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 Trump mentioned Biden three hundred and
Speaker 1: sixteen times on social media in fifty days, mostly to
Speaker 1: blame him for thing. We have such a great joke
Speaker 1: for you today, the Lincoln Projects. Rick Wilson joins us
Speaker 1: to discuss Signal Ghazi and it's continued fallout. Then we'll
Speaker 1: talk to The New York Times own Annie Carney about
Speaker 1: her and Luke Broadwaters book Mad House, how Donald Trump,
Speaker 1: Magamine Girls, a former used car salesman of Florida, and
Speaker 1: fo Baby and a man with rats in his walls
Speaker 1: broke Congress. But first the news Somali.
Speaker 2: Donald Trump is having a little bit of a dose
Speaker 2: of copium as he sees the implications of his tariffs.
Speaker 2: He's told Howard, let Nicky Kit go on Sunday shows anymore.
Speaker 1: We're Howard, that's all here, Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3: I know.
Speaker 2: This is like if you told Trump they couldn't paint
Speaker 2: himself a color anyway. He now says that he couldn't
Speaker 2: care less if far an automaker's raise prices due to tariffs.
Speaker 1: Who could have seen it coming all probably everyone. Look,
Speaker 1: if there was one thing that Donald Trump had as
Speaker 1: a mandate, and again mandate, use the word mandate very loosely,
Speaker 1: but Donald Trump said he had a mandate. He did
Speaker 1: not have a mandate. But if he had one thing,
Speaker 1: one reason that anyone voted for him, it was that
Speaker 1: he said he was going to make the price of
Speaker 1: eggs cheaper. Guess what he's not doing making the price
Speaker 1: of eggs or anything else cheaper. And here we have
Speaker 1: a great example of that. The guy is obsessed with tariffs.
Speaker 1: He believes that they will somehow make things cheaper, and
Speaker 1: that they will, in fact, call that they'll be crazy
Speaker 1: tax revenue from He just has no idea how any
Speaker 1: of this works. So instead of listening to advisors, he's
Speaker 1: just going to go ahead with it. And earlier last
Speaker 1: week we saw that he said he might make it
Speaker 1: so that car companies can't raise prices. If Harris had
Speaker 1: said that, they would have put they would have done
Speaker 1: the twenty fifth Amendment on her right, because that's it's
Speaker 1: anti capitalists, and Republicans hate things that are anti capitalist.
Speaker 1: You'll remember that actually she had said that there was
Speaker 1: price gouging and that she was going to look into
Speaker 1: price gouging, and all those Republicans weren't crazy. So Donald
Speaker 1: Trump said he might make it so that companies can't
Speaker 1: raise prices because of tariffs. Now he realizes, I'm sure
Speaker 1: that a lot of very rich people called him to
Speaker 1: yell at him, and so now he's saying that he
Speaker 1: doesn't care if they raise prices. The whole point, the
Speaker 1: reason they voted for you was because you lied and
Speaker 1: said you were going to make things cheaper. Now here
Speaker 1: he is directly making things more expensive and saying he
Speaker 1: doesn't care.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the free markets, they just just love this stuff,
Speaker 2: and hence why our stock market is in the toilet down.
Speaker 2: I'm like two friends of the Pod and another professor
Speaker 2: of departed Yale for Canada. Some people are calling this
Speaker 2: brain drain. Some people are calling this much meaner things.
Speaker 2: What are you seeing here?
Speaker 1: Okay, So I know Timothy Snyder and his wife Marcy
Speaker 1: and Jason Sanley, and you know what, they've been planning
Speaker 1: this for a while. I tried to talk Jason out
Speaker 1: of it a number of times. I don't know Timothy
Speaker 1: well enough to try to talk him out of it.
Speaker 1: I really think this is a mistake. I said it
Speaker 1: to all of I didn't get to say to Marcie,
Speaker 1: but I think it's a mistake. I think that we
Speaker 1: are in it's a huge country and this is just
Speaker 1: a foray into authoritarianism, and we Americans don't like it,
Speaker 1: and we are going to push back. And I think
Speaker 1: that it's a huge mistake. And there are many many
Speaker 1: academics who are not famous and who can't just pick
Speaker 1: up a move and we stay and fight for them.
Speaker 1: So I respect that this was what they felt they
Speaker 1: had to do, but I certainly think it's a mistake
Speaker 1: and I think they will regret it. And I know
Speaker 1: I think so much about this my grandfather, Howard Fast,
Speaker 1: who chose to go to jail rather than name names
Speaker 1: during the house. In an American activities, we have to
Speaker 1: be brave, We have to be brave. It feels very
Speaker 1: scary right now they're picking up graduate students off the street,
Speaker 1: but it's scary by design, and we have a responsibility
Speaker 1: to be brave. We must be brave. And I am
Speaker 1: proud to get to live in this country and I
Speaker 1: will not leave and I will be brave, and that's
Speaker 1: what we all need to be doing. So I'm very
Speaker 1: disappointed about this, and it's a loss for Yale and
Speaker 1: it's a loss for America. But it's also just not
Speaker 1: what any of us. What the rest of us are
Speaker 1: going to do. The rest of us going to stay
Speaker 1: and we are going to fight to keep our democracy
Speaker 1: and we will prevail eventually.
Speaker 3: Well said.
Speaker 2: So, speaking of not being courageous, the White House Correspondents
Speaker 2: have fired comedian Amber Ruffin after insulting Mega on a podcast.
Speaker 2: My company produces no comment there, but what do you
Speaker 2: see it here?
Speaker 1: So this is just like one of these things that
Speaker 1: the White House Correspondents Association did, And we know that
Speaker 1: it's important to push back against this administration's authoritarian impulses.
