip of that woman who only watched Fox
Speaker 1: News and she said, well, I was aware that the
Speaker 1: Muller Report said anything critical about Donald Trump? Where are
Speaker 1: you getting that? Where are you getting that? And it's
Speaker 1: you know, I mean, I'd love to do a poll
Speaker 1: sometime of MSNBC and the n end viewers on the
Speaker 1: one hand versus foxnewers on the other hand, and just
Speaker 1: ask them what they know about the world, you know,
Speaker 1: not only about you know, the twenty twenty election, but like,
Speaker 1: you know, how old is the earth, you know, because
Speaker 1: it's different universes? Yeah, definitely, well, and it's almost so
Speaker 1: I think more importantly, there's no way to reconcile these
Speaker 1: two things. No, and you know it's just gotten worse
Speaker 1: and worse and worse. You know, we referred to you
Speaker 1: referred to my fans, to my years of experience. I mean,
Speaker 1: I remember when all this started, and yeah, they created
Speaker 1: a kind of a different reality. And of course they
Speaker 1: always seized on, you know, some out there left wing
Speaker 1: professor who said something kind of crazy, and then they
Speaker 1: made that seem to their viewers as if every liberal
Speaker 1: believed that and did that and thought that. Now that's
Speaker 1: practically all they do. You know, it used to be
Speaker 1: part of the mix of what they did, but now
Speaker 1: it's just about all they do. And it works. I Mean,
Speaker 1: the thing that I'm struck by is the culture wars
Speaker 1: work well to distract from bad policies. Yeah. One of
Speaker 1: the things, Molly, that frustrates me more than anything else
Speaker 1: in political life today is that when people are asked
Speaker 1: the question by posters, which party do you think is
Speaker 1: better for the economy, they always say Republicans by anywhere
Speaker 1: from seven to fifteen points. And whether it's a Democratic
Speaker 1: president or a Republican president, whether the economy happens to
Speaker 1: be good at the moment or bad at the moment,
Speaker 1: they always say Republicans. The facts are that if you
Speaker 1: look over the last several administrations at job creation, growth
Speaker 1: in media and household income, gross domestic product increase, stock
Speaker 1: market increase, everything, deficit reduction, handling of the deficit, the
Speaker 1: numbers with Democratic presidents are like far superior to the
Speaker 1: numbers with Republican presidents, far far superior. Nobody knows that
Speaker 1: that's the Democrat's fault, not the Republicans. They should be
Speaker 1: talking about it a lot more than they do. So
Speaker 1: that's number one. Number two. Now here, we have a
Speaker 1: Democratic president passing, getting infrastructure jobs, jobs on the ground,
Speaker 1: getting these infrastructure projects done, building chips and microprocessing plants
Speaker 1: in the United States again, moving those jobs away from China,
Speaker 1: starting to try to build things more in the United States,
Speaker 1: make the federal government buy things that are American. Twelve
Speaker 1: and a half million jobs in his first two years
Speaker 1: in office. Some of that's luck coincides with coming back
Speaker 1: after the pandemic, but still twelve and a half million
Speaker 1: jobs in two years. Nobody's ever come anywhere near that,
Speaker 1: And all of these good economic indicators, wages going up,
Speaker 1: inflation now abating. The Republicans still people still reflectively think
Speaker 1: Republicans are the party of the economy. It's a disaster,
Speaker 1: and it ties to the cultural stuff because they keep
Speaker 1: that culture stuff in front of people's faces, so they
Speaker 1: don't notice the economic stuff, right right, No, No, I
Speaker 1: mean that is we're finding ourselves in this complete kind
Speaker 1: of world where what happens and what people think are
Speaker 1: two different things. Right. Yeah. There are just these perceptions
Speaker 1: that people have that are so baked in to their
Speaker 1: ideas about the parties and their ideas about you know,
Speaker 1: what they hear on the news or the quote unquote news.