Speaker 1: We know that. So they basically fired Amber because she
Speaker 1: went on she went on a podcast and she said
Speaker 1: she was going to be a comic. And I think
Speaker 1: it's worth remembering that, like the White House, for the
Speaker 1: White House Press Association has had an opportunity to push
Speaker 1: back on a number of things I'm thinking of, like
Speaker 1: what happened with the Associated Press and the Gulf of America.
Speaker 1: They had an opportunity to say, no, this is not
Speaker 1: all right, that you can't ban one if you ban
Speaker 1: one outlet, you ban us all, and they didn't. And
Speaker 1: I think like the only way to survive in this
Speaker 1: authoritarian White House is to bargain collectively. So Trump loves
Speaker 1: the mainstream media, and in a situation like this, what
Speaker 1: I would have done is I would have said, okay,
Speaker 1: if you don't take us, if you don't keep up,
Speaker 1: if you don't have one of us, you don't have
Speaker 1: any of us. And I think that would have been
Speaker 1: the play. Now we're seeing that the White House wants
Speaker 1: to do the seating, which the which the So the
Speaker 1: White House, the White House Association, the Press Association, has
Speaker 1: has done this, White House Correspondence Association has always done
Speaker 1: this seating in the gallery, in the press gallery, and
Speaker 1: now the White House is saying they want to do
Speaker 1: it themselves. So what's happening here is that the White
Speaker 1: House Correspondence they're giving and giving and giving, and and
Speaker 1: what's instead of like that giving being respected the bullies.
Speaker 1: The White House, which is filled with bullies, is doing
Speaker 1: the thing we expected them to do, which is just take, take, take,
Speaker 1: take take. So the only way to stand up to
Speaker 1: bullies is to be strong and say this is not okay,
Speaker 1: and here we have a really good example of just
Speaker 1: what not to do.
Speaker 3: Yep.
Speaker 2: So another very very very stupid news. Trump says he's
Speaker 2: open to using military force to seize Greenland.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is so stupid. I mean, Greenland doesn't want us.
Speaker 1: It's worth listening to that very stupid speech that jd Vance,
Speaker 1: who is actually quite smart, quite smart Jadvance gave this
Speaker 1: baffling speech where he said, Denmark is not doing for
Speaker 1: you what they should be doing for you. Okay, I
Speaker 1: mean what should Denmark be doing for Greenland? I mean
Speaker 1: it's just ridiculous right these Greenland does not want out
Speaker 1: of its relationship with Denmark. The only person who has
Speaker 1: any interest in Greenland is Donald Trump. Right that the
Speaker 1: idea that somehow Denmark is not serving them, it was
Speaker 1: that was really embarrassing. Gdvan says had to do a
Speaker 1: number of really embarrassing things, but that was that struck
Speaker 1: me as even more humiliating than the more. Rick Wilson
Speaker 1: is the founder of the Lincoln Product and the host
Speaker 1: of the Enemy's List. Come back to Fast Politics.
Speaker 4: Rick Wilson, Molly John Fast, how are you on this
Speaker 4: fine day?
Speaker 1: Oh? I was at the New Orleans book Fair and
Speaker 1: it was very fun, and I just flew home and
Speaker 1: it was.
Speaker 3: It's it's a good town this time of year.
Speaker 1: It's great. And the thing that I was so struck
Speaker 1: by and I want to and we're going to talk
Speaker 1: about it today, I hope, is that it's like we're,
Speaker 1: what nine ten weeks into this presidency something like that,
Speaker 1: and I think this is the week we can say
Speaker 1: for sure that the doors fell off.
Speaker 4: I think we can say that this week was one
Speaker 4: of the most evident weeks of disaster for Trump that
Speaker 4: that we've seen so far in either administration. And I
Speaker 4: say that because I truly believe that this week Trump
Speaker 4: had lost, he lost complete control.
Speaker 3: Over his ability to dominate the message.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, okay, so signal Ghazi. Okay, it's not a Gate,
Speaker 1: it's a Gazi.
Speaker 3: I'll take Yes, it's a gazi.
Speaker 1: Was So what happened there was broke on Monday, Jeff
Speaker 1: Goldberg added to the group chat, probably because because Mike
Speaker 1: Walls had some kind of let's not pretend right that,
Speaker 1: probably because Mike Walls leaks to Jeff, or maybe because
Speaker 1: they did a conversation at some point, but it's worth
Speaker 1: having a second of why Mike Walls has Jeff Goldberg's
Speaker 1: private cell phone number, right, I mean not I have it,
Speaker 1: but not everybody has it.
Speaker 4: But look, as was revealed, Mike doesn't have my number
Speaker 4: that but he could have it if he had me.
Speaker 1: To a group job.
Speaker 4: I've got his number, he's got mine. But that's the
Speaker 4: story for the day. I wasn't added to the group chat.
Speaker 4: Was a bridesmaid.
Speaker 1: That's right. Sometimes it does. Sometimes it doesn't happen for.
Speaker 4: You, reck I know, right, I feel I feel, I
Speaker 4: feel so. So one of the things to think about
Speaker 4: here terror Paulmiery has reported, And now if you look back,
Speaker 4: it's quite evident Walls ran for this job. He was
Speaker 4: out there working reporters to make sure that Trump kept
Speaker 4: looking at him as the logical candidate for this job.
Speaker 4: He ran a program, a press effort to get this job.
Speaker 4: Who do you have to talk to if you're going
Speaker 4: to do that the press? And so the idea that
Speaker 4: Mike Walls not only has a cozy relationship outside of
Speaker 4: Trump's direct supervision with this reporter, but that it could
Speaker 4: be even more, that could be even more reporters that
Speaker 4: he could add to some potential future group chat, I
Speaker 4: think is not great for his survivability.
Speaker 1: So I want to sort of continue on this thinking.
Speaker 1: Trump has said that he is not going to fire
Speaker 1: a Waltz. I'm not in his head, but it seems
Speaker 1: to me like the thinking here is that if you don't,
Speaker 1: if there is no scalp, then it wasn't a real scandal.
Speaker 1: And I think that this is absolutely wrong. And I
Speaker 1: think the reason why they fire people right, the reason
Speaker 1: why scandals lead to someone getting thrown under the bus
Speaker 1: is because if you don't throw one person under the bus,
Speaker 1: then all of you eventually go under the bus. Discuss so.
Speaker 4: One of the rules of political physics in Washington, and
Speaker 4: that until this week Trump has defied for years and
Speaker 4: years and years, is that when you screw up and
Speaker 4: you admit blame, you take the steam out of the system.
Speaker 4: You reduce the pressure to cause a bigger cataclysm in
Speaker 4: the system. And this has been a rule for White
Speaker 4: House's Republican and Democrat for generations. Where people say, oh, yeah,
Speaker 4: Cabinet member so and so, director of whatever agency such
Speaker 4: and such, they screwed up. They go out and they
Speaker 4: say the following words, I take full responsibility for what
Speaker 4: I have done. Here's what happened, They explain what happened,
Speaker 4: They own it. It sucks for a while, but it
Speaker 4: stops the wolves from trying to get in the door
Speaker 4: to the president himself. This procedure works because it's how
Speaker 4: human beings work, It's how humans think and work. And
Speaker 4: it's not just because Trump has some magical superpowers that
Speaker 4: he got away with it. He got away with it
Speaker 4: in part because the media lived in this wonderful bubble
Speaker 4: where Trump would get in trouble and then to get
Speaker 4: himself out of the first trouble he'd caused more trouble.
Speaker 4: He knew something else more outrageous. Right, Oh no, I
Speaker 4: didn't just go out with that with that girl. I
Speaker 4: killed her, and you set off one bomb to distract
Speaker 4: people from the first bomb, and.
Speaker 3: On and on.
Speaker 4: But with this one, what it showed was something that
Speaker 4: people in Washington and the country already sensed that these
Speaker 4: are not the top of the political and talent food
Speaker 4: chain in America. These folks came out looking and looking
Speaker 4: like they were a bunch of backslapping bros. They didn't
Speaker 4: look that spin that the White House put out. Briefly,
Speaker 4: what you saw was how serious they were. No, you
Speaker 4: didn't see that. You saw that these guys were flipping
Speaker 4: emojis back and forth, as David Remnick wrote, like the
Speaker 4: average middle schoolers. And the idea here that this was
Speaker 4: some kind of group chat that showed how competent they
Speaker 4: were is completely wrong.
Speaker 3: People knew this stuff was classified. They didn't.
Speaker 4: You can't argue it into into Even Trump's people can't
Speaker 4: bend that reality into the shape they wanted to be. Right, So,
Speaker 4: if they had given up, if they had thrown somebody
Speaker 4: off of the of the sled to the wolves, if
Speaker 4: they had some one or two reasonable admissions that we
Speaker 4: shouldn't have done this this way, but that is but
Speaker 4: Trump can't do that because that's the Roy Cohne Roger
Speaker 4: Stone world of never apologize, never admit, always attack the
Speaker 4: person who identified your mouthfeasance, et cetera.
Speaker 1: But what I think is interesting is that Mike Waltz
Speaker 1: does not He doesn't necessarily matter so much, right, member
Speaker 1: of Congress, very red district. Now, he's a security he
Speaker 1: has some kind of nebulous security.
Speaker 3: He was a Green Beret. That is national security about it.
Speaker 1: But I'm just saying he has this sort of nebulous security.
Speaker 1: He's not compared to Pete who who is who really
Speaker 1: is as the head of the d D and is
Speaker 1: someone for whom you know his resigning would be a
Speaker 1: big fucking scandal. I think it's a smarter play to
Speaker 1: get rid of Walls, to keep heg Seth if you're
Speaker 1: just sort of trying to do politics.
Speaker 4: One hundred percent. And I'll tell you why I think that.
Speaker 4: And again, I don't think they will formally fire Walls.
Speaker 4: They will he in a few months. He will just
Speaker 4: say I've helped the president make sure that we are
Speaker 4: safer and set our foreign policy on the on the
Speaker 4: best possible pet path, and and now I need to
Speaker 4: go spend more time with my family.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: And and look, honest to god, most of the press
Speaker 4: will go, yes, he's this is secretly being fired, but
Speaker 4: it won't have the same blow up that Pete Hegseth
Speaker 4: would have.
Speaker 3: And there's a reason Trump won't fire Heseth.
Speaker 4: He's better looking, He's and for Trump, he still sees
Speaker 4: Oh Hegseth goes on TV and says fuck you to
Speaker 4: reporters and that and whereas and I did hear this
Speaker 4: out of somebody close to the Trump organization. He Trump
Speaker 4: flipped his shit when Walls went on Laura Ingram. He
Speaker 4: thought that was a terrible performance. That is very very
Speaker 4: bad for Michael.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, no Michaelalls. I mean I still think he
Speaker 1: ends up not surviving this. But what that looks like,
Speaker 1: I don't know, but it is. I think it's worths realizing, like,
Speaker 1: this scandal is not about the scandal, right, It's about
Speaker 1: that these guys are not good with data, that these
Speaker 1: guys are not good with keeping secret secure. That these
Speaker 1: guys are and we see hag Seth hired his brother
Speaker 1: and his wife, well.
Speaker 4: His wife has been attending classified security meetings with Pete
Speaker 4: hag Seth. I just I just want to let you
Speaker 4: guys know, having been around the National security apparatus, that's
Speaker 4: fucking insane.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that would be my take.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So, I mean, so there's all sorts of nepotism stuff,
Speaker 1: and then there's right, Mike Wallas has an open VENMO,
Speaker 1: so you can see a venmo's with journalists. I guess
Speaker 1: they're just these guys are so incredibly they feel like
Speaker 1: so messy.