Speaker 1: It's just really hard to dislodge that ship. I mean,
Speaker 1: how would you theoretically do that if you wanted to,
Speaker 1: if you could, well, I mean the first thing I
Speaker 1: would do is that I would I would like if
Speaker 1: I were the president or the emperor or something. Yeah, yes, God, emperor,
Speaker 1: king of whatever it is. The first thing I would
Speaker 1: do is I would over and over and over again,
Speaker 1: I would tout those statistics. And I know a lot
Speaker 1: of people don't pay attention to statistics, but once they've
Speaker 1: heard them for the ten thousandth time, I do think
Speaker 1: they begin to make a difference in people's heads. You know,
Speaker 1: people under the last sixteen years of Democratic presidencies, thirty
Speaker 1: four million jobs have been created. Under the last sixteen
Speaker 1: years of Republican presidencies, one points eight million jobs have
Speaker 1: been created. Those are the numbers, people, Those are the numbers.
Speaker 1: They don't lie. These are the numbers. Democrats are better
Speaker 1: at the economy. Republicans are better at the economy. For
Speaker 1: rich people, Democrats are better at the economy. So that's
Speaker 1: the first thing I do. Just have Democrats say that
Speaker 1: every single day in every venue that they possibly can.
Speaker 1: So that starts it. And then I guess the other
Speaker 1: thing I do is just and I mean this takes
Speaker 1: a little bit of work and a couple of more
Speaker 1: wins at the polls. But let's say by twenty twenty four,
Speaker 1: if Biden wins reelection, and if the Democrats retake the House,
Speaker 1: and if they manage to hold the Senate, which most
Speaker 1: people don't think they're going to do because the Senate
Speaker 1: map is pretty rough. But if they manage to do
Speaker 1: all those things, then the first thing that they have
Speaker 1: to do is get rid of the filibuster and just
Speaker 1: start passing stuff. You know, raise the minimum wage, do
Speaker 1: something about overtime pay, expand medicare to include dental and
Speaker 1: glasses and go after prescription drug. Make insulent free. They
Speaker 1: can make insulent free. That they've capped it at thirty
Speaker 1: five dollars, that's nice, but make it free. It's actually
Speaker 1: not that expensive. It's a few billion dollars a year
Speaker 1: to make insulent free. Do these things show the people
Speaker 1: that you can actually deliver stuff for them. But it
Speaker 1: requires getting rid of the filibuster, because that way you
Speaker 1: don't need sixty votes. And if God willing, they have
Speaker 1: fifty two Democratic centers or fifty three. If they have
Speaker 1: fifty three, then mansion and cinema are irrelevant, or even
Speaker 1: at fifty two because they just need fifty plus the
Speaker 1: vice president breaking the time, then they can do these things.
Speaker 1: But you know, they just they really blew an opportunity
Speaker 1: by not doing anything about that filibuster. Can we talk
Speaker 1: about George Santos? Yeah, I mean, is there any precedent
Speaker 1: for George Santos? There must be, right, a serial fabulous
Speaker 1: The president for George Santos is George Santos he or
Speaker 1: George Santos is president? Yeah, right, right right? I mean,
Speaker 1: as he just told Pierre Morgan, he said, why why Yeah,
Speaker 1: why should I have told the truth in twenty twenty two?
Speaker 1: I lied in twenty twenty and I got away with it. Then, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know, you know, So the question is and
Speaker 1: now we've got three. So there's that guy Andy Ogles
Speaker 1: or whatever his name is. Yeah, he also right, Andy
Speaker 1: Ogles is also a serial fabulous. Yeah. And then there's
Speaker 1: the woman Luna, who's not exactly a serial fabulous but
Speaker 1: lied about her heritage. So now we've got three. In
Speaker 1: journalism school, you know that constitutes a pattern. I told
Speaker 1: there would not be math. Well that's just three, Molly.
Speaker 1: You have to ask why are there are these people?
Speaker 1: And why are they all Republicans? Now? Are there democratic
Speaker 1: liars in the world and resume patterns of You're right there,
Speaker 1: of course, of course, of course there are college issues.