Speaker 4: They are the hottest possible mess They are a they
Speaker 4: are a convention of hot messes meeting on the top
Speaker 4: of Burning Tire Mountain. This is this is this White
Speaker 4: House again. If you just if you just watch them
Speaker 4: outside of the Trump matrix for one second. These people
Speaker 4: are over their head. They don't know what they're doing.
Speaker 4: They are they are all engaged in this performative, one
Speaker 4: eye over their shoulder, watching out to make sure that
Speaker 4: Stephen Miller or Donald Trump doesn't get mad at them. Yeah,
Speaker 4: and and none of it's working. Telling people we're not
Speaker 4: seeing the promised piece in Ukraine. In fact, Trump is
Speaker 4: now realizing finally that Putin has been jerking them around.
Speaker 4: We're not seeing economic prosperity. In fact, we're seeing the
Speaker 4: opposite of it.
Speaker 1: Market's crazy.
Speaker 4: Just after we got the markets were like, okay, that
Speaker 4: last tariff thing was the last one.
Speaker 3: Trump's not going to be that stupid shit again.
Speaker 4: And so this on Friday or Thursday, excuse me, of
Speaker 4: last week, he of course goes much further. All that
Speaker 4: is breaking the wrong way for Trump right now.
Speaker 1: And another thing which I think is pretty interesting. So
Speaker 1: he's got the tariffs, he's saying he doesn't care. I mean,
Speaker 1: there's reporting again, who knows if it's true or not
Speaker 1: because it's Trump and everybody leaks and everybody lies, but
Speaker 1: saying that he doesn't care about the tariffs if they're
Speaker 1: unpopular because he doesn't have to run again. Then talking
Speaker 1: about a third term right on television, he says he
Speaker 1: or he says it to Kristen Welker on the phone,
Speaker 1: that maybe he does he's going to run again. But
Speaker 1: the other thing that I think is worth sort of
Speaker 1: doing a minute or two on is that he came
Speaker 1: out and said that maybe he won't do the tax right.
Speaker 1: The whole reason they're very rich people got involved in
Speaker 1: this Trump presidency was because they they didn't want the
Speaker 1: tax cuts to expire. Now he throws out that maybe
Speaker 1: he'll actually let the tax cuts expire because he wants
Speaker 1: to cut taxes on tips.
Speaker 4: So what you're going to end up with is neither
Speaker 4: at this point, and that's a loss for him in
Speaker 4: every direction. First Off, he had a absolute rock solid
Speaker 4: death grip on Wall Street, and he had the folks
Speaker 4: at Goldman, the folks at Blackwrook, the folks at Blacks,
Speaker 4: and the folks at State Street.
Speaker 3: All of these people have for.
Speaker 4: The last two and a half months been working there,
Speaker 4: working overtime, saying, oh the tariffs are just a prank.
Speaker 4: It's just that we're all going to get. Don't worry.
Speaker 4: It's all for the tax cut. It's all to get
Speaker 4: us to the tax cut. Well, now, the tax cut
Speaker 4: is an impossibility if you even if you even if
Speaker 4: you accept the bullshit math that they had out there before,
Speaker 4: it's an impossibility to pass it. If you say that
Speaker 4: we've got so much, so much, such a great deficit
Speaker 4: in all these other things right now, there's no way
Speaker 4: to do this even if you accepted like the goofy
Speaker 4: modeling of oh the trickle down and all the other crap,
Speaker 4: they would say. The Republican conservative fiscals in the House
Speaker 4: are going to say, no, we can't do this. So
Speaker 4: all these people are going to get absolutely fucked on
Speaker 4: Wall Street because they built into all their expectations that
Speaker 4: they were going to get twenty seventeen tax cuts times ten, right,
Speaker 4: and it's just not going to happen.
Speaker 1: The question is will they expire? And remember they have
Speaker 1: burned so much capital on this CR. Right, so there
Speaker 1: was this right, there's cr that they had to pass.
Speaker 1: They basically went around and got everyone except Thomas Massey
Speaker 1: on Born in the in Congress now they have to
Speaker 1: pass the tax cuts. One of the things that we
Speaker 1: remember from TROM one point zero is that they passed
Speaker 1: the tax cuts before they went tariff crazy. So now
Speaker 1: here's a scenario where the tariffs are already choking the
Speaker 1: public market and now they have to try to get
Speaker 1: a tax cut through. I think this is I think
Speaker 1: this is going to be a lot bigger, heavier lift.
Speaker 4: I think it's going to be a I think it's
Speaker 4: going to be a nearly impossible lift for a couple
Speaker 4: of reasons. One, we are almost certainly going to see
Speaker 4: an even smaller majority in the House after next week.
Speaker 4: It looks like we're going to pick up one more seat.
Speaker 1: Well, well, you're talking about Florida seven, Florida six, Florida six, Okay,
Speaker 1: Florida six. You that you can't just like drop that
Speaker 1: into a conversation because Florida.
Speaker 3: I'm not I'm not calling it hard yet.
Speaker 1: Right, but it's an easy call.
Speaker 4: I'm going to say this the signs of panic behind
Speaker 4: the scenes in Florida six, because if there's one thing
Speaker 4: I know, it's the Republican Party of Florida. On Thursday morning,
Speaker 4: they basically told every human being whoever has worked for
Speaker 4: or makes money from the party, you better be in
Speaker 4: Ovido down there in the heart of the district knocking
Speaker 4: doors this weekend. We're keeping track. Also, they were beating
Speaker 4: up every lobbyist that could find. We need a million
Speaker 4: dollars here, we did five hundred thousand.
Speaker 5: There.
Speaker 3: They weren't getting it. They were turning very they were
Speaker 3: turning very shitty.
Speaker 1: Why.
Speaker 4: Look, Randy Fine, the Republican candidate, and I want you
Speaker 4: to just everybody who's listening to calibrate this as I
Speaker 4: say it. Randy Fine, even for Florida, is one of
Speaker 4: the shittiest, most horrifying, most terrible human beings you will
Speaker 4: ever meet. I haven't even had that much to do
Speaker 4: with Randy Fine, but in my experience, I wouldn't piss
Speaker 4: on Randy Fine if he was burning alive.
Speaker 3: Oh and I'm not even that much of like a
Speaker 3: I don't even have a big beef on the guy.
Speaker 1: But people here hate him. I've seen his Twitter and
Speaker 1: it's pretty bad.
Speaker 3: Oh he's a shitbird.
Speaker 1: So Randy Fine, And then this is an R plus
Speaker 1: Why in our plus ten and our plus eleven.
Speaker 3: Like eleven or something.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and the Democrat who's running against Randy Fine is.
Speaker 3: Called what Josh Wheel and look right now.
Speaker 1: Seven million dollars.
Speaker 3: He's raised ten million dollars.
Speaker 4: Right the last week of the campaign he had about
Speaker 4: he had about two in the bank and Randy Fine
Speaker 4: had ninety three thousand.
Speaker 3: So we'll see how it goes. Look, it's still.
Speaker 4: A very red district in a very red state and
Speaker 4: all that blah blah blah. But the Republicans have had
Speaker 4: to pour a gigantic sum of money and warm bodies
Speaker 4: at this problem. Trump was doing a teletown hall over
Speaker 4: the weekend about it all this crap. Right, Yeah, that seat,
Speaker 4: if that seat goes, and look off, your races are
Speaker 4: not one hundred percent predictive. But if that seat goes,
Speaker 4: you're gonna know why he kept you know, you know
Speaker 4: why he kept saphonic back. You're gonna know why they're
Speaker 4: suddenly telling these guys never to do a town hall.
Speaker 4: Don't speak, don't meet anybody, don't breathe.
Speaker 3: Don't talk.
Speaker 1: If Randy Fin loses, what Randy Fine loses?
Speaker 3: Your down? Now, where the margin.
Speaker 1: Is one seat is one seat, and.
Speaker 4: If you take victorious sparks, Tom and Tassi.
Speaker 3: Sometimes Andy ogles sometimes. Now.
Speaker 4: Now, the danger zone for Mike Johnson isn't just he's
Speaker 4: going to lose CR votes or he's going to lose
Speaker 4: votes on different bills. It's that they're going to say, see,
Speaker 4: we told you Mike Johnson was all wrong for this moment.
Speaker 3: He needed to be crazier right, more things.
Speaker 4: And I got to tell you, if you're Mike Johnson,
Speaker 4: I don't think you're in a good.
Speaker 1: Spot right all right, No, I don't think so either.
Speaker 1: And it's and it's a delight to watch. Thank you,
Speaker 1: Rick Wilson.
Speaker 3: Absolutely delighted to be with you as always.
Speaker 1: Annie Carney is a congressional correspondent for The New York
Speaker 1: Times and co author of Mad House, How Donald Trump,
Speaker 1: Magamine Girls, a former used car salesman of Florida Nefo Baby,
Speaker 1: and a man with rats in his walls Broke Congo Us.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to Fast Politics, any Karney.
Speaker 6: Thank you, Molly, it's actually my first time.
Speaker 1: Well, I feel like you've been here before because we're friends.
Speaker 1: Before we were recording, we were talking about how you
Speaker 1: cover Congress for the New York Times, and I said
Speaker 1: to you, while nobody's interested in Congress anymore, So let's
Speaker 1: talk about that because why well.
Speaker 5: I think what's happened is that they have really like
Speaker 5: seeded all of their power to Trump. Mike Johnson, the
Speaker 5: Speaker of the House, is like on paper, the head
Speaker 5: of a coequal branch of government, but he has you
Speaker 5: wouldn't know that by watching his actions. He's looks like
Speaker 5: he's part of the Trump entourage and is acting like
Speaker 5: a junior partner or like a White House aid, like
Speaker 5: he's filming JD. Evans going to the Oval, and he
Speaker 5: is not acting like he's a you know, a head
Speaker 5: of a co equal branch of government. They have just
Speaker 5: seated their power to Trump. So in a way, they've
Speaker 5: made themselves irrelevant.
Speaker 1: Yeah, which is an incredible You know, we're in the
Speaker 1: first couple months, first little more than two months into
Speaker 1: this Trump presidency, and Congress has already completely flattened itself.
Speaker 1: Let me ask you a question, because I feel like
Speaker 1: some of the kind of jiu jitsu that the Senate
Speaker 1: has been able to do during the time of say
Speaker 1: Lyndon Johnson or you know, when the Senate was run
Speaker 1: by people who really were masters, has sort of fallen
Speaker 1: by the wayside because nobody remembers anything because we are
Speaker 1: in the United States of Womonesia. If you had a Congress
Speaker 1: that was really a coequal branch of the government, what
Speaker 1: would you see it doing right now?
Speaker 5: I think that the main thing that people know that
Speaker 5: Congress did so far is confirm all of his cabinet picks,
Speaker 5: including Robert F. Kennedy Junior, Telsea Gabbard, Pete Hegseth Cash,
Speaker 5: Mattel like these people that we know Republican senators sound
Speaker 5: totally unacceptable, voted anyway, and that was sort of the
Speaker 5: most even Trump I think, didn't think like even Trump
Speaker 5: was like started out talking about how he wanted to
Speaker 5: do Reci's appointments. I think because he didn't know for
Speaker 5: sure that he could get the votes and is laid down.