Speaker 1: Never of course there are democratic resume patters. But why
Speaker 1: is it that the only cases we have before us
Speaker 1: are Republicans. Well, there are probably some valid theories about that.
Speaker 1: They lie about all kinds of shit. So when you
Speaker 1: start lying about the world, eventually you're going to start
Speaker 1: lying about yourself. I also think that it's interesting that
Speaker 1: two of these three Santos and Luna are non white,
Speaker 1: and Republicans are so desperate to show that they're diverse
Speaker 1: and to show that they have people of color who
Speaker 1: are conservative that they don't give a crap about what
Speaker 1: their credentials are. It is interesting to me, Like, you
Speaker 1: lay down with Trump. Trump is your guy, right, you
Speaker 1: know he is a serial fabulous. I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: maybe he's not a serial fabulous, but basically, you know,
Speaker 1: I would not go to that person for any trustworthy
Speaker 1: source of information, or would many of his advisors, friends
Speaker 1: or relatives. So clearly, like the message here is this
Speaker 1: is okay. I mean I wonder about like the people
Speaker 1: in the Republican Party. I often think about this, like
Speaker 1: the people like a kind of I mean, I don't
Speaker 1: want to say new Gangridge. I'm thinking more along the
Speaker 1: lines of like someone smart, like the guy who wanted
Speaker 1: to like drown the government in a bathtub. Norquest, Right,
Speaker 1: I'm thinking about north Quest, Like Norquest went along with
Speaker 1: Trump because it was working, right. Yeah, But like I
Speaker 1: wonder if these people ever made the larger calculus that like,
Speaker 1: while we're doing this, we're completely screwing ourselves, you know,
Speaker 1: in a million different ways. Yeah, they had to know
Speaker 1: I mean, I know Grover a bit. He is a
Speaker 1: smart guy. He actually did go to Harvard. But no,
Speaker 1: he's very smart. That's why I brought him up, because
Speaker 1: he's like very smart, ideologically very conservative, and people like that.
Speaker 1: You have to have made a sort of Faustian deal
Speaker 1: that you were just going to do it. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: think they all just thought, you know, we can get
Speaker 1: away with this and just hope the roof doesn't cave
Speaker 1: in on us. And meanwhile we're getting our judges and
Speaker 1: you know, man, he's doing you know, he's doing whatever
Speaker 1: else he's doing with respect to I don't know his
Speaker 1: moves in Israel they like that, and cutting taxes they
Speaker 1: love that, obviously. Yeah, they didn't anticipate January sixth. They
Speaker 1: didn't anticipate an attempted coup. They didn't anticipate that he'd
Speaker 1: actually want people to kill his vice president. And yet
Speaker 1: he's the front runner for the nominee. Yeah. I think
Speaker 1: he's a front runner for the nominee. Or and if
Speaker 1: he's not the nominee, I think we're going to have
Speaker 1: mini Trump. Yeah, meet ball Ron, Thank you, thank you,
Speaker 1: thank you. I hope you will come back of course anytime.
Speaker 1: Thanks Molly John Fast, Jesse Cannon. Remember how much Trump
Speaker 1: pers expected that pledge about not running in another party
Speaker 1: when they tried to get him to do it in
Speaker 1: twenty sixteen, and he basically just embarrassed the blood stage.
Speaker 1: That was fun. So Rona Romney RNC chair, yet again,
Speaker 1: has decided that she's going to make all the candidates
Speaker 1: sign a pledge saying they're going to support whoever wins
Speaker 1: the nomination. But let me tell you, there's only one
Speaker 1: candidate she really cares about getting to sign it, and
Speaker 1: that candidate ain't going to sign it. You know. It
Speaker 1: reminds me of the old George Bush. Fool me once,
Speaker 1: shame on you fool me twice, shame on you don't
Speaker 1: get to fool again. And that is a verbatim quote
Speaker 1: from George W. Bush. Don't get to fool me again,
Speaker 1: except with Ronna. That's it for this episode of Fast Politics.
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Speaker 1: best minds in politics makes sense of all this chaos.
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