Speaker 5: So I think that you know, in a more normal time,
Speaker 5: with a more functional political party that wasn't just scared
Speaker 5: of one man's power, you would have seen senators rejecting
Speaker 5: at least those four that I mentioned as like unacceptable.
Speaker 5: That is a big part of their job to advise
Speaker 5: antent on cabinet nominas, and they did.
Speaker 6: Not do that job.
Speaker 5: So I'd say that like so far, in terms of
Speaker 5: what Congress has done and what like has broken through
Speaker 5: to the American people. I'd say that's like a huge
Speaker 5: one for the Senate side.
Speaker 1: Obviously they're scared, but Trump is largely in some ways.
Speaker 1: I hate to say this, but like he is a
Speaker 1: paper tiger, right, Like nobody's organized her roles, right. I mean,
Speaker 1: the whole organization is is run by shoestring. Elon has
Speaker 1: a gazillions of dollars, but there's a lot going on there.
Speaker 1: I'm wondering sort of what you think kind of has
Speaker 1: caused this collapse in the Senate And if you think
Speaker 1: they could come out of it.
Speaker 5: I don't think they're coming out of it anytime soon.
Speaker 5: And it's not just I think it's both sides. I'll
Speaker 5: answer it in two parts. First, is that Trump's control
Speaker 5: of the party is like near total that he doesn't
Speaker 5: even really have to threaten very much. They anticipate it.
Speaker 5: They know, like they've seen the playbook, like you fall
Speaker 5: out of line, the bait. Like there's also this like
Speaker 5: echo chamber that exists now that will do the work
Speaker 5: for him of threatening a very challenge like going after you,
Speaker 5: making it so you can't keep your job unless you
Speaker 5: fall in line. They all know that the playbook. They
Speaker 5: don't need Trump to actually threaten them anymore. And he
Speaker 5: knows that they know, so he's mostly like carrot at
Speaker 5: this point. With Republicans in Congress, they kind of especially
Speaker 5: in the House, they love him. He takes them on
Speaker 5: Air Force one, he takes mar A La, he calls,
Speaker 5: they have his cell phone number, they text with him.
Speaker 6: He texts them on their on TV.
Speaker 5: Like mostly he gets to be the host. They know that,
Speaker 5: like the stick is there. It's just like at this
Speaker 5: point it's unspoken because his power is so total.
Speaker 6: And in terms of the book, like this started we last.
Speaker 5: Congress, the one hundred and eighteenth Congress was the first
Speaker 5: maga Congress, Like that is what our book is about.
Speaker 5: When it really like took all of all these characters
Speaker 5: who ran the place and ground it to a halt
Speaker 5: and like actually broke Congress, Like basically were Trump's mimicking
Speaker 5: minions who just carried it on even when he was
Speaker 5: out of power, and a lot of people who were
Speaker 5: not in that mold left just exited Congress. It was
Speaker 5: like too horrible, too dysfunctional, and they left Jeff like
Speaker 5: types right, like people like kind of like the old
Speaker 5: school more center or leaning Republicans.
Speaker 6: A lot of them just quit in the middle, like didn't.
Speaker 5: Even finish out their term. And the people who are
Speaker 5: still here and are rising and basically have tenure because
Speaker 5: they come from like red districts are the Marjorie Tailer
Speaker 5: Greens and the Lauren Boberts and the hard to write
Speaker 5: people who are you know, just diehard Trumpists. And that
Speaker 5: is Congress now, and we our book if you want
Speaker 5: to understand this moment, like it's really like brought to
Speaker 5: you by the last Congress and very very relevant to
Speaker 5: like why they're acting the way they are today.
Speaker 1: So the last Congress was famous for having passed less
Speaker 1: legislation then talk us through sort of how much legislation
Speaker 1: they passed.
Speaker 5: So the last Congress was the most insane story ever.
Speaker 5: They couldn't elect a Speaker of the House for a week,
Speaker 5: then they ousted him, and then they took another week
Speaker 5: where they couldn't choose someone else, no one could get
Speaker 5: the votes, like they routinely just ground the House for
Speaker 5: to a standstill by blocking their own parties bills. And
Speaker 5: they like barely managed to like avoid defaulting on our debt.
Speaker 6: So they like barely managed.
Speaker 5: To do like what should be the bare minimum of governing,
Speaker 5: and they passed the least number of laws in like decades,
Speaker 5: So they literally forgot And what they did do was
Speaker 5: like engage in petty personal feuds that they like pretended
Speaker 5: were about like bigger issues.
Speaker 1: So are we talking about Matt Gates here?
Speaker 5: Are more not just Matt Gates everybody? For instance, that
Speaker 5: first week obviously Matt Gates's personal feud against Kevin McCarthy.
Speaker 5: But that first week, one of the people who was
Speaker 5: with Matt Gates throughout opposing Kevin McCarthy was Lauren Bobert.
Speaker 5: And the reason we in our book we reported that
Speaker 5: she originally had made a deal with McCarthy that she
Speaker 5: was going to be with him, but then she saw
Speaker 5: that Marjorie Taylor Green had also made that deal, and
Speaker 5: she hates Marjorie Taylor Green so much that she got
Speaker 5: she went the other way. So like it looks like
Speaker 5: these people are taking these positions out of some sort
Speaker 5: of like stance. It's really she hates Marjorie Taylor Green
Speaker 5: and like cannot be on the same side with her
Speaker 5: on anything. So it's about any personal feuds drive So
Speaker 5: much of what's happening. It's like the American people don't
Speaker 5: know that, Like they're being asked to weigh in and
Speaker 5: having a decision made for them by people who like
Speaker 5: are just totally embroiled in their like high school level
Speaker 5: drama between each other, and when the House is not
Speaker 5: really doing anything. Also it was a moment of divided government,
Speaker 5: so they couldn't do as much. But when you're not
Speaker 5: doing anything, also, like they tried and failed to impeach
Speaker 5: Joe Biden. But when they're not doing anything, these like feuds,
Speaker 5: they started to act like feuding and playing games and
Speaker 5: censoring each other like that that was the job.
Speaker 6: So it became idiotic.
Speaker 5: But it also like just broke the place for actually
Speaker 5: like doing anything like passing laws or doing anything policy wise,
Speaker 5: And it really sets the stage nowt Now Republicans control
Speaker 5: all of government, the Senate, the House, and the presidents
Speaker 5: and like the owner. Now they kind of like if
Speaker 5: they can't get anything done in this Congress, it's gonna
Speaker 5: look worse because you can't do it now, you really
Speaker 5: can't do it.
Speaker 6: Ever, they actually have to pass some laws.
Speaker 1: Now, Yeah, so let's talk about law passing, because yeah,
Speaker 1: the last Congress was insane. They didn't pass anything, they
Speaker 1: named some post offices, they fought with Democrats, they had
Speaker 1: the weaponization. Do two minutes on the weaponization. I just say,
Speaker 1: please place place.
Speaker 5: So our book like traces most of these big fights
Speaker 5: that probably everyone remembers, like the speaker fight, the second
Speaker 5: speaker fight, the fight about Ukraine funding, the dead ceiling fight,
Speaker 5: and you think that you know what happened. And then
Speaker 5: like the most fun thing about writing this book was
Speaker 5: like the way we did it was we would like
Speaker 5: wait a month or six weeks till after the fact
Speaker 5: and circle back and talk to everyone in the room
Speaker 5: and like all these insane stories that didn't come out
Speaker 5: of me, and then the world moves on. But like
Speaker 5: you go back and then people are willing to share
Speaker 5: more because it's news anymore. It's oh, and we found
Speaker 5: out like so many more, just like jaw dropping.
Speaker 6: And insane behaviors, like what, let's see.
Speaker 5: I learned that there's a drunk caucus and they're literally
Speaker 5: called the drunk Caucus, and how.
Speaker 1: The drunk Wait what there's a drunk caucus?
Speaker 6: Well, informally, I mean I wouldn't say they're yes, but.
Speaker 1: They're called the drunk communists.
Speaker 5: They are routinely pretty wasted if there's an e vote,
Speaker 5: and leadership knows that, like if you schedule a vote
Speaker 5: after six, like it's problematic because a lot of people
Speaker 5: are drunk, especially in last Congress when like there's nothing
Speaker 5: to do all day, so they're drinking. And this reared
Speaker 5: its head during the Kevin McCarthy's speaker fight when like
Speaker 5: they were like very close to closing the deal on
Speaker 5: like the fifteenth vote, and Patrick McHenry saw someone who
Speaker 5: he told everyone looked inebriated, like beyond functionality.
Speaker 6: Best Van Done of Texas.
Speaker 5: Who denies that she is inebriated beyond function trying to
Speaker 5: get involved in like talking to Bobert and like messing
Speaker 5: up the deal they had in place. And they fear
Speaker 5: the drunkards on the houseboard. So we all watch someone
Speaker 5: lun literally lunch at bat Gates. But it wasn't he
Speaker 5: wasn't the only person who was potentially under the influence,
Speaker 5: Like it was the.
Speaker 1: Drunk As someone who's been sober since they were nineteen,
Speaker 1: I laugh, but I also cry because I know how
Speaker 1: shitty alcoholism is and how it makes you just an
Speaker 1: unfunctional human. I wonder if you could talk to us
Speaker 1: about this how Trump got this CR passed, Because we
Speaker 1: know Mike Johnson serves at the pleasure of Donald Trump.
Speaker 1: He is installed by Trump. He's basically Trump lackie. But
Speaker 1: he also has this incredible ability he cannot count. So
Speaker 1: the fact that as we were watching this CR come
Speaker 1: to the floor, there were a lot of people, you know,
Speaker 1: I read punch Bowl, I read you, I read that.
Speaker 1: You know, I was listening to the punch Bowl podcast.
Speaker 1: I am the only non lobbyist to listen to that podcast,
Speaker 1: and they were saying, you know, it's hard to imagine
Speaker 1: that Mike Johnson can actually get this past. So what
Speaker 1: happened that got a past?
Speaker 6: Trump wanted it, and so a few things happened.
Speaker 5: So Chip Roy is a far right Republican from Texas
Speaker 5: who has done on the wrong Donald Trump for a
Speaker 5: long time. He endorsed DeSantis early in the primary. He
Speaker 5: you know, blamed Trump for January sixth and then didn't
Speaker 5: really ever walk it back. So he's had a Trump problem.
Speaker 5: He is an ambitious guy who's pretty smart, who wants
Speaker 5: to rise and I think he saw an opportunity here
Speaker 5: to play kind of the deal maker and make the
Speaker 5: case that these fiscal conservatives who have never voted for
Speaker 5: a government spending bille in their life, should get on
Speaker 5: board with this, which is what Trump wanted, and he
Speaker 5: organized these Freedom Caucus guys, organized a White House meeting
Speaker 5: to bring them over and meet with Trump. So part
Speaker 5: one is like chip Roy saw it opening here to
Speaker 5: beat the deal maker for Trump, and now their relationship
Speaker 5: is great. And two, Trump like leaned on these guys again,
Speaker 5: like I was saying, he didn't even really need to
Speaker 5: yell at them.
Speaker 6: It's good.
Speaker 5: He had them over to the White House and he
Speaker 5: says to them, you know, I totally understand your concerns.
Speaker 5: I totally agree with you, but I need a starting
Speaker 5: point and we'll get more cuts later.
Speaker 6: And they roll over.
Speaker 5: These guys who literally ousted Kevin McCarthy because he made
Speaker 5: a deal like this to like keep the government open
Speaker 5: on a short term funding bill, like just voted for
Speaker 5: it with no problem because Trump asked them to.
Speaker 6: Some of them like acted like holdouts till the end.
Speaker 5: But it almost seems like kabookie theater, like they act
Speaker 5: like holdouts and then Trump calls them and then like
Speaker 5: also in this tight slim majority they have, like they
Speaker 5: have one vote to lose. Anyone can put themselves at
Speaker 5: the center of the news cycle for a day, which
Speaker 5: they love to do. So you just say like, I
Speaker 5: don't know how I'm going to vote, and then you
Speaker 5: get a call from the President and then the reporter
Speaker 5: swarmium and you can say like, I had a really
Speaker 5: good talk with the President and he you know.
Speaker 6: I'm like, that's what they do.
Speaker 5: But ultimately they all fell on line. It didn't even
Speaker 5: take particular arm twisting from Trump. It took like listening
Speaker 5: to them and calling them and asking them, and they
Speaker 5: did the end and it was it was like a
Speaker 5: lot of these guys who voted for it literally have
Speaker 5: never voted for a government spending bill in their life
Speaker 5: and ousted a speaker of their own party for it
Speaker 5: last Congress.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so part of it was their sick vincy, but
Speaker 1: part of it was the Elon MUSKMANI train talked to
Speaker 1: us about that.
Speaker 6: Well, yes, so what a lot of these guys called it.
Speaker 5: In their argument, they were like, like chip Roy pitched
Speaker 5: it as this is a doge protection act, like we
Speaker 5: can keep the government open, Elon can keep doing his
Speaker 5: work and we can get more cuts down the line,
Speaker 5: but like this keeping the government open alow Doge.
Speaker 6: To keep cutting. That was like how they framed it.
Speaker 1: But also didn't Elon basically donate to people who voted
Speaker 1: for it and threaten people who didn't vote with primaries?
Speaker 1: Did he Yeah, because there were donations made.
Speaker 6: I know he just donated to people who are doing
Speaker 6: judicial impeachments.
Speaker 1: Right, Okay, so that's another one. But the point is
Speaker 1: there definitely is a fair amount of like Elon is
Speaker 1: the bank.
Speaker 5: Well, what Eyon is doing is like he's making it
Speaker 5: clear on various issues that he cares about that like
Speaker 5: if you're with him, he'll like, for now, he's just
Speaker 5: doing like the maximum hard dollar. So it's not that
Speaker 5: much money, it's like seven dollars, but it's a signal
Speaker 5: that like if you're on the team, Like he has
Speaker 5: other ways of funneling money to candidates, Like for now,
Speaker 5: that's what he's doing. He could do a super pack
Speaker 5: sort of thing. He like, it's a sign that like
Speaker 5: if you're on board, you're taken care of financially. You're not,
Speaker 5: you're in trouble. So like between Trump's like power of
Speaker 5: the Bay and you can't get crosswise of like the
Speaker 5: president tweeting at you or calling for a primary challenger,
Speaker 5: or getting like the Steve Bannons and the echo chamber
Speaker 5: against you and Elon's money. Like there is one path
Speaker 5: for these people who want a political future in the party.
Speaker 1: Annie Carney, I hope you'll come.
Speaker 5: Back, please anytime, No moment, Rick Wilson, momly, jog fast.
Speaker 3: Is it that time again?
Speaker 1: It is that time? The best? It's Liberation Day, that's right,
Speaker 1: lib Oh my god. By the way, if you're a
Speaker 1: Trump world, you're gonna make Liberation Day so close to
Speaker 1: April Fool's Day. I mean it seems like an unforced.
Speaker 4: Error, right that unforced errors right now? Truly on brand?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm for sure. Who what is your my moment
Speaker 1: of fuckery? Liberation Day, the tariffs, April second, April Fool's Day.
Speaker 1: Let's see what happens. What is your moment of fucker?
Speaker 4: Mine is much smaller. I have a moment of a
Speaker 4: nano nanofuckery, microfuckery. Perhaps nanofuckery is certain. I don't need
Speaker 4: to see the White House, what I considered to be
Speaker 4: one of America's sacred historic spaces turned into a fucking
Speaker 4: vulgar casino. The goddamn gold leaf all over everything now
Speaker 4: and taking away paving, paving the rose gardens so that
Speaker 4: he can do disco night like he does at mar
Speaker 4: A Lago, all the all, the gold leaf, all the
Speaker 4: all of a sudden like like gold earns. And it
Speaker 4: looks like it looks like a brothel in Atlantic City
Speaker 4: attached to a Trump casino. And you know, the smell
Speaker 4: is like despair inside and mildew. But it's just like
Speaker 4: it's so irritating to me right now. It's a small
Speaker 4: thing in terms of the giant scope of every other
Speaker 4: piece of horror they're doing. I'm like, not only are
Speaker 4: you tearing down everything that America has worked for for
Speaker 4: for one hundred years, you're now making it look vulgar
Speaker 4: at the same time.
Speaker 3: I know it's a small thing, I.
Speaker 1: Know, but didn't you also didn't we also have we're
Speaker 1: going to talk about the Wisconsin judgeship.
Speaker 4: We were and Elon paying people a million dollars out
Speaker 4: bribing people.
Speaker 3: Let's not look, I know he's got good election.
Speaker 4: Lawyers, because I know who these election lawyers are, and
Speaker 4: they're going to argue this case until the end of
Speaker 4: the day, but he's bribing people again, and at some
Speaker 4: point state and federal law, both states and federal laws
Speaker 4: prohibit bribery, sorry, Elon.
Speaker 3: And at some point it's got to catch up. But
Speaker 3: it's so offensive, it's unbelievable.
Speaker 1: That is right, Well, good thing, Thank you, Rick Wilson.
Speaker 1: That's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in
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